As time marches on, appraisers everywhere have answered the call of adaptation and creativity. But companies will have to be equally creative to survive in business and provide the tools appraisers and clients will need.

CoreLogic is a key factor inside the arena of valuation, and the company said it is ready to meet such future challenges.

“Like most we moved all of our operations to working from home. Thankfully, as a modern technology company with ongoing investment in communication and collaboration tools, this was a relatively minor event, and we are at full throttle,” Shawn Telford, senior leader of product management and development of collateral technology solutions at CoreLogic, told Valuation Review. “For some the overall disruption to routines, school, childcare, and so on has been challenging; however, our teams keep the needs of our clients in focus and continue to deliver. 

“In some cases, this ‘change event’ has opened new communication opportunities internally and especially with our clients,” Telford added. “We have been positioned well to support our clients as they transition to this new temporary environment.

Telford spoke to specifics surrounding how appraisal operations will impact the real estate and lending workflows. He said the obvious impact is in the restrictions or concerns related to inspection and traveling about. Initially this slowed down or stopped the appraisal process. 

“With the GSE changes adding flexibility to the appraisal process, lenders are working to take advantage of the flexibility and make adjustments to processes and guidelines,” Telford said. “A lender’s ability to adjust is largely dependent on the technology they use in managing the collateral valuation process—our goal is always to provide lenders the greatest flexibility possible when it comes to technology and we have seen lenders on our collateral management platforms successfully adapting. CoreLogic is well positioned to support our lender clients in both the origination space as well as the servicing space, and lately, there has been a big demand within servicing.”

Telford pointed out, that most see the new flexibility as needed and are accepting it as temporary, but nervous that the temporary becomes permanent. 

The CoreLogic executive said that the bottom line is that inspections are not required by USPAP. The inspection always has been about data gathering or proving additional risk mitigation for the lender on current condition. Common sense suggests that in some loan scenarios with the availability of data, an interior inspection isn’t always needed for data gathering or risk mitigation, Telford said. 

As to how accepted virtual appraisals will be as an alternative, Telford implied that the answer could lie anywhere.

“A key factor will be the acceptance by investors in the secondary markets,” he said. “Obviously, there are many sources of reliable data and many technological solutions to enable the data gathering, thereby potentially reducing the scope of or eliminating the need for an external or internal inspection by the appraiser. 

“PropertyAssist for example, which is a tool that allows appraisers to continue working while maintaining distance and satisfies lender requirements for both new and existing appraisal orders,” Telford added. “Of course, it is always up to the appraiser to make the scope of work determination that leads to the manufacturing of a credible appraisal report, and the appraiser’s acceptance of the process is a very important consideration. Another factor is borrower satisfaction – how they react will be largely dependent on the outcome.”