Written by Nathan Thomas on July 13, 2004
Written by Nathan Thomas on July 13, 2004
Appraisers have been on the leading edge of technology and change in valuation at least since a la mode founder and CEO Dave Biggers and his friends started writing DOS programs to automatically populate appraisal forms 20 years ago. Compare the last time you saw a URAR filled out by hand to the last time you saw paperwork from one of your clients filled out by hand, and tell us who's better at adapting to technological change.
We hear all the time that appraisers are "slow to embrace change," and it's beyond the point of being irritating, now it's just sad. You can (like we do) sit in lenders' offices, sit in board rooms, and now, read valuation-themed e-mail newsletters, and constantly hear how appraisers are slow to change their technology or to adopt it. We will always counter that every time we hear it.
Have you ever walked into a loan officer's office and seen technology that exceeds what you see at the typical appraiser's office? Appraisers adopted digital cameras back when a loan officer was still asking, "what's that?" Appraisers were getting into EDI before lenders knew what it was. Many appraisers had Pocket PCs before their clients had cell phones.
We are constantly dealing with the fact that our appraiser customers are having to educate their loan officers on things like, what are PDFs; how do you download the new version of Acrobat Reader; why can't I click this link and download my report even if I'm not connected to the Internet?
There are people in all walks of life who often mistrust technology on its face. It's no different in the appraisal profession. But, we pride ourselves in the fact that for more than 19 years we have been the appraiser's advocate and chief cheerleader. We would surely never demean appraisers who want proof something works and lump them in with anyone who won't buy our software and make fun of them and call them offensive names. Doing so defies logic and human dignity, but even if you don't care about those things, we would think others would refrain from doing it simply because it's bad for their business. Perhaps that's a step too far ahead.
Appraisers are essentially the engineers of the real estate sector. They're not the salespeople, they're analysts who want to gather facts, form a supported opinion and move on to the next such assignment. Because of that inherent "techie" approach, appraisers tend to adopt new technology as they look at ways to lower their costs. It's self-interest. (Most of them like gadgets, for another thing.)
So hearing that appraisers' objections to automated valuation models (AVMs), as they are currently constituted, are somehow Luddite is quite a shock. We're as successful a company as we are today because appraisers buy new things that work. If they didn't, we'd probably be in the Llama XSite business instead.
If you were to do a survey of appraisers (we've done several; here's one), you'd find that 99 percent of them are using a computer to do their work. They're constantly engaged in delivering complex documents with imaging and mapping, and they understand these concepts. Go to any other market segment - take real estate agents. Take mortgage brokers. Take escrow officers. Take anybody in the real estate sector, and find one that adopts as much new technology as appraisers do.
If success in the business of appraising and selling things to appraisers turns on understanding something so simple, it's a wonder not everybody is as big as we are. Maybe it's not as simple as we think. Maybe it's so counterintuitive to some people that they just don't get it.