Value IT, the appraisal arm of a joint venture between origination giant Wells Fargo and First American, is changing its name as part of a corporate rebranding that will more closely identify Value IT's appraisal services with the title, credit and settlement services its sister organizations provide.
The new name, Rels Valuation, will begin to be visible in the coming weeks to the company's fee panel appraisers on correspondence, order screens and business cards, as well as other media.
As part of the rebranding, ATI, the title services provider under the Wells Fargo/First American joint venture, will be called Rels Title; the former Rels Reporting will be called Rels Credit; and the settlement services provider formerly known as Rels Advantage will be called Rels Settlement Services.
Advanced Collateral Solutions (ACS), Value IT's sister company that provides valuation services to lenders and clients other than Wells Fargo, will retain its name.
Rels Valuation's fee panel should expect a new look, but the same way of doing business.
Value IT was among the first companies to install a custom Mercury Network plugin allowing its appraisers to use whichever formfilling software they chose and provide EDI appraisal reports that complied with the company's unique business rules. That project represented the first time that the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization's (MISMO) XML (Extensible Markup Language) open standard for appraisal data was used in production.
For more than two years, Rels Valuation has relied on a la mode's Mercury desktop and workflow review rules to ensure that appraisal reports are complete before they leave the appraiser's desktop, minimizing review and follow-up time. This has contributed to Rels Valuation becoming among the largest appraisal management companies in the country, with more than 15,000 fee panel appraisers.
The goal of the comprehensive rebranding effort is to increase awareness of the total range of the Rels family of company's services, promote identity and market position through a well-defined corporate personality, and to establish Rels as a single, total solution provider to Wells Fargo.
According to data compiled by National Mortgage News, Wells Fargo was the highest-volume mortgage loan originator in 2003, and in the first and second quarters of 2004 trailed only Countrywide Financial.
