Why make it easier on AVMs and data miners? We don’t

Occasionally, especially these days when appraisal software companies are buddying up to AVMs – see here for a description of how ACI's Forms Server integrates with AVMs, and here to see how Bradford Technologies is teaming up with Veros Software's VeroVALUE AVM – we are questioned about (or accused of, depending on your point of view) WinTOTAL reports being mined for data by AVM providers.

The issue of data mining is something we take very seriously, and we've led the fight to protect all appraisers. That's why we provided encryption for WinTOTAL Athena's files (so lenders can't mine native files like they can with other vendors), and WinTOTAL Aurora will have the same rock-solid protection. Also, that's why we built the Mercury Desktop/Network system – soon to be XSites Order Manager and the XSites Network – in the first place.

The Network functions as a "gatekeeper" for you, so you always have to "grant permission" for a file to be converted to or read by any other program. In the WinTOTAL plug-in to the XSites Network, you get to see exactly what data you are and are not providing, and you get to "turn off" portions of it if you so choose. That way, you can provide tracking data only if you want, and no comps.

What happens when you send your report to a given client? Some of our partners use data extracted from reports for review purposes. We have reviewed their management practices to assure ourselves this is really the extent of it. But even if you're suspicious, consider this inescapable fact: The data available on the open market – from assessors, MLS's, AIRD, and so on – is good enough to build an AVM already and it's cheaper to just buy access to one of the off-the-shelf AVMs than it is to build your own using your own data, if you're a lender or management company.

Cold comfort, maybe, to those of our customers who consider AVMs "the enemy," but both you and we are at least doing our part not to participate. AVMs indeed are being marketed aggressively as acceptable substitutes to human appraisals. They're not, for reasons we've gone to great lengths in this space and in the press to discuss, but undeniably they're trying to be. That's why we see taking appraisers' money and funneling it into AVM companies as so absurd.

You shouldn't "fear" AVMs as competition – we certainly don't – but you need to prepare for them to be marketed as competition. Aggressively marketing yourself – something most appraisers don't like to do – is one great way to do that. Another very effective way is to not pay your money to AVM companies, either directly or through your appraisal software provider. Why make it easier on them?

We are what we are – we invest millions in developing the very best, most useful services and tools for appraisers to be as efficient as possible, and market themselves as successfully as possible as better alternatives to AVMs and data aggregation services. We do it because the more money you make, the more business you get, the more money and business we get. It's really that simple.

If we undermine you, or fund those who are trying to, we're undermining ourselves. Smaller, less profitable companies sometimes get desperate for the immediate payoff and don't see the long-term ramifications of the things they do. That's true in any business, not just appraisal software development. But we didn't get to be this big doing shortsighted things like that.