Home valuations – changing the landscape

“It affects us in a couple of ways,” he said of the push for technology-aided methods. “We have a fairly robust inspection business that fits with some of the systems we provide that are not evaluation-related. We have a fairly large inspection business. One of the elements of the new products are floor plans, so there’s a new technology out there – we didn’t develop it, somebody else developed it – that will use an iPhone that is manipulated through the property and draw a floor plan. At this point in time, while we have that available to us, as of yet we have not had that much demand for that particular product, but we are certainly set up to provide it.”

The lack of demand for the iPhone-aided product is indicative of the slow nature of implementation to new things, he suggested. “It’s a new product that was just introduced in March. My experience is when a new product comes along, lenders will stick their toe in the water and try it a little bit and if things work out, they start to use it more often,” he said. “We’re just early in the cycle.”

The GSEs tech-driven clarion call has prompted SingleSource to adapt further, Kelker acknowledged, even as the company is already well set up to provide updated appraisals.

“We’re in the process of changing our operational platform,” he said. “We’ve used a proprietary, home-grown system for the last number of years, and it just got to the point that it was old, and we needed to do something new. So, we’re in the middle of a transition to a new platform. In terms of producing the products, we’re fine as far as being able to produce them for anyone who wants them or needs them. Obviously, the newest programs with the hybrids, everyone has less experience with those. While we can produce them, I’m sure we’ll be better producing them a year from now than we are today. But we can deliver them today.”