Appraisal service providers have been enhancing their offerings through integrations, though at least two have turned to acquisitions to improve options for their lender clients.
Last month, Oklahoma City-based Mercury Network announce that it reached an agreement to acquire Platinum Data, a provider of valuation data and analytics solutions.
The seeds for the acquisition of Aliso Viejo, California-based
Platinum were planted in January 2015 when the two firms entered into a partnership to offer an integrated solution.
According to Mercury, the top-10 U.S. mortgage lenders
rely on Platinum’s analytical tools for appraisal quality control.
Lance Fenton, who is a partner at Mercury’s primary investor, Serent Capital, stated in the news release, “Mercury’s growth over the past year has exceeded all our expectations, and this acquisition positions the company to rapidly expand their transaction footprint in the mortgage cycle.”
A press release in June said that
appraisal management company U.S. Real Estate Services Inc. has fully integrated with Mercury — enabling appraisal order requests from Mercury to be delivered directly to U.S. Real Estate’s RES.NET valuation portal.
In Troy, Michigan, Dart Appraisal recently announced its integration with the Federal Housing Administration’s Electronic Appraisal Delivery portal.
The AMC noted that the integration will remove potential for errors or delays that could be introduced by manually uploading appraisal reports.
Around the same time, Jacksonville, Florida-based Black Knight Financial Services Inc.
said its LoanSphere Exchange platform had been integrated with the EAD — which became mandatory for lenders as of June 27.
LRES announced that its recent acquisition of InsideValuation has empowered it to begin providing commercial valuations through a network of 25,000 field agents.
Comparable sales analysis and an optional income approach are among several approaches utilized to determine value.
By using commercial valuations in situations that don’t call for a full appraisal, clients can cut costs by up to 75 percent, LRES said. In addition, turn times can be reduced by as much as half — to as few as five days.
The evaluations reportedly are fully compliant with the Interagency Appraisal and Evaluation Guidelines and Officer of the Comptroller of the Currency requirements.
