Preventing the AMC fee cut
To say that the industry has been in turmoil for the past 12 months would be an understatement. No one knows exactly what's going to happen with the HVCC. It's doubtful that it will go into effect in its current form. But one thing is for sure, lenders and investors are going to demand more structure and more rules. While some believe that AMCs are the answer, we know that layers of bureaucracy that often serve no purpose but to siphon off 30%, 40% or 50% or more of your fees is not the answer.
Proven track record
Back in 2002, we launched the first version of Mercury Network which picked up where our earlier Project 2000 system left off. Project 2000 delivered tens of millions of appraisal reports a year (more than any other system by far) and made electronic delivery of appraisal reports truly ubiquitous. But, Mercury took things to the next level by adding a web based transaction management system to the front end. All told, over 235,000 accounts were created by lenders, mortgage brokers, attorneys, home owners and other people ordering and receiving appraisals.
Insulating appraisers from pressure
The new Mercury Network 3.0 steps up to the plate to provide compliance for whatever the industry ultimately adopts. And it does it without the AMC fee cut. New features like Intelligent Selection System, or ISS, insulate appraisers from direct selection by a loan officer, eliminating preferential treatment completely. A checkbox-driven double-blind communications system allows appraisers to be insulated from pressure in conjunction with ISS, while also rapidly allowing feedback from the field.
Leveraging technology for increased efficiency
We'll be implementing SMS (Short Message Service) gateways, commonly known as cell phone text messaging, so that appraisers can respond to any text message from Mercury Network with a single digit, and yet it sends a nicely formatted e-mail to the client. Everything from accepting orders, to negotiating fees, to providing status updates on existing assignments can be done in seconds from any cell phone that supports text messaging. The constant nagging phone calls, faxes, and e-mails often associated with AMC and lender work will be greatly reduced. And of course, the communications that do occur, whether structured or free-form, will all be logged and preserved for anyone to inspect in the event of any attempted pressuring.
Review rules on the desktop protect you
The Uniform Appraisal Review Rules, or UARR, quality control system will also provide extensive benefits to appraisers. Many times, appraisers are penalized by other systems and by manual reviewers if even an inconsequential field in a report is overlooked. With UARR, the report is checked against even a lender's custom rules before the report ever leaves the appraiser's desktop, and the appraiser only transmits the report after the rules are successfully passed. No record of the process, other than the final completion, is passed on to the lender, and the appraiser isn't faced with potentially several re-transmissions of a report.
Your report verbatim every time
Mercury Network will of course transmit standard PDFs of the report to the client, so appraisers can rest assured that the product delivered is an unmolested version of what is in the appraiser's work file. Also, the PDF can optionally be stored as a fully escrowed document with credentials proving what it looked like at the time of transmission, in case there's ever a dispute regarding a PDF being potentially modified after leaving the system. SureDocs identity technology will also be incorporated into digitally signed PDFs so that identity theft, authentication, and security are all tightly interwoven into the system.