The Automated Appraisal Review features available to you are products that bring quality and efficiency to your appraisal process. They can each help reduce the time it takes to do an internal manual review, saving you time and resources. The Appraisal Scorecard review helps verify and rate appraisal quality on a per order basis or independently placed order by quickly analyzing data that would normally be subject to a manual review. Appraisal Report Comparison analyzes any subsequent report uploaded to an order, compares it to a previous upload, and presents any differences in an easy-to-read side by side comparison. Finally, the Completeness Check performs a brief review of the appraisal to make sure important fields are filled out and searches for inconsistent data.
Overview of Appraisal Scorecard, Report Comparison, and Completeness Check
Appraisal Firewall offers several tools that provide an automated review of the appraisal report. You can enable all the products together to provide the most thorough review process or pick and choose which products are most beneficial to you and your clients.
- Appraisal Scorecard - Within Order – Our most thorough automated review tool helps verify and rate appraisal quality on a per order basis by quickly analyzing data that would normally be subject to a manual review. The Appraisal Scorecard is provided through a technology partnership between Appraisal Firewall and Veros and can be enabled on a per-client basis. Pricing for the Appraisal Scorecard can also be set up on a per-client basis and is separate from the price of the appraisal. Scorecard Within an Order can be applied to manually or automatically run on any full appraisal order.
- Appraisal Scorecard - Standalone – Our most thorough automated review tool helps verify and rate appraisal quality on a per order basis by quickly analyzing data that would normally be subject to a manual review. The Appraisal Scorecard is provided through a technology partnership between Appraisal Firewall and Veros and can be enabled on a per-client basis. Pricing for the Appraisal Scorecard can also be set up on a per-client basis and is separate from the price of the appraisal. Standalone Scorecards can be run independently of a full appraisal order. The XML version of the appraisal report or a first-generation version of the appraisal report PDF must be provided at the time of order placement.
- Appraisal Report Comparison – The Appraisal Report Comparison analyzes any subsequent report uploaded to an order, compares it to a previous upload, and presents any differences in an easy-to-read side by side comparison. Pricing for the Appraisal Report Comparison can be setup on a per client basis and is separate from the price of the appraisal.
- Completeness Check – Our free automated review tool offers a quick review of the appraisal to make sure important fields on the appraisal are completed/not blank. This helps the appraiser identify and address any inconsistent data prior to the report being sent to the lender. For a complete list of all point the Completeness Check combs through, refer to the list HERE.
Benefits to using an automated appraisal review include:
- Less time and cost to underwrite appraisals
- Audit-proof protection against non-compliance
- Simple actionable reports
- Empower appraisers to do more pre-screening prior to submission
- Appraisal report scoring (Appraisal Scorecard only) prompts additional due diligence when warranted.
Enabling Your Account for Automated Reviews
The Appraisal Report Comparison and the Appraisal Scorecard are available to your organization once it is enabled by your account manager. Please contact your account manager to enable these, discuss pricing, and continue with setup. If you only want to use the Appraisal Completeness Check, you can continue without the assistance of your account manager.
Once your account manager has enabled the features, you can enable those features and the Completeness Check within your account on a per division basis. Start by logging into your Administrator account and access the Relationships menu along the left.
Expand the information of the division you want to add the automated review products for by clicking the corresponding arrow along the right. Then, click Edit Settings for that division.
Expand the Billing/Services by clicking the corresponding arrow along the right. Scroll to find the section labeled Automated Appraisal Reviews.
Once the Automated Appraisal Reviews feature is selected, you will be presented with the option to enable the Appraisal Completeness Check, Appraisal Report Comparison, Appraisal Scorecard - Within Order, and Appraisal Scorecard - Standalone. If you select Appraisal Scorecard - Within Order, you can optionally choose Give Access to Managed Users and Auto Submit.
- Give Access to Managed Users – Allow lender supervisors and originators to submit reports for the auto review on a per order basis. Enabling this feature gives all users the Send for Review button on all applicable orders. By default, only lender administrators have the Send for Review button on their orders.
- Auto Submit – Enable this feature if every eligible report (1004, 1004C, 1025, 1073, 1075, 2055) should automatically be sent through the full automated review when provided by the appraiser.
Enabling Appraisal Scorecard - Standalone allows for an independently placed Scorecard order through the New Order slide-out menu. Upload the XML format of the appraisal report or first-generation PDF within the Order section on the New Order screen for a successful submission. Results are returned within moments. Please note 1004Ds are not eligible forms to submit for Scorecard.
The cost charged (if any) for using either the Appraisal Report Comparison or the Appraisal Scorecard is displayed when you enable the feature. This is a per submission cost and is billable to your office. Appraisal reports that are submitted multiple times for review incur a fee every time they are submitted. Please consider these ramifications prior to providing this feature to managed users or auto submitting every report.
Once enabled, the Appraisal Scorecard and Appraisal Report Comparison can run on XML files for 1004, 1004C, 1025, 1073, 1075, and 2055 appraisal products.
Appraisal Scorecard
With the costs of compliance increasing your origination costs, automating processes while maintaining accuracy is more important than ever. The Appraisal Scorecard is perfectly suited to the task, with the fully automated capacity to review appraisals, provide actionable data, recommend next steps to complete the review process, and demonstrate proper due diligence.
Standalone Scorecard Submission
Utilizing the Standalone Scorecard submission allows you to place a single Scorecard order, without the need to place an entire appraisal order. When you enable Allow Standalone Ordering, select the Scorecard product from the slide-out New Order menu.
The New Order screen will denote all required fields with an asterisk (*). Once you get to the Order section, you will need to provide the XML version of the appraisal report or a first-generation PDF version of the appraisal report.
Once you upload the file, select the Order button. Upon placement, you will be directed to the Communications Log. It can take several minutes for the Scorecard output to post to the Communications Log, however once the output is available you can click on the output directly on the log, or find the output in the Documents tab.
Manually Submitting Orders for the Appraisal Scorecard
If you choose to manually submit an order to the Appraisal Scorecard, you can open the order to submit and in the order menu along the right, click Run Scorecard.
In the Run Scorecard tab that appears, you are asked to confirm that the order should be sent for review. Click the Run Scorecard Now button to submit the report for the review process.
Please note: If you use the Run Scorecard button prior to the order completion, the order will be flagged as a review order and will automatically be submitted for the automated review once the appraiser delivers the report.
Retrieving and Reviewing Appraisal Scorecard Results
Once an order is submitted for the Appraisal Scorecard, it takes a few minutes for the review to complete. To view the results of the automated review, open the Communications tab or Documents tab of the order and click the Appraisal Scorecard output.
The review analyzes and compiles report information, rates the quality of the appraisal, and displays it in a format that is easy to read. An example report is provided below.
For complete information on working within the Appraisal Scorecard, please check out The Appraisal Scorecard guide.
Completeness Check
When the Appraisal Completeness Check is enabled, the check runs on every order uploaded to the system and analyzes hundreds of data points on the report. It immediately lets the appraiser know if there are any inconsistencies or missing data so they can address any issues prior to it being delivered to the lender.
With the Completeness Check, appraisers upload their report and immediately get the results. The results are listed for them, and they can choose to cancel out of the delivery window and address the issues prior to uploading the report, or they can provide an explanation for the discrepancies and continue to provide the report as is.
If the appraiser chooses to provide the report as is, a PDF copy of the discrepancies is made available to all parties within the Communications tab and Documents tab, along with the appraiser’s explanation.
If the appraiser chooses to adjust the report, the completeness check will run when the new report is uploaded. If no discrepancies are found, the user is not notified of the issues the appraiser addressed and the appraisal report will be delivered as usual.
Appraisal Report Comparison
This feature allows you to take a previously delivered appraisal report, and a more recently- delivered appraisal report, and scan each side by side automatically for differences. Any alterations that are detected between the two reports are highlighted and displayed in an easy-to-read PDF. In the side by side comparison of reports, any adjustments made between an appraiser’s prior delivery and a subsequent delivery are detected and highlighted line by line to clearly indicate what on the report has changed.
This tool eliminates the manual work of identifying disparities between two files by automatically tracking and comparing the two reports to ensure proper modifications were made. This can save loan officers, reviewers, and underwriters hours of reviewing appraisals whenever an appraiser delivers a modified report. Additionally, it provides greater protection to you and speeds up the quality control process.
After the Appraisal Report Comparison has been enabled by your account manager, it can be enabled on a per division basis. Under the Billing/Services section of a division, scroll to the Automated Appraisal Reviews section and select the new Appraisal Report Comparison checkbox, then Save the change.
Once enabled for a division, whenever a subsequent report is uploaded to an order, the comparison report will automatically run and generate a PDF file that will be available in the communications log. The PDF shows the two most recent appraisal uploads side by side and when you scroll through, any line items that have been modified will be highlighted and reveal which data differs between the reports.
Important Reminders:
- Charges are incurred every time a report is submitted to the Appraisal Scorecard, even if the Appraisal Scorecard is generated more than once on an order.
- Charges are incurred every time an Appraisal Report Comparison is generated.
- There are NO charges incurred for using the Completeness Check.
- You can request an order be submitted for the Appraisal Scorecard even before the appraiser has delivered the report. If you or your lenders flag an order for the Appraisal Scorecard order prior to its completion, it will automatically submit once the report is made available by the appraiser.
- The Appraisal Scorecard, Appraisal Report Comparison, and the Completeness Check can run on XML files for 1004, 1004C, 1025, 1073, 1075, and 2055 appraisal orders.