When a commercial order is placed, it will stay in a Requested status until the Administrator for the division the order was placed under sends bid requests to the appraisers that they would like to request bids from. Administrators should follow these steps to do this.
1. Click the link in the email you receive to open the commercial order. There will be a new Message from Customer Service that reads "New Commercial Order Created."
2. When the order opens, you will be taken to the Communications tab. Move to the Parties tab - this is the tab with the person icon on it. Once here, click the Assign Appraiser button at right.
3. The Assign Appraiser tab will open. On this tab, qualified Commercial appraisers will be listed. You can use the Panel drop down menu to view appraisers on this division's panel, on the Lender panel (shows all Commercial appraisers across all lender divisions), or AMCs. A note of caution - it is usually best to assign appraisals only to appraisers that you know and trust.
Find the Request Bid checkbox and check it for any appraiser that you would like to request a bid from. Each appraiser you request a bid from can respond to you with a bid on how much they charge to complete the commercial assignment and offer a proposed turn time.
4. When you have selected the appraiser or appraisers to send bids to, click the Request Bids
button.
5. Bids will then be sent out to those appraisers that you selected, and you will be taken back to the
Communications tab where you can see the bids that were sent out and keep track of them.
Auto-Request Bids on Commercial Orders – Instructions for Administrators
Looking for a more automated way to place your commercial orders can be accomplished by enabling the Auto-Request Bids setting within your division settings. On order placement, any eligible commercial appraiser will receive a notice to submit a bid automatically, as opposed to you manually requesting bids from your appraisers after each commercial order is placed. If expediting the bidding process is of interest, Administrators should follow these steps:
1. Select Edit Settings within your division. Expand the Commercial section. Auto-Request Bids will be at the top.
2. Once you enable the Auto-Request Bids setting and save, all your commercial orders moving forward will send out bid requests to all eligible commercial appraisers.
3. Upon order placement, you will be directed to the communication log where you can view how many bids were sent out to your eligible commercial appraisers.
