Collateral Analytics has developed a new tool that helps appraisers better select sales comparables when valuing homes, as well as to estimate the return of investment when renovating a property.
The new tool includes a ratings feature that will aid in assessing appraisal value of properties and return of investment on home renovations, the company says.
CA's analytics research and development team determined historical and current property condition ratings for approximately 10 million single family homes around the U.S. by mapping available qualitative information on the condition of a home to Fannie Mae's standardized C1 to C6 property condition ratings for appraisals. This was achieved by applying CA's text mining techniques to search for key words in the qualitative data.
‘We feel that this new information is both groundbreaking and exciting,’ says Michael Sklarz, president and CEO of Collateral Analytics, in a release. ‘This rating system will be a key component in the next generation of our CA Value AVM by enabling it to use comparable properties which are indicated to be of the nearest condition to the property being valued. In addition, our new iBPO and iAppraisal products are already making use of these market-based factors for property condition adjustments.’
Such adjustments could prove valuable for appraisers in maintaining compliance with the requirements of Fannie Mae's new Collateral Underwriter tool, which includes a risk-scoring component.