Veros Real Estate Solutions reports that it has incorporated property-specific disaster data into its VeroVALUE AVM reports and portfolio review services.
In regions declared as disaster areas the new data set will allow lenders, servicers, appraisal management companies, and other mortgage transaction participants to determine if a U.S.-based residential property has been directly affected, the company says in a release.
Today FEMA Disasters are declared at the county level, meaning the entire county is declared a disaster, even though it only affects a portion of the properties located within the region. As a result, all properties within the county are flagged as being in a disaster area, which halts loan funding.
Since most mortgage lenders serve a broad or even national geographic area, they have limited ability to truly know whether or not a specific property is impacted by a disaster. Veros can now eliminate this challenge by identifying disaster area impact at the parcel level.
Using satellite imaging and data analytics, Veros’ initial release of this new tool delivers the information in two ways: on a “match and append” basis for portfolio review use or within the VeroVALUE AVM report on a per property basis.
The match and append method indicates when a specific property is in the disaster area by matching the location and then appending the disaster data with one of several tiers of confidence. It then delivers a granular result that is much more specific than the county level information commonly used by lending industry participants today.
Luke Ziegenmeyer, director of product management for Veros, says the information “is continually updated as the disaster unfolds, ensuring that our customers are always making their risk-based decisions with the most current information.”
Property-specific disaster monitoring data is available for the majority of declared disaster areas and includes hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanoes, tornadoes, floods, storm surges and tsunamis.