Fannie Mae has approved six service providers for its
The six are: Accurate Group; Black Knight subsidiary
Fannie Mae is currently evaluating additional service providers, its announcement said, and is soliciting even more participants.
Black Knight users can access its SCOUT app on a mobile device to upload property data including photos. Besides the cloud-based app, SCOUT QC provides a web-based quality control module.
"We are honored to be one of the small group of providers approved by Fannie Mae for lenders to use for the data collection process as part of the value acceptance plus property data option," said Ben Graboske, president, Black Knight Data & Analytics in a press release. "By using SCOUT, lenders experience significant efficiencies and cost savings as well as greater data transparency, minimize the potential for bias and realize faster origination turn times."
In support of the initiative, Clear Capital launched a new product named Universal Data Collection, which also meets Freddie Mac's standards for its
"Clear Capital has been partnering with Fannie Mae on appraisal modernization for over four years so it is exciting to see this program become available to lenders and borrowers," said Kenon Chen, Clear Capital executive vice president of strategy and growth. "After completing over 250,000 property data collections on GSE loans, we are confident that the data standards and technology driven requirements create a more consistent, objective understanding of the property while passing on cost savings and value certainty to the borrower."
Accurate Group is one of two approved service providers that can offer digital title and closing options.
"As the market-leader with over 25 years' experience in appraisal modernization, we are very excited to be a Verified Software Partner by Freddie Mac and now also one of six providers approved to deliver Fannie Mae's Value Acceptance + Property Data solution," said Paul Doman, president and CEO of Accurate Group. "Having completed over three million property data inspections and hybrid appraisals, our data collection and hybrid appraisal solutions are uniquely designed to help all lenders remain competitive in today's real estate lending environment with API-enabled connectivity to most loan origination systems."
Mueller Services has been in property data collection in the property and casualty insurance line for over 40 years, and now offers those to the appraisal business, said Jordan Petkovski, chief valuation officer, who has been with the firm for approximately six years.
"So we were very much prepared for data collection services, because of the work that we had done outside of the lending vertical for all of those years," Petkovski said. "The organization prior to me joining we did recognize cross-functional benefits and opportunities between the inspection services that we were providing to property and casualty insurance underwriters, to those that ultimately would be utilized on the lending side."
Mueller had been part of the test and learning environment in the development of the Fannie Mae program.
"So it didn't require us to spin up something brand new in order to achieve that approval," Petkovski noted.
Based on his experience in the appraisal field, including 15 years in leadership positions, Petkovski has seen a lot of changes over the years. He noted that this is "a very significant one," that offers benefits to all participants in the transaction, especially as
But it will chiefly benefit appraisers. "I think by focusing the appraiser on the analysis, as opposed to the data collection, you tend to find more efficiency with that workforce," said Petkovski. "So we're very hopeful to see where this goes over the course of the next several years, especially as volume comes back."
