By Vin Vomero, CEO FoxyAI

Home Equity Lending News recently sat down with Mark Walser, the president of Incenter Appraisal Management, to discuss the valuation challenges home equity lenders face today and the new tools at their disposal. We’ve compiled our top 3 takeaways below!

1. Pandemic Impact – Walser states that the pandemic heavily influenced valuation practices as on-site inspections became impossible. This shift gave rise to innovation, and the industry is reaping the benefits of today. Now, lenders and investors have access to tools that allow remote appraisals. 
2. Inconsistent Adoption by the Industry – Technology tools are now available to mitigate against any underwriting and valuation risk that we saw rampant in the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Yet, Wasler points out that the industry is not fully taking advantage of all available solutions uniformly.
3. Decrease in Usage of Onsite Inspections and Appraisals – Walser estimates that “80 percent of home-equity lenders just use an AVM with no inspection or desktop appraisal.” 

While we agree with Walser that the industry has been shy to adopt, we have seen an uptick in interest in our suite of Computer Vision and AI solutions. Increasingly, AVMs are often augmented by computer vision and AI. At FoxyAI, we work with AVM providers to help increase their accuracy in valuations. We are invigorated and excited about things to come!