Breaking News

From the floor of the MBA’s Annual Convention, a la mode announced today that Xerox Mortgage Services will use Mercury Network’s DataCourier service to add a new appraisal management service to the BlitzDocs® intelligent collaborative network. Click to view..

a la mode announced today that StreetLinks Lender Solutions has chosen to launch a MercuryDirect plugin to receive the Native XML appraisal data needed for streamlined compliance with the GSEs’ new mandatory UMDP initiative. Click to view..

a la mode announced today that Academy Mortgage Corporation has launched a new MercuryDirect plugin, giving it the Native XML appraisal data needed for streamlined UMDP compliance. Click to view..

a la mode, inc., the dominant market share leader in the appraisal technology sector, announced its “UAD Reader” product today. UADReader is a free desktop tool which allows anyone to open, view, error-check, and manage appraisals in the new “UAD” MISMO 2.6 XML format. It works with any UAD-formatted appraisal, regardless of which software was originally used to create the report. Click to view..

MBA NewsLink recently sat down with Jennifer Miller, executive vice president of products for a la mode. Miller is in charge of the company’s Mortgage Solutions division, including the company’s Mercury Network, a vendor management platform for the mortgage lending industry. Click to view..

With the mandatory UAD updates, the industry is full of complaints about some software vendors' latest versions crashing all the time. But the jump in crashes didn't start with the UAD — it just made it worse, and drew more attention to a long-standing problem. In fact, ask around and you'll see that over the last couple of years, since about 2008, appraisers have complained more and more about software crashes and stability. But why? Click to view..

a la mode announced today that Axios Valuation Solutions has now fully integrated their appraisal management operations with a la mode’s Mercury Network Vendor Management Platform (VMP). Click to view..

Appraisers are used to toiling away in relative obscurity, but suddenly the national spotlight is shining on the industry, and in an area that normally is shrouded in comparative secrecy: Fees. More interestingly, people outside the profession are actually worried that appraisal fees may be too low, not too high. Click to view..

While county-level analysis may seem to be the most relevant to the fees you charge on a day to day basis, there’s no denying the fact that your business doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Click to view..

Hawaii is looking better and better to appraisers these days, especially as record snow storms strike large parts of the continental United States. Who can blame them for wanting to sit on the beach and collect among the highest fees in the nation, in a location that also happens to be one of the busiest as well? Click to view..

Any appraiser who has fallen out of love with their clipboard, or may be looking to cheat, needs to pay particular attention to our latest field data gathering and sketching app, DaVinci for iPhone and iPod Touch (and soon for Apple’s new iPad as well). Click to view..

TOTAL 2010 Standard has debuted as the all new sixth generation of our formfilling products. When we first posted the free labs release of what we’d “codenamed” Armstrong on a la mode labs, appraisers asked us how TOTAL 2010 was different from WinTOTAL Aurora. After all, we don’t create new versions from scratch for nothing. Click to view..

We are supremely proud of TOTAL 2010. Not because it’s the result of ace programming. No, we’re proud of it because it’s the result of listening to our customers and those who aren’t our customers... yet. Click to view..

There’s a common misperception out there — especially among appraisal clients — that the “oversupply” of appraisers has created a market where there is no fee too low. Click to view..

We developed the national Appraisal Fee Reference™ to be the authoritative guide to average and median appraisal fees for a base URAR. It is just one of the monthly data sets published as part of our Appraisal Industry Analytics™ practice. Click to view..

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As we've written several times before, the HVCC provided ample incentive for mortgage brokers and appraisers to become allies united behind a common cause. Since we single-handedly bore the cost of raising awareness among appraisers and mortgage brokers about the HVCC last year, we were happy to find afterward that the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) recognized the difficulty in what we did, and wanted to cooperate and consult on HVCC issues. Eventually, NAMB decided to take the battle to the courts, but withdrew the lawsuit after the government claimed its actions as conservators of Fannie and Freddie are not subject to judicial review (even though, obviously, the HVCC was started prior to the government bailout). As a last-ditch effort, NAMB asked us if we would distribute their "Follow Up Call to Action" to our appraiser list nationwide, which we're happy to do for them. We encourage you to… Click to view..

DaVinci, our sketching and field data gathering program, is one year old this month. In one short year we’ve seen appraisers across the country adopt the new DaVinci platform to save money and make their lives easier. It’s been pretty amazing to watch the rapid adoption over the year. Click to view..

As has been mentioned repeatedly throughout this edition of AppraisalPress, 2009 will bring many changes to the appraisal industry. One of those changes will be the release of the sixth generation of WinTOTAL, code named Armstrong Standard. Click to view..

Fannie Mae has released the 1004MC form as part of Announcement 08-30, which also includes clarifications and amendments to the existing Fannie Mae Selling Guide. Click to view..