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Special Reports
Appraisals & AVMs
PlatinumData Improving Value of Its Information
By Brad Finkelstein
MISSION VIEJO, CA -- PlatinumData Solutions, a provider of next-generation cascading
automated valuation model solutions here, has enhanced its AVM platform by adding report creation capabilities
that allow system administrators to track the geographic performance of specific AVMs and individual user's AVM
orders.
The PlatinumData platform was launched in 2002, said executive vice president
Arturo Garcia. Taking advantage of its location in Orange County, "the accessibility to all the lenders in
Irvine has given us a competitive edge" just because of the geographic location, he said.
Before that, it was doing AVMs what he called "manually." The company
got into the business of licensing the different AVMs to resell. "Back in the day we used to fax (the reports)
to the client, so we saw the need for something like this to be automated. In 2002 we launched the first phase
of PlatData.com."
The company has "pretty much every AVM in the industry" on its platform,
Mr. Garcia said. This includes VeroVALUE, CASA, PASS, HPA 2000, SiteXValue, PowerBase 6.0, ValuePoint4, Home Value
Explorer, PSARez, ACA, Value Wizard, i-Val Report and ValueSure.
"The value add that we provide really is the convenience of having correspondents
come to one point of access and ordering any AVMs they need to meet their investor's guidelines," Mr. Garcia
said.
The Web application can be integrated into any loan origination system or any
legacy system that clients might have internally.
When clients log in on the webpage, they get a welcoming message. On the left-hand
side is the working menu. There are three levels of access for each user, he said. The account administrator has
access to reporting, account administration, invoice and payments, the ability to add users and order search.
To make an order, all the user has to do is type in the street address and ZIP
code. The user can add other optional data, including borrower information (which can be used for tracking purposes,
he explained).
Target value can be entered when the order is for appraisal review purposes. If
it is an origination, it is not shown, Mr. Garcia said.
A table comes up where the user can select the appropriate AVM, based on hit rate
and confidence score. The hit rate is kept per lender, so they can see when it comes to what county, which AVMs
work better, he said.
Another column is PD hit rate. "What we do is we sort these AVMs by our hit
rate, because we take all of our clients into consideration" that have done business in the county where the
valuation is being ordered for, he said.
Besides county, statistics can be obtained by ZIP code as well.
Once the AVM list is made, the user starts building their cascade, which is tailored
based on what the client tells the company.
After the cascade is created, the user clicks on process now and goes to the first
AVM in the queue. The account is set up to cascade one at a time. It returns the reports one at a time.
They can decide to complete the order after that one report, or continue for additional
reports.
An invoice is generated for every property put through the system. This is important
for lenders to pass on the cost of the AVM to the borrower, just like they would a traditional appraisal, he said.
"We hand everything over to the account administrator, and they decide which
AVMs they want to use and in what order. They can customize it themselves."
Investors like the flexibility of the system because they can tailor it to how
they want "so that their correspondents don't mess around with what they call 'shopping for value,'"
said Mr. Garcia.
Of the other two types of access, the manager has access to the user administration
level, so they can add or delete users. Then there is the user level, where the person can only place orders and
enter a user profile.
"Each client conducts their business differently. Yes, they use AVMs but
how they do their accounting is completely different from another company and how they use AVMS - some of them
release it to their loan officers. Some of them have one desk where all the AVM orders are filtered through that
person," he said.
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