a la mode has announced that Axios Valuation Solutions has now fully integrated their appraisal management operations with a la mode's Mercury Network Vendor Management Platform (VMP). Mercury Network allows lenders and appraisal management companies (AMCs) to manage their entire appraisal workflow. It's been used by more than 200,000 mortgage professionals since 2002 to completely automate the full "round trip" of tens of millions of appraisals.
The seamless connection between Axios Valuation Solutions and Mercury Network will provide benefits to lenders and appraisers alike, in terms of compliance with FHA, GLB, Fed interagency rules, and pending Federal legislation. The integration also gives Axios a clear advantage in terms of quality assurance, appraisal data security, cost, and flexibility. With the integration, Axios can electronically place compliant appraisal orders via Mercury Network, which has the largest pool of appraisers in the nation, covering every county of every state.
"The caliber of appraisers using Mercury Network is higher and those are the appraisers we want to work with," said George Heredia, chief appraiser of Axios Valuation Solutions. "Geographic competency is the number one quality issue that lenders are finding with appraisals. Our integration with Mercury Network and our proprietary internal appraiser selection system solves the non-local appraiser problem."
Bi-directional status updates flow through Mercury Network to Axios, providing a secure audit trail of interactions while reducing email and phone tag and other time-wasting status update activities.
A key Mercury Network capability is custom Axios appraisal report compliance and quality assurance. Business and workflow rules which are executed on the appraiser's desktop from within the Mercury plugin, preprocess the report before it's delivered to Axios. The workflow scripting language uses TOTAL XML-based data analysis to run Axios Valuation Solutions' business and regulatory compliance review rules specific to individual Axios lender clients. By running over a thousand standard and custom rules on the report before it leaves the appraiser's desktop, Axios saves time by avoiding manual review processes to find missing or incorrect data.
"The Mercury Network empowers Axios to deliver unparalleled service to our clients, and the highest quality appraisal reports from truly independent, expert appraisers, nationwide," said Heredia. "It will also cut our costs, and provide scalable compliance and documentation solutions to satisfy any lender."
"We're proud to have been selected by Axios Valuation Solutions for this critical component of their strategic appraisal management plans," said Adam Calvery, a la mode's president of mortgage solutions. "Appraiser independence, compliance with all the new regulations, and ultimately the quality of the finished appraisal report is our shared priority and I speak for both companies when I say that we're proud of the immediate benefits this integration will provide to our respective customers."
For more information, visit www.MercuryVMP.com, www.myaxios.com or www.alamode.com.
