Why hire a technically advanced company?

The appraisal process is one that lends itself to technology, and the Ernst Appraisal Group strives to be one of the most technically advanced appraisal companies in the market. This benefits our customers, in the form of shorter turn-around times and a superior valuation report.

Ordering
Let's start at the beginning. Millions of real estate transactions are processed each year in the United States. A majority them require some sort of appraisal. Technology enables the Ernst Appraisal Group to reduce the amount of work their client's need to order, track and receive appraisals. In the past, the primary mode of interaction between an appraiser and his clients was the telephone and fax machine. Clients would send requests via fax, and then often follow it up with a phone call to make sure it was received. Tracking the progress of the appraisal meant more phone calls - a disruption for both the client and the appraiser.

The Ernst Appraisal Group has a better method. Using tools like this web site - complete with the ability to order appraisals on-line - allows our clients to shave valuable time off the process of ordering and tracking appraisals.  No more annoying games of phone tag!

Report Delivery
Utilizing Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) files, we can deliver a complete, multi-page report, complete with digital photos and maps, through simple e-mail.  Reports can either be sent to a personal account, or if ordered on-line placed into your account.  This is a tremendous benefit for users who have e-mail accounts too small to handle larger appraisal files such as a multi-family reports.

Digital Workfile
It would be wonderful if appraisers could complete a report, deliver it and never worry about seeing that document again. But one of the purposes of an appraisal is as a legal document outlining the condition of the property at the time of sale. So appraisers must keep their reports for 5 years, allowing them to recall any appraisal at any time to either defend the valuation or to be used in other legal proceedings.

By electronically storing every aspect of the appraisal - notes, sketches, supporting documentation and calculations - along with the appraisal, the Ernst Appraisal Group is able to retrieve that report at any time within the five years, and recall just what that report was about.

All data is stored in a digital workfile to electronically include all supporting documents as part of the appraisal file. These files are stored securely on searchable media, where our appraisers can find them in a fraction of the time required in the past. This also benefits our clients by giving them immediate, virtual access to any appraisal they've ordered within the past 5 years.

These are just a few examples of how the technologically advanced appraisers in the Ernst Appraisal Group are improving the business workflows of their customers. Investing in the right software and services allows our company to deliver reports quicker, more efficiently and with higher degrees of accuracy.