Five Tips for Quicker Turn Times

The appraisal profession is evolving constantly. Often, it seems, appraisers are asked to present additional information or have steps added to their data gathering - all to ensure their client receives the most useful analysis. In order to keep up with the continuously changing requirements, Palmetto Appraisals of the Low Country is always seeking additional tools and improving processes to increase efficiency so we can do more work for our customers. Since Palmetto Appraisals of the Low Country knows that time is important to everyone, we've listed a couple of items you can do to accelerate the process on any appraisals ordered with Palmetto Appraisals of the Low Country:

  1. Are you ordering appraisals online? When you order online, you receive automatic e-mail acknowledgements that the request was received, and fast, secure .PDF format report delivery. This tip alone will save the most time! We don't have to retype information from a fax, and you don't have to wonder whether the order was received.

  2. Complete and accurate subject property information is crucial. There's nothing like being one number off on the street address to add unnecessary time to an appraisal assignment. And if you have a tax parcel number, plat map number, subdivision name or anything else that uniquely identifies the property, please pass it along. Even a list of recent area sales is welcome — though be advised that professional appraisers are lawfully required to do their own due diligence on comparable sales, and ours might differ from yours.

    3. If you have any questions about your property or an appraisal we're working on for you, feel free to contact us

  3. Tell us up front of the property's unique elements. It's relatively easy to appraise a cookie-cutter house. What takes time is analyzing how differing details contribute to or detract from what otherwise would be a property's market value. At the time you order your report, be sure to let us know if there are unique characteristics of the home or surrounding area -- for example, it's recently had an addition built on, it's subject to zoning restrictions, and it's prone to flooding. While these are things that we will find out on our own, knowing them sooner will likely make your report arrive quicker.

  4. Be sure the homeowner knows the plan. Setting an appointment with the homeowner can be one of the most time consuming tasks in the appraisal process. It's understandable for a homeowner to be uncomfortable with an unknown person inspecting every square foot of their home, taking photos, and making lots of notes. One common belief is that they must make the place spotless before the appraiser comes by, with the notion that will increase the appraised value . So they choose to not schedule the inspection until they can get around to cleaning.

    Coming from you -- a trusted party with whom they already have a business relationship -- a short explanation about the appraisal process, who we are, and especially that dusting and polishing won't change their home's value one bit, will help move the process along for everyone. Our website has numerous pages of helpful information about the appraisal process for homeowners. I encourage you to share it with your customers. They can even call us if they want to familiarize themselves with the staff and our services. And tell them it's in their interest to set the appointment promptly!

  5. Are you using our website as a resource to keep track of the status of your report? Why are you still playing phone and fax tag when our website offers up-to-the-minute status updates available online, anytime, 24/7? As each important milestone in an assignment is completed, that information can be viewed instantly online. There's no faster way to track your report's status.