The Valuation Process Breakdown
- Valuation Activities: The valuation process can be roughly broken into nine key activities, from prospecting and team management to job completion. The time it takes to produce a valuation report is largely dependent on the use-class and purpose of valuation, but the proportion of time spent on each activity remains consistent. Report drafting, is the most time-intensive step, accounting for roughly 25% of the total valuation time with the remaining eight activities taking a roughly equal amount of time between them.
- Opportunities for Automation: All stages of the valuation process present opportunities for technology to drive efficiencies, but not all of these opportunities are equal. For example, whilst inspections at a surface level take the same amount of time as data gathering the opportunity to automate the inspection process is less as when broken down, the most time it takes on inspection is usually getting to and from the property.
Technological Innovations in Valuations
So where are some useful applications of technology that can provide a large amount of time saving?
Report writing and formatting: Through the use of Natural Language Processing, which allows computers to understand and interpret human language and Natural Language Generation, which enables computers to generate human output, large portions of the valuation report can be produced. This seamlessly integrates with the data gathering aspects whereby the data collated is automatically inserted into the relevant sections of the valuation report in the desired output that is required. Not only does this save time, but it also reduces risk of copying and pasting information.
Data Gathering: This is one of the more tedious tasks for the valuer. Going on multiple websites and searching for the relevant information for their valuation. Through various data gathering methods (APIs, web-scraping, and downloads) this process can be largely automated, alleviating much time.