SFREP Does Not Collect Your Data
What Exactly Can SFREP Software Offer for Real Estate Appraisers?
Are you working as efficiently as possible? In this day and age, appraisers need to be quick on their feet and utilize every tool under the sun to help streamline the process. That’s where SFREP comes in.
This company is creating software designed to make the appraisal process digital while keeping it as fast, accurate, and straightforward as possible. But how exactly does SFREP work, and can it really make your job easier? For many real estate appraisers, the answer is a resounding yes.
Software by Appraisers, for Appraisers
SFREP (Software for Real Estate Professionals) was founded by fellow appraiser R. Wayne Pugh back in 1983. Eventually, the company was able to develop a modern suite of software designed to help appraisers streamline their work at each step of the contemporary appraisal process.
The Appraise-it Software Suite has every tool we need, offering several regulation-compliant applications to take the wait out of real estate appraisals. More recently, they’ve added updates and new features that appraisers can subscribe to depending on their needs. What exactly does that look like? There are three levels of software at varying prices:
- Appraise-it: $35/Month
- Appraise-it Pro: $45/Month
- Appraise-it Premium: $55/Month
The basic Appraise-it offers some useful components including forms-filing software, an adjustments addendum, databases for Common and Global Responses, a square footage calculator, a spell-checker to keep everything professional, and a verified digital signature to prove that your digital reports are authentic.
You can integrate Appraise-it with companion applications within the SFREP suite, as well as other commonly-used tools like Apex Medina, Marshall and Swift cost estimator, RiskMeter flood-mapping services, and most photo programs. Additional web-based applications to build and manage cost estimates, market analysis, flood maps, and street maps are all there for you to utilize as well.
Appraise-it Pro is a more professional version, and it’s more than worth the extra $10 per month. It ups the ante with UAD and UMDP databases, sketching tools, and built-in comp and image management programs. The Appraise-it Premium also offers all of this, with the inclusion of CoreLogic Valuation Solutions (CLVS) reporting tools.
Change is in the air
Why should you consider this particular software? You can put your trust in SFREP. It’s modern, it’s an incredibly sharp program, and it doesn’t do data collection. It simply allows you to manage each different part of the appraisal process from a single platform. This has the potential not only to make your job easier but perhaps even to help usher in a whole new era of appraising.
Now, with hybrid appraisals and bifurcation looming on the horizon, we need to be more connected than ever. Though hybrids and bifurcation tend to be bad words in the community, new regulations very possibly could make them an industry standard —and we need technology to manage this new aspect. Companies like SFREP, which allow for the computerization of our industry, make the documentation and sharing of information that much easier. In the future, this could enable us to work with inspectors and other 3rd-parties more closely than we ever have before.
A team of appraisers and inspectors using the software in conjunction with one another would aid in communication, feedback, and teamwork between professionals. Rather than lead to a fragmented and fraud-stricken process, which tends to be the fear among appraisers, this type of software could lend itself to more transparency and open communication between team members and this split process could become aggregated the way it should be—with everyone working together for a common goal.
Support for Appraisal Products
Besides offering a full range of appraisal tools, SFREP has an entire support system designed to make the process as easy as possible. With a comprehensive video library of how-to videos and tutorials, appraisers only need to take control and learn how to use these tools until they become intuitive.
However, this learning process is precisely what puts off many appraisers. After all, if you’ve been doing something a certain way for 30 years, why would you stop now? The reality is that we don’t have a choice anymore—the industry is going digital, and newer professionals will have an edge if they can use software to make the process easier and faster for themselves and clients. In order to compete, you need to have the same toolbox everyone else does. Appraise-it can give it to you, and they’ll even sweeten the deal with a free month-long demo version before you commit to the product. You can try it before you buy it to build some faith and feel confident in your decision and the software.
A no-charge demo is nice, but it’s also essential in this day and age. Offering digital freebies is becoming popular for every online business, from software to entertainment and gaming. For example, you can get free Slotomania coins just by signing up with an online gaming provider. You can also become a part of a tiered rewards program to gain even more bonuses along the way. Similar free benefits are now offered along with credit cards, stock market investments, and hotel booking platforms. This kind of high-end support draws in customers and keeps them satisfied, and your appraisal software should offer you the same kind of benefits.
Fortunately, SFREP offers you even more. Customer support goes beyond the buying and training process, with remote phone and live chat options for when you’re in the field and encounter a problem. They also have an online database of frequently asked questions, which is updated regularly to ensure that newer issues are all addressed.
Overall, SFREP is doing everything they can to computerize the industry and keep this process as painless as possible. This doesn’t mean it’s perfect—there will always be hiccups along the way. However, digitization in the appraisal industry is an inevitability. Those who strive to keep up in the modern era would do well to look towards a platform like SFREP to succeed.
By Anna Lucas, writer, translator and journalist. Anna is an experienced travel and lifestyle journalist, currently working as a freelance content writer.
Do they have a mobile program?
We sure do!
Can this software convert alamode files?
AppraisersBlogs we can read in MISMO XML files from Alamode but we can’t read the full file because it’s encrypted. No software package can. That would violate the DMCA.
Does it work with Spark?
Sounds like their on board with this Hybird and Bifurcation Crap! Kinda sounds like some other big appraisal software company that sold the appraiser down the river. No thanks, I will burn my Cert because it will not be worth the paper its printed on.
Remember DK, the business plan in the past for such like companies has never been to serve the appraiser, but to serve to the bigger fish in the industry by way of offering and building custom forms, etc, (See A la Mode / forms / plug-ins / Mercury Network). The little appraiser will be served crumbs short term, but it’s ultimately a game of buyout when that big fish writes a fat check.
I dare anyone to Google Dave Biggers and click on images if you don’t believe me (A blond under one arm, wine in the other hand). Or check out his Linkedin page.
Founder/Chairman
Mercury Network, LLC
Jan 2010 – Apr 20155 years 4 months
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Area
Conceived, funded, built, and led the company from fresh startup as a division inside a la mode, to standalone spun-off company. Achieved the unusual performance combination of high growth rate plus high EBITDA plus high cash flow, then fully exited in a high-multiple sale to Serent Capital in April 2015. Completely self-funded and wholly owned; went from zero clients and zero employees to 600+ clients and 50+ employees in four years without taking on debt or diluting equity (100% of equity held by me personally or my family trusts).
More like funded off the backs of appraisers Dave.
Seek the truth.
Don’t see how this any of this bypasses the tentacles of CoreLogic. Been the worst YEAR of the worst DECADE for appraisers….
All thanks to the #1 SELL OUT of ALL TIME
…… Dave Biggers…….
Can’t wait for 2020.
Not defending Dave, but the Blonde is his wife. I have had dinner with them and his mom and dad. His mom is a Realtor and His dad was an appraiser. Yes, I am not happy with data theft by alamode. Even if you don’t take part in the Vault, they still take your data as you type a report…unless your not connected to the internet when you fill out the form.
So True, Seek the Truth Bill, If you read between the lines change is in the air. You can put your trust in SFREP. Now, with hybrid appraisals and bifurcation looming on the horizon, we need to be more connected than ever. A team of appraisers and inspectors using the software in conjunction with one another would aid in communication, feedback, and teamwork between professionals.
So the lender/AMC charges the consumer $600 for a Hybrid appraisal, pays the appraiser and inspector $75 each. It doesn’t get any more professional for appraisers then that. No thanks
I know nothing of the company or the software being featured in this blog, but after a decade plus of being burned in this industry (HVCC / 2009), all are guilty until their innocence is proven. That being said “appraisers and inspectors using the software in conjunction with one another”, that’s a selling point to the lender, and holds no use in my opinion. Hell, with no formal licensing requirements in my state, and always looking to impress their agent/homeowner clients, I often find strong bias versus true independence relating to home inspectors.
Seek the truth.
I know its only a headline, “SFREP Does Not Collect Your Data” but where have we heard this like term before, how about here, https://blogs.alamode.com/collateral-underwriter-what-to-do/?
Mr. Biggers said “Let me be clear however: Any database we build for sharing comps will not be a database for us to use for our own purposes. The data is yours. It isn’t ours. We don’t want to sell it, use it, move it, share it, or do anything else with it other than manage it for you. (We’ll also put in place full controls to prevent others from misappropriating it.)”
The system was built, info was shared, used, moved, sold, & misappropriated.
Seek the truth, find the truth, and judge others by the truth (Bill Johnson 12/13/2019).
I’ve worked for SFREP for 14 years. I can guarantee you we don’t collect any data. Never have.
That’s really good and reassuring news. Now if you folks will just stop promoting use of inherently fraudulent bifurcated hybrid appraisals. Every time a software hustler creates a form intended to promote diminished appraisal practices, it gets used. THAT is what I mean by promoting.
We are not promoting anything. We will, of course, add features to the program that are needed and demanded by our customers and the industry in general. But we have taken no official position on hybrid appraisals.
Brother Matt, we get it, but history tells us your CUSTOMER will soon be big brother corporation (via a buyout), versus the individual appraiser. I know nothing of your company (good luck), but I know a model match when I see one and its only a matter of time before the appraiser again gets sold down the river.
Seek the truth.
hard to believe, especially with the inclusion of WhoreLogic Valuation Solutions.
We integrate with CLVS up to the point where we hand off the appraisal data to them. I can’t make any guarantees about what they do with the data from that point on.
They use ALL our data we give them in our appraisals. They’re data whores and use every single piece of it, especially through any of their systems. (Mercury Network, Platinum Data and AppraisalScope)
Seek the truth, find the truth, and judge others by the truth.
Here’s a 3+ year old link to a Dustin Harris blog where we went back and forth via the comment section relating to in part the discussion of Dave Biggers, Mercury Network, etc. Not directly related to this current blog, but future history will in part be a judge of who we support today. Anybody know if Dustin still has that 2 for 1 laser disk sale relating to the positives of the Metric system versus the Imperial system? Could measuring to the nearest millimeter be that much better than to the nearest 32nd of an inch? Considering the last one I watched “Appraisal All Star Team Human Pyramid Building & How the Fat Guy Should Always be on the Bottom” was so insightful, I don’t want to miss out, and I need one last stocking stuffier.
https://theappraisercoach.com/using-your-ladder-to-open-the-attic-scuttle-door/
Hey Dustin, Mr. Biggers was really an advocate for appraisers, NOT.
Via seeking, & finding, you have been judged.
ALL the positives I ever read or heard about SFREP is undone by the suggestion they intend to participate in the promotion of fraudulent hybrids fiasco. I will not support software whores that seek to undermine my profession.
Hey Bill… What should we all send to Dave Biggers for his Xmas Holiday Present???
9217 Mercato Way
Naples, FL 34108
7 beds 7 baths 6,230 sqft
Sale Price : $4,733,048
Closed 05/08/2019
In the spirit of giving, and from the ghost of Christmas past, do you think he would welcome a garage sale found Appraiser Coach greatest hits “VHS addition” collection with outtakes? For what its worth, the collection is like new (original packaging / never opened), and does contain the ever so funny digital tape measure bloopers (in color). I heard it was a big hit with his cheerleader squad. Of course he would have to cover the Mercury Network $15 technology fee, or $13.50 if he signs up for auto withdraw.
Or a lump of coal.
Seek the truth.