Value IT, the appraisal arm of a joint venture between origination giant Wells Fargo and First American, is changing its name as part of a corporate rebranding that will more closely identify Value IT's appraisal services with the title, credit and settlement services its sister organizations provide.

The new name, Rels Valuation, will begin to be visible in the coming weeks to the company's fee panel appraisers on correspondence, order screens and business cards, as well as other media.

As part of the rebranding, ATI, the title services provider under the Wells Fargo/First American joint venture, will be called Rels Title; the former Rels Reporting will be called Rels Credit; and the settlement services provider formerly known as Rels Advantage will be called Rels Settlement Services.

Advanced Collateral Solutions (ACS), Value IT's sister company that provides valuation services to lenders and clients other than Wells Fargo, will retain its name.

Rels Valuation's fee panel should expect a new look, but the same way of doing business.

Value IT was among the first companies to install a custom Mercury Network plugin allowing its appraisers to use whichever formfilling software they chose and provide EDI appraisal reports that complied with the company's unique business rules. That project represented the first time that the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization's (MISMO) XML (Extensible Markup Language) open standard for appraisal data was used in production.

For more than two years, Rels Valuation has relied on a la mode's Mercury desktop and workflow review rules to ensure that appraisal reports are complete before they leave the appraiser's desktop, minimizing review and follow-up time. This has contributed to Rels Valuation becoming among the largest appraisal management companies in the country, with more than 15,000 fee panel appraisers.

The goal of the comprehensive rebranding effort is to increase awareness of the total range of the Rels family of company's services, promote identity and market position through a well-defined corporate personality, and to establish Rels as a single, total solution provider to Wells Fargo.

According to data compiled by National Mortgage News, Wells Fargo was the highest-volume mortgage loan originator in 2003, and in the first and second quarters of 2004 trailed only Countrywide Financial.

Productivity in the field has never been more important than it is today, with homebuying showing no signs of slowing — existing home sales increased at a record pace in the second quarter, the National Association of REALTORS® said.

Refis may dry up — but haven't people been saying that for a year and a half now? — but home sales won't. To keep up, appraisers have armed themselves with technology to complete the most reliable reports as efficiently as possible.

This arsenal includes laptops, notebooks, tablet PCs, PDAs, Internet-enabled cell phones, digital cameras and other hardware. But it's what you're able to do with these tools in the field that make you a trusted vendor of choice to your clients. We're developing several exciting mobile tools in conjunction with the upcoming release of Enterprise XSites. Your XSite is more than your virtual office — it's quickly becoming your office, as faxes and one-hour photos and follow-up phone calls recede into memory. You will be able to manage your XSite from the field in several ways with the upcoming release.

Export orders directly from your XSite to Pocket TOTAL to begin your report, without a single keystroke of retyping. Post status updates on ongoing assignments directly from the field. Take a moment on the porch as you're leaving your inspection to post that the inspection is complete, and your client will know it as it happens. No phone tag, fewer "is it done yet?" calls.

Get an instant notification in the field when a new order has been placed from your XSite. And of course, you will be able to access your XSite's CertMail boxes and send and receive email from anywhere.

The more productive you are in the field, the faster and better you serve your clients. The more quality, reliable appraisal assignment you complete. The less a client will be inclined to use your competition — human or computer.

Get immediate access to detailed location maps and driving directions, flood zone previews, even local weather forecasts from accuweather.com. All the instant information you need to work. When that's not enough, search the Internet using Google™.

Schedule appointments, view appointment details, add and manage contacts, and set up reminders, all on your $200 Pocket PC. Let's be clear: You're doing this once, in the field, not once in the office and then again in your PDA and then again online in your XSite. Everything is interconnected, and your typing time is minimized.

Accept and process credit card payments on site. Send an invoice to your clients, or view transaction reports with items such as pending charges and settled charges by week, month and year. Do business wherever you need to be.

We don't resell hardware, we work hard to develop applications and tools that will make your practice truly mobile. More homes than ever before are being sold and bought, by less and less creditworthy buyers, with less and less money down. You're going to be more important to your clients than ever in the coming years.

But your clients will be less and less patient. Our current mobile tools already give you a boost by reducing the time it takes to complete the report. Now, mobile tools coming in our Enterprise XSites free you from tasks you used to have to perform at the office.

You are encouraged to learn more and to find out how to have SP 2 automatically installed or download it yourself at Microsoft's website.

We reported in June that the MH sector was poised for a rebound, owing to new capital entering the market and investors and dealers learning (the hard way) from past mistakes. According to Asset Securitization Report, underwriters are "paying more attention to the appraisals they receive from brokers and dealers, and have made changes to their own internal scorecards as well."

We told you how Fannie Mae had created a program that was expected to increase funds available for MH loans by 33 percent, and that Warren Buffett had spent $2 billion to acquire one of the leading MH dealers and rescue another from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In addition, another market leader, Champion Homes, recently completed a restructuring that trimmed staff, cut costs and redid compensation in such a way that it's ready to begin emerging from the red.

Part of the strategy going forward, interim CEO Albert Koch told investors, was to shift away from HUD code production to emphasize modular sales, in an effort to "appeal to the broader housing market, where consumer financing is less of an issue and appraisals are more consistent and readily attained."

Doomsayers who foresee a coming foreclosure catastrophe and think the blame will be pinned on appraisers should take a close look at the manufactured housing debacle of the last few years. As its survivors emerge, they're talking about relying on appraisers more, not less.