I usually don't write articles for this newsletter because our team does a great job of writing industry news. But when it's something personal, I think you should hear it from me.

There's a press release hitting the street right now with details (click here to see it), but in case you don't read it, I'll at least hit the high points here.

Basically, we're growing extremely rapidly and I have to adapt to the needs of a much larger company, which now spans three distinct markets. I used to be able to manage it all, but now that we're over 250 employees, it's almost impossible to have one person at the top of the company. So, I've split my job in two. I used to be the Chairman and CEO, but now I've appointed Scott Kinnaird to the CEO position. Many of you know Scott from his work over the years making Mercury and now the XSites Network such a success. I'd appreciate your support of Scott in his new role.

That doesn't mean I'm riding off into the sunset. Quite the contrary — handing the day-to-day management to Scott allows me to dig even deeper into the strategic aspects of the Chairman role, kicking off bigger long term projects in many markets. And in everything from copyright protection to comps data sources to appraisal advocacy organizations, I'll continue to be elbows deep in appraisal issues. To be blunt, our success in the appraisal industry is the goose that lays the golden egg — and rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, I'm not an idiot. I do not take the appraisal business for granted, and never will.

And no, this isn't for any personal reason. It's just good business when you're at this size and still growing at an incredible rate to split the load and keep the company closely managed. I was flabbergasted recently when an industry source contacted us wanting confirmation of the rumor, fed directly to them by one of our competitors no less, that I had cancer and would have to step down. I'm sure our competitors truly wish I had to, but no, there's no "stepping down" going on here, and I'm not sick. I don't even have a headache, though I should after hearing something like this, which just exemplifies the total lack of ethical boundaries of some of these other vendors. It just boggles my mind.

I'm sure you'll eventually hear other rumors also trying to make something out of this. "Dave sold the company" is a common one, but no, I still own 100 percent of it like I always have. "Dave's retiring" is another popular myth, but no, I just wish I was retired. "a la mode's gotten too big and Dave doesn't care about the appraiser anymore" is one I've heard others say, but I'm still here, will always be an appraiser, and know that you have lots of choices in software and will go elsewhere if we don't use our superior size and resources to help you, which we're doing. These things are all just wishful thinking by competitors, but that doesn't stop them from fueling the speculation and trying to play on your fears.

Speaking of using resources and fears, note in the press release (click here), that we've not only added new development and training offices in Salt Lake and Orlando this year, but also opened a legal affairs and lobbying office in Washington, DC. That's something our competitors wouldn't be likely to do even if they did have the money to pull it off, because we're unique in caring about your position in the industry and putting our money where our mouths are. We're not in fear of angering large lenders, because they do the same thing — lobby for their best interests. It's in our best interest for the appraisal business to be healthy and vibrant, and we'll continue to do our best to help that be true, whether I work as the CEO, the Chairman, or I mop the floors.

Dave Biggers
Chairman
a la mode, inc.

Aurora — WinTOTAL version 5.0 — debuts for some 1,100 attendees at our first annual Technology Convention in Orlando this month. This is no mere redecoration of, or even just an "update" to, WinTOTAL. We've completely revamped WinTOTAL to make it even easier to use and more powerful, and to give you the ability to manage your business and produce reports in ways you just can't anywhere else.

We'd like to get you as excited about it as we are, even if you can't join us at the convention. So we're going to spend the next few editions of the e-newsletter introducing you to some of the most eagerly awaited and coolest new things about Aurora.

Order PowerView — minimizes formfilling
Of course, Aurora revolutionizes the way you create reports. That's the first thing you expect WinTOTAL to do! With Aurora, that process starts when you first receive and input order information. Introducing the new Order PowerView (See the Order PowerView video).

How cool would it be if you started a new appraisal, entered its subject address and while you were filling out other order details, WinTOTAL seamlessly in the background: pulled down census and FEMA information, placed a location and flood map in your report, provided driving directions to your subject, and then slid out a small banner showing cloneable appraisals you completed on the same street and within a half mile of your subject?

Well, it's here. And that's just a small part of the new Order PowerView in Aurora. It's the customizable form-based replacement for the Requester in Athena — all the functionality but quicker and easier to use.

Why is it form-based? A form has spectacular advantageous. Consider the new auto-complete. As you type a few letters into the keyboard, like say the Lender field, an Internet Explorer style drop down narrows your selection. In one keystroke, you can have all your lender fields completed throughout your report, down to delivery information to a loan officer. It even lets you save multi-field canned comments, which we call QuickLists, to hot keys. As a simple example, hit two keys at once and have your report's city, state, zip and county fields completed. Enter the first neighborhood field and have every field in that section, including comments, completed with another keystroke.

Do you use XSite or Outlook scheduling? Enter the details once in the Order PowerView and synch an appointment reminder with a single click. Or, send your client a quick status update on your progress so they don't hound and call you.

There's more... Tired of manually setting your file numbers? No more. Set up a simple or advanced naming convention — office-wide or just for yourself — to automatically auto number your reports. "Same as" features let you tie one field to others, eliminating re-typing. Combine the borrower and co-borrower into one transfer field.

If you want flexibility in changing minor form headings, you can have that too via Order PowerView's Minor Form Header Options. Set what you want as labels and transfers — Borrower/Client, Borrower, Client, Owner, Lender, Lender/Client or Appraiser.

AutoMap — eliminates mapping work
Even more exciting: Riding on the same Order PowerView AutoMap technology, if you enter comps, whether through Aurora's MLS importer, manually, or merging from older reports, in the background your location map smartly adds comp balloons for each and determines their proximity from the subject, which are inserted into your report. If you delete a comp, no more jumping to and editing your location map. It's removed automatically for you.

And naturally, if you own an XSite, life is even easier for you through Aurora's Order PowerView. New orders automatically flow into Aurora and any created via the Order PowerView flow back up to it. Great for status, simple or advanced business management as well as delivering the final report through your XSite using just a few clicks.

SmartMerge — data and forms management
Within Order PowerView, a great timesaver is SmartMerge (See the SmartMerge video). With SmartMerge, you can merge data and forms from an existing report or template. If this sounds like cloning, it should — we've developed SmartMerge as a more powerful, intuitive "cloning" method, which replaces what you know as cloning in other versions of WinTOTAL.

With Aurora's SmartMerge, you'll still be able to copy data from an entire report just like you currently do with cloning. But with SmartMerge, you can just mark individual forms to copy, or even specific sections of forms. You won't need to reproduce an entire report and then make tedious changes and deletions like you do when you clone a report now. Instead, you can copy sections of a form, an entire form, a whole report, or just the forms without the data. You can even choose whether or not the data you're merging in will overwrite any existing data in the current report.

In the coming weeks we'll introduce you to many other new features of Aurora, including single scrolling forms, Side-by-Side Comps, DirectFax and much more. And don't forget about the tons of documentation and online tutorial videos so you can get up to speed on anything you want to learn more about. We're adding to the available videos all the time, so check back, too.

a la mode had a chance to express the pro-appraiser view in an article in the July 18 National Mortgage News. The piece, "AVMs Said More Immune to Deal Making Pressure Than Paper," was about a new research paper that touts the benefits of Automated Valuation Models.

"The study found that biases in full appraisal value opinions are pronounced and consistent with the allegations of transactional pressure placed on appraisers by originators," the article said. "While AVMs have a lesser tendency to overstate values, they are not as accurate as full appraisals."

The article quotes Matt Barr, a la mode's Communications Director: "We're pleased and a little surprised that the paper admits appraisals are more accurate than AVMs. Beyond that, it doesn't tell us much worthwhile because it isn't getting to the issue of what causes 'transactional pressure.' No appraiser in the history of humankind has ever inflated a value on his own, without pressure from a client....

"The issue is that you have people with a commission stake in the loan - they don't get paid at all unless it closes, and they get paid more the higher the loan is - ordering valuations. The REIPA paper paints a picture of a world where these brokers and LOs have two choices. They can choose from among a number of different appraisers, trying to find one who will 'play ball,' or they can use one, single, carved-in-stone, bright, shining AVM number. That's not at all how it works.

"In fact, regardless of the tool, someone with a commission at stake will sometimes try to get the highest 'number' possible. There isn't one, single, authoritative AVM, there are several available on most properties. The whole concept of 'cascading values' is that you get to run a number of different AVMs on a property until you get one that's 'best for you.' Which means 'confidence score,' wink wink, not highest number.

"The solution to this isn't to change the tool, but the user. Federal regulators have been warning banks not to let commissioned salespeople order valuations, and that's a very positive step."