Many appraisers are still using the same technology as they were when they began as trainees – it’s time for the upgrade that you deserve. Appraisers deserve the best technology available to ease their everyday workload. Anow is offering a free webinar to show appraisers how to embrace new technology. We sat down with Marty Haldane, Founder & CEO of Anow, to discuss the free webinar, “5 Reasons Why Appraisers Need Nexus – The Future of Form Filling is Here!” at 2 PM EDT on September 22nd.

Buzz: Can we have you background in industry?

Marty: I was an appraiser for 10 years – 3^rd generation. I worked for my dad, who not only taught me how to be an appraiser, but taught me how to run a successful appraisal business right from the ground up. When I started, him and his brother had split up after taking the business over from my grandfather, so it was just my dad and I. We built the business up together and so I got to learn how to appraise basically any type of property from residential to farms, commercial, industrial, etc..  Anything. My dad was an awesome teacher, but as things changed in the appraisal world in the late 2000s, I knew it was time to start something for the appraisers. I started Anow and stepped away from the family business. Now, we work with tens of thousands of appraisers and have managed millions of appraisals across the entire globe. It’s really fun.

Buzz: How have automated forms changed the appraisal industry?

Marty: Form filling is a term I almost dislike. It sounds so basic and doesn’t give appraisers enough credit for what they actually do. Having automation in the appraisal forms lets appraisers focus on the intelligent things they have to craft every time they do an appraisal. They shouldn’t have to worry so much about basic tasks so they can focus on the complex part that makes appraisers absolutely necessary. Anow is always championing for the appraisers making sure they are necessary in a world that sometimes thinks things can go completely automated. That just isn’t possible. It’s been said for decades and the theme is still the same today. I will fight and fight to keep appraisers absolutely necessary and fight for their integrity. Even my father would kick my butt if I didn’t.

Buzz: What is Nexus?

Marty: The name Nexus couldn’t be more appropriate for this new product. Nexus is a completely integrated form filler, report writer, appraisal builder (whatever you want to call it) that is tied right into Anow, and it is multi-collaborative. By multi-collaborative, I mean anyone in your company can have an appraisal report open, at the same time, and watch each other type while they are working. There is no more version control, overriding worries, or passing dated files back and forth. You can even see them upload data from the mobile app while they are taking pictures in real-time. From start to finish, you can take an appraisal order in Anow, schedule it, inspect it with our new mobile inspection app, finish the appraisal in Nexus, and send it to your client via Anow. Anyone in the company that needs to access this file, can without needing to receive a file over email, wait for someone to close the file, or log into remote servers. That’s just old-school. Nexus is the missing piece of the appraisal process for us that so many of our customers have been asking for. They want and deserve an end to end process that looks and feels the same the whole way. We want appraisers to build amazing businesses and adding in the ability to build an appraisal report was a logical next step for us. I personally have done over 5,000 appraisals in my career, so I know this piece really well and am so excited to be doing it now with my team.

Buzz: How is Nexus different from any other form-filling software?

Marty: 2 major things: multi-collaboration and integration into Anow’s powerful management software is already used by thousands of appraisers worldwide. Since Anow’s core management platform is already used by administrators, data entry assistants, trainees, reviewers, and appraisers in many different ways, building a multi-collaborative appraisal report writer was a no-brainer for us and people have been asking us to do it. No one else can have an appraisal report open on several different computers at the same time, all collaborating to build a great report. Someone can be entering data while the appraiser does their comp analysis or out doing the inspection, all while the reviewer is standing by ready to go through it all. Or if a trainee needs help, an appraiser can jump in and walk them through it without doing anything crazy or needing other screen share software. The technology behind it is super powerful, and so much so that we patented it. Secondly, being integrated into Anow’s core management platform means you can stay in one platform and get everything done. You aren’t needing to learn new things, manage different systems, or rely on separate systems – everything is under one roof and completely integrated into Anow.

Buzz: Why should appraisers attend your webinar?

Marty: Anow has proven many times we are able to produce some of the most sophisticated and powerful software in the appraisal business. Now, we are applying that into building appraisal reports and tying it all together. If appraisers want to see the future of running their appraisal business from end to end with a powerful report writer, they need to check this out.

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