Any appraiser can have a profile on Mercury Network and tap into the flow of the tens of thousands of orders being placed per month. However, we still have some appraiser profiles with incomplete information. This is a critical oversight that could be costing you new income. Take a few minutes to look over your Mercury Network profile, paying special attention to these areas:
- Active Products — Many appraisers have only enabled a 1004, so they are missing out on all the 2055s, Condo, Land and FHA, and more orders. Check the box in front of all the job types that you do. If you don’t check the box for a particular product, your profile won’t come up for any lender trying to order that product. Also, we regularly add new products that lenders and AMCs request, so check this section often to make sure it’s complete. (On that note, you may even want to set a calendar reminder for yourself to update your profile every sixty days.)
- Fees — Put your standard fee in for each product. Regardless of how you feel about publishing fees, leaving this blank will take yourself out of the pool for many clients. Also, your profile should always reflect your full fee. If it currently reflects a client specific fee, change it to reflect your full amount.
- Fee Notes — If you charge extra for some services, like trip fees for certain counties, put this information in the fee notes for your products. Any lender who places an order in Mercury Network is required to read and agree to the fee notes prior to placing the order. These notes can also be used to specify your refund and cancellation policy.
- Coverage — Add every county that you cover, but be sure that you will accept orders in those counties. We sometimes see appraisers decline jobs stating the subject is outside their coverage even though the appraiser indicated that the county was covered. If you’d like to add comments about service areas, put that information into the fee notes in the active products section.
- License Information — Most clients who use Mercury Network choose to exclude any appraisers from their lists who don’t have a valid license. Once you put your license information in here, we validate that information against the ASC database. If your license doesn’t validate, check www.ASC.gov.
- FHA — If you’re an FHA appraiser, make sure and check the box for “FHA” in the License Information section. Most clients who place FHA orders only work with appraisers who have checked this box. As you might suspect, a few FHA appraisers have either not checked this box, or haven’t checked the boxes for the FHA products in the “Active Products” section.
- E&O — Fill this out as completely as possible. While we don’t require E&O insurance, the Mercury Network client may require it. So, if you have coverage, add it to your profile to make sure you’re visible to clients that require the insurance.
For step-by-step guidance on updating your profile, click here.
Beyond your profile, here are more pointers on boosting your chances of getting orders:
- Create a user account/Mercury Network profile for all of your appraisers. More appraisers means more visibility to clients on Mercury Network.
- When you get an order, respond quickly, even if you decline it. Responding to requests is an important part of your service, and it’s used to measure performance by many lenders and AMCs.
- Only accept orders you plan on completing. Believe it or not, occasionally an appraiser will accept an offer without first reviewing it and realize shortly thereafter that they cannot complete the assignment.
- Keep the status of your orders updated by using all of the available statuses such as “Inspection Scheduled” and “Delayed” to keep the client informed. This will cut down on the phone calls from clients and increase your chances of repeat work.
- If you need the due date modified because of circumstances out of your control, send the client a “Modification Request” status. It’s very important to make sure that the accurate due date is reflected in the order as this is used to determine if a report was delivered on time.
It’s important to note that the Mercury Network user (lender or AMC) controls which appraisers are eligible for assignments. They decide their own E&O requirements, required proximity to the subject, and whether appraisers are assigned manually or automatically. The way appraisers are displayed to each user will be different since they’re customized to that particular user’s preferences.
If you have any questions, let us know at info@MercuryVMP.com.