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First American touts Procision as ‘next-generation’ valuation model

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Title insurer First American Financial Corp.’s data and analytics division has launched a new suite of automated valuation models tailored to the varying needs and budgets of mortgage lenders, capital market investors, proptechs and real estate professionals.

First American Data & Analytics says its Procision AVM suite employs sophisticated modeling techniques and machine learning, tapping what it claims is the industry’s largest property and ownership database to generate valuations of every U.S. residential property updated daily.

Jon Wierks

“Lenders, servicers, and capital market decision makers need highly accurate, highly reliable industrial-grade valuations to inform their risk decisions,” said First American executive Jon Wierks, in a statement. “Marketers designing campaigns based on home price or home equity, on the other hand, are looking for broad coverage with high hit rates at an affordable price point. There are also a growing number of proptechs and emerging businesses in the mortgage and real estate industries that provide a preliminary home price estimate to their prospective customers, which is precisely what our white-label model is designed to do.”

The three Procision AVM solutions, each offered at different price points, are tailored to fit clients’ specific needs and budgets:

  • For mortgage lenders and capital market investors, Procision PREMIER offers “industrial grade” valuations supported by full documentation and testing that’s required by regulators.
  • Procision POWER is “optimized for use in consumer-facing websites that need total coverage of values,” the company said.
  • Procision DIRECT is designed for marketing campaigns based on home price and home equity.

First American touts Procision as a “next-generation” valuation model, incorporating new property details and data points.

“A blended ensemble modeling approach combines new machine learning technologies with industry specific modeling techniques,” the company says, including hedonic models that compare houses within neighborhoods and markets and adjust price based on features.

Procision also taps enhanced house price indices that reflect price growth and market changes and adjusts tax assessment values to account for local rules.

The nation’s second-largest title insurer, First American, has invested in more than a dozen venture-funded proptech companies including Endpoint, a digital title and settlement services provider launched in 2018, which uses artificial intelligence to streamline document submissions and expedite processes.

In offering a suite of AVMs tailored to users’ needs and budgets, First American is taking a different approach than rival AVM provider CoreLogic. In October 2020, CoreLogic launched Total Home ValueX, which the company said eliminates the need for multiple AVMs by using a “singular, uniform model methodology.”

CoreLogic touts Total Home ValueX as “the only AVM you need,” with “flexibility to support mortgage, real estate, REtech, fintech, proptech, government, insurance, and consumers.”

A recent product sheet for Total Home ValueX says it’s used by eight of the nation’s top 10 mortgage lenders, employing artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities built on cloud technology to tap a database of 5.5 billion property records that’s updated daily.

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Email Matt Carter