Residential appraisers have traditionally had a limited range of products to sell to clients for valuation purposes: 1004 URAR's, 2055's and other similar services. Yet the mortgage lending industry often needed a quick and approximate update or indication of where a property was in its market. One consequence was that the appraiser's major client - mortgage lenders, who today account for over 85% of the business done by residential appraisers - turned to other sources for a variety of valuation products and services such as AVM's and BPO's that appraisers were not able to provide.
What would it mean to your business if you could offer mortgage lending clients a range of products that would meet their need for traditional appraisal services and price opinions, site-inspected instant valuations, automated comparable checking? Further, what would it mean to your business to be able to offer services to a broader range of clients, lessening your dependence on mortgage lending business? What if you had information that homebuilders, home supply and repair firms, property insurance companies, assessors, real estate brokers and investors, and even consumers - homebuyers and sellers -were willing to buy?
Zaio Inc. offers appraisers the opportunity to dramatically build their business both in serving current clients more completely AND in adding new clients across a range of industries serving real estate. Our business proposition leverages the appraiser's knowledge of their market into a database offering the following benefits:
*Complete data on every property in the market, maintained by appraisers;
*Derivative products to serve market niches which appraisers are excluded from today.
*Efficiency in serving clients for traditional products as a result of having the most current and consistent data for the market, and
*Reputation advantages for being the only person in the market with firsthand knowledge of every property.
Zaio Zone appraisers across the U.S. are participating in a massive effort to build the most comprehensive database complete with photos and value estimates for virtually all residential properties. Zaio Inc. has defined 7,564 "zones" which appraisers own and manage in order to build this database. Local appraisers have acquired over 1,500 zones at this point, with a target of 4,500 zones by the end of 2008. Photography is underway or complete in over 950 markets, and appraisers have begun the valuation process in over 300 zones. Through relationships with over 400 lenders, Zaio is bringing business today to Zaio Zone Appraisers…and that business will grow, as the "Appraisers Knowledge Warehouse" is further developed.
Zaio is happening now and forging the future of the appraisal industry. Appraisers who participate in building this database stand to profit from new sources of revenue, access to data, increased efficiencies and building a reputation for having the best information in the market!

David Garby is the national director of Sone Sales, Zaio Inc., Calgary, Canada.