Whether you’re a seasoned real estate agent looking for a new income stream or getting started in your career and want to gain new skills, property data collection is a great opportunity to meet your goals. It’s a fairly new service offered in the real estate industry, but it’s becoming more widely sought after, so we’re providing an in-depth look at everything you need to know to see if becoming a property data collector is right for you.
What is property data collection?
Property data collection is a standardized process in which a trained third-party data collector gathers essential information and takes photos to document the property. Then, the data and photographs are drafted into a report and shared with the mortgage lender or a real estate appraiser to complete a desktop or hybrid appraisal.
So how did this come about?
Prior to 2019, mortgage lenders could either require a comprehensive property appraisal to determine the accurate market value of a property, or they could waive it entirely. In all but extremely rare cases, they required the property appraisal to mitigate risk and ensure they were making a lending decision based on the property’s fair market value. But around 2019, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac found that delays in property appraisals were slowing down the loan origination cycle and needed a solution beyond a full appraisal or nothing at all. They created three new options to fill in the gaps:
- Desktop appraisals
- Hybrid desktop appraisals
- Property data reports
All three rely on accurate property data collection which is why there is such a growing need for this service.
What does a property data collector do?
A property data collector performs a physical inspection of a requested property, documenting information including:
- Building materials used, such as the exterior cladding, type of flooring, or roofing
- Type of foundation
- Floor plan details like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and measurements
- Additional property…