Appraisal Firewall enables administrators of independent appraisal offices to manage groups of appraisers in their office. The goal of this "Appraisal Administrator" enhancement is to have Appraisal Firewall work more like your business so that you can be more efficient in work assignments and strengthen your relationships with your clients.


Appraisal Administrators can setup appraisers in their office with their names and email addresses, manage their settings, coverage areas and qualifications, then assign orders to these appraisers on an enhanced Order Acceptance screen.


Content Includes:


Setup Process

You can setup a group of appraisers that you can assign appraisal orders to quickly and easily. To begin, login to Appraisal Firewall, then at left, click the Relationships button. When the Relationships screen opens, click the Appraiser Group tab.



On the Appraiser Group tab, check the checkbox that reads "I am an administrator of an appraiser group and will handle orders on their behalf."



On the Confirm window, click Yes to continue, or No to discard your changes.



Check the "I will also be performing appraisals as an individual appraiser" checkbox if you will be working on appraisal assignments. This will allow you to assign appraisals to yourself.



Begin adding individual appraisers to the group in the New Appraiser section. There is no limit to the number of appraisers that you can add to this group. Click the Add Appraiser button to create more appraiser members. Please note that appraiser members do not actually login to the system for direct access. Appraiser member accounts are setup as a Read Only mode.



Fill out the first and last name, email address, and phone number.



Occasionally when you are adding members to your group account, you will encounter a notification that the email is already in use. This is typically due to the appraiser in question already having a standalone appraiser account within Appraisal Firewall. If you wish to add this individual to your group account, you will see the below message.



Select Accept if you want to incorporate the appraiser into your group. Proceeding with this action will pull that appraiser’s orders under your group account, and that appraiser will no longer have direct access to their individual account. Choosing Cancel will not add the appraiser to your group.


Enter and Complete Appraiser Member Settings

Here you can click any of the corresponding arrows at right to add/edit/view:



  • Appraisal Types – select whether the appraiser performs Residential, Commercial and/or Verisite appraisals.



  • Licenses – enter the license information the appraiser carries: select a state, then enter a License Number and Expiration Date, Certification Number and Expiration Date (if applicable), then upload a PDF copy of the license. To be eligible for FHA assignments, a Certification Number and Expiration Date must be entered to enable the FHA Certified checkbox next to each state the appraiser is FHA licensed in.



  • E&O – add a copy of the appraiser's E&O policy if available and enter the policy number and expiration date.



  • Résumé – you can optionally upload the appraiser's resume if you want here.



  • Sample Appraisal – attach a sample(s) of the appraiser’s work for lenders to review.



  • Coverage – add a county or counties that you want this appraiser to cover. Depending on the Appraisal Types you selected, the Coverage will be split out between Residential Coverage and/or Commercial Coverage. If you only selected Residential in the Appraisal Types section, only Coverage will be displayed. Click the Add County or Add Multiple Counties button and select the appropriate coverage areas.



In the Service Area section, choose a State and County (you can have this appraiser cover a specific zip code as well), then click Save.



This service area will then be added below. You can continue adding as many service areas as you like for each appraiser in your appraiser group.


Any items that have a red arrow indicate that additional/updated data is required for you to assign the appraisal to the appraiser. In the below example, the License option has an issue that needs attention.