Firmly established over in the US, cascading - or the use of multiple AVMs by the same lender - is predicted to play a key role within the UK market over the course of the year, embeding itself in day-to-day practices.
There are certain clear benefits for lenders and brokers using multiple AVMs, points out UKValuation's CEO, Mark Witherspoon. These include an enhanced risk management strategy and greater accuracy.
"Using a cascading AVM system enables lenders to select the best AVM for every request, to rank AVMs by looking at a variety of different statistical performance metrics and to define ‘cells’, for example split by geography and property type, to better segment AVM performance," he said.
"This way, multiple AVM usage enables lenders to achieve greater accuracy than from a single AVM, and it also creates the ability to custom-define cells based on individual customers’ risk preferences. In this sense, a cascade effectively becomes an ‘AVM’ in its own right."
