During the project, the valuation sector made progressive steps. Notably, in 2020 the EBA guidelines on loan origination and monitoring were approved, and came into effect July 2021. These guidelines specifically forbid fully automated valuations at time of origination, and warrant the use of surveyors and statistical data support, in line with our product development. On a business level, lenders are placing more emphasis on shortening mortgage origination cycles, which warrants faster valuation solutions, with higher accuracy to diminish error making early in the process. We see the private market moving to provide such solutions in EU markets and beyond. By combining the power of our data and workflow tools, we have a strong competitive advantage which goes beyond the state of the art; in particular, in our target market of Ireland where ‘manual real estate advisors’ control 100% of the market. This has been proven by i) winning portfolio valuations they would normally perform, and ii) switching mortgage lenders from manual panels to our serviced software. In the UK, we will have some competition with in-house built software; however, these platforms lack the statistical capacity and turnaround time of our platform. While in the Netherlands, there exist some automated valuation and statistical analysis tools, which have strong statistical capacity and good turnaround time (<8 hours); but are limited on the percentage of houses they can value (due to no hybrid support). Our solution can value 100% of the housing stock. Feedback from lenders is positive in all 3 markets, we are therefore confident in our competitive position internationally.
The Geowox tool will support financial institutions in meeting EBA guidelines by providing quick and accurate hybrid valuations with strong statistical basis. Implemented across Europe, this will reduce the current disconnect between countries. Accurate valuation methods are the backbone for the determination of collateral value of financial institutions, will create more accurate bank balance sheets, and improve sustainable lending practices.
By M24, we have signed multi-year contracts with 2, and secured pilots with another 2 mortgage lenders. We have an additional advanced pipeline of at least 5 mortgage lenders. It is our goal to become the leading statistical software-backed valuation provider in our first 3 markets, and gradually expand market coverage from there.
B2B website: www.geowox.com
B2C website: www.valuemyhome.ai
