Greg Austin's Story

Continuing with our weekly Success Stories, our featured CVR Specialist is Greg Austin. As an appraiser based in Illinois he became certified early on and has continually maintained a spot as a top producer since he began! Read why he favors the CVR over other appraisals.

“In the last four months, 60% of my business has been made up of CVR orders”

- Greg Austin

Greg Austin is a residential appraiser that runs a one-man operation out of Illinois. His clients consist mostly of attorneys and state agencies. When Greg first heard about the CVR, he immediately saw that it had more to offer than his regular appraisals because of its accuracy and transparency. For him, it was an opportunity to expand his business beyond form fillers. It wasn’t long after that Greg became the first to be certified in St. Louis, Missouri.

Greg has been performing CVRs for eighteen months. Initially, Greg started out using the CVR to assist his traditional appraisal business. Now Greg has reinvented his business and does the majority of his appraisals with CVR. Greg appreciates how the CVR helps him evaluate market trends and how it shows comparable sales listing analysis.  Greg uses CVR particularly in neighborhoods with slow sales and listings as it helps him assess the correct values. Greg favors the statistically supported appraisals because he believes that in today’s regulatory environment, CVRs are safe and help protect the appraiser performing them.

Greg’s customers are also pleased with the CVR.  Greg says that since doing CVR reports, he has not received a single write-back or complaint on any of the 58 reports he has completed so far this year. A report takes Greg about three hours to complete including an indoor and outdoor inspection.  He says, “It has made a huge improvement in my business life in terms of efficiency.”

In his spare time, Greg enjoys camping with his kids and spending time with family.

Greg has a few words of advice:

• Use it as another tool to market yourself
• Find ways to use it for different types of clients- a great opportunity to expand your business
• If you don’t use it, you are limiting your business