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The valuation industry has claimed it is 'heavily recruiting' to meet the demands of brokers after a top broker hit out at the undersupply of valuers.
According to RP Data, valuer workload increased by 30 per cent this year; however, a majority of that only came in the past six months.
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“The first half of the year was reasonably flat and in line with 2012, but certainly the second half has gone ballistic,” said Michael Hooper, head of client operations at RP Data.
“The pressure has really picked up in NSW and WA particularly, but I'm anticipating other states to continue accelerating as well, certainly Queensland.”
According to Mr Hooper, valuation firms haven’t ignored the stark undersupply of valuers in these hot areas and are currently working on ways to cope with the demand.
“There are capacity constraints, but the val firms are investing in systems and processes to find efficiencies as well as recruiting heavily and investing in new valuers… in NSW, collectively, there looks to be another 30 to come on board soon,” Mr Hooper said.
His comments come after top broker Colin Lamb expressed concerns about the valuation industry earlier this week.
But it appears the surge in demand took the valuation firms off-guard, with valuers taking upwards of six months to be ready to hit the market.
“You don’t just find valuers on the street; you need to train and develop them and that takes a good six months lead time to release them into the world. By the end of Q1 next year there should be more valuers to ease the situation,” he said.
“I won't say it'll be fixed, but the first wave will certainly help.”
The other issue raised by Mr Lamb was valuation firms stifling communication between brokers and valuers.
“All our lender clients create their own policies around how that interaction works, and the reality is that for a lot of valex clients they don’t like that [broker/valuer] interaction at the beginning of the process,” he said.
Mr Hooper told The Adviser that dealing with disputes was preferred to having broker/valuer interaction in the first place, although he added that there is now a new initiative with the Commonwealth Bank designed to address this issue.
“For the dispute process, with CBA now, if they're unhappy with the valuation then a broker is able to lodge a dispute as per normal, but the val firm will call them back to discuss it. If they’re still not happy they can escalate the dispute until they get a resolution.”
While the offer is limited to CBA clients at the moment, Mr Hooper said they would be open to discussions with other lenders who wanted to offer a similar service.
