SLR Valuations was established to provide a more efficient and quality professional valuation service, primarily to the mortgage finance industry. Our timing was favoured by the introduction of non-bank lenders, including Aussie Home Loans and RAMS. Our firm worked directly with these new lenders, as well as other major financial institutions, including Adelaide Bank, Bendigo Bank, Heritage Bank, Suncorp and Macquarie Bank.

In some States of Australia the valuation industry underwent deregulation. In addition to this, industry stakeholder pressure led to the lowering of valuer entry level standards, and recognition by them of less professional forms of valuation reporting.

These shortcomings gave way to the introduction of valuation management tech companies, or VMC’S, who were welcomed by the growing and competitive mortgage finance industry.  Third-party VMC’s allowed more control for lenders to instruct and manage mortgage security valuations via these online platforms. 

Our own proprietary online valuation system was designed by valuers for our valuers and clients, and was long being used successfully by them. However, our profession is subject to greater statutory restrictions for how we advertise and market our services, and ultimately we could not compete with these new tech industry players.

Not only did VMC’s play a major role in severing the direct valuer financier relationship, they also introduced cheaper, but arguably much less reliable desktop and restricted valuations, along with instant automated valuations models (AVM’s), within the mortgage finance industry.

It is for these reasons that in 2011, SLR Valuations withdrew from the mortgage finance industry. Unlike many valuation firms at the time, we declined approaches by VMC's to receive mortgage security valuation instructions using their proprietary software platforms. This was a timely decision, as VMC’s also had in place, and continued to implement, valuation guidelines specifically designed for the mortgage finance industry that we considered contrary to established market value principles and methodology. 

The term “free market value estimate”, not dissimilar to AVM’s, is now widely publicised and promoted, not only by real estate groups and other property industry participants, but also by tech companies through social media platforms and phone apps.

Consequently, we have since witnessed significant changes in the public perception of “market valuation” terminology, a misnomer which now appears to include mortgage AVM’s, free online market value estimates, in addition to market appraisals by real estate agents and instant CMA’s (Comparative Market Analysis), rather than market valuations prepared by licensed property valuers.

As licensed property valuers, we are guided by professional representative bodies, including RICS and the International Valuation Standards Council. We are also restricted by the policies and clauses adopted by professional indemnity insurance companies. Therefore, again, we remain unable to compete with tech groups and those providing “instant valuations” services, which appear to have no such guidelines or restrictions.     

It is due to our valuation guidelines that “market value” has traditionally been assessed and prepared formally by licensed professional property valuers. We consider the assessment of true market value today, as being a specialised service carried out by certain professionals within the valuation industry and, in our opinion, will remain the most important safety net for those with vested interests in real property.