The Appraisal Institute And MISMO Form An Alliance

June 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Appraisal Institute and the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), a non-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), announced today that they have established an alliance that will result in the development of common data standards that bridge the valuation and mortgage lending industries. These common data standards will result in the accelerated adoption of electronic commerce by all participants in the real estate and capital markets.

"The Appraisal Institute is leveraging its relationship with MISMO to promote related and other intertwined data-based initiatives in which standards for valuation data are important," said Bruce Kellogg, MAI, president of the Appraisal Institute.

"MISMO recognizes that the systemic changes underway in the capital markets only increase the need for efficient data interchange," said Doug Duncan, chief economist and senior vice president of MBA's Research/Business Development Division and president of MISMO. "This alliance with the Appraisal Institute spans both the commercial and residential industries and will provide both sectors with the framework for the electronic delivery of appraisal-related information."

Data standards enable enhanced efficiencies by reducing unnecessary complexity common to all business partners - the re-keying of the same data. In conjunction with the alliance between the Appraisal Institute and MISMO, an open standard for describing and commonly identifying a residential property at each step of the loan process has been created. This newly-developed specification (Property Reporting v2.3.2) can be accessed at www.mismo.org.

The Appraisal Institute is an active participant in and subscriber to MISMO, and recognizes that outreach to all other elements of the real estate market is critical if data standards are to be accepted. As it recognized that more real estate valuation information would need to be communicated electronically, the Institute initiated its first data standardization projects in 1998 with the development of an appraisal data standard for residential properties, followed in 2001 by a set for the commercial arena. The goal of the Appraisal Institute is to ensure that the needs of appraisers and clients for appraisal services are met in an increasingly information-rich society.

With MBA's support and the support of its more than 160 subscriber companies and trade groups, MISMO is the authoritative standards development body for the real estate finance industry. MISMO's mission is to develop eXtensible Markup Language (XML)-based data standards and operate in an open, transparent, and vendor-neutral environment. Promoting and achieving agreement between individual firms to use a common format for data interchange is MISMO's core goal.

Source: MBA


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