Streamlining success: How Homeowners Financial Group consolidated appraisal operations and boosted efficiency

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Homeowners Financial Group (Homeowners) is a privately held, 100% retail mortgage lender that has grown into a multi-state operation spanning 38 states and Washington, D.C. The company closes approximately 4,000 loans annually across a full suite of products — conventional conforming and non-conforming/jumbo loans to FHA, VA, and non-QM mortgages — and manages the entire loan process in-house, from application to funding.

A distinguishing feature of Homeowners' business is its strong builder relationships. Roughly one in three loans originates through builder channels, including partnerships with national and regional builders. This production mix places a premium on speed, consistency, and operational precision in competitive purchase-driven markets.

Homeowners is recognized as a technology-forward organization with a deep commitment to data-driven decisioning, AI-assisted workflows, and continuous operational improvement. The company has set an ambitious goal of improving operational efficiency by approximately 30%, and actively evaluates solutions that reduce manual effort, improve accuracy, and accelerate the loan lifecycle.

The challenge

As a high-volume, purchase-focused lender, Homeowners required a valuation and collateral management solution that could match its operational pace and its standards. Managing appraisal workflows across a growing loan portfolio in 38 states introduces complexity at every turn: coordinating AMC partners, ensuring appraisal quality, maintaining compliance, and delivering results fast enough to keep hundreds of purchase transactions on schedule.

At the same time, Homeowners was navigating a broader technology modernization effort, including a point-of-sale transition and the adoption of other tools into its tech stack. Any valuation platform would need to integrate cleanly into this evolving stack and support Homeowners’ forward-thinking approach to technology.

Key challenges the team sought to address included:

• Maintaining consistency and quality control across a diverse network of AMC partners
• Reducing manual touchpoints and exceptions in the appraisal process
• Gaining real-time visibility into appraisal status and risk
• Preparing for industry changes such as UAD 3.6
• Supporting rapid loan onboarding, particularly for builder-driven volume

The solution: Mercury Network  

In May 2021, the company implemented Mercury Network, Cotality(TM)'s industry-leading appraisal management platform. Mercury Network was already integrated into Homeowners’ LOS – Encompass – which was a huge selling point. The combination of Mercury and Encompass gave Homeowners a centralized, connected workflow for appraisal ordering, tracking, and quality control — without requiring staff to toggle between disconnected systems.  

“We needed to consolidate everything into one ordering system,” said Todd Buzas, Appraisal Department Manager. “Mercury was already compatible with our LOS, had a great reputation, and when we laid out our desired features list, it had everything we needed with really no customization. That was great and honestly every appraiser we talked to during our discovery phase said Mercury was their favorite system.”

Mercury Network's Encompass integration allows appraisal data to flow directly into Encompass, reducing duplicate data entry, minimizing errors at the point of order, and ensuring that loan files stay current throughout the appraisal process. For a lender closing hundreds of loans per month across 38 states, that level of automation and connectivity is not a convenience, it's a competitive advantage.

The platform's quality management capabilities also aligned with Homeowners’ emphasis on appraisal excellence and AMC accountability, offering tools to track performance, identify patterns, and enforce quality standards at scale.

Results at a glance

Since implementing Mercury Network, Homeowners has experienced consistent, measurable improvements across key dimensions of its appraisal workflow. “At every stage of the game, it was an improvement to what we had. I can never say we were going backwards, it was always moving forward.”

Key outcomes include:

• Consolidated six AMCs and multiple platforms into a single ordering system, dramatically reducing coordination overhead.  
• Confident expansion into new markets. With Mercury Network’s panel-building tools, Homeowners was able to enter new geographies without hesitation, using Mercury Network's appraiser ratings and assignment tools to vet and select appraisers quickly.
• Streamlined third-party QC workflow. Mercury Nework’s queue and access-restriction features allow an external QC team to log in, pull orders from their designated queue, and complete reviews before returning them to the internal pipeline, all without requiring full system access.
• Consistent regulatory readiness. Through Cotality’s partnership and proactive support, Homeowners has been prepared for every regulatory and integration change well ahead of deadlines, avoiding the last-minute scrambles that can disrupt operations

Operational impact

The Mercury Network platform has become a core component of Homeowners’ valuation workflow. The teams that interact most frequently with Mercury Network — including operations, processing, and compliance — benefit from a centralized view of appraisal status and a streamlined ordering process that eliminates much of the manual coordination that previously slowed transactions.

Among the operational improvements that the Mercury Network platform supports for Homeowners:

• Fewer exceptions and less back-and-forth between loan officers, processors, and AMCs
• Better visibility into appraisal pipeline status at every stage
• Improved onboarding for new loans, particularly high-velocity builder transactions
• Stronger consistency and accountability across AMC partner relationships
• Enhanced data integrity flowing into Encompass, reducing manual re-entry errors

A proactive approach to industry change: UAD 3.6  

Homeowners’ commitment to operational excellence extends beyond their own internal processes. As the industry prepares for the transition to UAD 3.6 this year— a significant overhaul of appraisal data standards — Homeowners has taken a proactive, educational approach to the change.  

“Our goal was to get ahead of this,” said Brandon Durham, Director of Training and Business Technology, Co-Director of Culture Committee. “We want to be the leaders in this market. Managing chaos is real, and it’s better to manage the chaos than to be managed by it. For a company our size to have Cotality’s scale and dedicate resources at our disposal is an amazing thing and extremely meaningful.”  

Cotality's deep expertise in appraisal data standards, combined with Mercury Network's readiness for UAD 3.6, positions Homeowners well for a smooth transition — and reinforces the value of a long-term, strategic partnership.  

Looking ahead

As Homeowners continues to grow its footprint, deepen its builder relationships, and modernize its operations, Mercury Network and the broader Cotality platform are expected to play an expanding role. As Durham said, the proof is in the consistency of the relationship over the years and in what he doesn’t have to do because he knows Cotality has it covered. “Having the ability, as a company our size, to provide feedback to a very large player in this industry — and for that to be listened to, and acted upon, is huge for us. Sometimes having a seat at the table is the most important thing and we always feel like we have that with Cotality,” he said.