Vizaline counts 40 banks as customers, ranging from $30 million to $4 billion of assets. Each Vizaline “audit” report carries a disclaimer that it is not a survey.
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If the software does raise red flags, the bank can decide to hire a professional land surveyor or seek legal advice.
Morgan Miller, special assets manager at the $5.2 billion-asset First Bancshares in Hattiesburg, Miss., estimates that a true survey takes two to three weeks to complete and could cost anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000. With a base cost of $150, the company also says that it is less expensive than a survey. Vizaline says that by reading and interpreting legal descriptions, its product is more thorough and detailed than county tax maps that people can access online for free. The goal is to spot glaring problems right away, so a bank can tell if the property boundaries form a closed shape, that any improvements do not encroach on another landowner’s property (or vice versa), the location of any easements and that the property is relatively located where it should be. ”) Vizaline’s software takes this property description and converts that text into a line drawing, which is overlaid on satellite imagery of the area from Google.
(A metes and bounds description traces a property’s boundaries from a starting point to its close and incorporates natural and man-made landmarks, for instance, “Commencing at a Found Iron Pin at the North East Corner of …. “Our worst nightmare is if we loan money on a property, they build the house and build it partly on their property and partly on someone else’s,” Tate said.īanks will submit a “case” through the Vizaline website of a so-called metes and bounds legal property description. Dale Tate, CEO of the $47 million-asset First Federal, says he pulls a Vizaline report on every real estate loan he makes.
Small banks such as First Federal Savings and Loan Association in Aberdeen, Miss., have been loyal customers for years. The practice has its detractors, who say that Vizaline essentially is practicing unlicensed surveying but that the Mississippi board's definition of surveying is so ambiguous that it’s difficult to prove.Īs Vizaline expands into new markets, the software could be particularly appealing to financial institutions that don’t require surveys for loans below certain thresholds, such as $500,000. The company is expanding from its base in the South, opening the door for more banks to decide if the service is right for them. Several dozen small banks that use Vizaline’s technology say it’s easy to use, more cost-effective than a formal survey and helps catch errors before a real estate loan has closed.
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