Hong Kong’s property surveyors just about survive the onslaught of automation in the industry ... but for how long
- Surveying firm CHFT Advisory and Appraisal wants to promote the use of automated valuation in the labour-intensive valuation industry and make banks adopt the services
- But surveyors said it will be difficult to replace the human element
Singapore-based asset management company PhilipCapital and Hong Kong-based surveyors CHFT Advisory and Appraisal have formed a joint venture to promote the use of automated property appraisals and make it convenient for banks to process mortgage applications, but it faces stiff resistance from surveyors who do not want to replace the manual process.
Stella Law, executive director at CHFT, said the availability of automated valuation model (AVM) makes it easy for users to instantly calculate valuations by analysing values of comparable properties, historical price movements and details such as location and size of property.
“Our AVM facilitates data standardisation and generates valuation figures by machine learning and data analytics,” she said.
PhilipCapital uses AVM in Singapore and property service providers like Cushman & Wakefield provide this service in Hong Kong. Local banks such as HSBC use AVM for arriving at indicative pricing for mortgages.
“When people go to a bank to get mortgage, the bank needs to engage a surveying firm to do a valuation report and those firms still perform the valuation manually. Our model is not only for indicative [use] but [can] also facilitate the whole valuation process automatically,” Law said.
