Maybe one day AVN can be incorporated into an appraisal too , idk. but substituting an AVM for an appraisal is problematic unless there is a slew of regulations about how they are ordered, who gets to review them if anyone, , who picks the value from their result etc, and that combined with the inspection requirement makes them almost as expensive as an appraisal ..... just saying.
I doubt you can load enough additional steps for a lender to use an AVM that would even come within 1/3 the total cost of their use of an appraisal. Appraisals get handled and read by users, too.
There are assignments out there where getting an appraisal is money well spent, including some that reveal facts about the subject that will kill the deal regardless of what the value is. But there are also assignments out there where getting an appraisal adds zero utility to the user.
Who can even know how many appraisals assignments we've all done (myself included) where the additional effort involved in the appraisal added no utility to the user's usage when compared to if they had used one of these alternatives? The appraisal didn't reduce their effective risk one little bit because "the value" was never critical due to the low LTV.
