Interflood

[Kurt Burnside]

We've used Interflood for over a year now and find it well worth the money. We appraise mostly in the Dallas area, and there are a few locations in Garland, TX that are not mapped. This is the only problem I've found so far. The census tract feature is great as well.

 

[John Wilson]

Originally posted by Rich Hahn@Dec 8 2003, 08:03 PM
digital media
one fee unlimited

Rich

FEMA, no fee, unlimited.

 

[Pat Butler]

FEMA's site doesn't include the LOMR's (letters of map revision) so you'll never know if a zone got revised. That's the advantage to the paid services- they combine the LOMR's with the underlying map. There are thousands of LOMR's issued each year.

 

[John Wilson]

Originally posted by Pat Butler@Dec 19 2003, 01:10 PM
FEMA's site doesn't include the LOMR's (letters of map revision)

I'll take my chances. Most of those revisions are just C to X. Same thing.

99.99% of the time it's not required to include a flood map let alone a flood certification. I'm not hired to perform flood certs. Just stick the map number and zone in the report and move on. Many appraisers will just type "Check Flood Cert" for the map number. And there's really nothing wrong with doing that, besides appearing lazy.

The flood cert is paid for by the borrower and comes from the title company anyway. Flood info in an appraisal is nothing more than a heads up, it's not an actual certification, no matter how nifty your map may look.

Most appraisers will stick an actual map in the report for nothing more than the fact that it looks nice. It also makes them feel better since they are spending money for them. If I paid for flood maps, I'd probably include them too. But I don't, so I don't.

What a scam!!

 

[TC]

I went head to head with a UW concerning a flood zone. I said no, they said yes. The FEMA people had the wrong zip for the subject. There were 2 Third streets in a 1 mile radius, different zips. Only someone local could figure it out. That client loves me for saving their client monthly flood insurance fees. I use interflood and think its a good product. And yes, I include it in the report...looks really pretty.


TC

 

[John Wilson]

Originally posted by TC@Dec 19 2003, 05:53 PM
I use interflood and think its a good product. And yes, I include it in the report...looks really pretty.

Good catch, but the problem must have been with the UW and not FEMA.

The UW was just looking at the wrong map...........

 

[TC]

No, it was FEMA, they had the wrong zip. Only someone local would have picked that up, I almost missed it until I noticed the streets didn't jive with the DeLorme.


TC

 

[dbiggers]

Originally posted by Katharine Laubscher@Dec 8 2003, 02:55 PM
We use flood insights.

I did a search for Flood insights on this forum and it sounds like the companies are the same.

If they are I love flood insights so far. Only used it for a month now. You get the census tract and all the codes, zones, dates, ext.

So far every map has come out great.

And it is the easiest thing in the world to paste into your report.

And it matches our location map from microsoft. Not that that matters.

No, Flood Insights and InterFlood are completely different, both in features and philosophy.

Flood Insights is from Transamerica (now owned by First American). InterFlood is from a la mode, my company.

Our InterFlood system uses the real, actual, 100% FEMA flood maps -- so our servers show you the actual scanned maps. FloodInsights however does not show the real FEAM flood map. With them, you get a low resolution Internet-style street map with the flood zones overlaid as colored lines on top of it. Also, your clients are then looking at an image which in no way looks like the flood maps they've seen for years.

With our InterFlood system, you have every single FEMA map online. Every single map (over 110,000 of them). Last I checked, Flood Insights was missing many hundreds of counties. Even the free FEMA online map system referenced on this forum doesn't have every map online (and the process leaves a lot to be desired in terms of usability and speed -- and it's down and/or broken quite often).

And by the way, we even pay for Flood Insight's data as a fallback position; if we don't have a clear match on the automated zone and map name extraction, we pull it from Flood Insights' servers. So, with our InterFlood you get the best of both worlds -- our superior maps, and their data if needed.

Dave Biggers
CEO
a la mode, inc.

 

[Charlotte Dixon]

I really do like interflood and just purchased 500 more lookups. The maps are so professional and clear, plus the census tract number is shown. Easy and quick! You've got to spend some money to cut down on wasted time, and improve the look of your report. This is one of the best investments I've made, and I'm not being paid to say this!

 

[John Wilson]

Originally posted by Charlotte Dixon@Jan 1 2004, 08:09 PM
You've got to spend some money to cut down on wasted time

Shouldn't you be cutting down on the wasted time to save money :question: