Boxwood introduced its Property-Conditioned Mercury PRO report, or "Mercury PRO-PC" for short, that seamlessly integrates the assessment of property conditions with the results of Boxwood's commercial automated valuation model (AVM). Mercury PRO-PC is designed to assist regulated financial institutions in meeting revised Interagency Appraisal and Evaluation Guidelines for lending.

"Commercial banks and other regulated institutions seek new, cost-effective solutions to the added requirements for collateral valuation and portfolio monitoring imposed by the Guidelines," said Randy Fuchs, Boxwood principal and co-founder in a recent press release. "Mercury PRO-PC answers the call - and is not only compliant with a commercial evaluation - but also delivers unparalleled accessibility, price, data quality and data congruity with typical bank CRE loan collateral."

Mercury PRO-PC incorporates a property inspection into the pre-existing Mercury PRO report that is available in 120 U.S. metropolitan areas and contains neighborhood small-cap market data, trends and a market value estimate derived from Boxwood's commercial AVM.

Boxwood also introduced the release of its Property-Conditioned VALPRO report, or "VALPRO-PC", a more abbreviated report that supports commercial evaluations with integration of Boxwood's AVM and a property inspection. VALPRO-PC is available in roughly 250 metro areas.

Fuchs added, "The Mercury PRO-PC and VALPRO-PC reports enable our subscribers to move forward with lending programs to small business real estate owners and property investors, along with enhanced portfolio monitoring capability, knowing that these tools complement safe and sound banking practices and will get the job done with the least amount of effort and cost."

Boxwood's full suite of small-cap CRE collateral and market reports are available on the company's subscription-based web site, SmallBalance.com.

Bloomberg has introduced Boxwood's Small Cap Price Index (SCPI) to users of its Bloomberg Professional service, owned by Bloomberg Finance L.P. Bloomberg believes that the two measures, SCPI-100 and SCPI-20, offer their subscribers a unique focus on the small commercial property market for sales under $5 million. The SCPI-100 includes 103 metro areas while the SCPI-20 represents 20 of the bigger metros that also comprise the S&P/Case-Shiller Index of housing prices. Users are able use Bloomberg's charting tools to analyze small CRE property prices against housing trends and other real estate and economic time series data.

To learn more about Boxwood's SCPI measures, or how to subscribe to Boxwood's proprietary small cap price trends for 103 metro markets, go to this SmallBalance.com page.

Smaller commercial properties in secondary and tertiary markets proved far less volatile in the downturn than much pricier real estate. Small and less-expensive properties actually may carry less risk than many assume.

For a view-only copy of Boxwood's "Not One Size Fits All" article published in the April 2011 edition of Mortgage Banking magazine, click here.