Actually I’m happily married and have two beautiful boys. But I do think the mortgage industry can use a little togetherness. The news has been mostly bad and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get better in the short term. Having said that, in my travels over the past month I’ve been pleasantly surprised about a few things that I’d like to share with you here.
I was invited to talk about why commercial servicers need to be more automated in the market by Midland Loan Services for their annual user conference. Actually it was a Q&A session with Midland SVP Maynard Ahner asking me the questions. Certainly a switch given I’m used to asking all the questions.
Founded in 1991, Midland Loan Services is a third-party provider of servicing and technology solutions for the commercial real estate finance industry. Midland has earned a reputation for exceptional customer service, added capabilities and technology.
One of the largest commercial loan servicers, Midland's portfolio totaled more than $271 billion at June 30, 2008. Midland is the only company with the highest U.S. primary, master and special servicer ratings from both Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's. Midland provides the full scope of commercial loan servicing for institutional, agency and CMBS portfolios, including private-label subservicing and outsourcing.
So why am I telling you this? Aside from the fact that it was a great conference, I was shocked that attendance this year was actually up. Given market conditions, most conferences this year are seeing their attendance dip, but not Midland. And their clients were, you guessed it, engaged. You could tell Midland had formed a true partnership with those servicers there. There was trust.
I had an opportunity to talk with a few of the client attendees and I’d like to share some of their thoughts with you. “I felt that Midland did a good job of shepherding us through the implementation,” said Vic Estes, director, information technology at Holliday Fenoglio Fowler. “I’ve been around the business a while and I’m familiar with the alternatives. From a technology standpoint, Midland’s Enterprise is the Cadillac.”
Among other announcements, Midland talked about now being up on SQL 2008. Their clients liked this a lot. “It looks good. I’m excited about SQL 2008,” said Jean Hixson, financial controller, investor reporting/accounting at Principal Real Estate Investors. “The market moves quickly. The nice thing that Enterprise has done is offer flexibility.”
But Ms. Hixson didn’t just attend the show as a vehicle to see Midland, but also to meet with peers. “I reach out to my counterparts all the time. My fellow servicers on the system are my peers. It’s best for me to get more users on the system because the more people on the system the more of an industry standard it becomes.
“We were on a mainframe system for 20 years that was built in-house. It was fine for most of what we needed but it lacked good reporting and we couldn’t move to the next level. There’s benefits to being part of a group. Other servicers need what I need and they’ve told Midland so it’s already in the system. I try to do the same for future clients.”
It’s nice to see a true marriage between the vendor and the user. In these times users need to form that close relationship with their vendor. Midland has done a great job creating a community where everyone can speak freely and contribute to mutual success. If only every vendor was able to do the same, I think we’d be in better shape as an industry.
For some vendors it’s just about selling. It shouldn’t be. If the client succeeds so does the vendor. In the title of this entry I included the phrase “Part One.” Why? I’ve been fortunate to be invited to a few user conferences and I want to share with you my thoughts on what happened at those events in the next few entries.
There’s a lot to be learned by coming together and learning from peers. Midland obviously does this well or they wouldn’t have had record attendance and clients anxious to engage. I’ll repeat that it’s important that everyone in the mortgage industry get and be more engaged, especially now.
