Mortgage technology

Mortgage Settlement Network LLC, Pittsburgh, Pa. has acquired Mortgage Lenders Service Connection, a vendor management company headquartered in Cranberry Township, Pa. MSLC was owned by Ronald Wellman and was established in 2004. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. All MLSC employees will be retained and moving into the MSNi offices. MSNi is a national vendor management company. In addition to offering traditional title, closing and appraisal services nationally, MSNi also offers other solutions to assist lenders to streamline their operations and also generate additional revenue sources. Further, MSNi offers lenders an e-closing program that enables lenders to close loans electronically and then sell them to Fannie Mae on a flow basis. In addition, MSNi offers a commercial loan settlement services package of services: appraisal, title, closing, survey, EPA reports, all bundled together. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.msnillc.com.

Ron Duff of Fiserv Lending Solutions and Nancee Gorenstein of Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. have been re-elected chair and vice chair of the Governance Committee of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization.The organization said it plans to focus on standards advancement, greater outreach to the industry, and an increased number of MXCompliance certifications. The Governance Committee is elected from a cross-section of the real estate finance industry and provides oversight for MISMO's administration and policy development. The committee consists of representatives from 22 subscriber organizations that serve staggered two-year terms. MISMO is a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association that develops data transfer protocols for the residential and commercial real estate finance industry. It can be found online at http://www.mismo.org.

Veros Real Estate Solutions, Santa Ana, Calif., has released the results of its quarterly forecasting of the nation's real estate markets, predicting the five hottest and coldest markets for the next 12 months. According to Veros, the five strongest markets in its coverage area over the next 12 months will be: Wichita, Kan., with a 4% appreciation rate; and, all with a 3% rate, Raleigh/Cary, N.C.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Fargo, N.D.; and Tulsa, Okla. The weakest markets are forecast to be: Riverside/San Bernardino, Calif., down 15%; Modesto, Calif., down 15%; Palm Bay/Melbourne/Titusville, Fla., down 14%; Cape Coral/Ft. Myers, Fla., down 13%; and Sacramento/Roseville, Calif., down 12%. Veros, a risk management and collateral valuation services vendor, can be found on the Web at http://www.veros.com.

The Chinese affiliate of First American Corp., Santa Ana, Calif., has launched a website, the first of its kind in China. First Title (Beijing) Real Estate Guaranty Co. Ltd. is the first entirely foreign-owned real estate guaranty company in the country. "We want to integrate the real estate finance service chain in China," said Edward Ma, assistant vice president of information operations for First Title (Beijing). "Our website, backed by a specialized service team and partnership with leading industry practitioners such as Kblcw.com, Moneyschool.msn.com.cn, Kooxoo.com, and Pinggu.Soufun.com, provides loan product information to our clients in a timely manner." The website will serve as a one-stop, self-service platform for end-users by providing real estate purchasers and owners with the most up-to-date information on mortgage product options -- the Chinese version of escrow and other services for residential and commercial property transactions. The website is located at http://www.zhongyian.com.

Mortgage technology vendors are in for a rough ride, according to the 2007 Mortech study. Statistics show that lenders increased technology spending by approximately 8% over the past three to five years, said Mortech publisher Jeff Lebowitz. His projections before the credit crisis were that those same lenders would reduce tech spending by 2.0%-2.5% in 2008, but "with the demise and distress of major mortgage technology spenders" Mortech now projects that the decline could be 10% or more. "We have never seen the industry technology budgets being at such risk," said Mr. Lebowitz. "Most mortgage technology suppliers are pretty small -- under $50 million in revenues. Mortgage technology providers will have to be pretty resourceful to weather this storm." The 2007 study, based on a scientific sample of 330 lenders of all sizes, is now in its 20th year.

Rutgers Investment Group Inc., a subsidiary of FirstPlus Financial Group, Irving, Texas, has announced an outsourcing agreement with HomeLoanAdvisors.com to provide mortgage processing and fulfillment services. Jack Roubinek, chief executive officer at Rutgers, said the pact allows both firms to do what they do best. "HomeLoanAdvisors.com manages the client contact, while we at Rutgers take care of the back-office work, pulling the whole package together for the borrower," he said. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.firstplusgroup.com and http://www.homeloanadvisors.com.

E*Trade Financial -- which is undergoing a wrenching restructuring -- said Wednesday that it has sold an additional $3 billion worth of bonds, including mortgage-backed securities and municipals. The bank/online brokerage firm said it took a $5 million loss on the sales which occurred in separate transactions over the past several weeks. (In November it sold $3 billion in asset-backed securities.) The New York-based E*Trade also said its home equity portfolio is continuing to "run off as anticipated" and totaled just under $12 billion in loans at year's end. Early in the fall, E*Trade closed its wholesale residential unit and booked a $245 million charge against earnings because of bad home equity loans and what it called a "deterioration in the mortgage market."

First Florida Financial Group, Fort Myers, Fla., has announced the launch of DeadDeals.net, which purchases qualified "unclosable" mortgage and foreclosure leads from mortgage brokers and loan officers in Florida. DeadDeals.net pays from $50 to $500 for each lead, and its CashToolBox.com program fixes mortgage application problems that are preventing a loan approval and closing, First Florida said. Eddie Hoskins, president and chief executive officer of First Florida, said the new division enables mortgage professionals "to make some money on a deal where previously there was no revenue." The division can be found on the Web at http://www.deaddeals.net.

Doug Lebda, president and chief operating officer of IAC, has been named chairman and chief executive officer of the company's financial services and real estate businesses, including LendingTree, HomeLoanCenter, GetSmart, RealEstate.com, Domania, and iNest. C.D. Davies, CEO of LendingTree, and Bret Violette, president of RealEstate.com, will report to Mr. Lebda, who joined IAC in 2003 after the company acquired LendingTree. IAC announced in November that it plans to separate itself into five publicly traded entities (including LendingTree). The company said the latest announcement was the first in a series that will deal with the structure for each of the separate entities. IAC, Lending Tree, and RealEstate.com can be found online at http://www.iac.com, http://www.lendingtree.com, and http://www.realestate.com.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Minneapolis, has signed an agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of Houston-based Stewart Lender Services' flood determination business.The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Stewart's flood determination division offers basic certification, basic plus life of loan, portfolio review, and commercial flood determinations. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services' PCi line of flood determination solutions and Stewart's flood determination division offer similar services: determinations compliant with all federal flood regulations and the policies of government agencies and loan servicers; an online database that provides determinations in seconds; and manual determinations when necessary, with answers to questions regarding exceptions, regulatory implications, or overall service issues. Stewart Lender Services is a subsidiary of Stewart Title Co. and part of Stewart Information Services Corp. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services can be found on the Web at http://www.wolterskluwerfs.com.

Mortgage Xpress Inc., a Houston-based mortgage lender, has announced an amendment to its articles of incorporation to change its name to The Alternative Energy Technology Center Inc.Documents will be filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for approval. Mortgage Xpress said the name change, and a reverse stock split on a one-share-per-50-shares basis, will be effective when approved. The company estimated that the changes will take effect in about two weeks.

Most Home Corp., Vancouver, British Columbia, has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to purchase all or substantially all the operating assets of NetUpdate Inc., a Web-based point-of-sale technology vendor.The parties intend to close on or before Dec. 31. The anticipated total value of the transaction is up to a maximum of $2.7 million, consisting of $500,000 in common stock, a $200,000 promissory note, and earn-out (common) shares of Most Home with a maximum value of $2.0 million. Most Home Real Estate Services Inc. provides an end-to-end electronic marketing solution and technology platform that enables real estate and mortgage firms to increase their online lead conversion rates, the company said. NetUpdate can be found online at http://www.netupdate.com.

ARC Systems, a decisioning vendor based in Austin, Texas, that has been in the mortgage space for 23 years, will officially cease operations on Dec. 31.ARC is credited as the first to introduce an automated underwriting system for subprime mortgages. A few months ago, company founder and chief executive Ed Jones announced that he would be looking for a buyer, but none has shown interest to date, he told MortgageWire. "The market is scared to death," he said. "A lot of vendors are hurting more than they're willing to admit. We don't know what the market will look like when it comes back, either." Mr. Jones attributes the closure to a loss in revenue due to the fact that their major clients either went out of business or shed their correspondent channel. The company can be found online at http://www.arcsystems.com.

Dallas-based MRG Document Technologies, a provider of compliance and documentation services, is supporting modification agreements as part of its loan document library.The modified agreements enable lenders to be in compliance with evolving state and federal regulations and gives them the flexibility to restructure terms and conditions to keep borrowers in their homes. MRG's most common modifications include changes to note and security agreement rates and terms, but they also can include ancillary services that combine disclosures and recording documents. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.mrgdocs.com.

Bills.com has announced the launch of what it touts as a quick, easy-to-use program to help homeowners determine whether they are likely candidates for the Federal Housing Administration's new FHASecure program.Andrew Housser, co-chief executive of Bills.com, said determining eligibility can be challenging given the "extensive criteria" set by the FHA. But with Bills.com's FHA Secure Check program, homeowners can complete a simple form and receive an immediate assessment of their likely eligibility, along with refinancing quotes from mortgage lenders, banks, and brokers in Bills.com's lender network. The FHASecure program, in operation since September, allows homeowners to refinance their mortgages into FHA mortgages if they have missed loan payments. FHA Secure Check can be found on the Web at http://www.bills.com/fhasecure.

Oxford, Miss.-based FNC Inc. has announced the release of Collateral Headquarters as a desktop tool to enable regional and community lenders and appraisal management companies to automate appraisal ordering, assignment, tracking, and review from a single centralized platform.The system captures best practices in a user-configurable out-of-the-box solution that offers to cut turn times, lower costs, address regulatory compliance, and track performance. Collateral Headquarters also gives lenders an administrative dashboard. Users can assign appraisals automatically to their pre-approved list of vendors; manage jobs by vendor, status, or due date; use a time-and-date stamped record that tracks the progress of each loan in production; and immediately verify completed orders. An FNC spokesman said inquiries about the new service have largely come from mortgage industry players eager to head off regulatory scrutiny along the lines of the New York lawsuit alleging that First American's eAppraiseIT unit inflated appraisals on behalf of Washington Mutual. FNC can be found online at http://www.fncinc.com.

Suitability standards could open up lenders to a fair-housing can of worms, a compliance expert said Monday at the SourceMedia Fraud and Risk Conference in Las Vegas.According to Gary Lacefield, who spent a decade as a senior civil rights analyst and supervisor of lending investigations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, lenders will "need to be very cautious" if legislators and regulators impose true suitability standards on the mortgage business. "If we do away with automated underwriting," he asked, "how are we going to protect ourselves from frivolous charges of discrimination?" Mr. Lacefield, who left HUD in 1999 after personally supervising or conducting more than 1,600 investigations, said automated underwriting was created in large measure in the mid-1990s to protect lenders from charges of bias. And it worked. Once computer systems started spitting out loan approvals based solely on lenders' underwriting criteria, without being touched by humans and their inherent biases, they all but wiped out fair-housing cases against lenders, he said. But if suitability standards are imposed as a response to abusive lending practices, Mr. Lacefield, who is now director of compliance at WR Starkey Mortgage, Plano, Texas, said automated underwriting would be little more than an exercise in futility. "If we take out the specificity provided by automated underwriting, we leave ourselves wide open to allegations of discriminatory behavior," he warned.

Motivity Solutions, a Denver-based mortgage technology provider, has announced the launch of LenderBuilt, a technology co-development venture designed to help mortgage bankers upgrade their technology platforms and business performance with limited investment of resources."We are seeking leading mortgage bankers to co-develop Movation [an enterprise lending system] in an actual production environment," said Todd Sherman, Motivity's president and chief operating officer. Tyler Sherman, Motivity's chief executive officer, said, "Lenders with a long-term vision realize that now is the time to step back and completely re-evaluate their technology needs, then map out a strategic vision for the future." Movation is being developed in phases, with each module available as a stand-alone product. More information on the co-development initiative can be found online at http://www.lenderbuilt.com.

Mt. Arlington, N.J.-based NYLX has launched NYLX Exchange, a real-time information source on aggregated loan origination activity in the United States.NYLX is a provider of point-of-sale product eligibility and loan pricing technology systems. The new tool provides market information resulting from billions of dollars worth of originations that pass through the NYLX system each day. Furthermore, the exchange offers an information source for lenders, investors, and originators along with competitive information on the products and investors that are generating activity. The company said NYLX Exchange gathers and evaluates NYLX members' aggregate activity, providing originators, lenders, and secondary-market professionals with easily accessed real-time insight into origination activity, including daily market activity, the most active investors, the most active loan products, competitive intelligence, and specific investor information. Users can even find out critical competitive information on how other companies and mortgage products are trading. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.nylx.com.

Renan Levy has been named president and chief operating officer of Intellidyn Corp., a Boston-based provider of direct response marketing and multichannel database marketing systems.Intellidyn said Mr. Levy worked most recently with n2N Commerce developing advanced electronic commerce systems for large e-retailers including The Limited. He was previously a partner at Halo Group International, and COO and chief executive officer of KaBloom. Intellidyn CEO Peter Harvey touted Mr. Levy's "strong background in business analytics and intelligence practices, and vast experience within the retail, e-commerce, online services, and multichannel contact center industries." The company can be found on the Web at http://www.intellidyn.com.