Mortgage technology

Kroll Factual Data, a Loveland, Colo.-based provider of business information to mortgage lenders and others, has announced an expansion of its risk assessment services with the introduction of FullFacts.The service assesses the risk of misrepresentation by brokers, appraisers, loan officers, closing agents, and other participants in the mortgage loan process. "FullFacts comprehensively identifies loan party collusion, conflict of interest, and non-arm's-length transactions for every participant involved in a mortgage loan" and determines whether any participant is included on exclusionary and compliance lists, said Jeff Gentry, vice president of Kroll Factual Data. "To streamline your workflow, Kroll Factual Data can upload your own internal exclusionary list into the FullFacts participant risk analysis." Kroll Factual Data can be found online at http://www.krollfactualdata.com.

Artemis Enterprises, Chicago, has released a solution for storing and managing shared enterprise content and contact information called Artemis.Artemis, the company's flagship collaborative cross-enterprise information management software solution is a Web-based technology that functions as a collaborative enterprise information management solution and as a portal for companies to share and disseminate information, enabling businesses to store, access, distribute and share critical information, both within their organizations and with outside vendors, clients and partners. A hosted Software as a Service solution, Artemis provides companies with a centralized repository and management solution for internal company and third-party partner contact data, and updates shared contact information on behalf of user-members. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.ArtemisInfo.com.

Carteret Mortgage will deploy credit analysis technology to all its 300 branches to raise the bar on doing quality originations.Specifically, Carteret will use Market Kinetix's patent-pending credit analysis software solution Deal Maker Score. The application provides step-by-step directions to raise a borrower's credit score. A mortgage originator downloads the borrower's credit findings to the product, and the program produces a customized set of recommendations, which show a borrower how to raise their credit score by the target number of points designated by the loan officer. Carteret can be found on the Web at http://www.CarteretMortgage.com.

The Mortgage Insurance Companies of America has launched a redesigned, interactive Spanish-language website designed to promote the benefits of private mortgage insurance, including the fact that premiums are now tax-deductible for the first time for many borrowers.Private MI premiums are now fully tax deductible for borrowers who buy or refinance a home if their adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less, MICA said. Families with incomes above $100,000 (up to $109,000) will be eligible for a reduced deduction. "By highlighting the affordable, predictable, cancelable, and tax deductible benefits of a loan with private MI, our redesigned Spanish-language website will provide consumers, loan originators and real estate agents with a valuable tool to make informed decisions and recommendations," said Suzanne C. Hutchinson, executive vice president of MICA. The new website can be found at http://www.privatemi.com/enespanol.

Offering useful insights into the realm of consumer-direct, Web-based mortgage lending, Mortgagebot LLC, Mequon, Wis., has announced the release of its Benchmarks 2007 study of online lending practices.The study showed that a quarter of the lenders studied "now originate more than half of their loan volume via the online channel." Research participants include 25 of the top 100 banks and thrifts and 40 of the top 100 credit unions. Confirming trends and "debunking" some myths, the study offers detailed data analysis of loan product and decisioning statistics, online borrower behavior and website usage, lender website configuration and marketing, and more. The study showed that online loan seekers tend to be young, affluent, and creditworthy, with an average income above $85,000 and an average credit score above 700. The study is based on a comprehensive survey and analysis of the online lending practices and procedures at more than 3,600 mortgage lending websites maintained for Mortgagebot's more than 700 clients nationwide. The company can be found online at http://www.mortgagebot.com.

Midsize and large homes are showing steeper declines in value over the past year than smaller single-family residences, according to Zillow.com, an online real estate community based in Seattle.Zillow's quarterly national home value report found that home values fell only 0.1% in the second quarter and were 2.8% lower than in the second quarter of 2006. But midsize and large homes lost value on a year-over-year basis at the rate of 3.1% and 2.8%, respectively, while small homes fell only 1.0%. "The U.S. real estate market still appears quite anemic, at best, with many markets still doing poorly, especially those in South Florida and Southern California," said Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president of data and analytics. "The one ray of home this period is that we've not seen another quarter-over-quarter decline as we've experienced in the past two quarters. The significantly poorer performance of condos and larger single-family homes suggests that prices for these housing sectors are still not in accord with current demand." Zillow can be found online at http://www.zillow.com.

Mike Perlman has been named executive vice president for operations and technology at Freddie Mac.Mr. Perlman will be responsible for managing the largest segment of Freddie Mac's business operations, including all its mortgage origination and servicing, investment and capital markets operations, and information systems divisions. He was most recently a managing director at Morgan Stanley and developed the operations and technology infrastructure supporting its Fixed Income and Global Operations divisions, Freddie Mac said. Before joining Morgan Stanley in 1997, Mr. Perlman had been a founding partner at AT&T Solutions' Financial Services Group and a partner in the Washington, D.C. and New York offices of Deloitte & Touche.

Todd Moncrief has joined Advectis Inc., an Atlanta-based electronic collaboration and workflow vendor, as vice president of business development.Mr. Moncrief has more than 14 years of experience in mortgage lending and technology systems. In his new position, Mr. Moncrief will be responsible for the development and management of Advectis' BlitzDocs networked provider and partner relationships, as well as creating product strategy for BlitzDocs Collaboration Suite and Advectis' electronic mortgage initiatives. Mr. Moncrief is coming to Advectis from Fiserv Lending Solutions, where he was the national sales executive for electronic lending. Prior to Fiserv, he was vice president of sales and business development at SwiftView, which was acquired by eLynx. Advectis can be found on the Web at http://www.advectis.com.

Unite Here, a New York-based labor union, has launched a website that it terms "an open resource on the subprime lending crisis and the nation's No. 1 subprime lender, Countrywide Financial Corp."Unite Here, which says it represents over 450,000 North American members, said it has also sent a survey to 1,500 borrowers who took out Countrywide adjustable-rate mortgages. The union said it will use the survey to research customers' experience, including knowledge of the terms of loans at the time they were made. The new website can be found at http://www.eyeoncountrywide.info, and the union can be found at http://www.unitehere.org.

First American Credco, a provider of specialty credit (and part of First Advantage Corp.), and First American CoreLogic have announced the introduction of ThirdParty Manager and Professional Screening Services as part of a line of mortgage lender origination and channel management tools.First American CoreLogic said its ThirdParty Manager streamlines the submission of broker data, as well as the due diligence, management, and monitoring of wholesale channel brokers via an online wizard. It also provides integrated due-diligence data and management tools for lenders to manage their overall broker relationships. First American Credco's Professional Screening Services, which includes broker and third-party screening and license monitoring, has been integrated with ThirdParty Manager. These services enable lenders to certify new originators, recertify third-party contractors, and perform a complete audit on their broker base as needed. "The integration of First Advantage's due diligence management capabilities and First American's solutions helps effectively manage risk and mortgage fraud, a growing issue affecting our lender customers, as well as the consumer," said Kathy Manzione, president of First American Credco. The companies can be found online at http://www.credco.com and http://www.facorelogic.com.

Keynoting the REConnect Conference in San Francisco, LendingTree founder Doug Lebda predicted that the survivors of the current mortgage liquidity crunch will grow bigger and stronger.While mortgage lenders may not want to become part of a conglomerate -- as his company did when he sold it to Barry Diller's IAC -- he said LendingTree itself has thrived under the IAC umbrella. Mr. Lebda reassured lenders that LendingTree will remain more of a marketplace facilitator than a competitor to mortgage lenders. He said its slice of the mortgage origination market will remain tiny as LendingTree concentrates on building business on the real estate side. LendingTree can be found online at http://www.lendingtree.com.

In a win for the Internet-based loan origination system model, Metavante Corp. has announced that Platinum Home Mortgage, Rolling Meadows, Ill., is upgrading to Metavante's online Mortgage Loan Origination Studio Software.Platinum president Bill Giambrone, a Metavante client since 2002, said the company chose moving to a Web-based mortgage LOS "to improve loan officer productivity and increase sales, while reducing the cost of maintaining client-server software on our employees' desktops." He said MLOS was one of the most feature-rich browser-based applications available. MLOS offers to help eliminate the high cost of distributing and maintaining desktop software on its originators' computers and reduce the risk associated with applications installed on laptops. Platinum can be found online at http://www.ephmc.com, and Metavante can be found at http://www.metavante.com.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Minneapolis, has named Ken Newton executive vice president of banking content.Mr. Newton will be responsible for the company's overall growth in the banking, credit union, indirect lending, and mortgage markets. Prior to this promotion, Mr. Newton served as the vice president and chief operations officer for WKFS, where he led the operational aspects of the organization's manufacturing, customer support, product distribution, and enterprise systems. He also led the implementation of Lean Six Sigma across the company. WKFS can be found on the Web at http://www.wolterskluwerfs.com.

Integra Software Systems, a provider of mortgage origination software based in Brentwood, Tenn., has acquired the assets of Financial Compliance Corp. for an undisclosed amount."We are finding that more lenders, especially banks, want one software partner to handle their overall lending processing needs," said Integra president Jerry Pratt. Tim Bartek, senior vice president of sales-marketing for Integra, said the acquisition "is going to be a tremendous, immediate complement to our Destiny mortgage loan origination system, which is among the most robust in the industry. Now, we can also address lenders' other software needs -- beyond residential mortgages." Integra said it will immediately begin marketing FCC's WinBanker and WinDeposit as standalone products, and plans eventually to integrate key features into the Destiny software. The company also announced that Jim Williams, formerly president of FCC, has joined Integra, bringing over 30 years of experience in software development for banks and other lenders.

Zenta, a knowledge and business process outsourcing company based in New York, and Ellie Mae, Dublin, Calif., have entered into an affiliated partner agreement to offer Zenta's Broker Services through Ellie Mae's ePASS Network Web portal.Zenta Broker Services is a hybrid onshore/offshore service delivery platform that provides a low-cost alternative to in-house loan processing. Zenta said the platform has been designed to provide rapid turn times on loan processes and to comply with strict quality guidelines to improve processes by eliminating defects in the loan processing service. By combining Zenta's loan processing approach with Ellie Mae's Encompass Mortgage Management software, "users will get faster, higher-quality, and more-secure transfer of data and documents," the companies said. The companies can be found online at http://www.zenta.com and http://www.elliemae.com.

Bank of the West, one of the nation's 25 largest banks, is automating its commercial loan origination process using ILog JRules, a key offering in ILog's Business Rule Management System product line.The announcement comes after an 18-month search and implementation process. Bank of the West said it expects to compress the average approval time to five hours from the three-to-five days it now takes with a manual process, significantly increasing its service level. The bank pilot-tested 300 users out of a total population of 1,000 salespeople and business bankers who would ultimately use the system, taking eight weeks to "work out the kinks and deal with any unforeseen issues." The bank said it expects to do its full production rollout by the end of August. Bank of the West can be found online at http://www.bankofthewest.com, and ILog can be found at http://www.ilog.com.

Interactive communications specialist Varolii Corp. has announced that BOK Mortgage, a division of $18 billion multibank holding company BOK Financial, is now using Varolii's interactive collections system to reduce its mortgage delinquency ratio.Since adding Varolii to its mortgage collections process, BOK Mortgage has realized a 12% reduction in its mortgage delinquency ratio, according to the announcement. BOK Mortgage leverages the Varolii platform to automate much of the communications process around early-stage delinquencies, enabling the company to focus its contact center resources on more complex, high-priority accounts. Seattle-based Varolii can be found online at http://www.varolii.com, and BOK Financial can be found at http://www.bokf.com.

Starting July 22, Fannie Mae's automated underwriting system will alert lenders if the collateral for a mortgage is located in an area where house prices are declining.In such cases, Fannie's Desktop Underwriter will send a message to lenders that they need to carefully review the appraisal to ensure its accuracy and require additional information from the appraiser, if necessary. Appraisers should describe market trends and the effects it will have on the value of the property, Fannie says in an announcement to its seller/servicers. "It is unacceptable for the appraiser to ignore these issues and not report the factual property value trends and market conditions," Announcement 07-11 says. The government-sponsored enterprise can be found online at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Capital Markets Cooperative, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., has announced an alliance with Fannie Mae aimed at providing CMC members greater benefits when selling loans to the secondary market.CMC members will now have access to Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter platform in addition to advantageous pricing, increased flexibility in methods of execution, and a variety of loan products and value-added services, CMC said. "[O]ur clients now have greater flexibility and receive better pricing on the loans they sell upstream to Fannie Mae," said CMC president Tom Millon. "They'll also pay lower fees to use Desktop Underwriter." CMC, a provider of services aimed at reducing risk and maximizing profits for mortgage bankers, can be found online at http://www.capmkts.org, and Fannie Mae can be found at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Visre Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced that it will provide appraisal software firms, automated valuation model providers, and mortgage lenders immediate accessibility to millions of auditable residential photos through its Residential Appraisal Image Library.Geo-coded to property addresses, Visre can deliver singular 2-megapixel parcel photos as well as larger panoramas blended from multiple photos to showcase subject properties, comparable properties, and neighboring parcels. Historically, calls to include imagery in AVMs have been slow to materialize as providers have only recently begun exploring how valuations can be photo-enhanced without affecting critical response times. Offering benefits to appraisal software developers and AVM providers, Visre's RAIL solution provides clients an API for rapid software integration. Visre said it sees street-level video as the next step in evolving property appraisals. The company can be found online at http://www.visre.com.