Mortgage technology

Automated valuation methods are immune to transactional pressures, according to a white paper issued by the Collateral Assessment and Technologies Committee of the Real Estate Information Professionals Association.REIPA said the study found that biases in full appraisal value opinions are sometimes pronounced, and consistent with allegations of transactional pressure placed on appraisers by originators. While AVMs have a lesser tendency to overstate values, they are not as accurate as full appraisals. But the overvaluations that come from a full appraisal are more highly correlated with mortgage default risk than are the overvaluations from AVMs, the study found. "High-quality AVM systems are proven solutions that are capable of bringing incremental objectivity, consistency, and controls to collateral valuation and risk assessment processes in our evolved and modern marketplace," said the white paper's author, Terry Loebs, senior vice president at Fiserv Inc. and a member of CATC's Executive Committee. "They can do so in an efficient and cost-effective fashion that even the best-intended appraisal industry reforms or new regulations may be hard-pressed to match." The paper, "Systemic Risks in Residential Property Valuations: Perceptions and Reality," was presented at REIPA's Annual Predictive Methods Conference in Newport Beach, Calif.

Housing bubbles in the United States are following the Don Ho model, showing up only as "tiny bubbles" in local U.S. markets, according to two keynoters at the Predictive Methods Conference in Newport Beach, Calif.However, Doug Duncan, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association, and David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, disagreed on economic growth. Mr. Duncan differed with Mr. Lereah's characterization of the current 3.5% pace of U.S. economic growth as anemic, arguing that the Federal Reserve Board has said this pace is the highest the economy can sustain without inflation. Mr. Duncan, delivering the conference's June 28 keynote address, predicted that 30-year fixed mortgage rates would not reach 7% till mid-2007. Mr. Lereah was the previous day's keynote speaker at the annual conference, which is sponsored by the Real Estate Information Professionals Association. REIPA can be found online at http://www.reipa.org.

Triad Guaranty Insurance Corp., a subsidiary of Triad Guaranty Inc., Winston-Salem, N.C., has joined the BlitzDocs Certified Underwriting Provider Program.The certification allows Triad to review and underwrite electronic files directly from lenders using BlitzDocs systems from Alpharetta, Ga.-based Advectis Inc. To become certified as a BlitzDocs Certified Underwriting Provider, Advectis said a company must have a minimum of six trained BlitzDocs underwriters on staff, be a member of the Mortgage Bankers Association, demonstrate a core competency in underwriting, offer contract underwriting services to customers, and comply with basic interface requirements. Advectis can be found on the Web at http://www.advectis.com.

Spokane, Wash.-based SharperLending LLC has partnered with Stewart Mortgage Information, Houston, to offer a nationwide title and escrow system for purchase, refinance, and equity loans.In turn, Stewart can now deliver its products to the wide range of lenders using the SharperLending platform. Stewart serves the real estate and mortgage industries through the electronic delivery of products and services required for origination, settlement, and post-closing. SharperLending bundles Stewart's title, escrow, closing, flood determination, and appraisal services at a single point of entry through its interface with the vendor's back-end system. The platform enables Stewart to integrate with lenders who prefer either a national or a local agent solution. In addition, the SharperLending platform offers Stewart as a vendor option to its more than 2,000 originators. The companies can be found on the Web at http//www.stewart.com and http://www.sharperlending.com.

Metavante Corp., Milwaukee, has acquired origination vendor GHR Systems, Wayne, Pa., and TREEV LLC, a document imaging/management vendor based in Herndon, Va.Both will become subsidiaries of Metavante, and no name change is planned for either company. Metavante said it paid $19.5 for TREEV, of which approximately $17.6 million will be funded using Marshall & Ilsley Corp. common stock. Metavante also disclosed that it paid $65 million for GHR, of which approximately $55 million will be funded using Marshall & Ilsley Corp. common stock. Both deals are expected to close in the third quarter. The management teams at both GHR and TREEV will remain intact. Metavante can be found on the Web at http://www.metavante.com.

Standard & Poor's has tackled the issue of compliance with the release of "Security to Entity CrossWalk" online.The application enhances operational controls and efficiency by automatically linking more than five million securities identifiers (including CUSIPs and ISINs) from S&P and Telekurs Financial with corporate identifiers from the D&B global database, according to S&P. The application makes it possible for data managers, compliance and risk managers, portfolio managers, and operations personnel to meet new risk management mandates (such as under the Basel II accord and the Sarbanes-Oxley law) by instantly identifying risk on an asset, portfolio, companywide, or market level. Web access to "Security to Entity CrossWalk" offers clients the ability to conduct individual look-ups and on-the-fly searches. The application can be found on the Web at http://www.crosswalkweb.com.

AllRegs, an Eagan, Minn.-based online publisher of reference information for the mortgage industry, has announced the addition to its state compliance offering of Spanish versions of over 300 state-specific disclosures required at the time of origination.The Spanish versions are available without cost to any subscriber and are searchable and accessible within AllRegs to non-Spanish-speaking users, the company said. "Providing Spanish language disclosures achieves several important goals," said Steven M. Kaplan, a partner at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP’s Washington, D.C., law office and a specialist in national residential mortgage lending issues. "Not only is it required by certain laws, but it helps ensure that Spanish-speaking loan applicants understand the terms of the loan. It is a good risk management tool." Written and provided by TenA Cos., a St. Paul, Minn.-based provider of quality assurance systems, the disclosures mirror the English versions already included in AllRegs State Compliance, the company said. The companies can be found online at http://www.allregs.com, http://www.klng.com, and http://www.tenaco.com.

David Jensen has been named chief financial officer of DocuTech Corp., an Idaho Falls, Idaho-based provider of compliance services and documentation technology for the mortgage industry.Mr. Jensen has more than 30 years of accounting and financial management experience, DocuTech said. Before joining the company, he served as CFO for Idaho Falls-based Walker Produce, Walker Farms, and McNeil Development, and he held executive posts at other companies. DocuTech can be found online at http://www.docutechcorp.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced an agreement to acquire Service Link LP, a title insurance agency and provider of title and closing services to national lenders, for an undisclosed amount.The purchase will also include Asset Link, a company owned by Service Link that manages and disposes of real estate owned. "The acquisition of Service Link provides FNF and its title insurance subsidiaries with centralized title and closing capabilities and improved direct access to national lender accounts for both refinance transactions and emerging lender-driven purchase transactions," said FNF president Raymond R. Quirk. "Service Link will operate as a distinct brand under our Chicago Title subsidiary and will establish underwriting agreements with the FNF family of title insurance underwriters." FNF can be found online at http://www.fnf.com.

Melville, N.Y.-based American Brokers Conduit has launched a website that offers mortgage brokers a new set of tools and resources that allow them to manage the loan process online from locking to pipeline status.In addition, marketing materials can be individually customized for brokers to use for customer retention purposes, the company said. ABC, the wholesale division of American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., a mortgage real estate investment trust, is the 13th-largest mortgage wholesaler lender in the nation. At the end of the first quarter, ABC had a network of over 8,000 wholesale brokers, an increase of over 40% since the end of the fourth quarter and up from 2,839 brokers at the beginning of 2004. The new website can be found at http://www.abconduit.com.

Chicago-based TransUnion Settlement Solutions has released Pre-Decision Qualifier, which offers a value range for a property before a full appraisal has been ordered.PDQ delivers property characteristics for up to 15 recent neighborhood sales, a notation indicating irregular sales history, and recent transaction history, the company said. The product is designed to be used by lenders to determine whether there is a need for a full appraisal before investing in a local appraiser. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.transunionssi.com.

Mavent Inc., Irvine, Calif., has launched Mavent Compliance Console (MC2), a Web-based portal that allows lenders, loan purchasers and other mortgage-related businesses to submit loan data for a complete compliance review.With MC2, mortgage professionals can submit loan data on a manual, batch, or combined basis to the Mavent Expert System, Mavent's flagship automated compliance software that collects and processes electronic loan data against a legal rules repository. In addition, MC2 offers several proprietary features and workflow methodologies that enable users with limited or no access to electronic loan data to input information for a review, Mavent said. MC2 also includes a reporting tool that provides mortgage businesses with detailed information on both a loan-level and aggregate pipeline or pool basis. Mavent can be found on the Web at http://www.mavent.com.

South Florida-based Homekeys has announced the introduction of ValueSearch, a patent-pending online tool that enables homebuyers and real estate investors to identify potentially undervalued properties.This will give real estate investors the same ability that stock investors have had for years, the company said. "ValueSearch is the first application that extends automated valuation model technology from a single property to a set of search results," said Manuel Iraola, Homekeys' president and chief executive officer. "Most real estate sites enable you to find properties by location and features such as number of bedrooms and baths. ValueSearch enables you to refine search results by displaying properties that are potentially a good value, where the asking price is near or below the estimated value." Homekeys can be found online at http://www.homekeys.net.

The First American Corp., Santa Ana, Calif., has announced the promotion of Roger Hull, the company's chief information officer, to executive vice president.The company said the promotion came in recognition of "the key role [Mr. Hull] has played in developing and integrating First American's technology and business strategies," specifically the First American Web Services offering that now provides the backbone for delivering First American's products, services, and processes. Before joining First American, Mr. Hull's 25 years of information technology experience included serving as senior technology officer for Coldwell Banker from 1992 to 1998, when he took on that same role for First American Title Insurance Co. Mr. Hull was the subject of a feature interview in the January/February 2005 issue of Mortgage Technology magazine, a MortgageWire affiliate.

To expand its wholesale lending initiative and help its originators price loans more efficiently, Chicago-based Guaranteed Rate has picked MortgageHub's LoanFactory decisioning, product, and pricing engine and Wholesale Internet Lending applications.Conshohocken, Pa.-based MortgageHub offers a Web services platform to deliver Internet-based systems for wholesale, retail, and servicing functions. Guaranteed Rate will use the wholesale system to start serving 100 brokers immediately, with the intention of expanding to 500 by year-end, the company said. The MortgageHub wholesale system offers to eliminate costly paper, fax and phone communications between wholesaler and broker. Guaranteed Rate can be found online at http://www.guaranteedrate.com.

Myers Internet, San Jose, Calif., has released the latest version of its online loan application."Customers that visit our client websites can now not only complete an application online, but also print the application and disclosure documents and fax or mail them into their company," said Myers chief executive officer Warren Myer. "The disclosure documents are pre-populated with information from the loan application." A new calculator for consumers to determine their monthly income has also been added. The update will be delivered free to all existing clients and will be a part of Myers' Executive, Standard, and Automated website packages. Myers, which hosts 5,000 mortgage websites, can be found on the Web at http://www.myers.com.

ERS Group, Knoxville, Tenn., has announced the release of software tools to help financial services firms determine their regulatory compliance guidelines under various pieces of mortgage-related federal legislation.The Web-based RiskExec is designed to help financial firms improve productivity by reducing their data management burdens and enhancing communication among their compliance team members, the company said. It consists of software tools "developed specifically for financial services firms and their management teams covering [Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Community Reinvestment Act], and high-cost loan analyses," said Cary Collins, a principal at ERS Group. "We help clients better manage regulatory and compliance risks by monitoring their ongoing lending processes and by providing appropriate compliance and executive-level reporting on these processes." The company, a subsidiary of Dallas-based SourceCorp, can be found online at http://www.ersgroup.com.

Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Experian-Scorex has announced the release of ScoreRight, a credit simulation tool.ScoreRight provides a side-by-side comparison of an applicant's credit information from all three credit reporting agencies, a tradeline level view of the applicant's accounts, and the ability to simulate credit-related actions to help educate applicants about what they need to do to help their credit rating, the company said. Experian-Scorex can be found on the Web at http://www.experian-scorex.com.

Wholesale Access Mortgage Research & Consulting, Shaker Heights, Ohio, has released preliminary results of its Mortgage Brokers 2004 Study.The study found that all brokers accounted for 68% ($1.8 trillion) of last year's total origination activity, and that the mean brokerage firm produced $32 million, with an average of 8.7 employees. The study also found that conforming loans accounted for 46% of brokers' volume; that the most-used wholesalers are Countrywide, for conforming loans, and National City, for subprime loans; and that brokers in general are heavy users of technology, which has allowed them to reduce their firm size and still keep their volume up. The completed study will be available in late July. Wholesale Access can be found on the Web at http:/www.wholesaleaccess.com.

The nation's first offshore, around-the-clock electronic mortgage processing service has been announced by Miami-based E-OPS.The company said originators fax, upload, or enter data into the E-OPS Web-based system and offshore processors handle all pre-closing processing tasks. E-OPS said it is the first contract processing company to provide online virtual access to customer files with real-time feedback between the loan officer, customers, and third parties. For its offshore processing, E-OPS has signed an exclusive partnership agreement with Wipro BPO, a business unit of Wipro Technologies. "We are processing loans approximately 40% faster than any other available alternative thanks to around-the-clock processing, skilled processors, and cutting-edge technology," said Joe Machado, chief executive officer at E-OPS. "Wipro BPO is a key element of our strategy, and we're impressed with their understanding of our business and ability to optimize the process to drive down costs and turnaround time." The companies can be found online at http://www.eops.cc and http://www.wipro.com.