Mortgage technology

Denver-based Mortgage Cadence implemented its end-to-end LOS at Global Home Loans in just six months, and now it has topped that by going through the same cycle at RateStar Inc. in just 60 days, according to Mortgage Cadence.Homeowners Loan Corp. launched Mortgage Cadence in early 2004 as a plan to increase its internal efficiencies and extend them throughout its entire enterprise, including its wholly owned subsidiary, RateStar. HLC chief technology officer Paul Sadler said it took "a lot of hard work" to get RateStar up and running in 60 days. "Part of the success of this implementation is because we're very familiar with the Mortgage Cadence product," Mr. Sadler said. "We've been using it on the back end since 2004 and are now rolling it out to the front end." Nonetheless, Mr. Sadler said that even someone completely unfamiliar with Mortgage Cadence should be able to do a successful implementation within 90 days.

Jacksonville, Fla.-based WellFound Decade Corp., a provider of business integration software, has launched InvestorExpress, a product that permits mortgage sellers to electronically deliver mortgage loan data to their investors, including Countrywide.Countrywide's correspondent customers are the first to benefit from InvestorExpress, which enables the electronic delivery of loans to Countrywide with 98.5% accuracy, according to WellFound Decade. InvestorExpress automatically extracts committed loan data from the seller's system, translates the data into the investor's format of choice, and securely delivers it for upload into the investor's system. (For more on the benefits of this interface, see the March 28 issue of National Mortgage News.) WellFound Decade can be found on the Web at http://www.wellfounddecade.com.

Fidelity National Field Services Inc., a unit of Fidelity National Financial, Jacksonville, Fla., has introduced a state-specific, Web-based contractor assessment program for property preservation contractors.The Contractor Qualification Assessment program will "validate the industry proficiencies of more than 1,000 independent property preservation contractors managed by Fidelity National Field Services nationwide," according to the parent company. FNF said the program is based on lender and investor guidelines and "best practices" in the industry. It consists of questions relating to lender and investor requirements and state-specific requirements involving services such as conveyance preparation, lock changes, eviction attendances, and pool coverings, the company said. Fidelity National Field Services can be found online at http://www.fnfieldserv.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced the introduction of the Offer Management System, a tool designed to enable brokers and agents to initiate offers and counteroffers for bank-owned property online or to respond to counteroffers online.The tool is being launched by Fidelity National Asset Management Solutions, a division of FNF. For brokers and agents, the Offer Management System is designed to replace the manual e-mailing and faxing of offers and negotiations, FNF said. "All offer and negotiation information entered into the system will automatically populate into FNAMS's case management system, providing property owners with real-time access to the status of property negotiations and expediting the entire negotiation process," the company said. The automation of negotiations will be carried out directly through the FNAMS website, which can be found online at http://www.fnams.com.

Fidelity National Financial, Jacksonville, Fla., has announced the addition of online bidding capabilities to BuyBankHomes.com, FNF's Web portal dedicated to marketing properties that have completed the foreclosure process.The new feature offers interested parties a convenient way to place online bids on foreclosed properties that will be presented at live onsite auctions, the company said. "BuyBankHomes.com's online bidding capabilities enable buyers and investors to be represented at the live auction by proxy, which will result in a one-time bid being submitted on their behalf at the appropriate point in the live auction process," FNF said. The company can be found online at http://www.buybankhomes.com and http://www.fnf.com.

Anti-fraud automation leaders Sysdome, Calabasas, Calif., and AppIntelligence, Weldon Spring, Mo., have come together to form one anti-fraud juggernaut.ISO, which acquired AppIntelligence earlier this year, has acquired Sysdome for an undisclosed sum. Sysdome and AppIntelligence will be combined into a single new division called ISO Mortgage Analytics. The combined entity boasts a mortgage client list of over 1,000 institutions and a full suite of products to combat most known types of mortgage fraud. MortgageWire has learned that Kevin Coop, president of Sysdome, will be the new president of ISO Mortgage Analytics. Despite the overlap, the company plans to maintain both product offerings. For more information, see the March 21 issue of National Mortgage News.

Irvine, Calif.-based Portellus has just announced its entry into the market for wholesale origination websites with a feature-rich broker portal module.The new offering boasts a "very customizable" front-end user interface coupled with Portellus' existing loan file workflow and advanced business rules management system, the company said. Portellus' Mortgage Solutions Framework offers a complete suite of mortgage processing modules that can be implemented individually or integrated, extending from point of sale to secondary marketing and servicing. The system can be brought in-house or used on a hosted basis. To enable easy customization, user interface screens are built independently of validation, decisioning, and workflow logic. Features includes broker portal administration, risk-based pricing, and broker-specific promotions. The company can be found online at http://www.portellus.com.

RamQuest Software, Plano, Texas, has announced the formation of a strategic partnership with LandAmerica Financial Group and Old Republic National Title Insurance Co. under which the latter two companies have purchased minority equity interests in RamQuest.RamQuest, which provides software for the land title industry, said the partnership combines its technological expertise with the "strategic insights and knowledge" of LandAmerica and Old Republic. It said key members of its management team, including chief executive officer Mark McElroy, chief operating officer Neil E. Syken, and chief financial officer Steven P. Terry, will remain with the company. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.ramquest.com, http://www.landam.com, and http://www.oldrepublictitle.com.

Among North America's largest financial services firms, E-Loan ranked highest overall in online customer satisfaction in the first quarter and Fleet Bank ranked No. 1 among commercial banks, according to the Customer Respect Group.In other results of CRG's First Quarter 2005 Online Customer Respect Study, World Savings Bank scored highest among savings institutions, while Washington Mutual scored lowest, and A.G. Edwards topped the securities companies list, while Morgan Stanley scored lowest. Among companies operating almost exclusively through the Internet and telephone, E-Loan did best among Internet financial firms, and best overall. The study also indicated that 43% of surveyed firms share personal data with business partners or third parties, one of the highest industry percentages measured. That percentage fell from 59% in the second-quarter 2004 report, but is still much higher than the 24% all-industry 2004 average. CRG said the results are based on interviews of a representative sample of the adult Internet population, and analysis of more than 2,000 corporate websites. The company is an international research and consulting firm that focuses on how corporations treat their customers online.

Clayton, a provider of loan-level compliance data based in Shelton, Conn., and AllRegs, a publisher of searchable guidelines for residential mortgage lenders based in Eagan, Minn., have announced a full integration of Clayton's High-Cost Analyzer with AllRegs' online legislative database.After running a fully automated regulatory compliance test, users of High-Cost Analyzer can now directly access the complete text of high-cost and anti-predatory-lending legislation without leaving the summary screen of the application, the companies said. Clients can access the text of legislation when engaging in compliance discussions with brokers or secondary-marketing personnel. "This creates the right combination of automated analytic results and detailed drill-down capability for compliance personnel as they cope with the critical and complex task of assuring regulatory compliance," said Glenn Ford, chairman and chief executive officer of AllRegs. The companies can be found online at http://www.clayton.com and http://www.allregs.com.

Patrick Hartford, senior business analyst for VMP Mortgage Solutions Inc., St. Cloud, Minn., has been named vice chairperson of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization's eMortgage Workgroup.Mr. Hartford was elected to the one-year post by the work group, which consists of more than 60 individuals from key industry organizations. The company said Mr. Hartford has become an "influential voice" on matters related to electronic mortgages. He has led classes on e-mortgage technology for the Mortgage Bankers Association's CampusMBA, and has been a contributor to the eMortgage Workgroup since joining soon after it was established in 2001. The work group was created by MISMO to develop a fully electronic mortgage.

Employment in the overall mortgage industry hit a record 489,400 full-time positions in January, but broker jobs appear to be slipping.According to figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of "real estate credit" employees reached a record 366,300, but "mortgage and non-mortgage broker" jobs came in at 123,100 positions, the lowest reading since September of last year. (Added together, real estate credit employees and mortgage and non-mortgage brokers account for total industry employment.) In 2004 mortgage lenders funded $2.7 trillion in loans, according to National Mortgage News, the industry's second-best year ever. Employment in the industry is expected to remain strong as long as mortgage rates do not rise significantly. However, in the refinancing market -- where loan brokers play a more prominent role -- applications are continuing to decline. Two years ago the mortgage industry employed 421,000 full-timers.

ValuAmerica, a Pittsburgh-based developer of settlement services technology and a builder of large-scale vendor management captives, has introduced a Web version of its ValuNet platform.The new software, called ValuNet xsp, enables lenders, title companies, and other settlement services providers of all sizes to access technology and products previously available only to large vendor management captives, the company said. Specifically, it gives them access to embedded settlement services providers such as appraisers, abstractors, title underwriters, credit, flood, and tax services. In addition, the product features a 50-state, ZIP-code-specific bundled pricing calculator that allows lenders to offer customized settlement service packages. The company can be found online at http://www.valuamerica.com.

While Dublin, Calif.-based Ellie Mae has entered into a strategic and exclusive partnership with appraisal technology vendor a la mode, it will continue its existing ties with Appraisal.com.

Meanwhile, a la mode has announced several product updates that will tie its products together in a more collaborative fashion.For example, the company offers three website products -- AppraiserXSites for appraisers, MortgageXSites for mortgage brokers, and Agent XSites for real estate agents -- that will now be able to talk to each other more effectively and to push relevant data to mobile products that appraisers use in the field and to aurora, the a la mode appraiser desktop system. This integration will enable real estate agents to share listings and communicate more directly with brokers during the mortgage process, the company said at its first annual Appraiser Convention in Las Vegas. Brokers will also be able to market themselves to both real estate agents and appraisers to get more business. In addition, new listing styles have been added to make the websites easier to read and more user friendly, the company said.

Dublin, Calif.-based Ellie Mae has announced that it will integrate its three loan origination tools (Encompass, Genesis, and Contour) as well as its ePASS portal exclusively to a la mode's appraisal products.Through the partnership, Ellie Mae said its users will be able to order appraisers directly via an integration with a la mode's AppraiserXSite network of appraiser websites. The appraiser will then be able to push back the completed report through its individual XSite website (provided by a la mode) to its Ellie Mae clients, resulting in the automatic population of the data into the loan origination system without any rekeying. The announcement was made at the first annual a la mode Appraiser Convention in Las Vegas. Ellie Mae can be found online at http://www.elliemae.com.

The chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based a la mode inc. has told appraisers that his company would "never partner with an automated valuation model provider" and declared himself to be "the appraiser's advocate."Speaking at the first annual a la mode Appraiser Convention in Las Vegas, David Biggers emphasized that he is not after a piece of the appraiser's fee because he wants appraisers to prosper so they can continue to invest in his company's offerings. Mr. Biggers suggested that one way for appraisers to halt the increasing acceptance of AVMs is to copyright their reports to make it impossible for their data to be stolen and used to create a competing product, such as an AVM. With the release of a la mode's aurora product, the appraiser will be able to apply for a copyright from within the system. (For more details, see the Feb. 28 issue of National Mortgage News.) The company can be found on the Web at http://www.alamode.com.

Commercial Defeasance LLC, Charlotte, N.C., recently added two new calculators to its website.The Return on Equity and Sensitivity calculators complement the Quick Quote defeasance cost calculator, providing borrowers with analytical tools to help them decide whether to defease their securitized commercial mortgages. (Defeasance is a substitution of collateral in which a portfolio of government securities replaces the property as the collateral.) The Return on Equity calculator enables borrowers to compare the cost of defeasing and obtaining a new loan at current interest rates, obtaining mezzanine financing and refinancing at maturity at prevailing rates, and doing nothing and refinancing at maturity at prevailing rates, the company said. The Sensitivity calculator allows borrowers who are not ready for defeasance to anticipate future shifts in the yield curve and simulate the effects of higher or lower yields on government Treasuries. The company can be found online at http://www.defeasewithease.com.

LoanPerformance, a San Francisco-based provider of residential mortgage data and analytics, has announced the release of version 3.1 of its RiskModel forecasting tool for mortgage defaults, losses, prepayments, and delinquencies.RiskModel 3.1 features new statistical models for alternative-A and prime loans and delivers "dramatic improvement" in performance based on back-tests of over 4 million loans and over 1,700 securities, the company declared. Among the enhancements to the tool are: the addition of 12-month loan payment history as an optional input; the addition of a new payment shock variable for adjustable-rate mortgages; and explicit modeling of teaser rates and of the impact of housing price appreciation on prepayments. "Our goal is to predict the future rather than match or 'over-fit' the past," said Ralph DeFranco, the product manager of RiskModel. The company can be found online at http://www.loanperformance.com.

LSI Credit Services, a division of Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has released a new point-of-sale website designed to provide originators with increased efficiency and effectiveness in credit services ordering and management processes.The new site provides originators with easy access to LSI Credit Services' products and credit reports and improved ordering functionality for its supplemental credit service offerings, LSI said. An online chat feature has been added to enable customers to discuss questions on products or services with a member of the customer service team in real time. In addition, originators will be able to access LSI Credit Services' accounting department through the chat feature to address online billing questions. Several administrative features have also been incorporated, such as a management reporting feature to provide clients with information, including the number of credit reports ordered, report turn-around times, and management summaries, LSI said. The site also includes a tracking feature that organizes product and service fees by borrower and a component that enables administrative users to add and delete users as needed. The new website can be found online at http://www.lsicredit.com.