Technology

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.