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We used to say mortgage servicing lagged behind origination in using technology. No more. Today there is no question that the mortgage debacle has brought mortgage servicing a host of technology tools. Servicers and default specialists are being tasked with nothing less than turning around a stalled economy. "With a national shadow inventory of 7 million mortgage loans 60 days or more delinquent, handling mortgage loan default is absolutely critical for getting our economy back together again," stated Duke Olrich, president, CEO and founder of Newport Beach, Calif.-based
DRI Management Systems.
Responding to that crisis, over the past year we have seen an avalanche of new mortgage servicing technology products and alliances. In October 2009 alone:
* Irvine, Calif.-based Mortgage Outreach Services Group released a loan modification workflow management and tracking system to increase loan-level transparency.
* Santa Barbara, Calif.-based property valuation firm Equi Trax Asset Solutions joined the short sale clearinghouse for mortgage servicers led by Irvine, Calif.-based REsource Asset Management.
* Jacksonville, Fla.-based Lender Processing Services released a version its Web-based ClosingStream software tailored for electronic signatures used with HAMP workouts, and then in August formed a default-related network of service providers.
* Fort Worth, Texas-based distressed-mortgage servicer Residential Credit Solutions implemented a new automated loan modification document services platform that integrates software from Dallas-based SigniaDocs and Bethesda, Md.-based Overture Technologies.
Mark Rogers, EVP, Residential Credit Solutions, said, "RCS was specifically built to be a special servicer of distressed assets. When we started the company in December 2006, we obviously had no idea of the depth of the mortgage crisis. As events began to unfold in the first half of 2007 we determined that to meet the demands of the crisis, what the industry really needed was an automated underwriting engine for servicing-something that got down to the financial aspects of the borrower, not just dealing with the property as an asset.
"Overture had a similar idea. They had the AU for origination but had no servicing expertise. Someone suggested to their CEO that they needed to come talk to RCS because of the vision we had shared."
The rules-based system they crafted couples borrower information with the waterfall of programs to give answers to borrowers "in seconds, not weeks or months."
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