April 16, 2004

Well, here's wishing you all a great weekend because I expect many of you are going to be very busy next week. In fact, some lenders are already en route to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Secondary Market Conference that starts in Washington on Sunday. While I won't be attending the show this year (the next issue of RETI goes to press on Monday), I will be talking to some attendees by telephone. I expect some good stories to come out of this year's conference.

In fact, a couple of stories that will hit the newswires on Monday are already up on our site. Sysdome has added a fraud and quality control tool for the secondary market to its arsenal. Like many of its competitors, Sysdome has been working to bring its loan scoring technology closer to the point of sale. The company made a splash last year when it rolled out its Electronic Loan Review tool. The new offering operates similarly and in conjunction with that tool for the secondary market. We'll be watching to see how it is accepted.

Also, MRG Documents has formed a new partnership with eLynx. The story is up on our site now, but I expect to talk to one or both of these companies on Monday and will let you more know details.

I've also heard that Del Mar Database, the developer of DataTrac, is set to release some news at the show that company president John F. Walsh says will significantly broaden his firm's offerings. "We will be announcing, within the next 30 days, 4 or 5 new product initiatives that are every bit as sophisticated as the solutions from the most expensive vendors but priced to our target market." Those announcements are expected to begin on Monday.

Have a great weekend.

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April 15, 2004

Ellie Mae is in the news again today. I've written about this firm for a few years now and it's pretty amazing to track how the company has changed. Sig Anderman and his team have morphed that firm from a loan origination system provider for mortgage brokers, a generally low revenue/high customer service enterprise, into a business aggregation channel for wholesale lenders and settlement services companies using electronic partner network automation.

The company rolled out its new Encompass LOS last year in hopes that it would wipe industry leader Calyx Point off the map. That hasn't happened, but the additional functionality built into Encompass is making it easier for brokers to use ePass, which, in turn, is sending more of their business to the settlement services providers on the system, not to mention the wholesale lenders. The company has added some key executives of late, including BCE Emergis former president and EPN expert Gunnar Bergstrom, and former top Calyx sales guy Robert Madsen.

Also, I sent through the story on Space Imaging's technology because of the parallels to the tools that Stewart Mortgage Information is using in the development of its new spatial database.

As always, thanks for reading RETI. But be sure to take some time today to get those tax forms in the mail (like you're not already way ahead of that game).

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April 14, 2004

The next show in the October Research Corporation eRadio technology series is coming up in a couple of weeks and I have to admit that I'm a bit excited. October Research Corporation's eRadio—AVM Nation will air April 29 from 2 to 4 pm EST. I'll be serving as your host for the live show, which is patterned after a talk radio show. In February we aired the first show in this series and it was great.

This time we'll be talking to industry consultants, AVM developers, lenders and appraisers about the state of the collateral valuation industry and what the future holds. But the best part about these shows is that you get to call in and pose your questions to our panel of experts. Hit the RETI website to find out more about our panelists. If you've got a problem being on the radio, e-mail me your questions and we'll work them into the show.

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April 13, 2004

It’s official. I will be attending the joint REIPA/NPRRA conference in Williamsburg next week. I’m planning on getting their early and staying late, so if you’ve got time to tell me what your company has been up to, I’d love to visit with you. Drop me a line and we can schedule a time to meet. But at the top of my agenda will be learning more about what REIPA is trying to accomplish.

We’ve already covered the organization’s newly chartered AVM standards committee and I was very impressed to see that no less than seven independent AVM developers are taking part in the work of setting standards for AVM testing. I can’t wait to find out what else this group is working on.

You may have noticed that Fidelity announced a slew of contract extensions for its MLS products this week. That’s probably good timing on their part. In the last issue of RETI we covered Clareity’s recent survey of MLS software users. The results were not kind to Fidelity but, as Gregg Larson, president and CEO of Clareity Consulting, pointed out, the company was in transition regarding its MLS products for much of 2003. Fidelity told us before we ran the story that they were not surprised with their “scorecard” for 2003, but said that the hard work the company had been doing was paying off. This week’s announcement seems to bear that out.

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April 12, 2004 : Beginnings...

Welcome to the new RETI Web Log. I'm very excited about this space because it will allow me to share information with you (and get your feedback at editor@retipub.com) without formalizing it into a story for our cutting edge newsletter.

By now, I hope the stories we've been writing have enticed you to subscribe, but you don't have to be a subscriber to view this content. Feel free to share it with others if you feel it will do them some good. And now, to begin.

Speaking of beginnings, Guardian Mortgage Documents (GMD) has signed up the first customer for its Transaction Management System (a somewhat unfortunate name since it's also a generic term for any system that shepherds a transaction through to completion). Colonial Mortgage started using GMD's system last week.

Guardian has been using TMS internally to manage the document preparation work it does for others for some time, but only recently rolled it out as a standalone product. The company made a name for itself last year when it signed up three of the top five mortgage lenders in the space of only a few months to use its customized HELOC document functionality.

With rates expected to rise (funny how last year about this time we were also saying this), lenders have been looking for ways to make up for the refi business they are losing. Home equity is a prime target. Consequently, GMD has developed doc prep functionality to make these loans easier to write on a wholesale and correspondent basis. The NGIS system Guardian offers is quite impressive.

Still, it's not the only solution on the market. I was on the phone with Terry King, group chairman, marketing and installation for MRG Document Technologies the other day. He says his firm has been customizing HELOC docs for larger lenders for quite some time. The company is about to announce a major initiative with a well-known document delivery company, which could do more to put them on everyone's radar screen. We'll bring you that news shortly.

Speaking of news...I've spoken to a number of companies that are planning to make announcements at the upcoming MBA National Secondary Conference. I may be able to get you some of that news a little ahead of the crowd. In any event, it's starting to look like a conference I may want to attend.

But first I have to travel down to historic Williamsburg, Vir. for the annual joint conference of the Real Estate Information Professionals Association and the National Public Record Research Association. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.

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