When the Sub Prime Crisis hit, the Mortgage Field Services Industry responded with a half baked idea that the Members of the National Association of Mortgage Field Services (NAMFS) would divvy up the lion’s share of the Contracts; that the Awarding Clients would pony the technology and that the smaller NAMFS participants would Order Mill out to Labor the bare bones from which we today see $19 grass recuts. There is no contesting this theory as it still happens today. If, for a moment, we set aside the rampant and prolific fraud committed by NAMFS Offender Members under the watchful eye of Eric Miller, Executive Director of NAMFS, and focus simply on technology, a very scary picture begins to emerge which no NAMFS Member will admit in public. That fact is technology has hit the End of Life (EoL) Cycle in the Industry. Miller’s obscene enrichment of his family at the detriment of the Industry by and through his amassing of nearly ONE MILLION DOLLARS in pay while NAMFS Members both commit fraud and go out of business like clockwork, stands as a testament to the fact that the Miller Regime’s apparent policy of financial terrorism is not working.
HousingWire’s ReWired blog had a good piece out on 27 July 2015, which touched upon the fact that the days of enormous entities controlling the lion’s share of assets has run its course. Amy Bergseth, Vice President of Operations for Glencoe, Illinois-based Default Servicing Technologies, LLC, described precisely the problem technology is facing in the Industry today.We see that in our Industry from the Fannie Mae approach wherein only one state per Client is being allowed. Others are following suit. The root cause of this is best demonstrated by the Safeguard Properties (SGP) fiasco wherein they held Contracts for a couple of minutes and after demonstrating that they could not perform, they lost them — the why is yet another story for another day. Here is what Ms Bergseth had to say,
In fact, it may be more true today because the distressed assets we see now are more evenly distributed among the many REO sellers in the market. Most of these companies are relatively small and have a unique set of needs, especially when it comes to the technology they use to complete their work.
This includes asset management teams working independently as well as inside the shops of smaller banks and mortgage servicers.
Because smaller customers don’t justify going to the expense of making every installation a custom job, many firms will create a version of their product that they say will meet the customer’s need with very little configuration. This is almost never the case.
Useful software must be matched to the company that uses it and this requires a hands-on approach where the vendor works closely with the customer, providing as much support as they require. Not every smaller asset management company needs this level of support. There are plenty of smaller firms that know exactly what they’re doing. But a vendor isn’t really a partner if that support isn’t available when the customer needs it.
And that’s the bottom line. Smaller firms need a complete solution, just like their larger counterparts, but they often have far fewer internal resources with which to create it. They need support from vendors who think and act like partners, and who offer software that can be customized to meet their needs. They need the advice and consulting necessary to set up robust processes around this automation. They need the industry relationships to do their jobs in an efficient and compliant manner. This type of complete solution is available to anyone who refuses to settle for less.
The aforementioned virtually shows the current information system distribution network and architecture in the Industry today. And the beauty of this is the salient point that with the advent of Open Source Technology, the once out of reach tools are now not only in reach, but in the case of the Enterprise Vendor Management Platform (EVMP) even the smallest segment of the Industry are able to capitalize upon what used to be reserved only for the financial sector.
