End2End Solutions
A Single Point of Contact During the Eviction Process by Carole VanSickle Ellis When Barry Owens, founder and CEO of end-to-end default management servicer End2End Solutions, decided the time had come to solve the “evictions problem” in real estate once and for all, eviction processes were nearly at a standstill. That is because Owens started his company, which he describes as a “true one-stop-shop for the entire lifecycle of an eviction,” when 2020’s global COVID-19 pandemic was in the process of changing that particular element of real estate in lasting and dramatic ways. For example, between March and December 2020, eviction filings alone fell by 65%, and the actual number of evictions was even lower. Although many entrepreneurs might have paused their startup efforts in the face of numbers like these, Owens viewed the entire situation as an opportunity to solve a major problem for residents and property owners alike. “When we initially started the company, there were no evictions going on,” Owens said. “Ironically, that meant we were able to come in [to the space] fresh and go out and hire people whose talents otherwise might not have been available. The timing really played in our favor.” The founder’s first hire was Tonya Willis, a leading subject-matter expert on the eviction process and, today, COO of End2End Solutions. She was essential, Owens explained, because the biggest stumbling block in the eviction process was a lack of communication from one stage to the next. This opacity occurs naturally in the process because different specialists have traditionally handled different elements of eviction, largely in order to ensure that the rights of the resident are fully protected. Residents’ rights vary not only from state to state, but also from city to city, making it imperative that a lien-holder or landlord initiating the eviction process work with service providers familiar with local regulations. “It made it very hard to track things,” Owens said, citing one property owner who spent hundreds of dollars re-keying a lock only to find they did not have the right code for the door. “I sat down and looked at all the processes together and thought, ‘Wow, this is really broken,’” he continued. “That is when it dawned on me we could create one communication portal to be a single point of contact.” That portal concept, which ultimately became the End2End Solutions platform, essentially enabled the company to bring all elements of the eviction process in-house without sacrificing important “boots-on-the-ground” insight and experience. “I had been in mortgage servicing for my entire career to that point, and, in the early days, we were doing all of these things using index cards and phone calls,” Owens recalled. “In 2020, however, the technology was available that enabled us to make a change for the better.” Bringing the Right People & the Right Technology Together Owens and Willis got to work delineating every part and process that goes into an eviction, including elements revolving around resident welfare, such as helping tenants facing eviction identify resources that can support them through the process of identifying a new place to live. The two also laid out a detailed timeline of the eviction process and all the individual steps involved, including working with legal professionals, tracking court schedules, proceedings, and verdicts, coordinating with law enforcement, and bringing property preservation service providers on board quickly to protect the asset. “We knew how important it was to bring in the right people and build out the right technology at the same time,” Owens said. “We were very fortunate to land the best person in the eviction world [from a servicing perspective] when we hired Tonya [Willis], and then, during 2020, we had the time to build out an application that truly policed the entire process and made sure everyone involved in the eviction was on the same page.” By the end of the development stage, the company’s senior management team boasted more than 100 years of accumulated experience and End2End Solutions was ready to launch its suite of services. Those services included working with residents on “Cash for Keys” solutions, which became extremely popular during 2020 and afterward, legal evictions, property preservation, service of process, vacant property registration, and placement assistance. “We understood that fragmented processes within a multifaceted task [like eviction] lead to communication breakdowns, lack of continuity, and time management problems that resulted in financial losses for property owners,” Willis said. “When we entered the market, we did so with a total understanding of all default processes and in a position to eliminate the fragmentation.” The key to avoiding that perilous fragmentation is End2End’s communication platform, which places local providers in contact with each other and the owner of the asset associated with the eviction. End2End Solutions maintains a network of local vendors and subject-matter experts in all 50 states, enabling complete coordination of the entire process and incorporating feedback and updates for clients at the same time. “This is important in every market, but particularly in nuanced markets like Baltimore, Maryland, or the state of Massachusetts,” Owens said. “We use our system to corral information and make effective decisions about the eviction process very quickly because we know the nature of the market environments across the nation.” The company soon discovered that the concept of “remote work,” now ubiquitous, but, at that time, a foreign concept to many, would contribute significantly to its ability to achieve goals revolving around continuity and timely communication. “A big part of our success is we have people all over the country, working in all time zones, that have their ears to the ground and know what is going on politically, what types of changes may have occurred in the law, and how things are going in their local markets,” Owens said. Reworking the Process to Reduce Costs & Confusion One of Owens’s mantras in business is, “Just because we have been doing something a certain way for decades does not mean we have been doing it the
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