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 right way.” This mindset has enabled him to look at long-held processes and beliefs about the eviction process with fresh eyes and evaluate his current systems objectively when necessary. The benefits of this approach extend beyond End2End Solutions to its clients, as well, he said. In many cases, clients find they can streamline the eviction side of their business so much they are able to reassign employees to other, more growth-related areas of the business.
“One client actually was able to reduce their team of staff handling evictions by half,” Owens said. “We started to notice the team we were working with was shrinking and team members were being repositioned into other roles after just a couple of months.” Ultimately, the client divulged they had been able to rework their entire evictions division and divert company talent to better uses.
“We were such an effective support mechanism it changed everything,” Owens concluded.
Soon, Owens found that when he was meeting potential clients, his presentation about what End2End Solutions was offering had changed. “It used to be that we would list all the services we provided and then, at the end of the presentation, people would ask, ‘What else do you do?’” he recalled. Through the company’s parent company, American Destiny Real Estate Services, the business had access to a vast network of agents and other real estate service providers, and it was a natural evolution to begin offering access to inspections, broker price opinions, and other product lines outside of evictions through the parent company.
“Our clients just kept giving us new work, and we kept growing our list of things we could do until it covered a vast range,” Owens said. Eventually, the answer to the question, “What else do you do?” shifted from “making a list of services” to asking clients what they needed and then figuring out how to deliver it. “I do not think we have yet encountered a client request of any substance that we could not do,” he concluded. “We truly are still in the learning phase about what opportunities are out there.”
Evolving with the Changing Environment
One of End2End’s biggest strengths is its ability to grow, evolve, and adapt, Owens said, observing that the real estate space has not historically been an industry that quickly or easily adopted new technology.
“Evictions and the processes around them are a perfect example of this,” he explained. “We used index cards to track information and document phone calls for decades, but that does not mean it is still the right way to do things. Then, when you change your documentation process, you probably need to adjust your communication process as well. Our ability to identify these changes and make our own changes in response has definitely contributed to our success.”
One example of the company’s ability to pivot and protect clients in real time may be seen in the company’s rapid response to the emergence of widespread “squatting” during the pandemic. The company elected to tackle the issue from multiple angles in order to expedite a solution while dealing with the problem head-on.
“End2End developed a highly successful, nationwide solution to the squatter epidemic with a variety of tools ranging from legal action to cash for keys,” Owens said. “We paired those strategies and others with an aggressive inspection/follow-up program to ensure we get properties back to our clients as soon as possible.”
Owens observed that the use of cellular phones and other “on-the-spot” types of communication rendered traditional documentation systems obsolete, which is why End2End operates entirely on a single platform where all service providers document actions and statuses for a property. He also noted this type of technology will be crucial in the coming years as the final array of moratoriums and other pandemic-related regulations that have kept evictions artificially suppressed phase out.
“There has been a heavy focus on modifications and other interventions that prevent the market from functioning in a normal way and at a normal level, but that is going to change soon,” he said. “We are currently working in the single-family and multifamily spaces, but we are not currently seeing a lot of mortgage-related evictions. We know that is going to change soon because the market will have to normalize. When it does, we have people working all over the country who are already on top of things and will help our clients stay on top of things as well.”
SIDEBAR 1
The Toxic Combination of Rental Fraud & Outdated Evictions Processes
As rental fraud increases across the real estate industry in both the single- and multifamily spaces, property owners are bearing the brunt of the costs when a tenant, innocent or otherwise, must be removed from a property due to fraudulent, third-party actions. According to Globe Street, evictions relating to rental fraud cost the owners of the asset between $20,000 and $25,000 per apartment and may be even more costly when the resident in question has deliberately falsified financial status and has come into the unit with the goal of remaining there fraudulently as long as possible.
“While most renters are honest, those who are not are causing the cost of rental housing to increase for everyone,” observed National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) president Sharon Géno in January 2024.
In a recent NMHC survey, more than 93% of respondents reported experiencing rental fraud, and roughly one in every four eviction filings were related to fraud. In markets like Texas, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia, in particular, these numbers were likely to be higher. Respondents also reported having to write off an average of roughly $4.2 million in bad debts associated with their rental operations, with about a quarter of the cumulative reported debt attributed to rental fraud.
“[Rental fraud] hurts everyone in the building, and everyone has to pay,” said Géno in an interview with USA Today. In the same article, a Houston property owner reported delays in eviction of fraudulent renters resulted in a resident “taking a sledgehammer to his unit.” That damage resulted in an extended rehab period that included re-permitting of the building for renovation.
SIDEBAR 2
A “One-Stop-Shop” for the Lifecycle of an Eviction
End2End Solutions prides itself on answering clients’ question, “What do you do?” with another question: “What do you need done?” The company, which operates under parent company American Destiny Real Estate Services, which handles real estate dispositions for both rental and REO clients, serves a vast array of consumers, including:
» Mortgage servicers
» Hedge fund managers
» Private unions
» Banks
» Real estate investors
» Property management companies
» Private estate owners
“It is a point of great pride for me that we are called in to troubleshoot problems and bring resolution to them, that we are coming up with conceptual, end-to-end solutions and implementing them,” said Barry Owens, founder and CEO of the company. He also noted that in the four years End2End has been operating, the company has experienced “zero employee turnover,” which Owens believes is a product of company culture and “hiring the right people out of the gate.”
End2End Solutions is dedicated to coming up with solutions for clients to meet almost any eviction-related need, but some of its primary actions and services include:
Cash for Keys (CFK)
End2End will send CFK letters, physically post notices at the property when appropriate, and work with a local real estate agent to present a CFK offer. They also handle payment and presentation of checks when appropriate. “This element of our service played a big role when eviction moratoriums were lifted [after the pandemic] and helped us deal with squatters and other moratorium-related issues,” Owens said.
Legal Evictions
End2End Solutions maintains a nationwide network of attorneys spanning all 50 states, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The company uses its technology platform to assign clients local counsel, oversee compliance and progress of evictions, report issues, and rectify potential delays. Litigation may also be handled and monitored through the platform when necessary. “Evictions are a tough process, especially when you are dealing with lockouts, sheriffs, real estate agents, and re-keying properties,” Owens explained. “You have to juggle all these balls, and our technology helps keep them coordinated.”
Property Preservation
After a “lockout,” assets require an assortment of maintenance and preservation strategies. End2End Solutions offers a suite of property preservation actions, including trash outs, property rehabs, grass cutting, snow removal, and even mobile-home removal when necessary.
Nationwide Service of Process
End2End provides a nationwide network of professional process servers across all jurisdictions in all 50 states while providing transparent reporting of the entire process.
Vacant Property Registration
Once a property becomes vacant, many municipalities require it be registered in order to remain in compliance with local legislation. End2End handles research into local vacant-property regulations and, if necessary, will manage registration of the property and payment of fees to ensure compliance. Learn more about End2End Solutions services and request a personal consultation at e2eusa.com.
