Leveraging the Power of Comprehensive Real Estate

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ServiceLink’s Full Suite of Services Optimizes Investor Opportunity

By: Carole VanSickle Ellis

Success in real estate investing has long been summed up in the simple mantra, “Buy low and sell high”. For high-volume investors, however, things can get complicated, especially when it comes to managing multiple properties and deals in various stages of the investment life cycle. Returns are made, grown, and lost in the intricate layers of efficiency and continuity that make up portfolio management, and no one knows that better than investors in the single-family rental space. ServiceLink, a leader in services and technology for all phases of the mortgage lending and management life cycle, has made it a company mission to provide the integration of primary and ancillary services to real estate investors who need it most.

“Our strength is that we provide a number of integrated services that single-threaded providers cannot match,” said Miriam Moore, ServiceLink’s division president of default services. With eight in ten of the nation’s largest lenders relying on ServiceLink to navigate the home lending lifecycle from originations through default, Moore’s team specializes in providing comprehensive solutions tailored to meet the needs of its clients. “Single-family rental lenders and investors are not typically looking for a one-size-fits-all solution, and we make it a point to sit down and talk about pain points and expectations with every client and follow up on these conversations regularly,” she said.

Despite ServiceLink’s massive scale and the large-scale operations of many of its clients, the company has a surprisingly personal feel to it. This is due in large part to a company-wide dedication to innovation, something Eva Tapia, ServiceLink’s senior vice president of its auction division, sums up when she describes the company’s history. “For more than 50 years, ServiceLink has invested significantly in default innovation—bringing solutions that span the entire default lifecycle,” Tapia said. “Thanks to our nationwide real estate marketplace that provides a variety of properties in various stages of default ready for disposition, we have a unique opportunity to provide services to end consumers and mortgage servicers alike.” Tapia cited marketing and educational materials as key tools in the ServiceLink process that enable clients to access opportunities in all phases of the real estate transaction.

A Many-Layered Provider with Ambitious Goals

ServiceLink describes itself simply: a provider of services and solutions that enable virtually every aspect of the home-lending lifecycle—from originations to default. Within that deceptively simple description, however, lie nearly a dozen different facets of a company dedicated to investor and client success. Many of those facets have to do with valuations, title and origination services, the company’s founding sector. However, as ServiceLink added relevant, ancillary services over the years, it became a leader in default services, including loan modifications, foreclosure services, auctions, and property preservation, and in technology platforms. The company’s EXOS Technology provides a transparent platform that enables clients to monitor and manage everything from appraisal management to independent vendors in the ServiceLink network to title decisions and even asset viability throughout a property’s life cycle.

“Our goal is always to help our servicers and clients preserve, protect and execute on repair strategies to market their assets,” said Tim Guertin, senior vice president of ServiceLink’s field services division. Guertin heads up one of the most individualized sectors at ServiceLink. His division heads up the process of monitoring, maintaining, evaluating, and reevaluating properties to obtain the best outcomes possible for clients’ property preservation goals.

“We do hundreds of thousands of inspections a month, and we help clients ensure that those properties are disposed of in a strategic, productive way,” Guertin added. “Our nationwide network of contractors and inspectors are constantly monitoring assets to ascertain whether they are occupied and, if they are vacant, to make sure they are maintained within client expectations and/or investor requirements.”

This dedication to preserving value in client properties did not diminish in 2020. In fact, the company got even more creative as COVID-19 drove competition in real estate through the roof. Tapia recalled an instance in which ServiceLink was able to leverage its negotiating experience to the mutual benefit of two real estate investors. When an auction buyer purchased an asset and, shortly thereafter, discovered a competing banking client was also interested in the asset and had a personal connection to the property, Tapia’s team swiftly realized they could help create a mutually beneficial conclusion. “Since the auction buyer was a real estate investor with plans to flip the asset anyway, the team worked to connect the two parties and settle on a price for the banking client to purchase the asset with a concurrent closing,” she explained. “Once the concurrent closings were finalized, the auction buyer had made a profit; the banking client was able to get the asset to which they had a connection; and, the servicer was able to satisfy the needs of their banking client.”

Kristy Folino, managing director of valuations, chimed in. “I love that we are able to sit down and talk with clients until we have carved out a new process or found a new product that works well for the problem they are trying to solve.” Folino, like her colleagues, emphasized the scalability of ServiceLink as a linchpin in the company’s ability to solve problems and keep clients competitive and profitable in volatile times. “We are a national solution provider with a real passion for solving problems for our clients—and we understand and accommodate the urgency that comes with so many transactions,” she said.

In a year when getting a traditional appraisal product can take longer than what is typical, many SFR lenders have turned to hybrid valuation products like ServiceLink’s Desktop Valuation with Inspection (DVI). The speed of the product is invaluable. Folino recalled several incidents in the latter half of 2020 when single-family rental (SFR) customers needed quick turn times on appraisals in order to save closings. “Because we have staff appraisers that complete our DVI product, we can turn these hybrid appraisal products very quickly—sometimes in as few as 48 hours (about 2 days),” she said.

Not surprisingly, that respect for urgency and solutions-oriented mindset often is particularly evident in ServiceLink’s Title & Close division, headed by senior vice president Amy Daniel. Daniel emphasizes the importance of communication within her team and with her clients, meeting regularly with clients to touch base and ensure everyone on the team is working toward a common goal. “Every client is different, so it’s important to really hear what they are telling you about the situation and the solutions they need,” she said. “I am actively involved with all of our clients and our internal teams.”

Daniel said one of the best things about working for a national provider with the breadth and scale of ServiceLink is that it enables her to establish and maintain relationships with clients and make recommendations with confidence that clients will receive the support and services she describes. “We are a very large organization and part of an even larger parent organization, but we have many divisions within the ServiceLink structure,” she said. “No matter what type of property or portfolio a client may have, ServiceLink has a product or service to help them get to the next level. We are truly a holistic partner, but our customers feel like they are working with a much smaller operation thanks to the direct relationships we build with them.” 

Tracking Down the Missing Pieces is a Mission

One of the things for which ServiceLink repeatedly stands out is the ability to track down “missing pieces” in clients’ investment scenarios. Whether the missing piece is a lost document, unrecorded fees, a skipped step in the investment strategy, or a simple error in vacant asset registration, ServiceLink excels in keeping real estate investors and their investment portfolios running smoothly and performing at top levels—even when that involves selling off an asset or maintaining it throughout a troublesome delinquency or default.

“Every case is different and has a different ‘best’ route to resolution,” said Guertin. “In property preservation, for example, there is often a chain of custody for a property that can be difficult to navigate. Clients purchasing a pool of loans may not be entirely sure what prior investments were made in the property and what is still needed. When that chain becomes opaque or breaks down, the asset suffers.” With ServiceLink’s ability to navigate that chain in its entirety, clients can establish and maintain a true under-standing of what is going on at a property and what types of actions would be best in terms of creating a strong, strategic investment results. “We provide comprehensive knowledge of the asset that is very difficult to match,” Guertin said.

Daniel noted that ServiceLink team members have also protected many clients from potential fraud, an issue which becomes particularly rampant when competition for properties is stiff. “Some of our biggest ‘saves’ in recent months have come when we have been able to preemptively identify potential identity theft and wire fraud that a client, buyer, or seller may have missed,” she explained. “We had to think quickly in a recent transaction when a fraudster emailed our closer and asked that funds be sent to a new location. We were able to prevent the buyer from sending those funds and they saved $300,000 and probably the deal.” ServiceLink team members go through robust, ongoing trainings on security and fraud-prevention, right down to learning how to identify forged signatures on titles. “We are a truly centralized team,” Daniel said proudly.

ServiceLink’s valuation management platform, EXOS, addresses the time-consuming process of appraisal scheduling. EXOS is built on artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning technology and has been in operation since 2015, making it among the more established AI platforms in the industry. The technology’s power shows. “EXOS was developed to improve operational efficiency, drive automation, and digitize the consumer and appraiser experience,” said Folino. “We’ve seen a 50 percent reduction in turn times with EXOS.”

At Heart, One Team & One Family

Perhaps the most powerful ingredient in the ServiceLink “secret sauce” of holistic services is an intangible one: teamwork. “I think our advantage in the industry and in today’s environment boils down to one word, team,” said Moore. “We have a team of experts in every area focused on their specific areas and they work collaboratively as one team. Our staff is tenured, cares about the business, and has the expertise necessary to collectively provide excellent service to our customers. We are all part of one team, and that team exists solely to serve our clients and investors.” 

Sidebar:

Market Predictions & Strategic Insights from “the Top”

When you do thousands of appraisals and inspections every day and monitor thousands of pre-foreclosure and foreclosure assets on a monthly basis, you get a certain level of insight into the inner workings of the housing market that few analysts or economists can match. Tim Guertin, senior vice president of ServiceLink’s field services division, and Miriam Moore, ServiceLink’s division president of default services, commented on the trends they see emerging in real estate at the start of 2021.

How have the foreclosure moratoriums affected your clients’ portfolios and strategies?

Tim Guertin: Of course, foreclosure moratoriums and mortgage forbearance created a big impact because many loans are going into forbearance. Foreclosure moratoriums have naturally diminished the real estate inventory. If you are dealing with this in your portfolio, I would definitely recommend making sure you have a service provider monitoring the regulatory changes as they occur and making sure your assets are maintained as long as the uncertainty continues. You need to keep planning and analyzing, and you need as much information as possible in order to do that.

Miriam Moore: One of the best ways to get an idea of what you should be doing with the assets that you can control at present is to use ServiceLink’s asset decisioning tools and predictive modeling capabilities in EXOS One Marketplace to manage your portfolio. ServiceLink’s data scientists leverage property preservation data and proprietary machine learning systems to predict, with a high level of accuracy, the condition of a property without even stepping foot into the property. Right now, when the interiors of many assets are off-limits due to health policies, the ability to predict and adjust those predictions around potential remediation and future maintenance is invaluable. Our data science team combines the information in our own enormous database with other property DNA in the public record to produce really amazing, detailed, and accurate hypotheses about client assets.

Do you use ServiceLink data in other predictive ways?

Moore: Our research team is also able to provide clients with real estate-related weather pattern insights that can save them money as well as help them protect their properties. Because we can take weather pattern data and apply it right down to the property level at any given time, it gives all of our divisions a big advantage when it comes to responding in real time to climate-based events.

Guertin: At any given time, we are maintaining tens of thousands of properties. Most servicers and competitors do not have the ability to analyze that volume of data in a predictive manner. However, ServiceLink has developed several data models leveraging Artificial Intelligence and machine learning that are able to ingest hundreds of thousands of data points from an historical perspective and help predict future risk factors at a given address. This allows us to manage the inventories more proactively and put extra attention on high-risk properties before they become a problem.

So, what does the future hold for real estate?

Guertin: Investors should definitely be prepared when the foreclosure moratoriums and mortgage forbearances come to an end. We cannot know for sure whether the effects will be consistent locally, regionally, or even on state and national levels. Investors who are able to react quickly and with flexibility—from offering loan modifications when the circumstances warrant to getting assets off the books when appropriate. ServiceLink’s efficiencies and data technology creates insights and planning options to which I do not believe anyone else in the industry can come close.

Moore: That is where that data science team comes in again! Thanks to our EXOS One Marketplace tool, we are able to help clients predict, again with that high degree of accuracy, potential outcomes using various disposition methods. For example, clients can compare likely results of going to auction compared to holding onto the property as real estate owned (REO), adjusting the investment strategy and trying to install a long-term tenant. Getting those multiple views on every asset is going to be invaluable.

Do you think the “urban exodus” is permanent?

Moore: I think it is a very good time for single-family rental investors. There has been a migration away from cities and into suburbs. There are definitely some locations that are better than others, but overall, the rental market is going away from multifamily, urban properties and into suburban, single-family homes. We are also seeing a lot of build-to-rent right now, and there is demand for higher square footage than has been the case in recent years. However, all of this is balanced with an ongoing need to meet a certain degree of affordability.

• December 2020