Corporate Settlement Solutions

New Analysis Shows the Use of AVMs Has Significantly Increased Among Home Equity Lenders

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Key Takeaways New Analysis Shows the Use of AVMs has Significantly Increased Among Home Equity Lenders Given record home equity that American homeowners have amassed due to historically high home price increases since the pandemic, there is a growing expectation that home equity lending will increase over the coming years. According to industry estimates, homeowners […]

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How To Get Loan Officer Buy-in for an Actively Managed Title Program: A Case History

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How to Get Loan Officer Buy-in for an Actively Managed Title Program: A Case History by Jerome Jelinek, Chairman In the first and second installment of this series we examined the advantages of consolidating and actively managing title vendors for refinance transactions. Some of the benefits that we have seen include greater control over pricing,

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Tighter Vendor Management is Needed as Wire and Cyber Fraud Risks Grow

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Tighter Vendor Management is Needed as Wire and Cyber Fraud Risks Grow by Jerome Jelinek, Chairman In our last blog, we discussed the business case for centralizing refinance closings with a core group of preferred title and closing vendors and how this approach enhances operational efficiency, customer experience and compliance. Now in the second blog

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It’s Not Too Early to Start Getting Ready for Refinances

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It’s Not Too Early to Start Getting Ready for Refinances by Jerome Jelinek, Chairman Remember refinances? How about the crazy hectic days of 2021 and early 2022?  A recent trade publication article suggests those days might be just around the corner again. The article, which interviewed several prominent industry lenders, said that “A likely refinance

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There’s More to Appraisal Management Than Just Ordering

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There’s More to Appraisal Management Than Just Ordering by Ashley Jelinek, CEO For decades, lenders have relied on appraisal management companies (AMCs) to compliantly deliver accurate property valuations and to act as a “firewall”, preventing interested parties from exerting pressure on appraisers.  The existence of AMCs has enabled lenders to expand their geographic footprints into

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Legislative Update: June 2024

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Here’s a quick rundown of some recent legislative updates we’ve been tracking. This month we’re focusing on legislation regarding the appraisal industry. NJ Senate Approves Penalties for Discriminatory Appraisals New Jersey Senate lawmakers recently approved a bill aimed at penalizing real estate appraisers who undervalue homes based on protected characteristics, such as race, sex, or

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An Overview of FHFA’s Title Insurance Waiver Pilot Program

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The FHFA has introduced a “pilot” program that replaces title insurance on refinances with automated public record searches. To get an overview of this program, our Chairman, Jerome Jelinek, has shared some insight into its potential benefits and drawbacks. Could you give us some background on the proposal “pilot” program: What’s involved, how it will

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Our Analysis of 18K Home Equity Loans Across 20 Lenders

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Key Takeaways Our Analysis of 18K Home Equity Loans Across 20 Lenders We examined the home equity valuation products used for 18,000 loans originated by 20 of our lenders. We analyzed the data to compare their use of AVMs, hybrid valuations, drive-by appraisals, and full appraisals. Our team spent dozens of hours reviewing the data

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