CoreLogic has unveiled its Total Home Value for Marketing solution. This is the latest addition to the CoreLogic Total Home Value suite, or Automated Valuation Models, that incorporate new technologies to help deliver more accurate home values.

This step is part of the company’s plan to enhance its appraisal management company services, attain a 30 percent margin target, and enhance organic growth rates in 2020.

It’s designed to help clients reduce customer acquisition costs through refined customer segmentation, enhanced list yield, and the highest hit-rate of any Total Home Value AVM, the marketing tool can potentially maximize a firm’s prospecting capabilities.

Total Home Value for Marketing is a part of the CoreLogic Total Home Value suite, which makes the automated valuation models selection and budgeting process more straight forward than was possible in the past. Many AVMs on the market today are designed for broad applications. As a result, businesses may be using AVMs that are not designed to support their specific use case.

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In contrast, Total Home Value, enables users to support a business case--such as originations, risk management, portfolio monitoring, marketing, or consumer), and select the solution that matches the need. This approach can deliver a level of consistency in valuations across the loan lifecycle as all Total Home Value solutions are built on a common model technology.

“Total Home Value for Marketing is part of our ongoing effort to transform the way AVMs are [used] within the mortgage and related industries,” said Ann Regan, executive for product management of Collateral Solutions for CoreLogic. “With a high hit-rate that does not unduly sacrifice accuracy, this solution ensures that any business looking to target specific clients based on home value, be they mortgage lenders, credit card providers, or auto dealers won’t leave any viable prospects on the table or misjudge the value of collateral at the outset.”

Fidelity National Financial completed its first digital real estate closing in Texas using a remote online notarization and digital-signature process.

State law allows escrow officers commissioned as online notary publics to perform fully digital closings using a combination of video technology and digital signatures. A Texas FNF affiliate used secure, remote notarization technology to connect the property sellers in Austin with an escrow officer in Pearland. To complete the transaction, several documents were digitally signed by the sellers and notarized remotely, creating a superior closing experience.

"As consumers' lives become increasingly mobile, we are evolving our service to include a broad range of digital tools that allow us to meet them wherever is most convenient." said Jason Nadeau, chief digital

[caption id="attachment_10749" align="alignleft" width="248"] Nadeau: Online notarization enables deals to close when it best fits their schedules.[/caption]

officer for Fidelity National Financial. "Remote online notarization is just one part of this wider toolset and allows sellers and buyers to close on a real estate transaction when and where it best suits their schedules."

The digital tools employed by FNF for this transaction used electronic methods to ensure the identity of the property sellers and created a full set of compliant, digitally signed documents. Following the closing, an archived video version of the remote closing experience was uploaded to FNF's secure, web-based system for the delivery and storage of escrow and title documents, becoming part of the official record tied to this transaction.

"Digital closings and remote notarization tools are key components of Fidelity National Financial's wider vision for an end-to-end digital real estate experience," said Nadeau. "By combining the very best in eClose, eSign, remote notarization and other innovations, we are moving our operations--and the industry--forward into the digital future. At the same time, we're ensuring our vast network of settlement agents, escrow officers and notaries maintain their competitive edge in an increasingly digital market."

By Michael Detwiler

(This is the first column in a monthly series covering the business strategy of Class Valuation from the point of view of the chief executive officer, Michael Detwiler. He is the former managing director of Accenture and the founder of Mortgage Cadence.)

I believe that being a leader involves solving problems by making things better, and I was never satisfied with just running a business that operated firmly within the status quo. We didn’t run Mortgage Cadence that way, and it’s not how we led our teams at Accenture. So when I participated in the acquisition of Class Appraisal, now Class Valuation, I came into it with the same mindset.

Naturally, that begs the question: “what problems should an appraisal management company be solving now?” What should we be doing better for our lender customers and the mortgage ecosystems we both serve? I have some thoughts on that.

I find four problem areas we need to address now.

When we fix these problems, it could potentially change the way real-estate collateral risk is evaluated for home finance and how borrowers perceive the mortgage loan origination process.

1. Speed

Most industry executives do not consider speed a problem when it comes to valuation, but it is if we move so quickly that it compromises our ability to generate an accurate statement of value for a piece of real estate. It certainly is a problem if--in our pursuit of efficiency--we ignore the customer’s experience.

We need to re-evaluate what we consider a fast appraisal process. Does that mean instantaneous? Does it mean we can’t take time to send out a professional appraiser or inspector? Where does the homeowner’s schedule come into play? Efficiency is critical. Speed for its own sake may not be.

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2. Scale

Recent problems in states with fast-growing populations clearly demonstrated that having access to a national panel of professional fee appraisals does not, in and of itself, guarantee that the business will scale.

We need to redefine national coverage in light of better data and analytics. The business will surge again. When that happens, we need to be able to handle it more efficiently than AMCs did in the past.

3. Customer Experience

The industry is learning how to treat its client’s client (the borrower) like an important part of the home loan origination process. Borrower satisfaction is on the rise, and that’s good news for all of us. But what about the seller’s satisfaction? This party isn’t even the customer of our lender customer.

And yet, every consumer our industry touches, deserves the same high level of customer experience. If we don’t all think so, our federal regulators certainly do. What can the AMC and the professional appraisers in the field do to ensure everyone in the value chain is delighted by the process? A lot, actually.

4. A focus on data

Our business is based on the opinions of professional appraisers, but whether we like it or not it’s starting to look more like a big data application to some stakeholders. With form redesigns in the works that will capture even more property data, AMCs and appraisers in the field will be responsible for collecting this information, and in order to serve our lender clients, we will be bound to do so.

Will the valuation space favor the supercomputer? I have a lot of ideas about that.

In the future, I’ll use this space to go into detail about how we will approach some of these problems and explain why the closer we get to solutions for each of them, the more they begin to look like opportunities for all of us.

About the Author: Michael Detwiler is a 20-year veteran of the mortgage industry. He currently serves as chief executive officer of Class Valuation and he can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..