REOMAC® TECHNOLOGY AND WELLNESS EXPO WRAP-UP

November / December 2011 

REOMAC® 

updatetm 

the official national publication of the 

Association of Real Estate Owned Managers, Inc. 

REOMAC ® TECHNOLOGY AND 

WELLNESS EXPO WRAP-UP

REOMAC® 2011 

Board of Directors 

OFFICERS 

Ivan Choi, President 

Benton Neese, Vice President 

Sara Waite, Secretary 

Kathy Jeffers-Volk, Treasurer 

BOARD MEMBERS 

De’Ann Clark 

Tom Corzine 

Edna Juarez 

Tom Moon 

Cynthia Nierer 

Tina Norder 

Mark Paniccia 

Mia Semo 

John Sway 

Ken Westfall 

REOMAC® Headquarters 

Joseph Davis 

Executive Director 

Jennifer Blevins, CMP 

Special Projects 

John Berkowitz 

Publications Director 

Nathan Carlson 

Sponsorships / Foundation 

Valerie Chavez 

Bookkeeper 

Michael Cochran 

Webmaster 

Bonnie Estep 

Account Administrator 

Katrina Duncan, CMP 

Meeting Planner 

Lexi Howard 


Stephanie Schoen 


Tricia Schrum, CPA 

Accountant 

Cameron Schubert 

Assistant Webmaster 

REOMAC® Update Editor 

Lynn Effinger 


2520 Venture Oaks Way, Suite 150 

Sacramento, CA 95833 

916-239-4090 • 916-924-7323 fax 

www.reomac.com • info@reomac.com 

REOMAC ® update tm 

NOvEMbER / DEcEMbER 2011 


updatetm 

Departments 

President’s Message – Ivan Choi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 

Editor’s Message – Lynn Effinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 

Headquarters Happenings – Joseph Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 

Education Report – Sara Waite & Cynthia Nierer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 

Expo Wrap-Up – Benton Neese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 

Features 

Federal Forfeiture or Unlawful Detainer? – Linda M. Schneider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 

REOMAC ® Technology and Wellness Expo Wrap-Up: 

GENERAL SESSION I: Keynote Erik Qualman – Ronald S. Deutsch, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 

GENERAL SESSION II: MISMO – Darrell Gibbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 

GENERAL SESSION III: Town Hall – Marcus Shirley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 

BREAKOUT SESSION 1: Nutrition on the Run, Energy Management – Katie Van Hook . . . . . . . . . . .16 

BREAKOUT SESSION 2: Property Preservation / Code Violations – James Browning . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 

BREAKOUT SESSION 3: Fraud – Moren Adenubi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 

BREAKOUT SESSION 4: Resilience – Scott Hubbard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 

BREAKOUT SESSION 5: Technology – Responsibilities & Liabilities – David J. Vander Schaaf . . . . . .24 

BREAKOUT SESSION 6: Loss Mitigation – Beth Cruikshank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 

BREAKOUT SESSION 7: The Evolution of Marketing and Selling – Derrick Seay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 

BREAKOUT SESSION 8: The Era of E- – Christine Arrington, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 

Thank You Expo Sponsors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 

Expo Exhibitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 

A Partial Solution to Our Housing Crisis – Lynn Effinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 

Copyright 2011 © by the Association of Real Estate Owned Managers. 

No portion of this magazine may be printed without express written 

consent of REOMAC®. The writings within these pages do not 

necessarily reflect opinions of REOMAC®. 

REOMAC® is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the professional 

advancement of its Regular, Outsourcer, Affiliate and Associate 

members nationwide. REOMAC® provides resources to anyone 

whose career interest revolves around pre- and post-foreclosure, loss 

mitigation and the management and disposition of distressed assets. 

The membership includes lenders and servicers; attorneys and 

vendors; and real estate brokers from across the country. REOMAC® 

members are dedicated to improving the quality of service they 

provide each other and the industry at large. 

With the exception of products or services, or articles specifically 

under REOMAC® control and supervision, it is the policy of REOMAC®, 

its Officers and Board of Directors and the Editor of this publication, 

NOT TO ENDORSE ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, OR OPINIONS 

EXPRESSED IN THIS PERIODICAL. 

NOvEMbER / DEcEMbER 2011 1

I 

want to thank the REO- 

MAC® Board of Directors 

and the Co-Chairs of the 

Education Committee, Cynthia 

Nierer and Sara Waite, 

and Benton Neese, the Expo 

Chairman for their dedication 

and hard work in creating 

the mortgage default servicing 

industry’s most unique 

conference ever. The blend 

of industry-related topics on 

new technologies and industry 

updates covered by our expert 

panelists and guest speakers 

were complemented by sessions 

pertaining to health 

and wellness. No one needs to 

remind us all how challenging 

this business has become, nor 

how important it is to balance 

our hard work with wellness 

activities designed to keep us 

healthy and grounded. 

The intimate setting and 

smaller group of attendees 

for our Fall Summit and Expo 

gave everyone at the Westin 

Diplomat Resort in Hollywood, 

Florida a great opportunity 

to personally meet and communicate 

with the speakers 

and panelists. Attendees were 

also better able to network 

with their peers, clients, and 

industry experts. I want 

to sincerely thank all of our 

sponsors, speakers, committee 

members, exhibitors, and 

the attendees for making this 

such a memorable event! 


Ivan Choi 

2011 REOMAC® President 

As my two-year tenure as 

REOMAC®’s President nears 

its end, I want to take a moment 

to thank you all for your 

support during two of the 

most interesting years ever 

experienced in the mortgage 

default servicing industry. It 

was an honor to serve our 

great trade association and I 

want you all to know that I am 

proud to have served with our 

Board Members and to lead 

REOMAC® into and beyond 

our 25 th Anniversary year. 

REOMAC® is the leading default 

servicing trade association 

in our industry. As such I 

have tried very hard to ensure 

that REOMAC® is positioned 

for the future and remains 

committed to professionalism, 

education, and networking 

opportunities. 

Thank you all for your continued 

support and involvement 

with REOMAC®. 

I also want to wish all of you 

and your families a wonderful 

holiday season, and the 

best in the years to come! On 

behalf of REOMAC®’s board 

of directors and staff, all my 

best to each of you. 


Demonstrating our unyielding 

commitment 

to remain the leader 

in providing educational and 

informational opportunities 

for members of the mortgage 

default servicing industry, 

REOMAC® produced the 2011 

Technology & Wellness Expo, 

held recently at the Westin 

Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, 

Florida. Never before has there 

been a default industry summit 

or conference that combined 

educational sessions about 

the subjects that impact our 

ability to serve the mortgage 

servicing industry, such as 

business trends, market data, 

new technologies, etc., with 

additional sessions focused 

Lynn Effinger 

REOMAC® Update Editor 

on our personal well-being. 

The needs of our members are 

always at the forefront, and 

the Board of Directors was 

spot on when they decided 

to change the format of this 

year’s fall expo. Hail to the 

Board, and especially to Sara 

Waite and Cynthia Nierer, 

Education Co-chairs, Benton 

Neese, Expo Chairman, and all 

those dedicated, hard-working 

people who contributed to the 

success of the Technology & 

Wellness Expo. 

I would be remiss in the extreme 

if I did not also recognize 

the tremendous contributions 

of our speakers, panelists and 

moderators for making this 

one of the most successful 

REOMAC® events ever. 

I also want to personally thank 

all of our contributing writers 

for authoring such terrific articles, 

and especially Christine 

Arrington for coordinating 

the volunteer reporters who 

covered each session and so 

diligently captured the essence 

of the presentations. 

You all know intimately how 

perplexing it is to be involved 

in this industry today. Without 

belaboring the many reasons 

for these challenges (you’ll 

read about them inside this 

edition anyway) REOMAC®’s 

decision to offer attendees at 

this year’s fall expo a more intimate 

setting, a broader range 

of educational information that 

included advice on personal 

well-being in addition to industry 

updates, trends, etc., proved 

to be a wise decision, indeed. 

In this issue of the REOMAC® 

Update newsletter, we highlight 

the outstanding sessions 

that took place in Hollywood, 

as well as provide you with 

additional information that 

will help you better serve your 

employer and/or clients. We 

sincerely hope that you will 

find the articles to be informative, 

enlightening, entertaining, 

and thought-provoking. 

4 NOvEMbER / DEcEMbER 2011 REOMAC ® update tm

This year’s Fall Technology 

and Wellness Expo raised 

the bar when it comes to 

quality of the attendees and 

the sessions. Rather than the 

large numbers of attendees and 

high focus on networking that 

previously happened at the 

last few years’ summits, this 

year saw an intimate group of 

dedicated professionals who 

gave and received top notch 

education about the latest industry 

happenings. It certainly 

is an encouraging indication of 

things to come in 2012. 

Thank you to the Summit Committee, 

Education Committee 

and the Sponsorship Committee 

for their commitment, 

dedication and enthusiasm in 

generating a program that kept 

pace with the ever-changing default 

mortgage industry. Thank 

you to all of the Fall Expo Sponsors, 

listed on pages 32-34, for 

without their support this event 

would not have been possible. 

It is exciting to note that before 

the end of December, the Annual 

Education Summit and 

Expo happening March 18-21, 

2012 at the JW Marriott Desert 

Springs Hotel in Palm Desert, 

California, will be open for 

registration. Make sure to keep 

an eye on the REOMAC® website 

so that you can get signed 

up when it becomes available. 

There will be limited capacity, 


Joseph Davis 

Executive Director 

and this is an event you won’t 

want to miss! 

By the time you read this article 

the REOMAC® Annual Meeting 

will have taken place at the 

Los Angeles Airport Marriott 

on December 8th. The newly 

elected Board of Directors will 

have been affirmed by the membership 

and the new 2012 President 

will have been announced. 

Headquarters would like to 

thank the 2011 Board Members 

for their hard work, tireless efforts 

and donated time: Benton 

Neese, Kathy Jeffers-Volk, Sara 

Waite, De’Ann Clark, Tom Corzine, 

Edna Juarez, Tom Moon, 

Cynthia Nierer, Tina Norder, 

Mark Paniccia, Mia Semo, 

John Say and Ken Westfall, and 

REOMAC®’s 2009-2011 REO- 

MAC® President, Ivan Choi. 

With the new year, comes the 

time to renew your membership 

with REOMAC®. You 

should have already received 

your membership renewal 

form this month. If you have 

not received your dues renewal, 

please contact our office so 

we can send you the form and 

ensure your membership stays 

current. To guarantee your 

membership is up to date, be 

sure to review and fill out the 

renewal form completely. The 

membership committee will be 

verifying each member is in the 

correct membership category 

and that their information is 

correct. 

The first event of 2012 will 

be Camp REOMAC®, where 

the new 2012 Board of Directors 

come together to plan 

the best possible year for the 

membership to stay educated 

and connected. During the 

camp, the Board reviews the 

progress of the Association 

and sets the goals for the next 

year. This is no light task. As 

a Board Member, they are held 

to a much higher standard of 

fiduciary duty and must think 

of what is in the best interest of 

REOMAC® even if that means 

sacrificing themselves. Add 

this responsibility to their normal 

day-to-day life and it can 

be a bit overwhelming, though 

rewarding. So, when you see 

a Board Member at a meeting 

you’re attending, please 

let them know you appreciate 

all their efforts and loyalty to 

REOMAC®, as they represent 

all REOMAC® members in the 

default industry nationwide. 

Thank you for all of your support 

and involvement in 2011, 

and we look forward to your 

continued support and involvement 

in 2012! If you have any 

questions or comments, do not 

hesitate to contact us. Most 

of all – have a happy holiday 

season and celebrate the ending 

of a great year and welcome in 

what is sure to be a successful 

and eventful 2012 for REO- 

MAC®. 


Federal Forfeiture 

or Unlawful 

Detainer? 

By Linda M. Schneider 

Wilson & Associates, PLLC 



Pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(7) the federal 

government is allowed forfeiture of certain 

real property “... which is used, or intended 

to be used, in any manner or part, to 

commit, or to facilitate the commission of, a 

violation of this title....” Further, forfeiture of 

certain real property that was procured with 

monies obtained as a result of a violation of 

21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6) or drug transactions is 

also lawful. These statutes were designed 

to be remedial in nature and to allow the 

federal government to recoup losses as 

a result of the resources allocated in the 

investigation of such matters. Rightfully so, 

individuals who break the law should not 

be allowed to profit from their misdeeds. 

Title to real property subject to forfeiture 

vests in the federal government or the 

United States at the time the act or 

violation occurs. 21 U.S.C. § 881(h). In 

order to perfect title however, the federal 

government must take action. United 

States v. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 

510 U.S. 43 (1993). Rights cannot be 

trampled upon. The due process clause of 

the Fifth Amendment requires notice and 

a hearing before one can be deprived of 

their property. Said proceedings must be 

brought within an appropriate time period. 

Four factors are utilized in determining 

the timeliness of such an action: length of 

the delay, reason for the delay, claimant’s 

assertion of his right, and the prejudice to 

the claimant. United States v. $52,800.00 

et al. 33 F.3d 1337 (11 th Cir. 1994) quoting 

United States v. $8,850.00 461 U.S. 555 

(1983) citing Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 

514 (1972). 

continued on page 8 

November / December 2011 7

Federal Forfeiture or Unlawful Detainer? – continued from page 7 

Yet once a proceeding has commenced, 

the federal government has the right to 

request a stay. 18 U.S.C. § 981(g), 21 U.S.C. 

§ 881(i). Staying forfeiture proceedings 

seems to be counterintuitive. A crime 

has been committed, the real property is 

“vested” in the federal government at the 

commission of the crime, therefore, why 

prolong matters? It is a high probability 

the mortgage is not being paid, the real 

property may or may not be occupied, and 

the state or condition of said property is 

likely questionable. Disposition of the 

property is now brought to a standstill as 

the government has the right to request 

a stay. 

Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 981(g)(1) as 

incorporated by 21 U.S. C. § 881(i): “upon 

the motion of the United States, the court 

shall stay the civil forfeiture proceeding if 

the court determines that civil discovery 

will adversely affect the ability of the 

Government to conduct a related criminal 

investigation or the prosecution of a related 

criminal case.” However, the government 

bears the burden of proof as it must show 

that civil discovery will adversely affect its 

investigation or prosecution of a related 

criminal case. U.S. v. GAF Financial Servs., 

Inc., 335 F. Supp. 2d 1371, 1373 ((S.D. Fla. 

2004); cf. U.S. v. All Funds ($ 357,311.68) 

Contained in N. Trust Bank of Fla. Account, 

No. 04-1476, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15590, 

2004 WL 1834589, at *3-4 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 

10, 2004). 

Theoretically the subject property could 

be detained for years. Thankfully, 

a claimant’s interest in the subject 

property versus the interest of the federal 

government must be considered upon a 

proactive assertion. A stay of an indefinite 

duration cannot be granted. Landis 

v. North American, 299 U.S. 248 (1936) 

Further, a request for a stay was denied 

when it was shown the government had 

already investigated the issues at hand 

for twenty (20) months. United States of 

America v. Banco Cafetero Int’l., 107 F.R.D. 

361 (S.D.NY 1982). Moreover, stays of six 

(6) months and ninety (90) days were found 

to be appropriate because of the defined 

duration. United States of America v. All 

Funds on Deposit in SunTrust Account 

No. xxxxxxxxx8359 et al., 456 F.Supp 

2d 64 (D.D.C. 2006) and United States of 

America v. All Funds Deposited in Account 

No. 200008524845 et al., 162 F. Supp. 2d 

1325 (Dist. WY 2001). 

Consequently, mortgagees or claimants, 

with an interest in the subject real property 

should be vigilient when faced with 

forfeiture proceedings. Asserting your 

rights can be important at all stages of 

forfeiture in order to ensure your interest 

is not unlawfully detained. 

Linda M. Schneider, Esq. is an attorney 

associated with the Fayetteville, Arkansas 

branch office of Wilson & Associates. 


With 2012 fast approaching, 

I’ve been reflecting 

on the educational 

offerings from REOMAC® 

throughout this last year. As 

Education and Training Chairs, 

Cynthia Nierer and I were constantly 

discussing what topics 

to present to ensure value to 

our audiences. At the forefront 

is ensuring that REOMAC® is 

providing superior education to 

the mortgage default servicing 

industry. We must maintain an 

awareness of the issues we face 

day in and day out no matter 

what role we play within the 

industry. And then we must 

ask ourselves how these issues 

impact our business processes 

and our ability to make decisions 

on the assets we manage. 

REOMAC® held seven dinner 

meetings across the country 

in 2011: 

• Jacksonville, FL 

– February 2011 

• Orange County, CA 

– March 2011 

• Dallas, TX 

– May 2011 

• Denver, CO 

– June 2011 

• Salt Lake City, UT 

– July 2011 

• Philadelphia, PA 

– August 2011 

• Los Angeles, CA 

– December 2011 


Sara Waite and Cynthia Nierer 

REOMAC® 2011 Education & Training Chairs 

Numerous educational sessions 

and training were coordinated 

for each of these. 

Topics included the impacts 

of the affidavit-signing issue, 

bankruptcy rules, success in 

managing short sales, code 

violations and city enforcement, 

performance management, and 

technology. We found a vast 

array of subject-matter experts 

in each location to participate 

on our panels. Thanks to all of 

those professionals for sharing 

your knowledge with us! 

We are proud of all of the 

events that we hold throughout 

each year. However, there is 

a certain sense of pride that 

comes from being a part of our 

two conference events. And, 

wow! What events they were 

this year! Our Spring Summit 

kicked off with Henry Cisneros, 

former Secretary of HUD. Mr. 

Cisneros set the stage for an 

economic forecast provided 

by Fannie Mae, in addition to 

a presentation from the Department 

of Treasury on their 

continuing efforts to reduce 

mortgage delinquencies and 

foreclosures across the nation. 

This was truly a very powerful 

first day to the Summit. Our 

second day of breakout sessions 

did not disappoint either. Our 

distinguished panelists tackled 

the topics of disposition alternatives 

for distressed assets, 

mortgage default industry best 

practices, the fundamentals of 

title and contracts, and residential 

property management 

challenges to name a few. The 

afternoon Default Super Session 

focused on the hottest topics 

affecting our industry at that 

time. Rounding out the event 

were several training sessions 

focusing on how to help all of 

us better navigate through the 

ever-changing times we are in. 

The Fall Expo exceeded educational 

expectations as well. 

We at REOMAC® decided to 

focus on technology and its 

impact to the way we do business, 

particularly in these times 

when audit and compliance is in 

the spotlight. And one cannot 

hold an event on technology 

without acknowledging the 

presence and impact of social 

media in our professional 

lives. Erik Qualman, author 

of Socialnomics, provided 

the perfect keynote address 

to start this unique event. I 

am confident that everyone 

in the room walked out with 

an idea or greater knowledge 

about how social media can 

help or hurt. Harry Gardner, 

Chairman of the Residential 

Governance Committee for 

MISMO, followed and provided 

an intriguing conversation on 

the development of electronic 

commerce data standards for 

the residential and commercial 

mortgage markets. The 

afternoon’s Town Hall Session 

addressed technological and related 

compliance requirements 

and the impact to all businesses 

in the industry. Similar to the 

Spring event, the Expo’s second 

day was power-packed. Sessions 

focused on technology 

as it relates to fraud, property 

preservation, title and closing, 

marketing and loss mitigation. 

An additional twist was added 

to this year’s Expo through 

several health and wellness sessions. 

As professionals we get 

so caught up in our work lives at 

times we forget about the most 

important thing – taking care 

of ourselves both physically 

and mentally. Several Expo 

attendees started their days 

with yoga on the beach. In addition, 

a couple of second-day 

breakout sessions tackled ways 

to keep your energy levels high 

and staying well in stressful 

environments. 

With many of our events, we 

look to provide additional educational 

opportunities through 

training sessions. Many of 

these are conducted by the 

banks, servicers and outsourcers 

that provide the business 

throughout the industry. These 

forums allow the clients we 

work with to communicate 

with their service providers 

on best practices, process re- 



I 

would like to take this 

opportunity to thank everyone 

for attending this 

fall’s REOMAC® Technology 

and Wellness Expo held at 

the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, 

Florida from October 

19-21. Our initial intent was to 

provide a totally different experience 

for our attendees and I 

believe that was accomplished. 

Benton Neese 

REOMAC® 2011 Expo Chair 

REOMAC®’s “Non-Conference” Conference 

I feel confident everyone 

would agree the smaller Expo 

allowed for a more successful 

opportunity to network on 

a much more personal basis. 

This also allowed everyone 

a better opportunity to ask 

questions and get the valuable 

information available in each 

session. Whether you needed 

to know about current issues 

in the fraud area, what Fannie 

Mae feels as critical issues in 

managing their REO properties, 

or how to deal with trying 

to stay well in the stressful environment 

we deal with every 

day, there was something for 

everyone. 

I also hope you enjoyed the 

relaxation station and the Yoga 

on the beach allowing you to 

start your day in a fresh and 

relaxed state. While this is 

certainly not the norm at a 

traditional conference, based 

on the evaluations received, it 

did add a great deal to the Expo. 

Of course the event started 

with a powerful presentation 

by Erik Qualman and how 

the social media is critical in 

today’s workplace. Eric was 

very gracious and spent the 

early morning in our exhibit 

hall having breakfast with 

some of you, openly discussing 

his views on the importance of 

social media in the workplace. 

We ended the Expo with Chef 

Jeff Henderson making a very 

personal, powerful and inspirational 

presentation about 

priorities in life. Some of 

those in attendance had the 

opportunity to actually assist 

Chef Jeff in preparation of one 

of the dishes he prepared for 

the Executive Chef of Caesar’s 

Palace which assisted him in 

securing his first full-time job 

as a chef in his first Five Star 

restaurant! Chef Jeff ended the 

evening having dinner with the 

members present, talking one 

on one in the banquet hall and 

signing autographs for anyone 

interested. 

From current technology 

necessary to survive in today’s 

challenging business environment 

to the inspiration to 

follow your goals and dreams 

in life’s challenges, with a mix 

of exceptional education in between, 

we had it all and I thank 

all of you, all of our exhibitors 

and our wonderful sponsors 

for taking this journey with us. 

The work and planning has 

begun for the 2012 Spring 

Education Summit and Expo 

in Palm Desert March 18- 

21, 2012! Early registration 

begins in the next month, 

so get your reservations in 

quickly. We look forward 

to seeing you in the desert 

as our journey in this crazy 

business continues! 



Erik Qualman Ivan Choi 

Once again, REOMAC® held a 

thought-provoking conference 

this past month in which 

approximately 475 real estate professionals 

from across the nation were in attendance. 

Erik Qualman, the keynote speaker and the 

bestselling author of Socialnomics: How 

Social Media Transforms the Way We Live 

and Do Business, addressed the audience 

and discussed the impact of social media 

on businesses and consumers and how it 

might be utilized to increase sales. His 

book was a finalist for the 2010 Book of the 

Year, awarded by the American Marketing 

Association. 

Social media, the latest tool to hit the 

business world, has created a plethora 

of new marketing techniques and 

opportunities. This has been called 

Socialnomics by Qualman which he 

asserts can be a very effective tool that 

businesses must learn to utilize. That is 

businesses must be able think differently 

in the new marketing environment. He 

cited studies that show that 93 percent of 

marketers use social media and that 96 

percent of “Generation Y” have joined a 

social network. Its use fosters a method 

of developing personal branding. 

Other interesting facts presented were 

that one out of eight couples married in 

the United States last year met via social 

media. The years it took to reach 50 million 

GENERAL SESSION I: 

Welcome and Keynote 

Speaker 

By Ronald S. 

Deutsch, Esq. 

Socialnomics Meets REOs 

users, took radio 38 years, television 13 

years, internet four years, iPod three years, 

yet it only took Facebook less than nine 

months to add 100 million users. In fact, 50 

percent of the world under the age of 30 is 

on Facebook. The percentage of companies 

using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find 

employees is 80 percent. Consumers 

trust peer recommendations more than 

advertisements by a very wide margin. 

When utilizing social media, the user 

must contemplate their digital footprint 

and digital shadow. Mr. Qualman posed 

the question of what legacy does the user 

want to leave? He also stated that the 

socialnomics is basically word of mouth 

on digital steroids. Linkedin, Klout.com, 

TripAdvisor.com, Twitter, Hootsweep, 

and YouTube are just a few examples of 

social media sites which can be utilized. 

Ratings of people and businesses can be 

found on websites. Therefore they afford 

the opportunity for marketing. 

Mr. Qualman elucidated the process of 

the typical sale: From the company’s and 

customer’s viewpoint the two players must 

listen; then interact, followed by reacting 

and then concluding with the intended sale. 

If these steps are followed sales will come. 

He then gave examples of successful sales 

campaigns. One company sent reminders 

of the date to reset clocks for daylight 

savings. This campaign provided useful 

information to the recipient that also 

served to place their company name before 

customers. Other successful campaigns 

included the posting of a personally 

written song, entitled United Breaks 

Guitars. Following that posting, Taylor 

Guitars posted a useful informational 

piece on what travelers can do to protect 

their guitars. One, however, should always 

follow the golden rule when being filmed 

or leaving a digital record, Mr. Qualman 

stated. To stress this point, the audience 

was entertained by a Bill O’Reilly video 

in which he was filmed as being less than 

professional. 

Mr. Qualman next discussed LinkedIn 

which is a business-to-business website. 

Information found there is safe and can 

increase sales dramatically. It can also 

be utilized by marketers to review a 

biography of a prospect before establishing 

a meeting. Items of commonality or 

mutual connections can be quickly gleaned. 

It can also be utilized by recruiters who 

can quickly go to a company website and 

ask for that person. Rising stars can be 

discovered too. In one study, it was found 

that job seekers who complete 100 percent 

of biography information receive more job 

interviews than those who do not similarly 

complete that information. In fact, Google 



GENERAL SESSION I: Keynote Speaker – continued from page 11 

picks up on 100 percent complete resumes 

which increases exposure. That said, one 

must be careful of posting inappropriate 

information. Mr. Qualman provided 

examples of a mistaken posting by a Red 

Cross employee involving drinking and 

a posting by a Chrysler employee on the 

issue of driving. Yet the organizations 

and companies affected by these postings 

responded quickly with an amusing 

posting that afforded a positive result. 

Social media postings can also be used by 

others attempting to discover information. 

For example Sweden checks social 

media to determine if an applicant filed 

for unemployment benefits properly. 

Inappropriate postings can lead to 

discovery of information that can be used 

against the poster. 

Another example discussed involved 

a woman who posted she was out of 

Wheat Thins, a type of snack. The 

manufacturer turned that posting into a 

sales opportunity by filming and posting 

an amusing video involving a delivery of a 

truck load of Wheat Thins to her residence. 

HAVE A 

PROBLEM REO? 

WE SPECALIZE IN PROBLEMS! 

Call Patrick J. FOX, GRI 

MEMBER OF REOMAC - EQUATOR CERTIFIED PLATINUM 

MEMBER NATIONAL, STATE AND LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS OF 

REALTORS 

www.AmericanRealtyServicesGroup.com 

Opportunities for marketing abound, if 

one thinks outside of the box. 

Another website discussed was Grader.com 

and utilizing the placement of keywords 

on the home page of the seller’s website. 

This affords greater opportunity for 

search-engines to find the website. Our 

business and personal lives have blended 

through social media. People remember 

others on how they interacted and were 

treated. Again, that said, social media 

notwithstanding, cannot replace face-toface 

interaction. Instead, research has 

shown that it augments such interaction. 

Mr. Qualman recommended that any 

videos posted should be no longer than 60 

seconds-two minutes. The percentage of 

those watching will significantly diminish 

after 30 seconds. Finally, Mr. Qualman 

stated customers are four times more 

likely to repeat if you fix a problem quickly. 

Seventy percent of customers remain if 

any issues are fixed. 

The immediacy and pervasiveness of social 

media affords many opportunities to those 

who master the tools. It is a new avenue, 

which is evolving but there for those who 

seize the moment. 

Ron Deutsch is an attorney with Cohn, 

Goldberg & Deutsch, LL, located in Towson, 

Maryland and is a USFN and AFN Member. 

PATRICK J. FOX, GRI 

NEW JERSEYS #1 REO BROKER 

With over 20 Years experience in the REO industry 

and thousands of REO’s closed, we are your 

New Jersey specialist for….. 

Loss Mitigation 

Residential REO Sales - Commercial REO Sales 

Property Preservation - Property Management 

_______________________ 

Our Long Standing Clients Include: 

Many of the Nations Leading Banks, 

Outsourcers and Servicers 

_______________________ 

If you want RESULTS instead of Excuses 

Call the people that do the job! 

AMERICAN REALTY SERVICES GROUP, INC. 

REO IS ALL WE DO 



MEMBER NATIONAL, STATE AND LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS 

OF REALTORS 




Harry Gardner 

Bill Gates, the American business 

magnate, philanthropist, and 

former CEO of Microsoft was once 

quoted as saying: “I have always loved the 

competitive forces in this business. You 

know I certainly have meetings where I 

spur people on by saying, 'Hey, we can 

do better than this. How come we are 

not out ahead of that?' That’s what keeps 

my job one of the most interesting in the 

world.” When encouraging the continual 

development of an ever-changing business 

model, the late Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. 

added: “Innovation distinguishes between 

a leader and a follower.” 

In the complex world of default servicing, 

innovation in defining mortgage industry 

standards, terms and procedures agreeable 

to both the industry and governmental 

agencies has been, to say the least, a very 

delicate undertaking. Added to this 

were the difficulties and mistrust of the 

default servicing industry arising from 

the recent ”robo-signing” fiasco in which 

mortgage industry employees were using 

fake signatures to sign documents they had 

not even read. Something had to be done 

to assure such practices were prevented 

from continuing to occur. 

Leading the initiative to innovate such 

change has been the job of Harry Gardner 

who is the President of SigniaDocs, a 

national eMortgage solutions provider 

that supports legally compliant electronic 

mortgage documents for all 50 states at 

GENERAL SESSION II: 

MISMO (Presented by MBA) 

the investor, federal, state and local levels. 

Formerly the Vice President of Industry 

Technology at the Mortgage Bankers 

Association (MBA), Mr. Gardner has 

managed the efforts to create standards 

for technological change by streamlining 

the transition from the current “paper trail” 

negotiable mortgage instruments to the 

electronic “e-Note” transferrable mortgage 

instruments which are “paperless.” 

In 1999, mortgage industry volunteers 

worked in conjunction with the MBA to 

found an organization called MISMO (the 

Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance 

Organization, www.mismo.org). MISMO 

develops data standards and guidelines that 

allow business partners to communicate 

with each other using a common language 

of business data. Participation in MISMO is 

open to anyone who is willing to volunteer 

their time and expertise. MISMO has also 

published specifications and guidance for 

electronic mortgages using a format called 

the SMART Doc®. The intent of such 

electronic documentation is to provide 

a secure, manageable electronic system 

that is able to be archived and instantly 

retrievable for transferring ownership at 

closing of residential or commercial real 

estate. The MBA and MISMO are engaging 

in active outreach to government entities 

to educated them on the availably of data 

standards for any reporting requirements 

they are considering for lenders and 

servicers. Business partners are now able 

to save time and money by leveraging this 

By Darrell 

Gibbs 

industry standard data in communicating 

with each other since everyone benefits 

from having a common dictionary of 

business definitions. 

The mortgage servicing industry must 

evolve to meet the new regulatory 

challenges intended to protect the public 

and the integrity of the industry itself. To 

continue with “business as usual” without 

giving serious consideration to innovation, 

especially as it relates to the rise in 

eMortgage servicing, can be a detriment to 

those who desire to build strong business 

platforms. With the thousands of small 

contracts dealt with on a daily basis in 

the distressed asset management world, 

being able to manage documentation of 

transactions in such a secure and logical 

fashion only makes good business sense. 

With eSignatures being legally valid in 

the United States and used, not only for 

eMortgages, but for a host of other business 

uses, it is logical that progression to the 

“e-age” of doing business is here. For more 

information on how SigniaDocs, Inc. may 

assist your business development, contact 

Harry Gardner at hgardner@signiadocs. 

com. 

Darrell Gibbs is the owner/broker of South 

Carolina-based Gibbs Realty & Auction 

Company. 


Robert Hopp, Esq. 

MODERATOR 

Erik 

Qualman 

Harry 

Gardner 

Early morning meditation and 

yoga on the beautiful beach at the 

Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa in 

Hollywood, Florida was only the beginning 

of this year’s REOMAC® Technology and 

Wellness Expo. The Yoga was not a service 

that the hotel provided, it was part of 

REOMAC®’s Technology and Wellness 

Expo and it was a true representation 

of the energy that flowed from October 

19-21, 2011. Celebrities such as Chef Jeff 

Henderson, an award-winning chef, New 

York Times Best Selling Author, and the 

Food Network personality behind The Chef 

Jeff Project, added some additional flavor 

to the days and nights to come. According 

to REOMAC®’s 2011 President, Ivan Choi, 

”REOMAC® wanted to provide a personal 

renewal from the inherently stressful and 

time-consuming occupations within the 

default servicing industry.” 

I’ve attended my share of REOMAC® 

conferences and this one was top notch, 

by far. The attendance was not as high as 

previous REOMAC® summits. However, 

considering the industry shifts and 

economic challenges that have been 

defining the real estate environment, 

it was still an amazing turnout. The 

atmosphere was intimate as attendees were 

able to personally engage with business 

partners, peers and clients. The educational 

sessions were riddled with questions and 

Kendra 

Todd 

GENERAL 

SESSION III: 

Town Hall 

Session 

By Marcus 

Shirley 

14 NOvEMbER / DEcEMbER 2011 REOMAC ® update tm 

Chris 

Saitta 

conversations that allowed people to leave 

with practical solutions to everyday issues 

that they constantly face. 

I had the distinct pleasure of covering 

one of the Town Hall Sessions that was 

held in the Regency Ballroom. The room 

was filled with roughly a 100 people with 

90 percent of the people being real estate 

agents. The two themes that resonated 

from this session were Compliance and 

Technology. One of the leading questions 

that sparked intense discussion in this 

session was, “Are the technological and 

related compliance requirements making 

it prohibitive for some in the mortgage 

default servicing industry, and could small 

businesses be wiped out?” 

The moderator for this panel was Robert 

Hopp, Esq. of The Hopp Law Firm, LLC. 

Hopp started his career as an engineer 

in the automotive and biotech fields, 

and has been practicing law in Colorado 

since 1995 as a business, estate planning, 

and transactional attorney. Throughout 

his practice, he has served businesses 

and individuals in both real estate 

transactional and litigation matters 

focusing on real estate, default, collections, 

and loss mitigation. 

The panel of experts that delved into the 

many questions and concerns included 

Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics: 

How social media transforms the way 

we live and do business. His book made 

Amazon’s #1 Best Selling List for the 

US, UK, Canada and Germany. Another 

panelist was Harry Gardner, President 

of SigniaDocs, a national eMortgagesolutions 

provider that supports legally 

compliant electronic mortgage documents 

for all 50 states at the investor, federal, 

state and local levels. He is a frequent 

speaker and writer on eMortgages, 

mortgage technology, industry standards 

and enterprise data management issues. 

Kendra Todd, a nationally recognized 

real estate agent expert, TV personality 

and author, was also a panelist. She is the 

first woman and youngest competitor to 

ever win on the popular NBC show, The 

Apprentice. Kendra is widely recognized 

for her involvement in the record-breaking 

$95 Million sale of Donald Trump’s 

Palm Beach oceanfront estate. She is the 

president of the The Kendra Todd Group 

and stars in the HGTV series, My House 

is Worth What?, and is a Fox News real 

estate contributor. Chris Saitta the Chief 

Executive Officer of Equator, the nation’s 

premier provider of default servicing 

software and technology rounded out the 

panel. Mr. Saitta co-founded Equator in 

2003 and currently presides over strategic 

continued on page 15

GENERAL SESSION III: Town Hall – continued from page 14 

direction and corporate alignment for all business units. To date, 

that system has handled over $200 billion in real estate sales. 

Hopp opened up the discussion with a question regarding how 

technology impacts each area regarding the Default Industry. 

Chris Saitta, sitting at the end of the panel with his iPad in 

hand, immediately jumped in. He spoke about how compliance 

and oversite has hit all levels and how compliance has created 

inventory flow. 

Todd followed up from the real estate agents perspective. She 

made the case that the various tasks involving technology have 

been confusing; Agents having to manage 15-20 web-based portals 

at one time has taken away from doing their jobs effectively. She 

went on to mention how the smaller agents, especially single 

agents and duo teams, are being pushed out of the process due 

to technological compliance and the activities surrounding it. 

Todd also mentioned that she has hired a statistician to collect, 

measure and distribute statistical data because in the end asset 

managers are looking at numbers. 

Gardner, who had just facilitated a session earlier that Friday on 

MISMO, an entity formed to develop electric commerce data 

standards for the residential and commercial mortgage markets 

in which he chairs, focused on how technology can make lives 

better. He touched on the development of standardization and 

uniformity in technology for the mortgage industry. 

Qualman began talking about the use of digital tools that could 

be used to acquire remedies and swift responses regarding issues 

and information. He went on to state how being compliant, 

conforming with policy, also has costs associated with it. These 

costs include having proper infrastructure such as servers and 

scalable networks to handle the needed technology to be efficient. 

Saitta returned back to the discussion to emphasize the amount of 

pressure that everyone is experiencing due to politics, government 

policy and compliance. He raised the question, “Is value really 

being created by all of the political pressure?” Saitta also discussed 

the consequences of having so much information to process from 

so many sources on different platforms all at one time. “Numbers 

don’t always tell the whole story,” stated Saitta, and much of the 

audience agreed. 

Todd followed up, not missing a beat from her earlier statements, 

by stating that during the technological development of the 

various systems, real estate agents are rarely consulted from a 

practical-use standpoint. She went on to mention that real estate 

agents are asked to do so much with the collection of information 

that it cuts into the agent’s time for marketing and that type of 

environment has been eliminating agents. She also spoke on 

processes being complicated, as well as redundant. According 

to her statements, Todd feels that the industry needs to slow 

down the pace of change. In regards to government compliance, 

“It seems that when the Government sends out an idea, without 

any thought, its passed on for instant gratification,” says Todd. 


Software for Todd is a huge service as she commented that it is 

ultimately a factor in cost savings across the board, however we 

could use standardization by sharing information within the 

industry. This would eliminate competition between vendors 

and promote cooperation that creates solutions. 

Hopp eventually reeled the panelists back in for a question and 

answer session which seemed to be directed mostly at Saitta 

regarding Equator’s move to Seattle and their next software 

program that they have in the works geared towards making 

real estate agents’ lives easier. 

It was a very powerful and informative session. I walked away 

with the feeling that this business is strictly a numbers game. It 

is an open opportunity for an agent that can give the best value 

at all costs and can afford the growing expense of doing business. 

It also seems that government intervention is becoming evasive 

and causing a lot of uncertainty and insecurity. If we as agents 

want to survive we must be conscious of costs and risks as we 

begin to see signs that the government is becoming open to 

hearing our input. 

Marcus Shirley is associated with Bottom Line Home Realty 

Services in Lawrenceville, Georgia. 


Dr. Frank Sabatino 

This year’s REOMAC® Fall Summit 

included an exciting new twist with 

sessions related to nutrition, stress 

management and wellness. This breakout 

session, led by Dr. Frank Sabatino, was 

one of the most interesting and valuable 

lectures I have attended this year. It was a 

great variation on the standard, repetitive 

industry topics that we’ve become so 

accustomed to. 

Sabatino’s goal is to teach his clients to 

“bring life to their years, not just years to 

their lives.” He began by presenting some 

startling figures about the general health 

of our country. Sabatino stated that 

we are currently spending more than $2 

trillion a year on healthcare and more than 

70 percent of that money is being spent 

on chronic conditions that are possibly 

avoidable through better lifestyle choices. 

The leading causes of death in the U.S. 

(heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes) 

can be prevented by losing weight, eating 

more fruits and vegetables, exercising more, 

drinking less alcohol and quitting smoking. 

[Editor’s note: You might not actually live 

longer, but it will seem like it]. 

According to Sabatino, eating a diet based 

almost entirely from plants is the most 

dramatic way to improve our health. As 

proof, he cites his own family. Raised 

in an Italian household in New York 

BREAKOUT SESSION 1: 

Nutrition On the Run, 

Energy Management 

City, Sabatino is the father of five grown 

children. None of his children have ever 

had one ounce of animal protein, they were 

each breast-fed for no less than 2 years and, 

consequently, none of them ever needed 

to see a pediatrician! He added that they 

all attended public schools where they 

were exposed to all of the same germs 

and diseases as other children who were 

commonly fighting illnesses and infections 

during the school year. 

Sabatino went on to say that significant 

research in many different countries 

shows that cultures with the leanest, 

healthiest people are those whose diets 

consist of less than 10 to 15 percent animal 

protein. Anything above this mark is 

excessive and leads to weight gain, toxicity 

and inflammation -- the three major 

underlying causes of preventable epidemics 

in the United States. Sabatino stated that 

the number one item on grocery lists in the 

United States is soda. Americans spend 

a staggering 15 billion dollars per year on 

soda, averaging an annual consumption 

rate of 40 gallons per person. The audience 

chuckled a bit when we were informed 

that the item we’re next most likely to 

buy is beer. 

Cow’s milk, another item likely to be found 

in most American grocery carts, is a major 

cause of human health issues. Sabatino 

By Katie 

Van Hook 

pointed out that the purpose of milk from 

a cow is to grow a calf from 50 pounds to 

500 pounds in one to two years. It is no 

surprise, then, that consumption of dairy 

products is linked [by some] to premature 

growth rates, a trigger for premature aging 

and various health problems. Vegetables 

are likely to be number 23 on our lists and 

fruits don’t even make the top 50! 

Rather than focusing on eliminating these 

harmful excesses, our society has recently 

tended to focus on possible specific vitamin 

and mineral deficiencies. For example, 

nutritional supplements are heavily 

promoted in the media as well as grocery 

stores. “Because of the way we fragment 

the diet, known as 'scientific reductionism,' 

we isolate vitamins, minerals and the like, 

and we’re losing sight of what really is 

important,” Sabatino stated. He continued 

to say that it is important to eat whole 

foods rather than supplements because 

of not only the known beneficial elements, 

but more importantly the unknown. Over 

time, scientists continue discovering 

essential elements in plant-based foods 

that work in a synergistic way not possible 

when isolated in supplemental forms. 

Sabatino realizes he won’t be able to 

convince everyone to immediately switch 



BREAKOUT SESSION 1: Nutrition & Energy 

– continued from page 16 

to a vegan diet. Therefore, he suggests making animal proteins 

the smallest part of our diets – a few ounces a week is a good 

start. He said that an easy way to measure a reasonable portion 

of animal meat is by making a fist; the size of the palm and thumb 

is about the same as a 4 to 6-ounce portion of meat. When an 

audience member expressed concern about not getting enough 

protein to build muscle, Sabatino pointed out that elephants, the 

largest living land animals with the largest muscle mass, are raw 

vegetable vegans! 

Sabatino had to wrap up the session a bit earlier than he intended, 

but he left the audience with a few practical suggestions: replace 

as much animal protein in your diet as possible with fruits and 

vegetables by just having a tasty smoothie in the morning (recipe 

below) and by making a meal out of a salad each and every day. 

These are the recommended Ingredients for a morning smoothie 

that will provide plenty of energy to make it to lunch: Kale, Parsley, 

Spinach or Romaine, Berries or Mango, Unsweetened Almond 

Milk, and Hemp or Chia Seeds. 

Katie Van Hook is the Business Development Manager for 

Continental REO Services, Inc. 




Property Preservation / Code Violations 

Steve 

Meyer 

Benton Neese 

MODERATOR 

The Breakout session for Property 

Preservation/Code Violations was a 

rousing success. The panel included 

Moderator, Benton Neese of RMIC, 

Panelists Steve Meyer of Safeguard 

Properties, Virginia Mays of Weathervane 

Contracting, James Browning of REO 

Institute, and Mark Paniccia of SunTrust 

Mortgage. 

Benton started the session with some 

humor and house-keeping rules, and then 

asked, “REO Software, How can it help 

property preservation?” 

Virginia then answered, “After reviewing 

other preservation software out there, 

there is a lack of software that is available 

for property preservation companies or 

property maintenance software. Years ago, 

we managed everything on a spreadsheet. 

We are currently developing a national 

software program that will go live in 

about 18 months which will speed up 

the preservation process and make the 

database national.” 

Benton then asked, “What does Safeguard 

bring to the table regarding Property 

Preservation?” 

Virginia 

Mays 

James 

Browning 

Mark 

Paniccia 

Steve Meyers, who is an absolute expert in 

the field of property preservation answered, 

“Safeguard has extensive knowledge of the 

particular laws and regulations in each 

state we service. For example, in Florida, it 

is a foreclosure registration, not a vacancy 

registration. First and foremost, we avoid 

violations; we have an aggressive approach 

to maintain properties. Code enforcement 

requires complaint driven organizations.” 

Steve explained the “Good Neighbor 

Program” by stating that Safeguard gives 

out pamphlets to neighbors to inform 

them on Safeguard’s property preservation 

practices and to provide them with contact 

information should issues arise. When 

violations come in, there is a process, and 

acknowledgement, and they quickly get out 

the information, to take the proper action. 

“We provide webinars to Code Enforcement 

Officers for accredited education for one 

hour towards their continuing education 

requirements,” Meyers said. “These 

webinars are informative and provide them 

with the tools to work with Safeguard.” 

Finally, Safeguard has launched a 

technology program called, “Compliance 

Connection," this is a web-based product to 

By James A. 

Browning, MRE 

provide immediate access to all interested 

parties, and provides solutions as well. 

Benton then asked the panelists, “How 

quickly are you in contact with code 

enforcement people and/or outsourcers 

to work with them?” 

Mark said that brokers handle code 

violations and vacant registration fees and 

they do it very well. 

“We currently have a proposal with a 

national supplier for code violations, 

vacant property registration, and HOA 

identification (where to call to find out 

what is owed),” Paniccia said. “SunTrust is 

considering bundling the services available 

for the real estate community and giving 

brokers the option of using the national 

supplier should they so choose. If the REO 

listing broker buys the product or services 

from the national supplier, that company 

will backstop them if there are any flaws 

in what they deliver.” 

SunTrust is using the RES.NET platform 

for property preservation tasks; this is 

a great platform to resolve issues and 

problems. 



BREAKOUT SESSION 2: Property Preservation – continued from page 18 

Victoria added that with condominium 

associations, there could be multiple 

associations that could and do delay 

closings. As far as technology is concerned, 

there is not a national database currently 

available for HOAs. This makes it difficult 

to report any issues to the lenders. 

With respect to property preservation on 

REOs, SunTrust has a simple policy, “make 

it look like the neighbor's." If the neighbor 

has mulch and flowers, their properties will 

have mulch and flowers. If the neighbor has 

small plants and flowers, their property 

will have plants and flowers. 

As a panelist I stressed the importance 

upon receiving an assignment from the 

Bank/Lender of assessing all property 

preservation issues, code violation 

issues, damage, and repairs needed. 

Document the issues with photographs, 

detailed notes and notify the proper bank 

representative via e-mail or technology 

driven communication. I also commented 

on the need for ongoing communication 

between the preservation companies and 

listing brokers so everyone remains in 


the loop. This is done very well by some 

companies which results in smoother 

transactions from initial listing through 

the closing. 

Benton was politically correct, but with 

with humor. Mark, Steve, Victoria and 

I shared a large amount of information 

on this Property Preservation/Code 

Violation panel. This is just is a small 

sample of what we all were able to share 

during the session. If I wrote about the 

entire session, honestly it would be a 

large hard-cover novel. Thank you to all 

involved, especially REOMAC® for putting 

on another incredible educational seminar 

and Expo. 

James A. Browning is the CEO of the 

REO Institute of Colorado, Broker/Owner, 

Browning Group LLC, National Speaker/ 

Instructor related to Residential and 

Commercial Distressed Assets. 


BREAKOUT SESSION 3: Fraud 

Jay Kivitz, Esq. 

MODERATOR 

Denise 

Stemen 

What is mortgage fraud? For our 

purposes, mortgage fraud is defined 

as fraudulent underwriters or 

lenders who lie about the borrower’s income 

or employment in order to secure a home 

loan. There are two types of mortgage 

fraud according the FBI: fraud for profit 

and fraud for property. 

Fraud takes place on several levels – From 

the stripping of copper wires, appliances 

and other valuables in the house, to falsified 

applications and organized crime. Robert 

Jackson asked how a broker is to protect 

themselves from these schemers. To whom 

does one report? When it comes to the 

stripping of houses, the local authorities 

are the ones to report it to, except in the 

cases where organized crime is involved. 

Then it becomes an FBI issue, according 

to Denise Stemen, of the FBI. The main 

thing is to not be a party to the fraud. Ask 

the right questions and protect yourself, as 

well as your client. 

Ms. Stemen made it quite clear that we lose 

as consumers when banks lose money; and 

as citizens when the banks are bailed out. 

She gave several examples of mortgage 

fraud, such as: A Loan Officer with 

several lines of phones to verify fraudulent 

employment. If it's a real short sale, the 

bank has to rely on the real estate agent. 

When the agent does not bring all offers 

to the bank, it is fraud. There are as many 

as three victims in one transaction: the 

homeowner, the buyer, and the bank. 

W. Chris 

Parnell, Esq. 

Robert 

Jackson 

Carl 

McGehee 

Carl McGehee sees degrees of fraud. From 

investment property purchase disguised 

as a primary residence when it's really an 

investment property; Straw buyer schemes 

are popular too. When McGehee senses 

something wrong he pulls someone aside 

to investigate before closing. Everyone 

should ask the right questions and proceed 

cautiously, as “once you do one, you are 

in it” and that can now be used to try to 

blackmail you into continuing to do these 

fraudulent transactions – then it gets scary. 

The perpetrators generally look for people 

in financial problems who become easy prey 

due to their existing financial situations. 

All must be careful not to get involved 

at any level. They will try to intimidate, 

threaten, etc. Once you do one, they have 

you and can use that to keep you doing it, 

McGehee said. 

Moderator, Jay Kivitz asked to know at what 

level the authorities get involved. Denise 

Stemen responded that there are more 

than 400 task forces involved in mortgage 

fraud investigations all across the nation. 

Sometimes an interview of deterrence is 

enough and one call to the local FBI office 

is a good thing as it prompts them to start 

to watch the parties involved. 

Stemen said, “The straw buyer usually spills 

the beans. Joe Schmo America did not come 

up with this. People in the industry did." 

Carl McGehee said that sometimes the 

seller may not quite figure out why they 

By Moren 

Adenubi 

should not participate, to which W. Chris 

Parnell responded that “Non- participation 

can also get you in trouble. You have an 

obligation to speak up.” 

A real estate agent in the audience asked 

what to do in this scenario: a competing 

agent who is inexperienced and does not 

have a list of contractors yet, gets two bids 

from one company and submits both to 

the bank or asset management company. 

The agent asked, “What do I do when I look 

bad because as a competitor I look like I 

am trying to stop my competition, yet the 

bank is being defrauded as they are not 

getting a competitive bid? 

McGehee advised that she try the real estate 

commission first, as this is fraud against 

the client – It is not mortgage fraud. It's a 

crime of conspiracy and probably will not 

be prosecuted. You will need the contractor 

who did give both bids to admit doing so. 

The FBI will prosecute such a case if it is 

systemic to keep others out, and someone 

is making money – not just an unfair 

business advantage. 

Fraud for profit is what is prosecuted. The 

FBI does not prosecute a home owner 

who fibs on an application to get a bigger 

house to live in. “That may be morally and 

ethically wrong, but profiting from fraud 

is what we want to prosecute,” said Denise. 



BREAKOUT SESSION 3: Fraud – continued from page 20 

Robert Jackson suggested that all parties 

to the transaction get their facts straight 

before they show up at the closing. Be 

prepared to walk away from the closing 

table, if necessary, he said. Carl McGehee 

let the audience know that both Fannie Mae 

and Freddie Mac will support the agent 100 

percent if the agent “walks” away from the 

closing due to fraud. 

Denise Stemen made it quite clear that 

there are no gray areas when it comes to 

who represents whom in the transaction 

– the attorney represents the new money 

lender. She went on to state the importance 

of closely following closing instructions! 

When closing instructions are followed 

explicitly, it is hard to go wrong. 

In this day of electronic communication, 

prosecution is quite easy as e-mails and 

text messages provide the proof that is 

needed, making prosecution very easy. Mr. 

McGehee said to ensure that identification 

is checked and authenticated. 

Squatters who move into a vacant house 

are a form of fraud. Many local police 


departments will often not get involved. 

The FBI will get involved if a ring is involved, 

but not one individual. 

W. Chris Parnell ended the very informative 

session by saying that if you are honest, 

you never need to be involved with the FBI 

and you also do not need to worry about 

what you said. 

Key Findings of the FBI 2010 Mortgage 

Fraud Report: 

• Prevalent mortgage fraud schemes 

reported by law enforcement and 

industry FY 2010 included loan 

origination; foreclosure rescue; real 

estate investment; equity skimming; 

short sale, illegal property flipping; title/ 

escrow/settlement, commercial loan 

and builder bailout schemes. Home 

equity line of credit (HELOC) reverse 

mortgage fraud, and fraud involving loan 

modifications are still a concern for law 

enforcement and industry 

• With elevated levels of mortgage fraud, 

the FBI has continued to dedicate 

significant resources to the threat. In 

June 2010, the Department of Justice 

(DOJ), including the FBI, announced 

a mortgage fraud takedown referred 

to as “Operation Stolen Dreams." The 

takedown targeted mortgage fraudsters 

throughout the country and was the 

largest collective enforcement effort ever 

brought to bear in combating mortgage 

fraud 

• The current and continuing depressed 

housing market will likely remain an 

attractive environment for mortgage 

fraud perpetrators who will continue 

to seek new methods to circumvent 

loopholes and gaps in the mortgage 

lending market. These methods will 

likely remain effective in the near term; 

as the housing market is anticipated to 

remain stagnant through 2011. 

Moren Adenubi is a writer, business coach, 

motivational speaker & business owner 

who has been a real estate practitioner 

and consultant in Nashville, Tennessee 

for nearly two decades. 


I 

was honored to be asked to report on 

the recent session at the REOMAC® 

Technology and Wellness Expo entitled 

"Resilience." To be frank, I wasn’t quite 

sure what to expect when I sat down for 

the session headed by Dr. Frank Sabatino. 

But, within minutes every seat was taken 

and even a few more were brought in 

for the overflow. Dr. Sabatino, who has 

been involved in wellness and healthcare 

counseling for over 30 years, was not only 

extremely informative in his presentation, 

but entertaining as well. 

Dr. Frank Sabatino 

BREAKOUT 

SESSION 4: 

Resilience 

By Scott 

Hubbard 

Resilience Can Overcome Personal 

Resistance to Improved Living 

To begin, he defined resilience as the ability 

to adapt in an environment of tremendous 

stress. In preparation for this article, I went 

online and looked up the term. Merriam- 

Webster defines resilience as follows: 

1) The capability of a strained body 

to recover its size and shape after 

deformation caused especially by 

compressive stress, and, 2) an ability 

to recover from or adjust easily to 

misfortune or change. 

Do any of those sound familiar to anybody? 

Resilience is important because it is our 

ability to combat the everyday stresses of 

our environment. Stress affects everything 

in our lives, including our bodies. Among 

many other things, it can impact your 

immune system, your digestive system, and 

even libido. When under stress, our bodies 

usually react in a fight or flight response. 

The resilient process involves three steps: 

1) Alarm; 2) Resistance; and, 3) Exhaustion. 

In the alarm stage, the stress is presented 

and the adrenal glands react by releasing 

cortisol into our system. The resistance 

stage is where our body makes an energetic 

response to the stress. However, prolonged 

stress increases cortisol production and 

this has been shown to induce abdominal 

weight gain. Exhaustion is next and the 

body needs sufficient rest to recover. Many 

people in this stage use props to keep going, 

such as caffeine, and this usually only helps 

to reinforce an endless cycle of exhaustion. 

Dr. Sabatino perfectly described how most 

of us live – instead of “burning the candle 

at both ends," we cut the candle into four 

or five pieces and burn those at both ends. 

Unfortunately, most of us, especially those 

of us in our unique industry, fit this profile 

all too well. The body, he stated, has an 

inborn ability to be well and humans have 

been sidetracked from using the power 

within ourselves. Our culture is much 

more focused on how our bodies look on 

the outside instead of their well-being 

on the inside. Our bodies are constantly 

adjusting and adapting to generate balance. 

Disease and breakdown come as a result of 

our bodies losing the ability to adjust and 

adapt. Our bodies are constantly making 

thousands of adjustments every second of 

every day to create a unique outcome of 

balance and integration. 

Dr. Sabatino talked about the blind faith 

we have placed in outside experts instead 

of relying on our own body’s power and 

capability to heal itself. To illustrate this 

with a dose of cold, hard statistics, he 

stated that 110,000 people a year die from 

problems associated with over-the-counter 

medications and more than 80,000 a 

year die from infections picked up in our 

hospitals. The third leading cause of death 

is the healthcare system itself! The good 

news, however, is that our everyday choices 

will be what keep us well, if we make 

choices that allow our bodies to maintain 

balance. He mentioned three main areas 

within our control that can help us create 

that balance in our lives and increase our 

resilience; food intake, activities, and how 

we deal with exhaustion. 



BREAKOUT SESSION 4: Resilience – continued from page 22 

As you might expect, what we eat has a 

tremendous effect on our body’s responseability. 

The body’s response-ability is 

what makes it able to adjust and respond 

to maintain balance. Most of our energy 

deficits can be attributed to fruit and 

vegetable deficient diets. Also troubling 

is that refined sugar is consumed in this 

country at unprecedented levels. In 1900 

Americans consumed on average 5-10 lbs. 

of sugar a year, as opposed to 1996 when 

Americans consumed approximately 155 

lbs of sugar, per person, annually. The 

high consumption of sugar can be toxic 

to the body. It causes the body to produce 

large amounts of the hormone insulin to 

regulate and fight elevated blood sugar 

levels. Studies have shown that elevated 

insulin levels block the release of other 

hormones which regulate estrogen and 

testosterone levels in our bodies and 

elevated levels of these hormones have 

been attributed to the development of 

cysts and tumors. 

Another eye-opening illustration he gave 

us was concerning a study that was done 

on breakfast cereals. One group of animals 

was fed a high sugar cereal and another 

group was fed the ground up cereal box. 

At the end of the experiment, the group 

that ate the ground up box tested better 

in all areas. The same chemicals that put 

the color into our produce serve to protect 

our bodies from disease so a rainbow of 

colors should be on our plates at mealtime. 

Vegetables should be eaten as close to raw 

if possible or lightly steamed (this not 

being the best news of the day for this 

southern boy – I thought vegetables were 

to be cooked thoroughly and then cooked 

some more for best results). 

Dr. Sabatino also emphasized that our 

bodies were designed for activity and that 

inactivity helps to feed the insomnia and 

depression epidemic in our culture. We 

should exercise at a minimum of three to 

four times a week for at least thirty minutes 

at a time. This was non-negotiable! Less 

than one-third of us take part in physical 

activity at least three times a week. Ideally, 

weight training should be a part of our 

exercise to combat the loss of muscle cells 

as we age, and this should be at least two 

times a week. He also explained that the 


body tends to compress as we age and that 

exercise regimens such as yoga, palates 

and other stretching helps to fight this. 

If you do not like the thought of exercise, 

replace that word with activity – whether 

that is dancing, swimming, etc., find an 

activity that you enjoy and do it regularly. 

Consider this, if we spent two less hours 

a day in front screens, such as computer 

or TV screens, and we were active instead, 

that would translate into the loss of about 

twelve pounds a year. 

Sleep is also something that our bodies 

were designed for and is not highly valued 

in our culture. We apologize for sleep 

which is a biological activity and we employ 

the use of props to help keep us going. 

Props just help increase our exhaustion 

cause our bodies to crash to the same 

extent that the props stimulated them. As 

adults, we need at least six hours of sleep 

per night. Less sleep than that increases 

our risk of developing diabetes four-fold 

and also contributes to weight gain. Dr. 

Sabatino explained that the best time to 

sleep is between 10:00 pm and 4:00 am. 

When he said that, I knew right away that 

my Dad was looking down on me at that 

very moment shouting – "See, I told you so!" 

Our bodies are designed to wind down at 

night and the best way to get ready for rest 

is to create a sleep ritual to follow every 

night, such as taking a hot bath before bed. 

Perhaps most surprising was learning that 

breathing properly is an important way to 

help regulate our anxiety and minimize 

our stress level. Apparently, many of 

us normally breathe in a pattern that 

promotes anxiety and tension – whether 

those elements exist or not. Your belly 

should expand when inhaling, if you are 

breathing properly. To practice breathing 

correctly, do so while laying down flat on 

your back, as you always breathe correctly 

while laying flat. Much of our body tension 

is related directly to abnormal breathing 

patterns. When we breathe abnormally, 

much like we do when we are under 

high stress or anxiety, our bodies react 

accordingly, as if that stress or anxiety is 

actually present. Dr. Sabatino explained 

that stress usually comes not in the event 

or happening but in our perception of the 

event. This makes the use of relaxation 

techniques extremely important as they 

help to change our perceptions and thus 

our level of stress. 

The walkaway lesson from this session 

was profound – our bodies are amazing 

and they were designed in such a way 

as to adapt and adjust to generate that 

unique balance needed for optimal living. 

However, most of the time, we are our own 

worst enemies. Most of us are so busy 

that we do not make the time to care for 

our own bodies. We are looking for that 

life-changing pill or diet that will solve all 

our problems and cause us to live stress 

free lives. We have blind faith in thirdparty 

“experts” and in various medications, 

when we innately possess the ability to be 

well. As Dr. Sabatino stated, “we believe 

that what we believe is all there is and we 

limit ourselves." The truth is that we can 

set in motion the actions that will improve 

our lives immensely simply by changing 

our food intake, implementing regular 

exercise and/or activities, and dealing with 

exhaustion by allowing our bodies to get 

sufficient sleep. All these things will help 

us to be much more “Resilient." 

A.Scott Hubbard is a partner in the 

Brentwood, Tennessee-based law firm of 

McCann, Hubbard & Solomon. 



Technology – Your Responsibilities and Liabilities 

John Vella 

MODERATOR 

The REOMAC® Fall 2011 Technology 

and Wellness Expo was bolstered 

by a great session on Technology 

by Default Servicing Industry leaders 

on Friday, October 21 st . John Vella, 

COO at Equator, served as moderator 

and offered thoughtful insights into the 

growing technology and security/safety 

demands on servicers and field agents from 

investors and regulators in terms of default 

servicing. He noted that agents have a huge 

responsibility to protect the interests of the 

investors/servicers, and that compliance 

with all the new requirements is essential 

to anyone’s success in the industry. 

John Madrid, from xPlair Technology, 

offered some thoughts on data leakage 

and problems it can cause for everyone 

in the chain of secure handling of 

sensitive information. No one in the 

audience misunderstood his reference 

to “leakage” in relation to the leakage 

one might experience around a diaperwearing 

small child. A small leak can 

become a big problem for others in a 

hurry. Data leakage can be intentional 

or unintentional, and can happen when 

data is delivered to an un-trusted source, 

or when sensitive data from customers 

or corporate financials and/or trade 

secrets are “leaked." Methods of leakage 

include e-mail/IM, device losses (laptops, 

smartphones, etc), portable media losses, 

social networking sites/blogs, and cloud/ 

data storage sites. External threats to a 

Dean Talaganis, Esq. John Madrid Art Aughey 

secure data environment can come from 

hackers, vendors and service-providers. 

Internal threats can come from “inside” 

employees as well as “separated” employees 

through rightsizing, terminations or 

mergers. Everyone in any corporate 

environment must be very careful about 

any e-mail chains, inadvertent e-mails, 

Facebook or similar postings, blogs, etc. 

These chains of communication can have 

an almost limitless lifespan. 

Leaks of information can occur in so many 

forms, and those forms are increasing 

in complexity with so many people 

able to access so much information. 

Madrid emphasized that organization 

awareness is the starting point, and that all 

organizations must implement appropriate 

tools to enforce security policies including 

data filtering (especially outbound e-mail), 

website management of social media, 

personal web e-mail and personal FTP/ 

Cloud sites, data encryption tools and the 

blocking of the use of USBs and peripherals 

on a secured system. 

John Vella reviewed the very sensitive 

information from clients that might be 

involved in a short sale, particularly in 

“less-than-secure” real estate offices. Real 

Estate offices are handling more sensitive 

information than ever before and perhaps 

have not kept up the level of security of 

sensitive information the industry requires. 

Often there can be a lack of security of 

By David J. 

Vander Schaaf 

files and access to fax machine areas, poor 

disposal, information-sensitive financials, 

lack of secure bins, unenforced shredding 

policies, etc., etc. Vella noted that the 

younger workforce is used to having 

everything at their fingertips and they 

don’t like to be impacted by restrictions. 

Many in the workforce now have their 

own “devices” with storage capacity that 

are connecting to corporate networks 

and websites. Often security standards 

are breached by employees carrying 

devices around in ways that could cause 

great problems if those devices were lost 

or stolen. Cloud computing has become 

popular, but there still may be future 

security challenges there as well. Even 

copy machines have internal hard drives 

with massive storage capabilities keeping 

hundreds of thousands of images forever 

until erased. Copy machine hard drive 

wiping/destruction is a very important 

issue when disposing of an old copy 

machine. 

It is increasingly difficult for companies 

to keep pace with technology and meet 

security challenges. Financial institutions 

have many subcontractors interacting 

with their data sets, and they have an 

ever-growing concern over data security. 

Banks working with REO Servicing 



BREAKOUT SESSION 5: Technology – continued from page 24 

Organizations are rigorously reviewing security practices, data 

storage, and security at outsourcers. 

Dean Talaganis, Esq. who is in a leadership position with the 

law firm of Morris Hardwick, which serves many of the large 

mortgage servicers in Ohio and the Midwest, discussed some 

practical issues for an organization with ten primary physical 

locations and 45 remote sites. His organization receives 30,000 

e-mails per day (1/3 are spam) and sends 10,000 e-mails per day. 

The firm has nine full time people in IT to maintain an extensive 

firewall system which typically receives at least four “valid” attacks 

per month to its ports. 

Their internal policies cover the avoidance of downtime which 

would cripple a firm of this size and those servicers that depend 

on them. Policies also cover not allowing any zip files or .exe 

files to be downloaded, full desk-level encryption in computers, 

and a lojack-style RFD system for laptops in case they are even 

plugged into any “disallowed” non-firm network (authorities will 

be notified). Internal policies also cover the use of any portable 

or zip drives, mandatory password reset timeframes, mandatory 

re-logins to systems at varying intervals, and auditing of log-ins 

by employees. 

Dean stated that all companies providing financial services need 

to know where they might be vulnerable. They need to have not 


REOMAC® Plus tm ! 

Your FIRST CHOICE resource 

for quick access to a REOMAC® 

Member REO Expert 

The industry experts know that to find a local 

default professional they simply go to www.reomac. 

com and click on the REOMAC® Plus tm logo. 

Your trusted resource 

for over 25 years. 

A proven track record 

servicing the default 

industry! 

www.reomac.com 

just computer security, but employee security, including rigorous 

employee screening. He summarized by saying that clients in the 

financial services industry expect to see a rigorous set of policies 

and procedures to protect the very sensitive data involved in 

default servicing, and to be constantly re-evaluating risks and 

threats to security of information. 

Art Aughey, Manager of Corporate Performance for NRT 

REOExperts, discussed how changes in the workforce and 

changes in the use of personal equipment in the workplace can 

often hamper data security efforts. The younger (and future) 

employees have been raised on computers and smart phones, and 

are increasingly pushing businesses to adopt polices allowing 

“personal” equipment to be used as work devices (iPhones, iPads, 

laptops, desktops, etc). In struggling economic times, companies 

are required to cut expenses, so software and hardware system 

upgrades can lag, and this can frustrate employees who may view 

this as limiting their productivity. He noted the IT departments 

will have a continuous challenge ahead to safeguard sensitive 

business data. IT managers stay awake at night thinking about 

data retention rules, the multitude of devices that integrate with 

a company’s network, and the possibility that a leak may occur. 

Even real estate firms going with mobile office technology can 

cause a great risk to security as agents may be logging on to various 

networks that lack security. What about wireless syncing at your 

local Starbucks? Could someone with the latte next to you be 

intercepting your data? Art suggested that taking advantage 

of “remote wiping” feature programmed into many handheld 

devices can save individuals and companies a lot of money and 

headaches should a device be lost. He summarized by stating 

that the industry cannot be ruled by paranoia, but that everyone 

should be cognizant of their technology device and security 

features, and to use them all in a safe and secure manner. 

It’s certain that some ongoing thread from this very enlightening 

and crucial breakout session will be brought forward again at a 

future REOMAC® meeting. 

David J. Vander Schaaf heads up WisconsinREOServicing.com as 

Regional REO Manager for Century 21 Affiliated of Baraboo, WI. 


Larry Bird 

MODERATOR 

Stephen 

Weiss 

Loss mitigation seems to be one of, if 

not the hottest topic currently in our 

industry. Many people have been in the 

default and REO business a number of years. 

However, with the decrease in inventory, 

many industry professionals are branching 

out into short sales. Loss mitigation covers 

a multitude of different alternatives to 

foreclosure, including modifications, workout 

agreements, short sales or a deed-in-lieu. 

It is important that all of us within our 

industry understand the various alternatives 

available to homeowners [borrowers]. 

When a Realtor has a listing appointment 

with an individual homeowner who is in 

distress, they should direct that homeowner 

to seek legal and tax advice before deciding 

which option to pursue. It’s (almost always) 

in everyone’s best interest for people to 

retain their homes. This can help stabilize 

the market. According to Stephen Weiss, 

with Foreclosure Response Teams, there 

are a number of ways that a loan can be 

modified. Three of those alternatives are; a 

reduction in interest, a change in the term 

of the loan, and/or forgiven principal and 

interest. 

Most work-out agreements involve a 

temporary forbearance (forbearance is not 

the same as “forgiveness” and is typically a 

Travis 

Hamel Olsen 

mechanism to add payments onto the back 

of the loan term). The third foreclosure 

alternative is a short sale, which used to be 

referred to as a “short payoff” and was rarely 

approved by lenders prior to 2006. The 

fourth alternative is a deed-in-lieu, which 

is usually a last resort before a foreclosure. 

This option is more difficult and usually only 

occurs when there is one mortgage and no 

additional liens on the property. 

Many states differ as to whom can negotiate 

a short sale. This is based on the state specific 

S.A.F.E. Act [Title V of P.L. 110-289, the 

Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage 

Licensing Act of 2008 (“SAFE Act”)], was 

passed on July 30, 2008. The new federal 

law gave states one year to pass legislation 

requiring the licensure of mortgage loan 

originators according to national standards 

and the participation of state agencies on 

the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System 

and Registry (NMLS). The SAFE Act is 

designed to enhance consumer protection 

and reduce fraud through the setting of 

minimum standards for the licensing and 

registration of state-licensed mortgage loan. 

Many of the states will allow an attorney to 

negotiate a short sale, but not all states. It is 

important to get the process started as soon 

as possible. The short sale package is the 

key to a smooth process. Louis Taylor, with 

BREAKOUT 

SESSION 6: 


By Beth 

Cruikshank, 

Esq. 

Loss Mitigation and Other Foreclosure 

Alternative Programs 

Matt Martin & Associates said it best when 

he used the term “EOC," meaning Education, 

Organization and Communication. 

One should always educate both the seller 

and the buyer on the process of a short 

sale and set expectations regarding the 

timelines, documentation required and the 

changes that can occur. Communication 

on how the timeline and how things are 

progressing are imperative for a successful 

transaction. Organization in the short sale 

package is a key to making sure that the 

negotiator assigned to your file can process 

it in a timely fashion. Louis said nothing is 

more frustrating than having to continually 

ask the agent or facilitator for additional 

documentation. If a complete package 

is sent in the first time, there will not be 

delays in the transaction. One of the things 

I always suggest is that a table of contents be 

provided with the package. The loan number 

and page number should be written on the 

top of each page that is faxed in. 

One of the most notable (and controversial) 

programs for short sales is HAFA (Home 

Affordable Foreclosure Alternative). Larry 

Bird of Birdrock Enterprises, asked what are 

the latest updates for this program? Travis 


26 NOvEMbER / DEcEMbER 2011 REOMAC ® update tm 

Louis 

Taylor

BREAKOUT SESSION 6: Loss Mitigation – continued from page 26 

Olsen, from Loan Resolution Corporation, 

said that some of the most notable changes 

went into effect October 15, 2011, just a 

few days prior to the REOMAC® expo. It 

is difficult to keep up with all the changes 

that are constantly occurring, so this 

session was informative and very helpful. 

Travis specifically mentioned three recent 

and significant changes. First, the $6,000 

cap for subordinate liens now applies only 

to mortgage liens. Therefore, other liens 

such as homeowner’s association and 

materialmen’s liens may be paid. Prior to this 

change, the $6,000 had to be split between 

all inferior lienholders. As Travis said, this 

is a “small change but a BIG step forward 

to getting more HAFA short sales closed.” 

The second major change was that servicers 

are required to reevaluate their list price 

periodically. This is important since 

the HAFA approval letter is based on 

a percentage of the list price. This reevaluation 

will allow the servicers to reduce 

their asking price and approval price while 

still remaining within HAFA guidelines. 

The third and final significant change that 

will affect HAFA short sales closings is that 

the borrowers are now able to contribute 

their $3,000 in relocation incentives towards 

the transaction costs. It can be used to pay 

for anything except liens. This will allow 

them to pay for legal representation or 

repairs for example. 

One of the topics discussed in the session 

that I found to be the most interesting 

change was the SPOC requirement (Single 

Point of Contact). SPOC requires that 

the 14 biggest servicers were forced to 

initialiate it under the federal consent 

orders. The consent order gave the servicers 

until October of this year to institute this 

process. Although it is a great concept, as 

Travis said, it can also be very challenging. 

It has created a procedural and change of 

mentality amongst the servicers. The goal is 

obviously to prevent avoidable foreclosures; 

unfortunately, even today, as many as 30 

percent or 40 percent of homeowner’s never 

contact their servicer for assistance prior 

to a foreclosure. 

The “SPOC” brings us back to the days 

of the “banker” mentality. There are two 


hurdles to overcome for this to work. The 

first is the change in the procedures and 

internal organization among the servicers. 

Although the consent order was given in 

April, the servicers only had until October 

to implement it. Some of the larger servicers 

already started implementing SPOC prior 

to the consent order. 

J.P. Morgan Chase started referring borrowers 

entering loss mitigation to relationship 

managers and began transitioning those 

already in loss mitigation to SPOC over 

a period of time. Bank of America began 

implementing SPOC in late 2010. Bank of 

America’s model gives a SPOC for modifications 

and for short sales. The purpose 

behind the SPOC is to provide one contact 

throughout the process of loss mitigation 

and to assist a borrower with their options. 

This leads to the next hurdle: How can 

one person answer a borrower’s question 

on modification, short sale, deed in lieu, 

possible bankruptcy and/or foreclosure 

implications? There is just too much 

information, too many options and too 

many different procedures for one person 

in a servicer’s loss mitigation department to 

effectively provide service. Going back to 

what Louis said about communication: it is 

also true about the communication between 

the borrower and the servicer. 

The government is trying to protect the 

consumer/borrower and is trying various 

alternatives. First they started with HAMP 

and HAFA and now under the consent 

order, SPOC. The government offered little 

guidance but rather merely said “this is what 

you are going to do and when you will do it.” 

Larry Bird next asked how technology is 

impacting single point of contact. The bigger 

question is how is technology impacting loss 

mitigation? One of the biggest complaints 

I hear is that a 100-page fax was sent into 

a servicer and they “didn’t receive the 

bank statement or the 4506 or that the 

servicer did not receive any of the faxed 

pages.” Of course, this still happens on 

a daily basis. Platforms such as Equator 

have made the transition from an REO 

platform to handling short sales. Equator 

is task- oriented and allows the facilitator 

to upload documents as requested. Equator 

appears to constantly be looking to increase 

effectiveness and efficiency. 

There are currently only a few of the servicers 

using Equator, such as Bank of America, 

Wells Fargo and GMAC. It is like many 

other technologies; if you are familiar with 

them, you love them. Those agents who are 

not familiar with them, prefer the old way. 

Chris Saitta from Equator said technology 

should not replace communication, it should 

enable it. I couldn’t agree more. Uploading 

information and communication through 

systems such as Equator greatly enhance 

tracking documents. However, there are 

times when the borrower or the facilitator 

needs to speak to a live person. 

The panel discussed the importance of 

knowing the players in the approval process. 

When the borrower begins the short sale 

process, they should inquire from the 

servicer specific information regarding 

their loan. Some of that information 

should include: who the investor is, what 

type of loan they have, and if there is a 

mortgage insurance company insuring their 

transaction. Increasingly, the mortgage 

insurance companies want borrower 

participation in the losses sustained. 

Just because the borrower is not paying 

a monthly mortgage insurance premium 

does not mean they don’t have mortgage 

insurance. There are several types of 

mortgage insurance: borrower paid, lender 

paid and silent mortgage insurance. When 

there is an MI company involved, the 

borrower should be prepared to either 

provide a cash contribution or a promissory 

note. 

One of the most important factors for an 

approval on a short sale is the valuation. 

Many people in the audience questioned why 

the servicer doesn’t use the BPO provided 

by the listing agent. The panel indicated 

that since the listing agent is an interested 

party, there is a conflict of interest. Of 

course, the listing agent can and should 

submit their comps and a BPO so that if 

the second BPO comes in higher, there is 

justification and documentation to support 

the contract price. 



BREAKOUT SESSION 6: Loss Mitigation – continued from page 27 

There is also an obvious difference between 

the BPO and appraisal. Certain loan 

programs require an appraisal. If the 

borrower and/or purchaser have an 

appraisal completed that varies drastically 

from the appraisal that the servicer has 

done, it is better to provide the conflicting 

documentation as early as possible. For 

example, if an appraisal comes in high and 

the listing agent can show pictures of repairs 

that need to be completed that drop the 

value of the property, the servicer may be 

able to lower the valuation. 

Most of the servicers and investors are 

looking at the net value and not the percent 

of value. FHA and other government 

organizations may differ in that they are 

looking for a percent of the value of the 

property. For example, on an FHA short sale, 

if the property has been on the market for 30 

days or less, a net of 88 percent is required; 

30-60 days, a net of 86 percent and 60 days 

or more 84 percent is required. They will 

not accept less than 84 percent regardless 

of the length of time. VA requires a net of 

88 percent of the value. 

The topic that received the most discussion 

and the greatest engagement from the 

audience was fraud in short sales. For 

those of us that have been in the industry 

for a while, we can all remember the days 

of illegal “flipping.” The term that is being 

used to label the most prevalent type of 

fraud in short sales is “flopping.” This occurs 

when the buyer of a short sale has another 

contract with a third-party buyer for more 

than the first contract. The idea is that if the 

property would have brought more to the 

short sale lender, and the second contract 

was not disclosed to them, then fraud 

has occurred. This does not mean that a 

buyer cannot purchase a short sale, make 

improvements and then sell for more. Just 

like flipping in and of itself, is not illegal, it 

is all about disclosure. 

Stephen discussed “flopping” in depth. An 

example is when the listing agent is working 

with an investor. Instead of putting the 

property on the market and trying to get fair 

market value, the agent notifies the investor, 

who then makes a low ball offer. The idea is 

that the agent should use their best efforts to 

get fair market value. Travis indicated that 

they like to see properties on the market for 

approximately 90 days before they accept an 

offer. This gives more indication that the 

offer is a good offer. 

The last item discussed was whether there 

have been any creative short sale incentives 

being offered. There absolutely are incentives 

being offered by a number of the large 

servicers. They vary anywhere from $5,000 

- $40,000. The amounts vary by state, by 

servicer, and by the individual situation. 

Most of the incentives can only be given 

for loans that are in the servicers’ portfolios. 

The session was informative and engaging. 

Loss mitigation has changed our industry. 

The rules and regulations change almost 

daily. In order to be successful in today’s 

market, you must remain current and 

informed. 

Beth Cruikshank, Esq. is associated with 

Marietta, Georgia-based Shafritz & Dean 

Attorneys at Law. 


Tom 

Moon 


Tom Corzine 

MODERATOR 

Desiree 

Patno 

In this informative session topics ranged 

from using technology and social media 

to market yourself and your properties, 

to the advantages and challenges thereof. 

Today, as we sell REO properties for our 

clients we struggle with the traditional ways 

of pen and paper and the new technology 

which includes file servers. Tom Moon 

mentioned how technology is becoming the 

glue in his office. He also makes mention of 

file servers and REO Office manager, tools 

his office uses to keep up with the day-today 

tasks of handling REO properties in 

today’s changing climate; something that 

was not needed years ago, but with new 

times and inventory changes comes this 

alteration. Nothing replaces the human 

element, however, as technology is only 

as good as the one who implements it and 

inputs the information. 

Desiree Patno, with over 20 years of 

experience in real estate advises that you 

diversify your real estate tasks and focus. 

What makes you stand out? What makes 

you different? Look into your market and 

use those questions to make yourself stand 

apart from the rest. Use your skills to make 

yourself more marketable, more attractive, 

and more visible to the consumer and your 

clients. Sometimes the things you do not 

want to do are the things that are needed 

most when you begin to think outside 

Kendra 

Todd 

Bradlee 

Marick 

the box. These may include property 

management or property preservation. 

Kendra Todd added, “The one with the most 

listings wins.” Having the right technology 

system in place is crucial to manage 

the volume of information. You can use 

technology to manage information, such 

as leads, and not let them fall through the 

cracks. We must adapt when the market 

shifts or slows. 

Bradlee Marick, added that everything 

comes down to the individual office as there 

is no one blueprint that will work for each 

and every office, just the same as no one 

piece of technology other than computers 

and a cell phone will work for each and 

every office. You must ask yourself, “What 

is it you want to do?” You must also ask 

yourself, “What do I want to do as an office?” 

When it comes to social media, although it 

seems to be a trend, not everyone is using 

Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace, and some 

prefer the face-to-face interactions that 

seem less common today. You must find 

your niche and recognize that you cannot 

be all things to all people. 

When it comes to blogging the consensus 

is to establish yourself as a professional in 

your topic(s) of expertise. Know where you 

want to go and recognize what it will take 

BREAKOUT 

SESSION 7: 

The Evolution of 

Marketing and 

Selling 

By Derrick 

Seay 

to get there. You have to be able to relate to 

your buyers so that they may see you as a 

person with similar interest that they may 

identify with. You should be able to identify 

the niche you are trying to establish as you 

cannot try to master them all. 

QR codes are being used as scanable images 

to give buyers information about agents and 

the homes we have listed and can come 

in images smaller than a business card. 

They can provide information regarding 

the agent, their listing, or any information 

the agent wants to pass to the consumer. 

You are able to link information/social 

media sites together. This is a common 

feature with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, 

and other sites where you can post on one 

site and that post will show on other sites 

you are signed up with. You can also sign 

up for one service, “Tweet Deck” which you 

sign in and you can view updates and send 

out your updates whether they are “tweets” 

or Facebook postings. Kendra Todd noted 

that these are social accessories and not a 

necessity. You have to know how to relate 

to your buyers and your clients. 

Derrick Seay is a real estate broker in 

Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His company is 

DSEAYCOM. 


Kent 

Steffes 

Victoria 

DiPasquale, DM 

Brian 

Widener 

Larry Garfinkel 

MODERATOR 

BREAKOUT 

SESSION 8: 

The Era of E- 

By Christine 

Arrington, Esq. 

The Era of E: E-recording, E-filing, E-signing 

Larry Garfinkel, of Liberty Title and 

Escrow Company, served as the 

moderator for the Era of “E” session 

and began by introducing the panelists: 

Vicki DiPasquale of Simplifile; Brian 

Widener; of Johnson & Freedman Law firm, 

and Kent Steffes of Aspen Grove. Who 

remembers when the standard of sending 

something or getting something “fast” was 

via FAX? Now many companies don’t even 

have faxes anymore because of scanning 

and e-mail. The “E” era is upon us. 

The basis for this discussion was the 

Uniform Electronic Transactions Act 

(UETA). UETA guarantees that electronic 

transactions are just as enforceable as their 

paper counterparts. The act states that any 

law that requires a physical record will be 

satisfied by an electronic record and that 

any signature requirement can be met by 

an electronic signature 

Vicki DiPasquale began the discussion 

by explaining that Electronic Recording 

or eRecording is the latest technology 

to be implemented by county recorders. 

ERecording is the electronic submission 

of a document for recording by the 

county. Documents are scanned and 

submitted via the internet, the original 

documents never leave your office and 

you receive an image with the recording 

stamp information displayed verifying the 

recording. In the E-World, documents 

are submitted, reviewed, accepted and/ 

or rejected within minutes. There is a 

tremendous cost savings associated with 

eRecording because paper recording 

averages 11 minutes per document where 

eRecording can be accomplished in 45 

seconds to one minute. 

Ms. DiPasquale emphasized that all 

states currently have legislation for 

eRecording, and 707 counties and 39 

states have accepted eRecording under 

UETA, the Uniform Real Property 

Electronic Recording Act (URPERA) or 

state-specific legislation. The District 

of Columbia, Hawaii and Colorado are 

100 percent covered for eRecording. Just 

over 50 percent of the United States 

Population lives in an eRecording enabled 

jurisdiction. New York is the last state to 

adopt eRecording enabled legislation. 

URPERA : 

• Equates electronic documents and 

electronic signatures to original paper 

documents and manual signatures, so 

that any requirement for originality 

(paper document or manual signature) 

is satisfied by an electronic document 

and signature. 

• Establishes what standards a recording 

office must follow and what it must do 

to make electronic recording effective. 

• Establishes a board to set statewide 

standards and requires it to set uniform 

standards that must be implemented in 

every recording office. 

From a user perspective Vicki opined 

that eRecording is a better consumer 

experience because at the closing there is 

immediate proof of buyer ownership and 

title. This is also an improvement for the 

Real Estate and Title Industry because the 

recording gap is reduced resulting in fewer 

recording losses and claims. 

Also, DiPasquale stated that some of the 

challenges to eRecording exist because of 

the fear of change and fear of technology; 

some counties still want independence 

from technology and are comfortable with 

the status quo. Other counties have budget 

limitations that they believe might prevent 

implementation of eRecording. 

Brian Widener, an attorney with the Law 

firm of Johnson & Freedman, agreed that 

eRecording definitely saves time and 

money and is beneficial in states that 

require recording before disbursements. 



BREAKOUT SESSION 8: The Era of E- – continued from page 30 

Widener, pointed out some challenges 

to the “E” era in that some states still 

require attorneys to certify or perform the 

closing ceremony requiring some paper 

documentation. Additionally, some states 

like Georgia will not accept electronically 

signed security documents. Title searches 

can also be done in most counties on-line 

but Brian finds that there is still a need to 

do a paper search because sometimes the 

on-line records are not up-to-date. 

Brian said his experience with E-loans at 

closings required that the borrower be 

stationed at the computer to click thru and 

accept the loan terms. Throughout this 

certification the borrower is relying on the 

internet and technology not to fail. So there 

can still be technology glitches and the 

lender may still require that the borrower 

be given a paper document. He suggested 

that some major Banks are still sending 

the closing packages thru e-mail links. 

Brian feels that REO portals that allow you 

to communicate with everyone involved 

in the closing process on one e-technology 


HAVE A 

PROBLEM REO? 

WE SPECALIZE IN PROBLEMS! 



MEMBER NATIONAL, STATE AND LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS OF 

REALTORS 


portal are tremendously efficient. However 

the downside to this is that since everything 

needs to be documented at this portal, if 

there is a problem at closing this also 

requires the need for the agent to have 

access to the portal closing. Additionally, 

the tasks assigned in the portal can 

sometimes delay closings if all parties 

have not completed the tasks required 

by the portal. E-technology portals, and 

e-signing, eRecording offer lots of benefits 

in getting the closing done, but there are 

some improvements needed because we 

are still in early states of some of the 

technology. 

Kent Steffes, the final panelist, is the 

vice president of product development 

with Aspen Grove, a web-based property 

management solutions provider. Aspen 

Grove hosts, manages, and develops 

web-based REO solutions. Steffes spoke 

about the evolution of work flow and the 

fact that lenders need to have this process 

documented at every turn, with the real 

estate agents, vendor managers, closing 

companies and more. The lenders and 

banks will require historical data, more 

artifacts, and data storage mechanisms. 

He suggested that banks and lenders are 

required to look more at the processes 

and standards for providing and storing 

data and there will be more technology 

involved in the bank’s processes. 

DiPasquale clarified that E-filing is for 

civil and criminal court documents and 

is further along in implementation than 

eRecording in some states. However, the 

ultimate goal is that both and land recordrelated 

documents will be electronically 

prepared, eFiled, eRecorded, eSigned, and 

reviewed electronically. 

All the expert panelists agreed that the goal 

of getting to “E," paperless, elimination of 

hard files and storage is optimal. This “E” 

Era is now, but not without some significant 

resistance and interesting challenges. 

Christine Arrington, ESQ. Colonel, US 

Army (Retired) is the Broker/Owner of Best 

Homes Realty Group, in Herndon, Virginia. 

PATRICK J. FOX, GRI 

NEW JERSEYS #1 REO BROKER 

With over 20 Years experience in the REO industry 

and thousands of REO’s closed, we are your 

New Jersey specialist for….. 


Residential REO Sales - Commercial REO Sales 

Property Preservation - Property Management 

_______________________ 

Our Long Standing Clients Include: 

Many of the Nations Leading Banks, 

Outsourcers and Servicers 

_______________________ 

If you want RESULTS instead of Excuses 

Call the people that do the job! 

AMERICAN REALTY SERVICES GROUP, INC. 

REO IS ALL WE DO 



MEMBER NATIONAL, STATE AND LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS 

OF REALTORS 



Thank You Technology and Wellness Expo Sponsors! 

PLATINUM SPONSOR 


Thank You Technology and Wellness Expo Sponsors! 

GOLD SPONSOR 



RELAXATION 

LOUNGE 

ADDITIONAL 

SPONSORS 

Wednesday Welcome Reception 

— Ronald Romero — 

Friday Morning Break 

Auction Donors 

Viva Ashcroft – VivAssociates 

Pamela Bookout – Coldwell Banker 

Andrea Poling – Prudential Landmark 

Thursday Welcome Breakfast 

Thursday Morning Break 

— Art Davis — 

Hotel Room Key Cards 

— David Golden — 

Thursday Morning Break 

Tote Bags 

Auction Contributors 

Michelle Syberg – Mid America Property Partners 

Catherine Taylor – Triad Properties 


Thank You Technology and Wellness Expo Exhibitors! 


America's InfoMart APIA EXIT Realty Florida 

Fannie Mae Matt Martin Real Estate Management MFS Supply 

No Paws Left Behind OneStep Lien Search, LLC PEMCO, Ltd. 

Permit Searched Plus, Inc. Property Debt Research REO Network 

RomOffice Manager Safeguard Properties Simplifile 

Sperlonga Data & Analytics Virtual REO 

xplair Technology 


EDITORIAL NOTE: Comments do not necessarily represent the opinions of REOMAC®, its officers, directors or committee chairs. 

A Partial 

Solution 

to our 

Housing 

Crisis 

By Lynn 

Effinger 

As a veteran of nearly four decades 

within the housing and mortgage 

default servicing industries, I have 

grown somnolent of hearing and reading 

the opinions of “experts” in print and 

other media who talk or write about the 

housing and mortgage industry crisis. 

While offering their solutions to “cure” it, 

almost none of them have actually worked 

within this important sector. Having 

served as Vice President-REO Manager for 

Great Western Bank, Washington Mutual 

Bank, and Citifinancial, as well as holding 

other key positions in the trenches of this 

important business for over 16 years, I 

believe I have a better perspective on how 

we might begin to resolve a major portion 

of the crisis. 

A great deal of angst has been created 

within the Obama Administration over the 

past three years by their trying to figure 

out how government can further “help” 

resolve the lingering housing crisis. To 

begin with, this position assumes that the 

government has helped much at all. As the 

saying goes, “assume nothing.” Like the 

dismal economy and dreadful jobs picture, 

the only common-sense solution to reverse 

the housing malaise and improve the 

unemployment situation, thus improving 

our overall economy, is for government to 

stop trying to help. As President Reagan so 

eloquently once said, “Government is not 

the solution to our problems, government 

is the problem.” 

It was government intervention and 

pressure on the lending community in 

the late 1970s, early 1990s, and thereafter 

that set up the housing bubble in the first 

place. Presidents Carter, Clinton and 

Bush-43 demanded that more and more 

Americans have access to the American 

Dream of home ownership, only to see 

lenders devise sub-prime loan programs 

that would ultimately hurt the very citizens 

(mostly citizens) who they ostensibly 

wished to help, turning their dreams into 

nightmares. As time marched on and 

the easy money policies caught on, there 

emerged enough greed by some within 

the lending, real estate, and investor 

communities to drive up demand for 

housing across the country. This in turn 

caused ever-higher demand and what 

appeared to be a shortage of available 

housing to satisfy this growing demand. 

The resulting increase in sales prices and 

perceived “equity” due to this demand 

fueled misguided, short-term decisions 

by many homeowners to refinance their 

homes, using them as quasi-ATMs. While 

not all homeowners were greedy in this 



Opinion – continued from page 36 

regard, many became real estate investors 

and they bought additional properties, 

which further exacerbated rising demand. 

As if that wasn’t enough, investment firms 

created mortgage-backed securities and 

derivatives on sub-prime mortgages that 

turned out to be mostly worthless, as these 

firms and their investors woke up to the 

reality of time-tested physics; what goes up, 

must come down. And don’t forget, Fannie 

and Freddie, backed by the government’s 

Triple-A Rating (oh, the good-old days), 

encouraged lenders to securitize subprime 

loans. 

The disastrous burst of the housing bubble 

was inevitable. Many of us in the mortgage 

default servicing industry predicted this 

calamity back in 2003 when the Bush 

Administration announced their plans 

to make home ownership more affordable 

to even more Americans while certain 

members of Congress gladly opened the 

floodgates for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 

to expand their reach far beyond what was 

prudent or even slightly resembled sound 

business judgment. We instinctively knew 

that these policies would create “REO 

heaven.” 

While none of this information is new, it 

is important to review how we got here to 

better understand how we must proceed 

to get ourselves out. And by “ourselves,” I 

specifically mean the private sector. The 

government has proven, once again, that 

they are not experienced enough nor even 

competent enough to solve this lingering, 

painful problem. Without solving it, there 

can be no real, rather than artificiallycreated, 

recovery in our overall economy. 

As the Obama Administration took over in 

2009, recognizing that mortgage defaults 

and subsequent foreclosure activity was 

rising at a feverish pace, they decided in 

their infinite wisdom that foreclosure 

moratoria was the way to not only slow 

the drop in housing values, but the 

compassionate thing to do for homeowners 

who found themselves unable or unwilling 

to pay their mortgage payments. And, it 

is true that in almost every case it is more 

desirable to have homes occupied that 

are in default than have them become 

vacant. So the government, led by Treasury 


Secretary Tim Guitner, devised one of 

their perceived solutions in addition to 

the moratoria. The Home Affordable 

Modification Program, or HAMP, was 

born. This program was designed to slow 

the foreclosure process by requiring lenders 

and servicers (especially those who took 

bailout money from the TARP program), 

to offer borrowers loan modification 

programs to hopefully forestall or 

eliminate foreclosure proceedings. This 

program ultimately failed so miserably that 

Treasury introduced a new companion 

program called the Home Affordable 

Foreclosure Alternative program (HAFA) 

to ostensibly streamline the short sale 

process. You guessed it, another failure. 

Only the federal government would study 

a situation, form committees, focus groups, 

task forces, and blue-ribbon panels to 

develop programs supposedly designed to 

“help” Americans, only to discover that the 

programs don’t work ... then turn to each 

other and say, with a straight face, “Let’s 

do more of it.” 

Unfortunately, most lenders and servicers 

who were “encouraged” to offer borrowers 

these potential loan modifications were not 

prepared to handle the increasing volume 

of defaults that needed to be evaluated 

and put into the modification process. 

In addition, in truth, many large lenders 

who shall go nameless here, did not hire 

enough qualified people to staff up their 

modification units, nor did they train them 

well enough to be effective. The result was 

a rapidly growing backlog of defaults under 

consideration for modifications, very poor 

customer service, protracted foreclosure 

process time periods (numerous borrowers 

were able to remain in their homes for up 

to two years or longer while the process 

stumbled and staggered along, which is 

quadruple the normal time when pursuing 

foreclosure). As if that wasn’t bad enough, 

it was determined that many borrowers 

did not qualify for loan modifications 

for financial reasons. In addition, the 

recidivism rate on loans ultimately 

modified was a remarkable 70 percent 

and higher, which meant many loans were 

recycled back into the default/foreclosure 

process. Many times this occurred after 

the borrowers failed to make even the 

first payment under the modification 

agreement. 

And this doesn’t even take into consideration 

the rising tide of short sales and “strategic 

defaults." There is moral hazard involved 

with this that deserves closer scrutiny 

with respect to the increase in short sale 

activity; activity that in prior decades 

would not have been tolerated because of 

the contractual obligations of borrowers 

to their lenders. Bad government policies 

have spawned this situation and are 

exacerbating it. 

These factors, in addition to others, like 

banks not having to take right-downs 

as early in the foreclosure process as in 

previous eras, caused many lenders to hold 

off on foreclosure in order to keep these bad 

loans from becoming non-performing real 

estate assets that would negatively impact 

their bottom line on their balance sheets. 

Thus, the “shadow inventory” was born ... 

and continues to grow. 

The shadow inventory that began to grow in 

2009 created a situation where there were 

more potential home buyers than there 

were available properties to purchase. This 

sparked an uptick in theoretical real estate 

values in many markets. On the surface it 

appeared to many real estate “experts” and 

supposedly learned economists that the 

bottom had been reached and we were now 

in recovery as prices slowly began to rise. 

And they felt confident in saying so publicly, 

despite their lack of hands-on experience 

in the trenches that would have clearly 

indicated that the fictional recovery was 

an illusion; an illusion that was created by 

government intervention into the private 

sector. Real estate professionals and asset 

managers knew better. 

There can be little doubt that had the private 

sector been left alone and normal cycles 

ruled the day we would have experienced 

a more painful, deeper recession. BUT, 

and this is a very BIG but, Fat Albert-sized 

in fact, we would have already entered a 

real, sustainable recovery in the housing 

market that would have jump-started the 

overall economy as it has so many times 




in the past, rather than set us up for the 

double-dip recession we are now in. 

My partial solution to the housing crisis 

involves creativity, innovation and 

testicular fortitude on behalf of the lending 

community. But first, it’s important to 

point out that the federal government 

is toying with becoming the nation’s 

largest landlord by renting back homes 

held by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae if 

they cannot modify the loans enough so 

that borrowers can afford the monthly 

mortgage payments. This would amount 

to creating the country’s most massive 

Section-8 program in history and would 

add significantly to increased government 

control of what should be the private 

sector. It would be another power grab 

reminiscent of government-run health 

care and the assault on the American 

automobile industry. They are also flirting 

with refinancing many defaulted loans, 

essentially cutting the principle balance 

on loans to make them more affordable 

(no wonder banks are in no hurry to make 

new loans). This would prove a disaster to 

the already extremely fragile economy and 

an unfair program that rewards the few 

while excluding those who are in default 

but do not have their loans guaranteed 

by Fannie or Freddie. This is another 

moral hazard that should be avoided if 

for no other reason than fairness. And 

the feds are threatening lawsuits against 

many lenders because of their policies 

regarding securitization, despite the fact 

that it was the feds who encouraged this 

practice! It has been alleged that this threat 

might also be leverage to get the lenders to 

support further government intervention 

which could be dropped if certain lenders 

“cooperate.” 

PARTIAL SOLUTION: 

I keep referring to my idea as a “partial 

solution” because it won’t be applicable 

for every defaulted loan. It will, however, 

resolve many borrowers’ situations. And 

for the record, this idea was discussed 

with me by John Haltom, my former 

boss at Great Western Bank clear back in 

1993, although it was never implemented, 

because circumstances were much 

different than today. The scenario is as 

follows: 

There are many borrowers who cannot 

afford their current mortgage payments 

for one reason or another. Some of these 

reasons include, but are not limited 

to, loss of a job or jobs, failing health, 

divorce, having signed onto low interest 

or interest-only loan programs that had 

adjustable interest rates or had low “teaser 

rates” when they purchased their homes 

but they were recast over time to higher 

rates that caused the monthly payments 

to rise significantly (not really a problem 

when values kept rising and you could 

easily refinance your loan). Whatever the 

reason or reasons, many borrowers were/ 

are unable to qualify for loan modifications 

or even short sales. 

But, they could afford home loans on 

less expensive properties. Since lenders, 

and the GSE’s, Fannie and Freddie, have 

so many loans in default (somewhere 

in the neighborhood of seven million 

today according to RealtyTrac), they have 

properties in virtually all price categories. 

Wouldn’t it make sense to relieve qualified 



Education & Training 

– continued from page 9 

quirements, hot topics, company changes, 

and more. We look to continue working 

with these entities on how best REOMAC® 

can add value to their operations through 

education. A big thank you to all servicers 

and outsourcers who have participated in 

REOMAC® events during 2011. We look 

forward to expanding our relationships 

with you in 2012. Thank you also to the 

industry subject matter trainers that have 

been involved throughout the year. And 

last, but certainly not least, special thanks 

to Equator® for continuing to be a partner 

in providing training and certification on 

their technology platform. 

There is so much work behind the scenes 

to make it all come together – on the part 

of the committees involved, but also from 

our management company and staff. I cannot 

say thank you enough to Joseph Davis, 

REOMAC® Executive Director, and the 

REOMAC® team in Sacramento, California. 

Here’s to another great year in 2012! I look 

forward to seeing you all once again! 



borrowers of the burden of trying to make 

mortgage payments they can’t afford, even 

after a loan modification, and give them 

a loan on a less expensive REO property? 

And do so within six to nine months of 

default, rather than allowing them to live 

rent free for two years and longer? It would 

take vacant properties and turn them into 

occupied homes ... not by renters, but 

owners who would take better care of their 

properties than most renters ever would. 

Although there would be losses incurred 

by the lenders on the original loans, they 

would be turning non-performing loans 

into performing ones. And the losses 

would be less than if these properties went 

all the way through the foreclosure process, 

incurring significant costs along the way, 

and then were sold at deep discounts 

because they are bank-owned properties. 

The borrowers would be offered “cash-forkeys” 

payments (relocation assistance) as 

incentive to be able to move as is commonly 

done for borrowers nearing the end of the 

foreclosure process so that banks can gain 

possession of these properties in a more 

timely manner. 

This program would be designed for nearly 

every price category, including much of 

the very top tier, or luxury market. I have 

another proven disposition strategy for 

high-end properties, as well, but that is a 

subject I would like to share with lenders 

directly. 

This idea won’t resolve the entire housing 

dilemma, but I feel confident that it is a 

workable solution for a major part of it. It 

is certainly worthy of consideration. After 

all, what do we have to lose by empowering 

the private sector to try bold new ideas that 

will actually work, rather than expecting 

the government to do what they have 

proven incapable of doing? 

Lynn Effinger is a veteran of the housing 

and mortgage default servicing industries. 

Today he is a consultant, motivational 

speaker and author of the memoir, Believe 

to Achieve – The Power of Perseverance, 

now available at Amazon.com. 



REOMAC® Membership Directory Advertising 

Policies & Agreement to Advertise 

REOMAC® Headquarters 

2520 Venture Oaks Way, Suite 150, Sacramento, CA 95833 

(916) 239-4090 - phone • (916) 924-7323 - fax 

www.reomac.com • info@reomac.com 

ARTWORK SPECIFICATIONS 

Please submit ads digitally where possible (PC format, not Mac) 

either on CD, zip disk, floppy disk, or via E-mail. Such electronic 

submissions should be in EPS, TIF, or PDF format, including all 

fonts where applicable, and should be compatible with Adobe 

Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, InDesign, or Acrobat. We 

will also accept camera-ready (printed) full-sized images suitable 

for scanning, at either 133 or 150 line screen. Please see 

above for specific ad sizes and dimensions. Artwork should 

be E-mailed to “Advertising c/o REOMAC®” at bonnie@reomac. 

com or mailed to: 

Advertising c/o REOMAC® 

2520 Venture Oaks Way 

Suite 150 

Sacramento, CA 95833 

I will be submitting my ad: 

❑ Camera-ready by mail 

❑ Digitally on disc ❑ Via E-mail 

❑ I need assistance designing a new ad 

(we will discuss design rates separately) 

PAYMENT TERMS 

All payments must be received before ANY ad will run. 

Advertisers who submit an ad contract with payment, but 

fail to submit artwork by the publication deadline will not be 

given a refund or credit. 

PLACING YOUR AD 

To place an ad, complete the information below and mail or fax to: REOMAC®, 2520 Venture Oaks Way, Suite 150, Sacramento, 

CA 95833 • (916) 924-7323 - fax. REOMAC® will not run your ad without this contract and payment. 

Name of REOMAC® Member: ______________________________________________________________________________ 

Billing Contact: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Billing Address: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Phone: ____________________________ Fax: ____________________________ E-mail:________________________________ 

Agency or Advertising Representative (if different from above): _________________________________________________ 

Phone: ___________________________ Fax: ____________________________ E-mail:________________________________ 

Person to Contact with Artwork-specific Questions (if different from above): ______________________________________ 

Phone: ____________________________ Fax: ____________________________ E-mail:________________________________ 

METHOD OF PAYMENT 

Please check one: 

❑ Enclosed is check #__________ ❑ Charge my Credit Card ❍ MC* ❍ Visa* In the amount of $__________ 

Card #: ____________________________________________________ Expiration Date: ________________________________ 

Print Cardholder’s Name: __________________________________________ Signature:________________________________ 

Cardholder’s Billing Address: ________________________________________________________________________________ 

* We accept only MasterCard, VISA and American Express 

AD SPACE AVAILABLE 

Please check the ad you wish to place 

FULL COLOR ADS (color ads are 8 ½” H x 6” W + ¹/₈” for bleeds): 

❑ Inside Front Cover (“page 2”) .......................$1,800 

❑ 2nd Inside Front Cover (“page 3”) ..................$2,000 

❑ Inside Back Cover ..................................$1,500 

❑ Outside Back Cover ................................$2,500 

BLACK & WHITE “TAB” ADS (8” H x 5” W , no bleeds): 

“REOMAC® Information” – ❑ Front ❑ Back .............$750 

“Regular Members by Name” – ❑ Front ❑ Back ........$750 

“Regular Members by Company” – ❑ Front ❑ Back ....$750 

“Affiliate Members by Name” – ❑ Front ❑ Back ........$750 

“Affiliate Members by Service” – ❑ Front ❑ Back .......$750 

“Associate Members by Name” – ❑ Front ❑ Back ......$750 

“Associate Members by Company” – ❑ Front ❑ Back ..$750 

“Associate Members by Location” – ❑ Front ❑ Back ...$750 

Material/payment deadline: March 25, 2012 

CONDITIONS 

1. Advertisers and advertising agencies are liable for all content (including text, 

representations, and illustrations) of advertisements and are responsible, 

without limitation, for any and all claims made thereof against REOMAC® 

Membership Directory, the association, its officers, agents, or vendors. 

2. No advertiser is guaranteed placement, but every attempt will be made to 

provide the desired position. 

3. Publisher reserves the right to revise, reject or omit any advertisement at 

any time without notice. 

4. REOMAC® accepts no liability for its failure, for any cause, to insert advertisement. 

5. Publisher reserves the right to publish materials from a previous advertisement 

if new materials are not received by material deadline. 

6. The word “advertisement” will appear on any ad that resembles editorial 

material. 

7. Drawings, artwork and articles for reproduction are accepted only at the 

advertiser’s risk and should be clearly marked to facilitate return. 

8. No verbal agreement altering the rates and/or terms of this rate card shall 

be recognized. 

9. All advertisements, layout and designs produced for the advertiser by 

REOMAC®’s Graphic Staff will remain the property of REOMAC®. 

10. All requests for advertising must be in writing, in the form of this signed 

contract, for the protection of both the advertiser and REOMAC®. 

11. Once an order for advertising is placed, it cannot be withdrawn or cancelled 

in whole or in part. 

12. By signing this contract, advertiser agrees to pay in full for reserved space, 

even if the ad is not run due to lateness or absence of materials. 

(rev. 1/11)

REOMAC® TECHNOLOGY AND WELLNESS EXPO WRAP-UP

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?