REOMAC® TECHNOLOGY AND WELLNESS EXPO WRAP-UP

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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. REOMAC ® update tm 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. NOvEMbER / DEcEMbER 2011 15
Page 1: November / December 2011 REOMAC® u
Page 5 and 6: I want to thank the REO- MAC® Boar
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Page 11 and 12: With 2012 fast approaching, I’ve
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Page 19 and 20: BREAKOUT SESSION 1: Nutrition & Ene
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REOMAC® TECHNOLOGY AND WELLNESS EXPO WRAP-UP

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