Today, at the MBA’s Non-Prime Lending and Alternative Products Conference in Washington, DC, TransUnion announced the launch of its newly formed Consumer Finance division. The dedicated group of sales, customer service and operations professionals in this new division will deliver flexible solutions to address the unique needs of non-prime lenders.
“Our many years of experience in the real estate settlement services industry has led to an understanding that the processes and products needed to underwrite non-prime loans are unique,” said Richard Hogendorf, group vice president of TransUnion Real Estate Service’s Consumer Finance division. “For this reason, we now have a committed focus around helping non-prime lenders give consumers with imperfect credit the ability to achieve the dream of home ownership or obtain a home equity loan to fund other major purchases.”
With the objective of helping customers to grow business, manage risk, reduce costs and improve loan application closing cycle times, TransUnion Real Estate Service’s Consumer Finance division offers the following services to non-prime lenders:
- Customized Lead Generation – reduce marketing costs and achieve a better return on direct marketing investment through the integration of TransUnion’s proprietary automated valuation model, Collateral Market Value (CMV), into its Instant Prescreen and Acquisition Triggers offerings.
- Pre-Qualification Reporting – qualify potential borrowers cost-effectively by using TransUnion’s Pre-Decision Qualifier (PDQ) to obtain a property value range before ordering a full appraisal.
- Professional Appraisals – receive a reliable and objective appraisal with a quick turnaround time from TransUnion’s nationwide network that includes both staff and fee appraisers.
- Valuation Quality Review – manage risk by using TransUnion’s CMV as a quality control tool for incoming loans from correspondent lenders and for other underwriting purposes.
- Fraud and Identity Management – combat the recent growth in mortgage fraud related to property flipping and application fraud by utilizing the irregular sales indicator that is part of PDQ and TransUnion’s Fraud Management Platform for identity verification and authentication.
In 2004, the number of non-prime loans increased 55 percent over the prior year according to SourceMedia’s Electronic Mortgage Industry Directory. In 2005, the non-prime segment originated $580 billion in loans, representing 20.7 percent of the overall residential loan market. “There is clearly tremendous opportunity here for settlement services companies to help manage the growing needs of this segment,” said Hogendorf. “TransUnion Real Estate Services is well positioned to emerge as a leader in serving these lenders,” concluded Hogendorf.
