Wells Fargo and VRM win big at 2011 Pinnacle Awards

Wells Fargo/Premiere Asset Services and Vendor Resource Management scooped up multiple awards at HousingWire’s annual Pinnacle celebration. Wells Fargo/Premiere won four Pinnacles and VRM won three and one runnerup award. The Pinnacle Awards, now in its second year, recognizes the nation’s top real estate management firms and corporate real estate departments. Winners are chosen via an extensive survey data involving thousands of real estate agents and brokers nationwide. “At their core, the Pinnacle Awards celebrate real estate sales expertise, a skill set absolutely fundamental to our nation’s recovery,” said Paul Jackson, publisher of HousingWire. “In particular, these awards recognize excellence in REO sales management — a specialized area of real estate sales that often goes unnoticed, but remains critical to the future stabilization of our nation’s housing.” More than 2,200 real estate professionals participated in the survey underlying the awards program, generating more than 1.4 million data points that served as the basis for Pinnacle Awards consideration. Agents and brokers rated up to five corporate sellers they regularly list properties for, spanning dimensions including staff professionalism, closing processes and listing practices. An outside firm, M/A/R/C Research, conducts the survey and analyzes the data on behalf of HousingWire. “This awards program gives the REO specialists an opportunity to voice their thoughts about the firms they list homes for,” said Richard Bitner, associate publisher of HousingWire. “We will continue to build upon this survey, bringing needed transparency to the market.” The awards program recognized first and runnerup winners across 12 different categories, including a major servicer category that assessed broker/agents’ perception of real estate performance at the nation’s largest financial institutions: Bank of America [stock BAC][/stock], CitiMortgage [stock C][/stock], Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac/HomeSteps, JPMorgan Chase [stock JPM][/stock], and Wells Fargo/Premiere Asset Services [stock WFC][/stock]. Complete survey results are available to firms and investors interested in benchmarking real estate management performance across peers, clients and competitors. 2011 Pinnacle Award winners Best Listing Practices, Servicer Winner: Wells Fargo/Premiere Asset Services Runner up: Freddie Mac/HomeSteps Best Listing Practices, Outsourcer Winner: Vendor Resource Management Runner up: LRES Corp. Best Closing Process, Servicer Winner: Wells Fargo/Premiere Asset Services Runner up: OneWest Best Closing Process, Outsourcer Winner: Vendor Resource Management Runner up: LRES Corp. Most Professional Servicer Winner: Wells Fargo/Premiere Asset Services Runner up: Freddie Mac/HomeSteps Most Professional Outsourcer Winner: New Vista Asset Management Runner up: Vendor Resource Management Most Improved Servicer Winner: Aurora Loan Services Runner up: Fannie Mae Most Improved Outsourcer Winner: NRT REOExperts Runner up: Nationwide REO Brokers Best Overall, Major Servicer Winner: Wells Fargo/Premiere Asset Services Runner up: Freddie Mac/HomeSteps Best Overall, Bank Servicer Winner: OneWest Runner up: Fifth Third Bank Best Overall, Non-Bank Servicer Winner: Select Portfolio Servicing Runner up: Nationstar Mortgage Best Overall, Outsourcer Winner: Vendor Resource Management Runner up: New Vista Asset Management Write to Kerry Curry. Follow her on Twitter @communicatorKLC.