Executive Conversations is a HousingWire web series that profiles powerful people in the financial industry, highlighting the operations and the people that make this sector tick. In the latest installment, we sit down with Nancy Langer, executive of real estate tax and payment solutions at CoreLogic, to discuss the importance of innovation in the mortgage industry.
Q. As the topic of digital mortgage evolves, how do property taxes fit the discussion?
A. While lenders and servicers are trending toward more data consistency across platforms, the property tax process has remained largely unchanged. As digital mortgages become fully implemented, the real estate tax component represents a potential bottleneck with many complexities involved in navigating unique real estate tax processes for the various taxing agencies.
CoreLogic facilitates property tax payments with over 22,000 agencies, and we have developed a framework to bridge connections among customers, servicers and taxing agencies. Scale will be key in the new era of property taxes, and service providers will have to focus on that to ensure and maintain accuracy and quality as our industry evolves.
Q. What expectations do lenders and servicers have when it comes to real estate tax service in 2018?
A. For many of us, our primary focus continues to be on the customer experience. Today, you can stream a 4K movie on a tablet, reserve a pet sitter with your phone and see the location of your Uber driver in real-time. Despite these advancements in other industries, the scope of property tax information readily available to borrowers lags behind.
Accuracy and quality are core to a positive borrower experience, and lenders and servicers are increasingly recognizing this. The trend now is to implement systems that streamline connections among taxing agencies, servicers and customers. Service alone in the new era of property taxes is insufficient. Quality is the foundation from which all performance and connectivity is defined. At CoreLogic, we continue to innovate and build upon solutions that include quality from the beginning.
Q. What is CoreLogic doing to facilitate innovation?
A. We are looking across businesses and industries to identify solutions that can help our clients achieve higher levels of performance. Because CoreLogic serves different vertical markets, such as the insurance industry, we are well positioned to leverage unique capabilities gathered from diverse areas.
For example, we recently expanded our property tax search process to incorporate functionality once reserved for insurance and appraisal industries. The new tax search process employs valuation and geospatial data validation to elevate the precision and efficiency we deliver to our tax clients.
By enhancing the parcel identification process using standard and satellite maps with parcel overlays, our integration of geospatial data helps facilitate a more accurate and timely tax process for our clients.
Regarding overall innovation, our primary input source is our client base. Today, 23 of the top 25 servicers use our tax service, giving us a large base from which to collect input, validate assumptions and explore new product ideas. Our efforts in this area will ultimately help optimize the customer experience through our focus on connectivity, transparency and a unified view of the property tax process throughout the life of a mortgage.
