Efficiency and low costs are the two key metrics in today’s changing market. According to CoreLogic, housing industry and property tax management professionals stay ahead with AI and technology solutions.

CoreLogic leads the way in innovative property tax management. Allison LaForgia, Managing Editor of HW Media’s Content Studio, recently spoke with Servicing and Payment Solutions executive Jay Shafer. The duo explore how CoreLogic uses models to predict property tax expenses, giving loan officers insight into potential escrow shortages before cycles.

The video transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Boosting efficiency and lowering operating expenses for CoreLogic’s customers

Allison LaForgia: Let’s start with the first question. How does CoreLogic help its customers increase efficiency and reduce operation costs?

Jay Shafer: When the homeowner, the agency, and the servicer are all operating from the same information, everyone is more in concert and in sync with each other. That eliminates a lot of extra work that would normally take place. CoreLogic is uniquely positioned to keep these three parties in sync with critical information. 

Let me give you a couple examples: Our DigitalTax Portal is what our agencies use to exchange bill information between themselves and CoreLogic to give to them the payment files for us to post on their website. This secure website allows them to be able to see when those payment files are going to be posted, and post them on their system. This allows them to update critical information and receive timely status updates.

Also, with our DigitalTax Tru-pay, we take information from our agencies and feed it into our payment process. In the past, this Tru-Pay has taken anywhere from days to a week. I’m really proud of the team and what they’ve been able to accomplish, shortening the process down to minutes of ingesting that data and providing the same quality. It helps us pay the correct amount at the right time, for the right parcels, on the first time. If you have 200 loans or 2 million loans, homeowners would benefit from these services.

How CoreLogic leverages AI to stay ahead of the curve

Allison LaForgia: As technology plays a pivotal role in loan servicing, how is CoreLogic staying ahead of that curve, particularly in leveraging AI?

Jay Shafer: Homeowners are noticing an increase in insurance and property taxes primarily due to home valuations rising. We’ve created an AI-enabled model that can accurately predict the future property tax amounts. If you’re a servicer, you don’t want to figure out that you’ve got a large escrow shortage 30 days from a payment due date, or, as a homeowner who has a 30-year mortgage, why your mortgage is increasing. This AI-enabled model allows us to offer a future-facing prediction and more time for servicers and homeowners to let them know what’s taking place.

The cool thing about this model is that we’ve been testing it for a while, and it’s allowed us to back test that information and that prediction. About six months ago, we ran this model and then waited to see what the actual amounts were, the actual property taxes, and we found out that we had great accuracy. 

In some cases, we’re seeing it 98% or 99% at the lien level. This becomes a valuable tool for servicers to predict that escrow shortage and explain it to homeowners. It also helps our local government agencies to know what’s coming through for budgeting purposes. CoreLogic sees a lot of opportunity in AI across our homeowner service and our call center.

CoreLogic tackles borrower needs by boosting satisfaction with AI

Allison LaForgia: You mentioned homeowners, their experience, and how AI can enhance that. How has CoreLogic leveraged its technology to assess borrower needs and increase satisfaction?

Jay Shafer: From our largest call center that has over 49 million loans under service, the top questions are: How much is my property tax going to be? When are my property taxes due? Have my property taxes been paid? We wanted to make those questions easier for our homeowners to get the answer to. So, we took the data that we have within our technology and made it available to the phone system. That way, the homeowner can receive it on the phone without having to wait.

We leveraged that in our Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, which really gave us faster responses for those homeowners. We’d also wanted to transition it from our system to loan servicers, customer portal, and our mobile apps. So, the DigitalTax Connect is an API that allows our servicers to call and expose that information to homeowners. This connects over 24,000 agencies and our near real-time data directly to the homeowner. In our call center, about 52% of those customers calling in get a faster response using this data and technology.

Ensuring compliance in an evolving regulatory environment

Allison LaForgia: Now let’s get into a really important question that’s top of mind. How does CoreLogic ensure compliance in an increasingly complex regulatory environment?

Jay Shafer: We have a dedicated compliance team that helps our clients and CoreLogic in really two key areas: First, they keep up with the newly enacted laws and regulations that could impact our clients. This makes sure our technology and operations are always compliant and meeting the needs of our customers. Secondly, we take many requests from our clients, including compliance, vendor management, regulatory needs, and those that support compliance audits at our clients’ facilities.

Given the size of our customer base, we get exposed to a wide range of requests, including the ultra conservative, maybe even the more liberal. This allows us to offer an unmatched information supply to our customers. 

Behind every loan is a family home, and in that family home is one of our payment process brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts or uncles. And, we want to make sure they can focus on their family. That’s why every loan matters to me and my team.