Catc Delivers On Efforts To Increase Awareness Of Automated Collateral Valuation Tools

The Collateral Assessment and Technologies Committee (CATC), a committee formed under the Real Estate Information Professionals Association (REIPA), met this month in San Diego as part of the 4th Annual REIPA-NPRRA Joint Conference. In presentations to the general REIPA membership, the CATC provided updates on several key initiatives and administrative changes.

The CATC committee is comprised of members of nation's most recognized automated collateral valuation companies, organizations with related technologies, and other industry stakeholders. The mission statement is to promote and coordinate education and awareness of alternative collateral assessment tools and technologies including AVMs, fraud detection tools, collateral scoring, forecasting applications and derivatives thereof. The CATC originated in 2004 in response to a growth of misinformation and a general lack of awareness regarding these technologies, their strengths, weaknesses, proper evaluation and appropriate use.

An original goal of the CATC is to establish best practices and testing standards for automated collateral assessment tools. In its first session in San Diego, Darius Bozorgi of Veros, announced that this remains a key goal of the CATC, with continued efforts being undertaken to bring these practices and standards to the public. The CATC is working closely with the users of these products, specifically large banking and mortgage lending institutions, to fine tune these before releasing. Towards that end, in its second session at the conference, CATC presented a panel consisting of Jim Kirchmeyer of Real-Info, Lee Kennedy from the American Reporting Company, and Rob Walker and Tom Delorenzo from First American Real Estate Solutions. The panel discussed the current and future states of the regulatory environment and the impact that current changes will have on the testing and evaluation of both AVMs and other collateral valuation alternatives.

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