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46 environment. We try to work with them in any capacity we can, which may mean modifying coverage areas, partnering with vendors if a reimbursement is indicated, or providing a cash advance to see them through to month's end. Loyalty is reciprocal. How are you and your team working to improve efficiencies within the industry to attract and retain new talent and improve the economic model for those that have remained in this sector? e "pause" created by the moratoria provided an opportunity for us to ramp up our focus on technological improvements. Having been in the industry for more than 30 years, our CIO has focused on proprietary field tools to reduce the time associated with photo upload labeling, bid creation, and tracking, as well as an alternative to the customary vendor assignment model. One thing we've heard about is an ongoing demographic shift to a higher concentration of rural versus urban properties that go through the foreclosure sale process and are taken by the investors/insurers back into inventory. Have you seen this, and if so, what challenges are presented by this higher concentration of properties in "hard to serve" areas? Higher concentrations of properties in rural areas certainly present an ongoing challenge. As described above, work completion within required timeframes is one facet of these challenges. Often, vendors will require trip fees to travel to rural areas. We find that it is necessary to collaborate with our clients and provide them with the necessary transparency to make an informed decision before agreeing to a trip fee. Vendors that remain within the industry realize the state of the industry. ey know there are few willing to travel to rural areas, and therefore, this can be an opportunity for them to charge higher trip fees than we have seen in the past. Are there any other critical challenges you are facing headed into 2023? If so, how are you navigating and preparing for these? Most economists agree that we are heading for a recession sometime in 2023. Some predict a "mild" recession. Having weathered diminished volumes, as well as vendor and employee shortages, I anticipate staffing challenges. Also, wage requirements could be especially difficult in the absence of government and GSE accommodation to the current pricing model. For now, Five Brothers has put a great deal of emphasis on cross training our in-house team. We have adopted a hybrid, work-from-home model and try to remain flexible in order to attract talent with unique at-home needs. Stacey Bayley SVP, Sales and Performance Management, SingleSource What regulatory issues or impacts are most challenging for the property preservation sector? How are you navigating them? e demands of the field service industry stress timeliness and high-quality home assessments to ensure every unique element of a home is properly evaluated and protected. Reductions in volumes combined with a shift in property concentrations to more rural areas are creating challenges in managing the costs of meeting regulatory timeframes. In essence, nothing can be missed, and everything must be completed on time. Field contractors have always been careful with fuel expenses, but new rural vacant property footprints strain the logistics of completing work quickly at out-of-date costs. e notable increase in home values heightens liability assumed by national providers and our vendors, yet no adjustments to manage such risks have come to fruition. Home value spikes have affected overhead and management costs in the form of insurance fees for our vendor networked providers. A recent National Organization of Mortgage Field Services survey identified a significant exodus of vendor partners that provide direct boot-on-the-ground services. Are you experiencing challenges maintaining necessary labor or vendor partnerships, and if so, how are you combatting this? SingleSource has taken pride in working with a diverse network of vendor partners across the United States. Our experience shows that successful field network coverage involves using a combination of small and large field service providers. Covering certain parts of the United States can be managed with larger one-stop shop operations while others require smaller specialized vendors for each product type. SingleSource has built our services with this in mind and has developed a diverse group of vendors to handle the nuances of each region. We continue to source coverage with regional needs in mind, but the potential vendor partners are different than ones we worked with in the past. Unfortunately, we have felt changes not only in available vendor partners but also in vendor coverage and capacity. Many of our larger vendor partners have reduced their coverage footprint. ese vendors, once titans in their regions, have reshaped into smaller companies with more concentrated coverage. ey had to reorganize to manage expenses and survive in the industry. Many smaller vendor partners have slowly been closing. Vendors that worked with us for many years are no longer in business due to low volume, increased costs, and increased liability. e material costs alone are difficult to navigate. It often costs more money in gas to get to a property than the actual job pays. Vendors usually must bring a trailer with equipment, and by the time they complete routine maintenance, they may have lost money. People often forget that the vendors must also carry proper insurance, which they pay for. We are actively and aggressively recruiting, whereas in years past we did not have to because there was a large pool of qualified and willing vendors to onboard. To battle the changing vendor environment, SingleSource leverages its 20,000 national brokers to support our field service network. We have customized dynamic property inspection forms that are easy to complete regardless of the vendor's core competency and expertise. Increased vendor flexibility while maintaining high-quality control has become crucial. Feature By: David Wharton