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64 shoot of new HUD regulations), and enhanced quality control-type inspections. Property management is another major area of change as a result of new vendor management procedures. Not long ago, all municipalities had code officers who were solely responsible for identifying properties that became vacant due to foreclosure. If there was a problem with a prop- erty or a major code issue, the municipal code official was often pretty limited in what he could do—maybe tack a violation notice on the door and hope the message got through to whoever owned the property. ese days, more than 900 municipalities across the country have implemented a vacant property registration system of one type or another that keeps specific information on who owns the property and who to contact in case of an issue. is did not exist even three years ago. Today, large national field service providers, as part of a continuing expansion of the suite of services they provide, have entire divisions within their companies dedicated to culling and collecting these records. Maybe the biggest benefit the new norm has had on the communities themselves is the atten- tion servicers and field servicing companies now pay to vacant bank-owned or REO properties. We've seen a huge push in the last few years to go above and beyond when it comes to main- taining vacant properties. Whether a property is owned by a bank, HUD, or any other entity, servicers and field services companies, some- times at their own expense, are maintaining properties in all markets (and not just posh, well-to-do areas where property values are perpetually high, but across the country in all types of markets). ese services can be more frequent lawn cuts, hedge trimmings, leaf raking, picking up litter that blows onto a front yard—whatever enhances a property's curb appeal and keeps the place from turning into a neglected eyesore. We're now in the third stage of the evolution regarding how we see and value unoccupied properties. e old school thinking was little more than an as-is philosophy—the property was the property, and whoever bought it eventu- ally would clean it up, knowing what they were getting into. en came the push to maintain these properties in neighborhood-like condition. Now the thinking goes beyond even that. Servicers and national field servicers are main- taining properties in better-than-neighborhood condition. In fact, in many neighborhoods, you could drive through and pick out the vacant pre- foreclosure and REO properties because they're in better condition than most of the other homes and properties. is does more than just pretty-up a front yard. Keeping properties in excellent condition when there is no one there enhances the resale value, maintains and increases a neighborhood's value, and reduces the likelihood of vandalism or other property crimes. Put simply, when a property is kept up better than its neighbors', the neighborhood and the community at large benefit from it. Operating within this new reality, requires a certain amount of help from technology, and as luck would have it, the new regulations came at exactly the right moment. Gigantic leaps in mobile technology, IT, and data storage in the past seven years allow field service providers to conduct business in real time, store and transmit more data, and protect records and data better than ever. One of the defining features of life in 21st- century America, is security, including the protection of personal information. Today we can not only can continually update information in our files and store massive amounts of data in our systems, we regularly conduct vulnerability and penetration testing to ensure that sensitive and private data cannot be breached. Mobile technology also allows for more real- time updates from the field. Vendors can obtain additional information on a property, take photos, and receive any information they might need while still at the property. Related to this, the communication and information available to city officials and code officers is at an all-time high, and field services companies routinely communicate with officials to ensure that the responsible party is made aware of a situation on a given property. In addition, mobile technology greatly enhances location services by way of geocoding. With a smartphone, an inspector, a group of investors, or a group of property managers can make sure a contractor or vendor was at the cor- rect property—something that was more chal- lenging in the days of paper and fax machines. Of course, all of these innovations cost a lot of money. e cost of compliance within the new regulatory environment, from recordkeep- ing to data security, is extremely expensive. is is one reason why we've seen a move toward con- solidation within the field services industry. To merely comply with federal regulations requires a lot of resources, and more and more large, national companies are acquiring smaller shops. Also costing a lot of money is the growth of services within each company. On the positive side, new regulations that have demanded new ways of doing business have created more jobs, particularly in the quality control and reporting areas, as well as information technology. e bill, however, is huge. New IT security systems alone can cost a company millions of dollars to implement and operate. For a new player in the industry, or a small company that operated well in the pre-bubble years, life in the new norm can be difficult. But for those able to keep up, and even thrive in the new regulatory environment, opportunity is out there. It is important to remember that there was no singular, earth-shaking event that made the new norm what it is. Yes, most new regulations in the mortgage and servicing indus- try were born from the recession, but in terms of the regulations themselves, you can't just circle one event as the reason the industry operates as it currently does. e changes that have made the current real- ity possible actually are a collection of individual parts—a Justice Department action here, a CFPB rule there, a local ordinance somewhere else. And as each new piece of the puzzle gets tossed into the box—say HUD decides to change one of its guidelines regarding mort- gage issuance—field service providers find new opportunities to partner with and serve their clients. And while making sweeping predictions about the future would be inappropriate, a few aspects of it do seem stable, at least for a while. One is that field servicers will stay busy. For bet- ter or worse, there will always be defaulters and property owners who flirt with delinquency. A second sure thing about the future is that the servicing industries are definitely not on cruise control. New regulations and rules come out all the time, and part of the excitement and the challenge the industry faces is figuring out how to adapt to new rules and new best prac- tices. But however the future shapes up, new and to-come regulations offer new opportunities for a new world—because that is exactly what we're in right now. "Field service providers still provide traditional services, of course, but the 'new norm' has led us to grow in ways that were not possible or not practical before regulatory changes."

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