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A Sitdown with
Michael Schreck
on Building a
Smarter REO Sector
T
he REO sector is in the midst of
a technology- and data-driven
reinvention. Michael Schreck,
Chief Executive Officer at Equator,
an Altisource company, shares his insight on
the REO marketplace and how it is ready to
become more intelligent thanks to advanced
analytics.
For agents, what is most different about
the current REO market compared to the
market at the peak of the housing crisis?
e obvious answer is the level of property
activity; the Great Recession created an
unprecedented spike in REO volume. Closely
linked to volume levels stabilizing today is
an increase in competition among agents and
consolidation in the vendor community.
A silver lining coming out of the financial
crisis was the heavy investment in enabling
technology. During the unprecedented
inventory years, REO vendors, servicers and
agents were primarily focused on managing
the volume of work. While this resulted in
an emphasis on efficiency and compliance
technology for servicers, agents or buyers
were increasingly using mobile and web
technologies in the discovery stages of the
transaction process. Now that the market is
