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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 89 a new firm to its corporate suite. Launched to underpin the Maitland, Florida-based corporation's offerings in the real estate realm, Westcor Specialty will be of great benefit to employees and agents, the company says. "Westcor Specialty will create products and services to tap into new segments of the marketplace and will have a strong focus on technology," explained Mary O'Donnell, President and CEO of Westcor Land Title Insurance Company. According to the company's website, Westcor Land Title Insurance Company created Westcor Specialty to "identify ways we can bring innovation, value, and thought leadership to marketplace participants outside of traditional title insurance products and services. We analyze the trends and demands of tomorrow so that Westcor Specialty and our affiliate, Westcor Land Title Insurance Company, can lead the industry in offering solutions in tomorrow's marketplace." Ryan Peterson will helm the new venture as EVP. "We created Westcor Specialty to identify unique market opportunities and innovative ways to position Westcor and our agent-partners in the center of the changing real estate and mortgage finance marketplace," Peterson said. Peterson and the rest of his executive team colleagues spent the first quarter releasing an assortment of new products and services to the marketplace, targeting clients and consumers in the real estate, mortgage lending, invest- ment, and insurance spaces. "Our team knows, loves, and is passionate about the real estate, insurance, and mortgage lending marketplace and has a great level of respect for the incredible economic engine that this sector represents," the website notes. "Westcor Specialty encompasses an incredibly varied and diverse suite of people, divisions, products, services, and technologies which serve these markets, and we're growing every day." GEORGIA Outstanding Loans, Delinquencies Remain Flat e latest Consumer Trends report from Atlanta-based Equifax showed that first mortgage early delinquency rates in Q 4 were largely where they were a year earlier, but loans in serious delinquency were down by about 1 percent. integration with LendingQB's end-to-end, browser-based loan origination system (LOS) on February 21. e integration will provide customers with the ability to obtain title and settlement quotes more efficiently, place orders with Premium Title, and receive a title fee cer- tificate guaranteeing fees for 30 days through the LendingQB platform. Tim Nguyen, President of LendingQB, expressed his approval of the integration. "We are pleased to offer Premium Title's services through our loan origination system," he said. "is integration is a prime example of our best-of-breed strategy that will provide lenders with the ease of researching fees, or- dering title services, and receiving documents directly from Premium Title." According to Premium Title, the integra- tion allows clients to experience a seamless, more-efficient process within the LendingQB LOS platform. Lenders using LendingQB will receive automated quotes for title services and a title fee certificate guaranteeing title fees, which auto-populates into the LOS. Lend- ingQB also has the ability to maintain the loan estimate and any adjustments in fees associated with the loan, assisting with TRID compli- ance and faster disclosure timelines. James A. Weld, President of Premium Title, said that the partnership will ultimately broaden Premium Title's customer base. "Teaming up with LendingQB allows us to expand our network by providing custom- ers with greater access to our exceptional title services and solutions," he said. "e positive feedback from our beta customers helps con- firm that this integration is adding quality and efficiency to the loan origination process." e number of outstanding loans at the end of Q 4 2016 remained at a steady 50 million, where they've been, more or less, since early 2014. e percentage of those loans in early- stage delinquency—30 to 89 days past due— closed the year at about 1.3 percent. at num- ber barely fluctuated over 2016 and is almost identical to the end of 2015. e total balance of outstanding first mortgages is $8.43 trillion, a year-over-year increase of 2.4 percent. However, the percentage of first mortgages in serious default—90 or more days past due— has been steadily declining since 2012, when serious delinquency rates hovered just below 2.5 percent. Serious delinquency rates ended 2016 at 1.26 percent, down from close to 1.77 percent a year earlier. e numbers reflect what Equifax Chief Economist Amy Crews Cutts said was a strong performance in the first mortgage market. Cutts also said home equity line of credit (HELOC) performance remains strong into 2017, where subprime loans are lower in volume than first mortgages. According to the report, there were about 14 million outstanding home equity loans at the end of 2016. at total continues an almost pure steady dropoff in outstanding home eq- uity loans since 2008, when they totaled more than 24 million. About 11 million of those outstanding home equity loans were revolving HELOCs; the remainder were installment equity loans. e 4.4 percent of home equity installment loans outstanding was a 2.3-percent drop from the close of 2015. e total number of outstanding HE- LOCs in December was down 3 percent from a year earlier. e total balances outstanding on HELOCs in that same time are $474.9 billion, a decrease of 3.8 percent; the severe delinquency rate of 1.18 percent in Q 4 was down from 1.33 percent in December of 2015. Early-stage delinquencies in all home equity loans finished Q 4 around 0.05 percent, which is flat compared to Q 4 of 2015. About 1.4 percent of home equities were in serious delinquency at the end of 2016, down less than a quarter of a percent from a year earlier. Premium Title and LendingQB Announce Integration Premium Title, a national provider of title and escrow services and an Altisource busi- ness unit based in Atlanta, announced its Was the home price appreciation percentage at the end of 2016. Source: FHFA Q4 2016 House Price Index STAT INSIGHT 6.28%

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