FAQs About Portfolio Intelligence & Monitoring

Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring is a configurable and multifaceted solution leveraging multiple data sources and advanced analytics to identify key insights on your loans and home equity lines of credit spanning across various areas of interest. The desired types of analytics are available through data sets and modules that can be selected for any designed set of loans. Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring is also available through continuous monitoring via 365 Monitoring, or a one-time analysis via Snapshot.

As the owner or servicer of residential loans and home equity lines of credit, it is imperative to understand the composition of your portfolio and the risks associated with it. Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring provides servicers with the fundamentals needed to better manage their portfolios, such as the security of a loan, lien position, equity position, additional liens on subject properties, and whether they pose risk.

Both versions have similar features, but one is an ongoing monitoring subscription, and the other provides a one-time analysis. 365 Monitoring performs ongoing monitoring of loans that you load into its inventory so that you may gain awareness of any new activity relevant to the data sets you selected. Snapshot, on the other hand, is for single orders without any ongoing monitoring. They both share the same data sets and modules, except for the property ownership report, which is only available in 365 Monitoring.

Data sets serve as the core analytical modules in Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring that focus on a particular set of data and/or analytics. When submitting an order for Snapshot or adding loans to your 365 Monitoring inventory, every loan requires at least one data set to be analyzed. Modules are additional analytical information that enhance a data set, such as integrated credit data delivery, which enhances the voluntary lien analysis by providing additional key data points. Another example is a property ownership report, which supplements existing digital property data to boost the confidence grade of the voluntary lien analysis. Modules are available with the Voluntary Lien Analysis and Special Liens data sets.

Property Ownership Details

• Ownership/Vesting

• Pre-Foreclosure activity

• Foreclosure activity

Voluntary Lien Analysis

• Assessment of all liens recorded on the property during the borrower’s period of ownership

• Determination of active liens and priority order

• Confidence grading

Special Liens

• Display of all currently active involuntary liens on the property

• Common involuntary liens include:

  • Property Tax

  • Homeowner Association

  • Municipal

AVM + Equity Analysis

• Includes Cotality™’s automated valuation model (AVM)

• Includes Cotality’s Total Home ValueX™ AVM

• Determines the available amount of equity based upon lien position

• Utilizes the original mortgage amount for equity calculation

Integrated Credit Data Delivery Attributes

• Matches credit tradelines on the borrower to voluntary liens on the property and integrates key data points into the lien analysis

• Current servicer

• Unpaid principal balance

• Payment status

• Payment amount

Property Ownership Report (Available only in 365)

• Additional data through property abstractors can be obtained to boost confidence grades in the voluntary lien analysis

• Applicable to properties in geographies where digital property data may be insufficient

An available module that enhances the Special Liens data set:

• Property Tax Status

  • Current status of property tax payments with a focus on delinquency

Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring utilizes Cotality’s proprietary property recordation database as its source for identifying recordings such as deeds, mortgages, home equities, releases, and subordinations on the property. Emulating the same practice employed by an abstractor when producing a property title report, Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring will analyze all the relevant recordings on the property and determine the current period of ownership, which liens are purported to still be active, and their order of priority (lien position). It will then assign a confidence grade to your estimated lien position based upon the level of data coverage on the property going as far back as necessary in time (up to 30 years historically).

The credit data delivery module enhances the analysis by merging and matching key data points from the borrower’s credit report, such as account status and unpaid principal balance, to liens recorded on the property. It also serves as an additional source of corroborating data to confirm what is seen in the recordation data to boost confidence in the results.

In the event that existing digital property data is insufficient and the utmost level of confidence is needed, Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring can obtain property ownership reports on the property where an abstractor performs in-depth research on the property that is analogous to a title report (uninsured). The combination of these three available distinct data sources makes Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoringunique and unmatched as a lien analysis solution.

The grades reflect the amount of confidence in the accuracy of the lien position being assigned to your loan. This is based upon multiple factors utilized in Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring’s proprietary algorithm, including the amount of data coverage available on the subject property. Generally, the higher amount of data coverage and data sources used will result in a higher confidence grade.

Lien position rating:

• AAA: Highest level of confidence reflecting recordation data and credit, or Property Ownership Report, if ordered.

• AA: High level of confidence using recordation data and credit.

• A: Highest confidence if credit report not ordered or unavailable. Reflects recordation coverage during borrower’s ownership, but credit or other factors impact confidence.

• B-BBB: Lien position impacted by conditions that were recognized through correlated events.

• C: Insufficient recordation history for borrower’s period of ownership. Suggest Property Ownership Report to supplement analysis.

• D: Liens reflected, yet there are factors that limit the ability to recognize lien position accurately. Typically, this is due to insufficient recordation data during the borrower’s period of owners and credit report not available (not requested or absence of corresponding mortgage tradelines).

• F: Recordation data available during borrower’s period of ownership but not enough to fully recognize all impacted activities.

Special Lien Confidence rating:

• A: Fresher liens; matching borrower name and during borrower’s period of ownership.

• B: Older liens (5-7 years old); matching borrower name and during borrower’s period of ownership.

• C: Older lien (7-10 years); unable to determine if matches borrower’s period of ownership; could also indicate limited data for county.

• D: Lien over 10 years old; recorded prior to borrower’s period of ownership.

• F: Combination of conditions; prior to borrower’s period of ownership; age; not matched to borrower; etc.

Yes, we match as a percentage of the amount and not to the exact dollar.

Contrasting a voluntary lien where a homeowner voluntarily takes on a debt secured by a lien on their property, an involuntary lien is placed on a homeowner’s property without their consent. A common example is a property tax lien, which is placed on the property by a governmental entity (e.g., county) whenever the homeowner fails to pay their taxes on time. Many times, an involuntary lien can assume first lien priority on the property and threaten the position and equity of other lien holders.

Yes, through the Property Tax Status component.

After completing a lien analysis through the Voluntary Lien Analysis component, an AVM is obtained on the property (asset value) and the balances of the open liens are considered (liability amount) to calculate the available equity. The standard method of calculating equity is used: Equity = Asset Value – Liabilities

Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring calculates available equity from three different vantage points:

1. Superior Lien(s) Only: The balances from any liens superior to your lien (if you are in a subordinateposition) are the only liabilities factored into the calculation (no calculation is performed if you are in first position).

2. Superior Lien(s) + Your lien: The balances from any liens superior to your lien (if any exist) and your lien are the only liabilities factored into the calculation.

3. All Liens: The balances of all open liens are factored into the calculation for liabilities.

• It’s billable upon delivery of the initial input, then at the end of each month during the monitoringnperiod, while active.

• A loan can be deactivated, or “dropped”, from the monitoring inventory using a drop file to prevent any further analyses or charges for the loan.

• 365 Monitoring requires both an annual contract commitment and a monthly minimum charge.

• It’s billable upon delivery of the order.

• Each Snapshot order requires a minimum batch charge.

Please refer to the Input File Best Practices section in your Welcome Package for detailed requirements.

The initial order may take up to five business days for processing. All subsequent orders will take approximately two to five business days to process.

A submitted record becomes billable upon delivery based on a sufficient data being available to perform the analysis for any selected data sets/modules.

• Voluntary Lien Analysis - Mortgage data is available for analysis.

• Special Lien - Access to involuntary lien recording data.

• HOA - Property exists in an HOA.

• Tax Status - Confirmed property tax payment status (Paid or Delinquent).

Please email edg-ra-pimsupport@cotality.com for any questions or inquiries regarding PIM.

The UI will reflect changes as applied by Cotality on a daily basis. If desired by the client, change files will be delivered by the fifth business day of the month, for the prior month’s monitoring.

The standard transmission method is through the Portfolio Intelligence and Monitoring UI (User Interface).

Yes, you will receive a sample of the output located in our Welcome Package.

Yes. Any new events/activity detected in the previous monitoring period (e.g., prior month), will generate a new analysis for the respective data set and a delta/change report will be delivered securely to you, typically during the first week of the month.

Cotality property characteristic (assessor) data covers over 99.99% of the parcels in the country. We actively capture recorded transactions for over 99.5% of the parcels in the country (reflecting 97% of counties). We have nearly a billion transaction records, with transaction history for over 90% of homes nationwide. Our property data coverage continues to grow and improve.

The input file should be saved as a comma separated .CSV file format, following the structure and naming conventions reference in Input File Best Practices in your Welcome Package.

Pipe delimited in .txt file format delivered as a single zip file.

Debt servicers are not required to report updated balances to credit bureaus by a specific date each month. When Cotality retrieves the latest credit report, it may still reflect the prior balance if the debt servicer hasn’t submitted the update yet. Once the servicer reports the new balance, it will appear in subsequent updates.

While placeholders can be used, we recommend providing accurate data for better match quality. Our system verifies properties and liens through a multi-layered process: standardizing the address, confirming the assessed owner with the borrower's name, verifying the ownership period, and matching the lien using the origination date and loan amount. Using placeholders like an underscore (_) can lower confidence scores and complicate property identification. If a placeholder is necessary, an underscore is preferred as it is easily identifiable and treated as unmatched.

PIM identifies subordination agreements to assess lien positions and risk. We use this lien data to reflect property encumbrance accurately. However, certain conditions, like recording dates or unusual legal actions, may hinder automated recognition of subordination.

• Historical data cut-off: Cotality started recognizing subordinations starting in 2010. Any subordinations recorded prior to this time frame would not generally be recognized.

• Significantly delayed recording: Subordinations recorded significantly after the intended senior lien (subordinatee) will not be considered in our logic. We may periodically manually review and apply subordinations in these cases.

• Judicial/Statutory priority changes: Priority changes resulting from judicial corrections or legal judgments. Cases where a statutory priority continuation occurs on a refinance without a newly recorded subordination document.

The CLIP (Cotality Integrated Property) identifier will not be deleted, and the loan will retain the original CLIP when re-added. CLIP is a "perpetual identifier" attached to the property itself, not the loan. Much like a VIN stays with a car regardless of the owner, the CLIP remains with the property throughout its entire lifecycle.