A New Vision

LERETA, headquartered in Pomona, California, is a leading national provider of real estate tax and flood services for mortgage servicers. The firm serves more than 4,000 clients nationwide, processes $17 billion in tax payments annually and monitors more than 25 million loans for flood determinations. Over the past three years, the company has met 99.9% of its service level agreements for all customers and in the past year increased its loans under service by almost 20% with the addition of several new clients. LERETA made news earlier this year when it named Katie Brewer its new CEO. Brewer is an industry veteran with more than 21 years of leadership experience in the mortgage servicing, valuation and title sectors. She sat down with our editors to discuss her vision for LERETA’s future and the industry as a whole.

QUESTION: What attracted you to LERETA and what have been your early impressions of the company: its strengths, opportunities and its culture?

KATIE BREWER: While I wasn’t looking for a new role, when the LERETA opportunity presented it was intriguing. As an executive at a subservicer, I was  familiar with LERETA and its competition. When I started doing my due diligence, it was apparent that LERETA’s strengths lie in its service-first culture, technology, and its ability to attract and retain tax expertise. The company has an outstanding reputation for top-notch service. Meanwhile, there is a broadly held impression in the market that our competition is only focused on the largest of the large servicers. To me, that says there is a tremendous opportunity to increase market share based on our impressive value proposition, especially to larger servicers who feel underserved.

I’m big on being able to grow and scale businesses, while focusing on innovation and continuous improvement. So, the potential for growth at LERETA was a big attraction for me. And everything I’ve seen so far confirms that we have all the key elements to make this happen: the focus on service, deep bench-strength with tax and flood experts and the technology to improve accuracy and predictability. LERETA prides itself on service, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how we consistently achieve and beat our SLAs, delivering 99.97% of our clients’ SLAs over the past 5 years, which really impressed me.

QUESTION: How has your previous experience in mortgage servicing and the real estate sectors prepared you for your new role at LERETA?

KATIE BREWER: Over the course of my career, I’ve spent over 15 years on the servicing side of the mortgage industry at companies like Selene, Ocwen and GMAC. I definitely bring an understanding of the clients’ perspective: for instance, what they are looking for in a vendor/partner and what constraints they are operating under. At the same time, I sat on the vendor side of the table at Radian for 6 years where I ran their real estate services and valuation businesses, and at Green River Capital, I ran the firm’s asset management operation, managing roughly 20,000 REO assets and  leading SFR underwriting and diligence that supported the initial SFR investor boom.

My last position was president of Selene. I joined in 2021  as Chief Operating Officer and ran their mortgage servicing, title, and third party due diligence businesses. We quickly grew and scaled an insurance and risk business and built a captive insurance company. When I got there,  all the businesses were significantly smaller, but we were able to expand significantly over the time. For example, Selene’s servicing portfolio tripled by the time I left, and we added over 20 third party clients to the due diligence business. I can see the same kind of opportunity here at LERETA.

QUESTION: You’ve been in your role for coming up on three months now. What are your top priorities for LERETA in the near term?

KATIE BREWER: First, let’s keep doing what we are doing well, which includes providing first-rate service for our customers and investing in technology that makes us more accurate, more efficient, and easier for our clients to work with.

Having said that, continuous improvement is critical. Today, LERETA is gathering data from more than 26,000 taxing agencies that have varying degrees of technological and digital sophistication. The more that we can digitally source information from these agencies, the more accurate and timelier it will be.

We’re also using proprietary matching technology to make sure that we are capturing the right parcel information and bills from lower-lien agencies so that there are no surprises for our clients and their borrowers. We are continually upgrading our integrations with key servicing systems. We’ve already engaged with MSP and are integrating with the Borrower Portal to help our servicing clients provide more accurate, up-to-date information to their borrowers and enhance the borrower experience.

Finally, we are also well along in the process of upgrading and modernizing our current client platform to deliver an even better client experience.

QUESTION: What will be your focus areas/priorities for the company?

KATIE BREWER: Technology is critical if we’re going to grow and scale. Currently, our technology ensures tax lines are set up properly, that parcels or tax bills from lower-level taxing agencies aren’t being missed, and that defects are detected and corrected during portfolio transfers. We’re also using technology to assure accuracy and currency on the flood side of our business.

Solutions like our Total Tax Solutions^Ò platform also help clients decrease their costs and improve the customer experiences they are providing. We’ll be continually looking for ways to further automate core functions such as data collection, reporting and quality control, freeing up human capital for high-value activities.

We’ll be strengthening our integrations with major servicing platforms and direct APIs with clients.

Client relations will continue to be a priority. And the best way to ensure that clients are getting the service and attention they deserve is to make sure that LERETA continues to be a great place to work. This is key to retaining seasoned subject-matter experts and providing account continuity.

QUESTION: How do you intend to grow LERETA’s market share?

KATIE BREWER: We’re fortunate to have a solid core client base. Obviously, with the origination volumes being where they are, we don’t anticipate that current clients will be significantly increasing volumes in the coming year. This is true with the rest of the market, and aligns with origination volume projections. But we’ve been successful in adding new clients and growing our pipeline, thanks to our reputation for service, flexibility and the quality and accuracy of the information that we provide.

Over the last two years, we have invested in senior marketing, sales, and account talent and this is paying off for us. We will also be stepping up our marketing: our goal will be to make sure servicers know that they don’t have to put up with substandard service or work with inflexible mega vendors. If they are not getting high-quality service and top-level attention, we are a better alternative and changing tax servicers isn’t as daunting a process as switching loan origination or servicing systems.

QUESTION: How does LERETA help servicers provide better self-serve options for borrowers?

KATIE BREWER: Ultimately servicers are looking to find ways to help their borrowers self-serve the information they need without having to call their call centers. The mantra is “the less calls and manual interaction, the better.” 

Borrowers want self-service as well and are already experiencing self-service in other aspects of their lives. It’s time to modernize the experience.  Where’s my pizza? When will my Lyft driver arrive? There’s a tracker for that, right?

Another reason this is important is because taxes and insurance costs are rising, and, as a result, borrowers are feeling the pain and looking for answers. Better borrower communications and instant access to the latest tax information will be the price of doing business in the near future. Some servicers are building their own portals. We have a great relationship with ICE, and we’ve really been working to build that out and to help take that burden off the servicers so that they truly are focusing more on the core activities of servicing and borrowers they truly need to speak to versus the busy work of providing information that otherwise could be self-service.

QUESTION: With rising property values and increasing taxes and insurance premiums, how is LERETA helping servicers proactively manage escrow challenges and borrower concerns?

KATIE BREWER: It’s no surprise that with property values where they are and their continued rise, that taxes are also going up. So, I think it’s critical that servicers can have those conversations and they can be as prepared as possible to proactively address the challenges that borrowers are going to face. The more that we can put data in their hands ahead of time and help prepare them to serve their borrowers or even help their borrowers self-serve through the portal, will continue to be our focus. Our goal is to understand how we can best help our clients—which are the servicers—to proactively manage their customer base.

We also offer outsourced call center options, staffed by experienced associates who, on average, have eight years of experience and answer and research questions. In 2024, nearly 80% of the calls we received were resolved within the first call. Our abandonment rate was about <1%, which is industry leading.

QUESTION: As the industry faces increasing flood risks, what role does LERETA play in ensuring clients receive the most accurate and timely flood data?

KATIE BREWER: We provide flood information quickly to our customers, and our system is designed to deliver the information with speed. When there are questions, we’re able to really dig into those with our team including those issues that require more manual handling. So yes, it’s critical that they have the most up-to-date information, especially when originating and ensuring, again, portfolio coverage and the right coverage. But we are definitely pushing that forward with our clients and ensuring they have the right data and the fastest data turnaround.

Interestingly, we’re seeing a demand for this flood information coming from new sources. For example, on the commercial side of our business, property owners and managers are now, in some cases, ordering this directly from us.

INSIDER PROFILE

Katie Brewer is an industry veteran with more than 21 years of leadership experience in the mortgage servicing, valuation and title sectors. Most recently, she was President of Selene Finance, and before that the company’s Chief Operating Officer. A national subservicer, Selene’s portfolio more than tripled during Ms.  Brewer’s tenure. Prior to Selene, Ms. Brewer was Senior Vice President of Real Estate Services at Radian and Chief Operating Officer of Green River Capital. Ms. Brewer previously held leadership positions at Ocwen and GMAC.