Roundup: CASA Finds Use in First Mortgage Arena.(Principal Residential Mortgage Inc. gets contract)

Principal Residential Mortgage Inc., Des Moines, ranked 12th among national lenders by volume according to MSN affiliate, the Quarterly Data Report, has selected Case Shiller Weiss to implement a customized collateral risk assessment system. CSW is a unit of Fiserv Inc.

The system will be built around CSW's CASA automated valuation model. While AVMs have made significant inroads in the second lien market, only a few lenders have chosen to use the tools for first mortgage lending. According to Terry Loebs, vice president of sales, marketing and services for CSW, that's exactly what Principal Residential plans to do with the new system.

The CASA collateral scores solution will enable Principal Residential to optimize important aspects of its loan underwriting and appraisal quality control processes, CSW said. The lender - an originator of first lien, government and conventional conforming loans - will use the CASA scoring solution within its pre-funding environment to assess collateral valuation risks associated with first lien mortgage loan applications.

As part of the customized solution for Principal Residential, CSW will couple a "property flipping" fraud detection service with its AVM offering.

"We chose the CSW CASA solution as the driver for our collateral scoring process because of its accuracy, predictive scores, system options and scalability," said Larry Ruder, director of quality management at Principal Residential.

Mr. Loebs called the agreement "a milestone" for the AVM business. He said, "We are extremely pleased that a player of this stature in the first mortgage arena has concluded that the CSW CASA solution is the most suitable for such critical aspects of conventional first mortgage loan ...