Looking for recommdations for note management platform

[Bob Malecki]

We are actively seeking a platform that will allow us to manage our notes, 3rd party vendors and outsourced virtual assistants. We currently use Basecamp and GoogleDocs, which has served just fine, but as we grow our portfolio, I can see that this will be too fragmented over time. 

We've reviewed Resi.tech but their app is way too complex for our needs. We considered NoteWerx, but they seem to be unresponsive, maybe out of business. 

Does anyone have any recommendations on a platform to serve a small balance fund like ours, allowing for things like CRM, task assignments, document storage, etc? 

Bob

[Darren Eady]

I work with the Note Servicing Center in California.  They've serviced over 4000+ notes for me over the last seven years.  Reach Irma (below) if you would like to speak with them.

@Irma Moreno

[Paul Birkett]

@Bob Malecki we use Autopal. Its a loan servicing platform (began as auto-only) and it does a decent job of recording and tracking information, documents etc. It has a couple of major weaknesses

1. Its not easy to set up or to use. The learning curve is steep and long....but you will find the same thing with Notesmith and Mortgage Office. They are also servicing platforms and not particularly suited to loss mitigation (in my opinion).

2. It doesn't appear to have any project management functionality - so we have a standalone workpaper to manage borrower contact and next steps for each loan. That works ok...but its highly duplicative. We are just not prepared to hire autopal to do the bespoke development for us - at least not yet. It might be inevitable but we will hold out as long as we can!

Some people use saleforce.com as a platform and build their own field-based system on top. That turns out to be quite expensive if you have a lot of users as salesforce charge by the seat. It also makes for a lot of scrolling up and down to find the data you need.

As @Darren Eady says, Note Servicing Center has a great reputation, they have been recommended to me several times. As far as I know they do not have a default operation and only handle performing loans but I may be wrong

[Bob Malecki]

Thanks for the great summary Paul. Just to be clear, I'm not looking for a servicing platform, we need more of a project management platform to manage various aspects of loss mit and assign tasks, set internal deadlines, track taxes due, reminders, etc. Basecamp provides much of this functionality, but is a bit too generalized for the purpose of managing paper. 

Thanks

[Wayne Snell]

Hi Bob, we use Pipedrive (a CRM) to manage our loans. It is cloud-based, configurable and serves as a project management tool as well. We find it easier to use and cheaper than Salesforce. We looked at NoteWorx about a year ago and like you found it lacking. If you want to see how we are using in Natalie can show you. We do owe credit to Adam Adams for introducing us to the software.

[Bob Malecki]

Awesome thanks Wayne! I'll check it out and reach out to Natalie for further info.

[Sandy Uhlmann]

I wonder if Podio could be used? I have never used it for this purpose but I know that wholesalers use this with great success because it helps them task their VA's, and vendors and keep track of the properties. Has anyone out there used Podio for this purpose?

[Bob Malecki]

Hi @Sandy Uhlmann I'm quite familiar with Podio and tried to use it for our note project management but it is too unwieldy. I've been a website developer for 15 years and Podio just did not make sense at all, thanks anyway for the recommendation.

[Bob Malecki]

Just checking in for any other member's recommendations. @Dion DePaoli or @Bill McCafferty, any thoughts on this? My goal is to use a platform that provides project management functions to perform workouts with borrowers, assign tasks, provide milestones/timelines, a discussion component and preferably tax tracking. Looks like Notewerx has been mothballed and I don't see anything that works for the small balance note investor. 

[Dion DePaoli]

@Bob Malecki

What are you specifically looking to accomplish?   

A platform to perform workouts would have to be a licensed servicer or the owner of the loan due to licensing and you have to be careful about automation on these matters if that is a background thought - ie - robosigning issue.

Assign tasks to do what?  Same issue as above.  Licensure and ownership and knowledge of loan affidavits.

Tax tracking is a service that most servicers offer for $5 per loan.  You can independently contract a couple vendors as well.  

Who is the discussion with?  Internal - any database would work.  Servicer - this would have to be driven by the servicer, I don't know of any who will log into your proprietary system.

To a large extent, which I am sure most of you folks won't like my answer, you are attempting to reinvent wheels that already exist for a long, long time.  All these things you are looking for comes with a good servicing platform.  If you are doing the DIY servicing, that is probably your issue and I don't know of a way to duct tape and bubble gum the two worlds together.  Outside vendors like attorneys and such are probably not going to be willing to log into a one off system provided by you.  
In my experience I have seen attempts at in-house systems and they have a very high failure rate.  That is also why there is a very little by way of program vendors in this space, there is no money in it or the cost to the customer is very large since the market space is small.  (SDXS was originally getting into this space - they we just went back to asset management)  So be careful if you choose some industry specific program as that company may not be here in a couple months.  Further, you end up having to manage a system separate from servicing in order to manage your loans.  Thus you end up worry about the wrong thing.  My best advice is to find a servicing solution that accommodates the reporting and task assignments you desire and use that.  I have managed a couple thousand loans using servicing reports and excel.  We once used an MS Access database but that feel to the wayside and we went back to Excel.  Like I said, pretty sure most of you won't like my comments here, sorry.

[Jay Hinrichs]

washington state is the land of servicing companies there are a bunch of them there I think because the laws are favorable..  

although it sounds like your trying to incorporate more than simple servicing into one size fits all.

for simple servicing we have used Zimple money .. 

[Bob Malecki]

Really guys, I'm not looking for a servicing platform, FCI and SNS do that for us very well already. I'm looking for a project management platform to manage each loan, assign tasks between partners and third party vendors, set up timelines, milestones, reminders and store notes and operational documents. We've been using Basecamp but it lacks the scheduling and timeline/milestone functions. Currently I'm doing the 30 day trial with Teamwork.com which seems to have a more robust platform and focused on projects. Tried Podio and a few other platforms with no joy. 

[Jay Hinrichs]

OK so your having to do work outs on your notes then this is just not serving.. we have over 700 notes at zimple money and have 3 defaults in 5 years   so we are on the opposite end we just collect our payments with little to no drama.... 

[Bob Malecki]

Good for you Jay, not sure what relevance this has to my OP though

[Richard Allen]

@Bob Malecki check out https://Resi.Tech   the platform is very robust and should meet your needs.  You can also order BPO's, tax reports, O&E reports and more.  Very good system. I know that they are in the process of adding direct feed from servicer notes

[Bob Malecki]

Thanks @Richard Allen, we've given Resi.tech a full review and it is a very robust platform, but frankly it's very overloaded with functions that cannot be "turned off" and has a very confusing user interface. Additionally, I spoke with one of the principals at Halo and they have shelved further development due to work underway on another project. 

[Richard Allen]

Thanks for the update on the servicing.  I haven't spoken to them since last summer, I did hear they were focusing on their institutional loan management software.

Resi.tech does have a lot of functionality that may be overkill for most, and is a little confusing until you get in there and start using it.  I hope you find something that works. 

[Bob Malecki]

Just a followup here, per the recommendation from @Wayne Snell, we've decided to use Pipedrive as our main platform for managing our NPLs and investor lead management. It provides a very nice visual pipeline-style for moving assets from one traunch to another as it progresses in status. Although it is missing a few components that would make it our only platform needed (like recurring reminders, discussion tool like Basecamp) it provides most of the tools needed to manage our assets among multiple partners/users. Thanks to Adam Adams for providing us some guidance and showing us how he uses it for his NPLs. 

Bob Malecki

[Wayne Snell]

That is great to hear @Bob Malecki. Adam is very helpful!  Once you have gotten deeper into it and Natalie is back from her medical leave I would like to compare notes on how you are using it versus our implementation. Perhaps we both can get some ideas. I believe she will be back in the middle of February.

[Bob Malecki]

Absolutely Wayne. Just let me know. Ben has really gotten it tweaked out for us.

[Joe Tomko]

Hi, Bob.  How is pipedrive working for you?  I'm a new note investor  (still learning, haven't acquired first deal yet) and curious about how to manage everything. 

Joe

[Bob Malecki]

We've been using Pipedrive for the past year or so and it's provided us a great platform for tracking both non performing and performing assets in our portfolio. I do like it and recommend it. 

Bob

[Andy Mirza]

I've been using Smartsheet since December and absolutely love it. it's kind of like Excel on steroids and it took me a while to learn the system to get it to where I need it. I use it for asset management purposes and I can keep track of everything from evaluating tapes to DD to ongoing management. I've set it up to keep an ongoing task list so that things don't fall through the cracks. Plus, it's cheap, less than $100/month