(January 2007) – After choosing the software application from North Shore Systems (NSS), Sovereign’s National Commercial Real Estate Group, based in Brooklyn, New York, recently completed their conversion to the NSS web-based commercial real estate lending system, which they will use to originate over $3.5 billion of Commercial Real Estate and Multifamily loans a year.
With this conversion, originators, underwriters, and processors in the company’s five nationwide offices will access the system online via the web.
The loan information captured by the system is used by the underwriters for side-by-side comparisons of the different loan scenarios for determining the best execution of the deal. The system has also improved the process flow for Multi-Family lending group; their high volumes required a system that not only provided flexibility and capacity, but also offered stringent business rule functionality along with cohesive checklists and tickler modules.
All loan approval documents and reports are now generated out of the system on-demand. This has streamlined the generation of documents that were mostly manual processes prior to the North Shore conversion.
Upon loan closing, an interface with the Sovereign’s loan servicing system (Strategy) automatically boards the loan for servicing with minimal or no manual intervention. These interfaces greatly reduce both the time and the errors normally associated with manually transferring this information.
SOVEREIGN GOES LIVE WITH NORTH SHORE (page 2)
Besides realizing processing efficiencies and eliminating manual processes on the front-end, Sovereign will be using North Shore’s Portfolio Analysis Reporting (PAR) module for Asset Management and to determine borrower credit concentration.
Anthony Figeroux, Sovereign SVP, sums it up this way: “We are on a mission to improve our processing times and eliminate redundant entry of data throughout our organization. The North Shore system is a critical component of our strategy. We believe the North Shore system allows us to integrate our processes in ways not possible just a few years ago, and we expect that timeliness and efficiency will be significantly improved as we progress with our daily operations using the North Shore System.”
Brian McCracken, North Shore president, adds “this implementation at Sovereign serves as a great example of the efficiencies that can be gained through the proper, well-planned use of an integrated LOS. They were able to cohesively define their process and goals, which, in turn, the North Shore application could be configured for and provide straight-through processing from Broker submission through sale or securitization. Even the underwriting and appraisal tracking are taking place on the system. Both the NSS team and the Sovereign team got a lot of satisfaction from seeing it come to life first-hand at their location in New York and their remote offices.”
Sovereign has plans to use the North Shore platform to pool deals for securitization, to establish a portal for its brokers, and to link to other industry data services such as credit, market data, and compliance services. Since North Shore uses MISMO and other industry standard formats, value is added in being able to export and import data to other systems and services electronically and seamlessly. This includes Excel integration.
About North Shore Systems
For over nine years, North Shore Systems, LLC has been providing the CRE lending industry with turn-key, comprehensive solutions to their automation needs. The Company’s primary product “North Shore” allows all entities involved in the entire loan process to interact in real time, leveraging .NET web services technology, industry standards, and a lender’s existing systems.
Headquartered in Costa Mesa, Ca, North Shore Systems services lenders and brokers across a wide spectrum of lending programs and property types. The various types of lenders have originated over $30 billion in loans using the North Shore platform. The company also offers a Broker Version of the system that is a subscription based, online service that allows brokers to maintain a lender database that can be queried, build a pdf loan package that can be emailed to lenders, and to maintain their own pipeline database.
The North Shore suite also includes modules for Securitization, Portfolio Analysis, Asset Management, and Construction.
