Titanium Holdings Inc., a Fort Mill, S.C., firm that contacts troubled homeowners on behalf of mortgage servicers to discuss loan workouts, has started a unit for when such efforts fail.
The unit, Excellen REO, helps Titanium clients unload repossessed properties. Its services include premarketing, valuations, marketing and sales negotiation, closing and funding and alternative sales methods.
Excellen has "a nationwide network of real estate brokers and local eviction attorneys as well as property preservation companies," Titanium said Monday.
Patrick Carey, Titanium's chief executive, said in a press release that Excellen would "help us expand the client relationships that we have built over the years and establish new partnerships."
Excellen's president, Cary Sternberg, is the former senior vice president of the real estate owned department for American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. of Coppell, Texas, which is owned by the private-equity firm Wilbur Ross & Co. LLC. In that position, Sternberg managed more than 200 employees and 33,000 assets.
His previous titles also include first vice president of home loan servicing and REO at Indymac Bank in Pasadena, Calif., (which failed in 2008); national REO manager of Ocwen Financial Corp. in West Palm Beach, Fla.; president of Virginia Commonwealth Realty in Newport News; and senior vice president of American Family Homes Inc. of Umatilla, Fla.
Titanium was founded in 1998. Until last year its work consisted mainly of knocking on doors, finding out if someone still lived inside and, if so, urging the delinquent borrower to contact his or her lender.
Last year, the company expanded beyond outreach. Freddie Mac hired Titanium to make house calls to delinquent borrowers who had not returned servicers' calls or letters about the government's Home Affordable Modification Program or who needed to provide more information to qualify.
