A legal settlement that put data aggregator RealtyTrac in the business of selling tax, deed and mortgage records also has the company on the hunt for talent.
Having previously hired former Lender Processing Services and X1 Analytics executive Brian Mushaney to head up its file licensing division, RealtyTrac announced today that it’s hired another LPS vet, Jeff Mattice, as vice president of data solutions.
Mattice was with LPS for 13 years, serving as director of national licensing and business development with the company’s applied analytics division. His past experience also includes five years with CoreLogic, as regional director of licensing.
It was CoreLogic’s desire to acquire DataQuick Information Systems Inc. that put RealtyTrac in the tax, deed and mortgage data licensing business, where it competes with CoreLogic and LPS, which recently rebranded as Black Knight Financial Services.
Antitrust regulators signed off on CoreLogic’s $661 million acquisition of DataQuick in March, but only after CoreLogic agreed to license national assessor and recorder bulk data to RealtyTrac, plus several other data sets compiled by DataQuick.
In addition to the foreclosure database of more than 20 million records that was previously the mainstay of its business, RealtyTrac is now licensing a nationwide property-level data set of tax, deed and mortgage records for 125 million parcels nationwide. Through its subsidiary Homefacts, which it acquired in 2012, RealtyTrac is also a provider of “hyperlocal” neighborhood information like crime statistics and registered sex offender data, school ratings and environmental hazards.
Mattice’s job will be to develop RealtyTrac’s data licensing business, “spearheading penetration into previously untapped business segments.”
His strategic business development expertise and established industry relationships “will ensure that the data solutions department sees continued growth,” said RealtyTrac CEO Jamie Moyle in a statement.
Property-level tax, deed and mortgage records can provide insights to real estate professionals and consumers including what a property has sold for in the past and whether the property’s owner purchased it with a mortgage.
Many multiple listing services provide access to tax records to member agents and brokers, and websites like Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com can tap such data sets to show consumers when a home sold last and for what price, or to generate estimates of its current value using automated valuation models (AVMs).
A subsidiary of the National Association of Realtors, Realtors Property Resource, provides Realtors with access to a number of real estate-related data sets, including parcel-level tax, deed and mortgage records licensed from Black Knight Financial Services. NAR is currently spending about $22 million a year to subsidize RPR’s operations.
