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The National Mortgage Servicing Association (NMSA) announced the appointment of Jim Taylor, SVP of Property Preservation with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Asset Management, to lead the organization’s effort to mitigate the threat that vacant and abandoned properties pose to homeowners and communities.
Taylor, a 30-year industry veteran, leads asset management and preservation of Wells Fargo’s residential servicing portfolio while caring for the interests of the communities it serves. He earned his M.S. in Management from Purdue University concurrently with an MBA from Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Rouen, and a B.S. from the University of Washington.
Taylor’s first order of business will be partnering with his peers and regulatory agencies to develop a comprehensive national definition for what constitutes a vacant and abandoned property and honing a strategy for the harmonization of procedure for their treatment.
“The concerns presented by the proliferation of vacant and abandoned residential properties are, at their core, consumer protection issues,” said Five Star Institute President and CEO Ed Delgado. “These properties can potentially have a devastating effect on surrounding communities because they often become magnets for vandalism, squatting, and violent crime. In extreme cases, these properties have even led to the tragic loss of life. Jim is the perfect leader for this effort. The depth of his knowledge on the issues surrounding vacant and abandoned properties is matched only by his passion to ensure that these properties are no longer a threat to the communities that our industry serves.”
With a membership comprising nearly 80 percent of the mortgage servicing market, the NMSA is a nonpartisan organization driven by top-level executive representation from the nation’s leading mortgage servicing organizations for the purpose of effecting progress and change on the key challenges that face the mortgage servicing industry. By bringing together decision making executives from across the nation, the NMSA drives the agenda on shaping the American housing industry for the benefit of homeowners.
“There are many opportunities for servicers, investors, and communities to find common ground for the disposition of property that becomes vacant and abandoned when our customer is facing such financial hardship,” said Taylor. “Reducing the complexity in servicing these loans, and then using the best practices to get the property secured in the right time are critical to reducing adverse impact to our customers, the communities, and the investors. NMSA’s leadership and engagement with a broad range of stakeholders also provide a unique opportunity to find common ground and reach a consensus on the most effective resolution for these properties.”
