TRUCKEE, Calif.-- As devastating fires raged through Southern California recently, loan servicers and Wall Street investors were faced with the challenge of determining whether or not their properties in Southern California had been adversely affected.

 

They were concerned about the condition of the properties and loans they managed or were in the process of acquiring. Clear Capital was there to help.

Clear Capital immediately set to work with its Disaster Tracking Service (DTS) to generate daily footprints of the Southern California wildfires. Clear Capital obtained data daily on fire boundaries and the direction of travel through many sources, including the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). MODIS data is created from a satellite-produced heat map of the affected region.

Clear Capital’s Disaster Tracking engine tabulated USGS and MODIS data producing a conservative geo-coordinate outline of the fires. The fire boundaries were updated daily. Clear Capital also ran geo-analysis reports on customer loan portfolios to determine if they had properties located within fire affected areas, or if not, the distance to the nearest fire.

Clear Capital then delivered to their customers spreadsheets that included the property address; unique identifiers; the distance to, and description of the nearest fire; links to Clear Capital's site with the latest aggregated fire information as gathered from many public sources; and an interactive mapping tool that showed the current fire perimeter lines in relation to the location of the properties.

Once at-risk properties were identified, customers had the option of ordering Clear Capital Post Disaster Inspection reports (PDIs) to obtain a timely “feet-on–the-ground” inspection of the properties and neighborhood condition in light of the disasters.

“Our staff recognizes that circumstances such as the Southern California fires and Hurricane Katrina leave financial institutions temporarily blind as to the condition of their collateral. This can be very unnerving for them,” said Kevin Marshall, Clear Capital Co-founder and CIO. “When such wide reaching disasters occur, our staff is extremely motivated to leverage our technology, GIS data expertise and service levels to bring more certainty to our customers as they manage their large volumes of loans.

“Since this is a free service we provide to existing customers, they don’t need to get pricing approval during a tense disaster. We simply provide accurate data and maps in bulk or individual format, and then help them with subsequent inspections if necessary. It’s a great partnership.”

Clear Capital PDI reports include a disaster damage ranking; property condition; estimated repair cost and time-to-cure; and surrounding conditions as affected by the disaster. Clear Capital staff works quickly and efficiently with its network of 35,000-plus property inspectors to access customer properties and provide reports back quickly. Clear Capital developed the PDI report in 2005 in response to customer needs following Hurricane Katrina.

Clear Capital provides valuations, condition inspections, and other risk assessment services for mortgage originators, secondary market institutions, mortgage servicers and resellers for properties across the United States and Puerto Rico. The company has built its success on a 100 percent order completion rate, highly available customer care representatives, an efficient web-based technology platform, and a network of more than 35,000 respected real estate professionals nationwide. In 2006 and 2007, Clear Capital was named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in the United States. Clear Capital is headquartered in Truckee, Calif., with a satellite office in Roseville, Calif. as well. For more information about Clear Capital, please visit www.ClearCapital.com.