HUD taps Marshall & Swift for REO costing data

Marshall & Swift (M&S), a provider of building cost data and estimating technology, and a MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) company, announced the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development’s (HUD), Office of Single Family Asset Management (SFAM) will use Marshall & Swift’s cost estimator data and solutions to provide repair, replacement, maintenance or improvement costs on Federal Housing Administration (FHA) housing units, as a pilot initiative. Marshall & Swift’s cost estimator responds to the industry need to estimate repairs on the growing number of residential properties now in or entering the real estate foreclosure market. The subscription services establishes repair costs to increase the time for understanding repair needs in the overall real estate transaction. HUD’s decision to use Marshall & Swift’s data will help it simplify and ultimately eliminate the manual cost allowable updates routinely performed to develop and confirm costs for the industry across the United States and its territories on a consistent and totally verifiable basis.   “Marshall & Swift is proud to continue to provide support to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD), Office of Single Family Asset Management (SFAM),” said Salil Donde, CEO, MSB. “The selection of Marshall & Swift’s industry leading total component database, offers defendable repair cost estimations in the fifty states and territories, and will streamline validating costs for residential property repair and preservation.”   “Marshall & Swift’s objective third-party information will provide a conduit for the agency and industry to work more closely with each other and reduce unneeded time, costs and expenses associated with the protection and preservation of assets,” said Donde. For more information, visit www.marshallswift.com.