For nearly 14 months, Joe D’Urso commuted on a redeye flight every Thursday night from Salt Lake City, Utah, back to his home in Glen Cove, New York.
“It was pretty crazy in that there were a number of times where I would be running through airports,” D’Urso said. “And I am very happy to report that I have never missed a business flight in my career, even during that period of time.”
D’Urso, now the president and COO of Clayton Holdings, was working at the time for Green River Capital (GRC), which became a subsidiary of Clayton Holdings. After being hired in October 2010 at GRC, D’Urso worked four or five days out of the Salt Lake office, and then commuted back home Thursday night so he could coach his sons soccer and hockey teams on Fridays and on the weekends.
When Clayton started to prepare to buy GRC, D’Urso needed to relocate to have more of a permanent footing on the ground. Shortly after Christmas 2011 D’Urso said goodbye to his home in New York and transplanted his family to Utah.
In his new role D’Urso no longer commutes every week, but still travels to Connecticut, New York and other places on the East Coast for clients.
“One of the things that anybody who has worked with me or for me will tell you is I have this real focus on people, because I think our business is all about people,” D’Urso explained. “I don’t like to be on the road too much, to the point I am losing touch with what is going on with our folksback in the office,” he said.
Although D’Urso has been with the company for more than three years, in his new position he has reaffirmed his commitment to his clients and customers.
“Any business or company that I have run, I have always really felt like there are some very consistent things that you need to do, and if you do those things, it is much easier to succeed than it is to fail,” he said.
One of those consistent things is seeking out the best people.
“We have to always make sure we are attracting and maintaining the best people in the industry,” D’Urso commented. “Then combine the people with really good proprietary technology.”
Those hires become even more important in the current environment. “Externally, it has been a time of really unprecedented change and regulation,” D’Urso said.
Many new regulations, like qualified mortgage and the Ability-To-Repay, come into effect this month. As a result, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking at servicers and originators to do more oversight of their vendors and their third-party outsources.
“Clayton is very well-positioned to help our clients navigate through that, and I think that is going to be a portion of what really drives whether we, as well as our clients, succeed going forward,” he said. “There has been an immense amount of interest on our side from our clients to help them with some regulatory reviews and preparedness."
In response, Clayton has created a number of CFPB readiness guides for its clients, and will continue to do that in the future. “Because there have been so many changes, as these rules get implemented, there will certainly be tweaks and interpretations by the regulators. So we certainly can’t rest on our laurels and need to stay on top of that,” he added.
The new regulations are only part of the picture, though. D’Urso sees the biggest opportunity in distinguishing his company in a crowded marketplace.
“It has to be hyper-focused on the implementation of those things, but also, focused on the consumer,” he said. According to D’Urso, the key is for the company to keep the consumer in mind whenever they are servicing.
“By and large, the industry has gotten there, but that is something that we just need to continue to focus on,” he said.
For some time now, D’Urso noted that Clayton Holdings and others have been hearing that securitization and non-conforming securitization will be coming back soon.
“I think that everyone in the market agrees that it [private-label securitization] will come back, but it is a matter of when it will come back,” D’Urso said. “I think most people are gearing for it to come back, whether that is in 2014 or 2015 even.”
Another big venture on the GRC side of Calyton's business is the burgeoning single-family rental community.
“We provided a number of services in the recent Blackstone securitization deal, and we think that is going to be a pretty big market in 2014. Investments banks are predicting that it will be anywhere between a $16 and $17 billion industry,” D’Urso said. “Because this is such a new and emerging asset class, investors do not have transparency into the differences between the property rental managers."
Since there is not a lot that is necessarily known about this emerging side of the market, Clayton and GRC can help the property rental management companies, rating agencies and investors by providing those needed metrics.
“For this to grow into a true institutional asset class that is durable, we are going to need transparency in the market and I think Clayton and GR are best-in-class when it comes to those sorts of functions,” D’Urso said. “There are a number of areas that our clients have asked us to get involved in that we are and have been moving into, such as non-conforming due diligence and the surveillance of non-conforming loan portfolios."
D’Urso emphasized that heading into 2014, they will continue to innovate in terms of services they provide for their clients based on what their needs are.
“Just like at GRC, where I was willing to get on a plane every month, I intend to bring that same level of enthusiasm and energy to this role. I think that combined with the best-in-class people and technology that we have, I think we should be good.”
