MBA NewsLink Q&A with Brian Cullen, CEO, SingleSource Property Solutions

MBA NewsLink recently interviewed Brian Cullen, CEO and co-founder of SingleSource Property Solutions, a provider of property services supporting the U.S. housing industry.

Cullen’s responsibilities include daily oversight of all aspects of the company as well as various strategic sales and marketing initiatives. He graduated from John Carroll University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and received an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.

MBA NewsLink: First, tell us a bit about SingleSource.

Brian Cullen: Our roots began on April 1, 2000, when one of two companies that eventually merged to form SingleSource, iMortgage Services—an appraisal management company—was founded by Brian Uffelman, who currently serves as our chairman. In 2004, Brian, Andre Lacouture, and I launched SingleSource to expand into broker price opinions (BPOs) and REO services. The two companies operated separately until 2015, when we formally merged SingleSource’s national network with the iMortgage AMC network of appraisers to form what is now SingleSource Property Solutions.

MBA NewsLink: How have mortgage firms and service providers been most successful weathering multiple market disruptions over the past quarter century, including September 11, 2001, the Global Financial Crisis and COVID?

Brian Cullen: Firms that weathered major market disruption most successfully tended to be the ones that built operational agility into their business models.

Our own strategy has been to have a team versed in wearing multiple hats. For instance, when the pandemic hit, many foreclosure functions were suspended, but organizations like ours that had developed staff with diverse skills were able to shift teams from default servicing to refinance originations support. The thing we are most proud of is that we have accomplished this organically. We provide all our services under one roof; we are not a company of separate silos or acquisitions.

Of course, not all service providers are built to pivot this way. But from a mortgage company’s perspective, adaptability matters. If a vendor can shift between originations and default while maintaining continuity of staff, lenders benefit from working with the same people they already trust—without having to train someone new in the middle of a high-volume period.

MBA NewsLink: How does pivoting impact employees?

Brian Cullen: From our perspective, team members who are able to pivot between market cycles are far more secure and loyal. For example, many of our employees have been with us for more than a decade. When your people are exposed to different parts of the business and trained to support multiple functions, they not only build their skills, they gain a clearer understanding of how their work fits into the bigger picture. That sense of value and versatility helps foster long-term commitment.

When an organization is intentional about how it handles market shifts, employees are more likely to see those changes as opportunities rather than threats—and it grows stronger because of it.

MBA NewsLink: How has technology changed since the company launched?

Brian Cullen: The valuation process, for instance, involves far less manual work than it used to. Early on, valuation reports would involve receiving packages of photos from appraisers that would be used in preparing the final report. It was a time-consuming process that required a lot of coordination—and a lot of paper. For example, BPOs would require us to go through endless boxes of reports, spend hours sorting them on the floor, match them up to the correct file, and finally ship them out to the client. The process wasn’t scalable and there was a real risk of delays or mix-ups.

Today, everything is transmitted digitally. Photos, data, and reports flow electronically through secure systems, which speeds up delivery, improves accuracy, and reduces the need for manual oversight. These changes have helped our industry handle higher volumes with greater consistency, especially during market surges, without expanding headcount. That’s a major change from how things worked 25 years ago.

MBA NewsLink: What else has improved since 2000?

Brian Cullen: Transparency has also improved significantly thanks to technology. For instance, in the early days, invoicing was a very opaque process. You often didn’t know when or if a payment was coming, which made tracking payments difficult. Today, it is very clear what the status of an invoice is, and instead of waiting for a paper check in the mail, you have digital payments, which are faster, easier to track, and far more secure. When service providers can rely on fast payments it allows us to keep investing in better people, processes, and technology for our clients.

It’s also much easier to monitor performance across the board and perform peer comparisons. In the past, you might have to compile spreadsheets or rely on anecdotal feedback to understand how your team or vendors were performing. Today, we have access to real-time dashboards and analytics that help us evaluate order turn times and quality control in real time—and ultimately make better decisions.

MBA NewsLink: What challenges does the industry face?

Brian Cullen: There is growing concern about the shortage of appraisers who experienced situations like the 2008 financial crisis. That period brought unprecedented challenges, and appraisers who lived through that era developed a deep understanding of market volatility and the long-term consequences of inflated or unsupported values.

In addition to appraisers, SingleSource has had to recruit new property preservation contractors and inspectors who left the field during the foreclosure moratoriums during the COVID-19 pandemic, another period of unprecedented challenges.

Today, many of those experienced professionals have retired or left the industry, and a new generation of vendor partners are stepping in without firsthand knowledge of that time. So, it’s important to educate newer vendor partners to help them understand how markets can shift rapidly and what signals to watch for. It takes intentional investment in training, oversight, and process improvement to make sure institutional knowledge isn’t lost as the market continues to evolve.

(Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect policies of the Mortgage Bankers Association, nor do they connote an MBA endorsement of a specific company, product or service. MBA NewsLink welcomes submissions from member firms. Inquiries can be sent to Editor Michael Tucker or Editorial Manager Anneliese Mahoney.)