Tom DiMercurio

An accidental career, by design.

Tom started in real estate in the early 1980s, in the middle of the savings-and-loan crisis. Lax banking regulations, soaring interest rates, rampant inflation, and plummeting consumer confidence created an environment ripe for trouble. His real estate background equipped him to handle problematic loans — many of them under-collateralized or issued to borrowers who lacked sufficient capital. He has been working financial cycles ever since.

The 1980s. 2008. COVID. Whatever the current quarter brings. The work, Tom argues, is largely the same: adverse market conditions, poor timing, limited resources, lack of direction. And someone has to walk into that and figure out what's recoverable, what isn't, and what to do next.

Defining the role of Crisis Manager

Years ago Tom identified himself as a Crisis Manager — a turnaround operator who is at his best when conditions are bad. In settings where everything ran smoothly, with established processes and little threat of failure, he found it difficult to stay engaged. His strengths didn't shine in environments free from turmoil. They showed up in the heart of a crisis, where adverse market conditions, poor timing, limited resources, and lack of direction converged.

The economics of crisis work reward the people who do it well. Companies with major financial headwinds tend to relax their traditional pay structures and offer performance-based packages. Tom's compensation arrangements were always heavily negotiated, always keyed to outcomes.

Founding the Mercury Alliance

In 2005, after thirty years of managing the REO function from inside lender-side organizations, Tom started the Mercury Alliance, LLC — a real estate brokerage dedicated 100% to the REO niche. From 2005 to 2017, he ran that brokerage first in Denver and then across the Colorado mountains, with offices in Avon, Vail, Basalt, and Grand Junction. Throughout that period, the Mercury Alliance held a dominant share of lender-owned REO assets in those markets. He was a Fannie Mae broker.

One can argue that he knows the REO business from all sides — the lender side, the servicer side, and the brokerage side. He's made a career, albeit an accidental career, out of bad loans and REO.

Why advisory, why now

Mercury Alliance Advisory Services is the consulting evolution of that lineage. The brokerage years built the playbooks. The crisis years sharpened the judgment. The advisory practice exists to put both at the service of banks, servicers, asset managers, and REO brokers who are facing the situations Tom has spent forty years walking into.

The firm is deliberately small. Tom takes a limited number of engagements at a time and leads each one personally. The output is judgment, written down. The value is the body of work that produced it.

I rest my case for claiming, and using, the title of the Godfather of REO. Tom DiMercurio

Credentials

• Licensed Real Estate Broker — Colorado, Texas, California, Oklahoma
• Former Fannie Mae REO Broker
• Managing Member, Mercury Alliance Advisory Services, LLC (Colorado)
• Founder, the Mercury Alliance, LLC (2005–2017)