Peoples Processing

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is posing a significant challenge. Experts are not in a position to quantify or project the delinquency numbers, as per a recent report in Black Knight’s Mortgage Monitor.

“Trying to gauge the impact of COVID-19 on mortgage performance is as much an art right now as a science,” said Ben Graboske, president of Black Knight Data Analytics. “The fact is that there is no true point of comparison in the nation’s recent history for analysts to model against.” Continue reading...

As lenders process loans, the role of an underwriter is critical. All of us know that underwriting usually consumes a lot of time and costs and usually goes through multiple iterations. If a lender can bring in improvements during the pre-underwriting stage, then this can have a large impact on the productivity of underwriters.

At the pre-underwriting stage, teams need to manage a lot of paperwork, including document verification, stacking and indexing the loan papers received, preparing and sending the initial mortgage disclosures to the borrower, etc. This can get very cumbersome for in-house teams. Continue reading...

The mortgage industry has been deeply impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Black Knight reported that nearly 4.1 million homeowners are in forbearance programs, representing 7.7% of all active mortgages.

With the increase in the number of forbearance requests, servicers will need to have a process in place so that they can ensure that not a single request goes unanswered. Continue reading...

I think the last 2-3 months has seen a big change in the mortgage industry with low-interest rates and the pandemic. Who would have imagined that we will see such high forbearance volumes? Of course, because of the pandemic, people should not be losing their homes. The good news is that 3.7 million of the foreclosure prevention actions have helped troubled homeowners stay in their homes.

The Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency  (FHFA) shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) completed 26,910 foreclosure prevention actions in the first quarter of 2020, bringing to 4.4 million the number of troubled homeowners who have been helped during conservatorships. Continue reading...

The housing market is currently witnessing a major surge, thanks to record-low mortgage rates. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index, mortgage applications to purchase a home was a remarkable 21% higher than one year ago.

At a time like this, it is likely that underwriters may feel overwhelmed with the sudden surge in volumes. An underwriter does require several documents that are current and complete to ensure that there are no gaps in the borrower’s financial narrative. Continue reading...

Ginnie Mae announced a major step in modernizing its platform, allowing so-called “digital collateral” or electronic promissory notes and other loan files as collateral in its securities.

Six weeks after a Ginnie Mae executive said the agency was “just around the corner” from beginning to accept eNotes in its securitizations, Ginnie Mae Principal Executive Vice President Seth Appleton said the program had been launched. Continue reading...

With the COVID-19 pandemic severely hurting the economy and unemployment levels skyrocketing, many homeowners are struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments. To help alleviate the impact of COVID-19, the federal government passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to grant relief options for federally backed loans.

Post the Act, there has been a tremendous rise in the number of forbearance requests with around 4.3 million mortgages in forbearance, representing 8.53% of the total outstanding mortgages. The high rate of unemployment and the wave of layoffs have also meant that delinquencies among borrowers for past-due mortgages have soared majorly. Mortgage delinquencies spiked by 1.6 million in April, the largest single-month jump in history, according to Black Knight, a mortgage technology and data provider. continue reading...

As many businesses begin the slow process of returning to work and bringing employees back from remote working, there are many areas to think about and prepare for, to ensure that businesses are protected, and employees feel safe.

Supporting Staff Health and Well-being

The health and safety of the workforce should be management’s top priority.

Companies need to support their employees who are coming back to the workplace as some may be excited while others could be very anxious about the thought of mixing with other people. Continue reading...

With the rise in forbearance volumes servicers, must rethink their mortgage default servicing operations and technology. Improving the mortgage loan servicing process will help servicers limit losses and keep more borrowers in their homes. Servicers must improve mortgage servicing operations to improve borrower loyalty and stand out from the competition.

According to the Mortgage Bankers’ Association, only 17% of borrowers plan to return to their same mortgage servicer for another loan. Additionally, J.D. Power’s 2019 U.S. Primary Mortgage Servicer Satisfaction Study, stated mortgage servicers were at the bottom of the industries studied with a score of 777 out of 1,000. Continue reading...