Mar. 31: Vendors at play

Per the MBA the cost per loan is approximately $8,500. That’s a real chunk of change. With the increase in rules, regulations, consumer protection, the complexity of “doing” a loan (finding a borrower, locking the loan, underwriting, processing, closing, funding, selling, and servicing), and the fear of making a mistake (with the resulting penalty), has led every lender to use the services of vendors to one degree or another.

Lenders are in a pickle. In my discussions with CEOs and owners, the question is do they invest the time and money in installing new software, and which may or may not work with existing systems, or do they design and support the function with their own personnel? And if the former, who on their staff has the expertise to monitor the vendors. And does the vendor’s software even communicate with other vendor’s products?

Let’s see what a random sample of vendors have been up to in recent weeks & months, besides registering and trademarking names with capitals in the middle of them. None of these are paid ads, and the verbiage is taken from the company’s note. Plunging in…

Insellerate released its latest product that helps support the digital mortgage revolution. The developer of the industry’s CRM (customer relationship management) software announced its continued plans for growth with the addition of Daniel Kimm as Director of Sales and Jaime Lee as Director of Marketing. Insellerate saw rapid growth during 2017 as total number of users increased by 400 percent. With demand for Insellerate showing no signs of slowing, Kimm and Lee will help support the company’s next phase of growth. Kimm brings more than 15 years’ experience as an executive and sales leader in rapid-growth technology companies, including LowerMyBills.com, LeadPoint, and Oversee.net. Lee has extensive experience building marketing strategies from the ground up at startups as well as enterprise organizations, including VMware, Inc., a subsidiary of Dell Technologies.

Secure Insight has welcomed Best Capital Funding, of Rancho Cucamonga, California and Planet Home Mortgage of Meriden, Connecticut as closing agent vendor risk management clients.

Lennar, America’s largest homebuilder, has selected Blend’s technology to digitally streamline the home purchase process for Lennar’s financing arm, Eagle Home Mortgage and its customers. Blend’s platform will help Lennar provide mortgages that are easier to understand and apply for and can close up to 10 days faster by cutting out unnecessary manual processes.

The resource and cost savings from using Blend’s tech to finance a mortgage can make it more worthwhile for builders to focus on much needed entry-level homes.

Indecomm has launched a new E-Commerce site for online product purchases. The products available are delivered by Indecomm Mortgage Learning, formerly known as Mortgage U. Its initial products available for purchase are eLearning, Live Learning, and Webinars.

Resitrader has added 110 financial institutions to its digital trading platform in two years. While most early Resitrader participants have been buyers, however, they have been recently eclipsed by sellers, whose numbers continue to grow. Company officials expect continued growth in Resitrader participants. “The secondary market is truly embracing online loan trading.”

RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing, a non-bank mortgage servicing companies, has been selected as a subservicing partner for Neighborhood Lending Services (NLS), an Illinois nonprofit mortgage lender. Kevin Brungardt, Chief Executive Officer for RPMS, stated, “We are delighted to have been selected as NLS’ subservicing partner and look forward to providing a world-class customer experience to its borrowers. At RoundPoint, we are committed to partnering with organizations, such as NLS, that are in the pursuit of expanding homeownership and strengthening communities.”

As the industry continues to transition into digital mortgage, Gregg & Valby, LLP, a Texas based law firm, is prepared to facilitate an electronic closing process by integrating its nationwide document preparation software with eOriginal’s eClosing platform. Read the recent announcement for details.

ComplianceEase announced it has updated ComplianceAnalyzer with TRID Monitor to comply with the 2017 TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) Rule which become mandatory on October 1, 2018. With this update, ComplianceAnalyzer with TRID Monitor, the residential mortgage industry’s leading compliance risk management platform, is the first major compliance solution to be TRID 2.0-ready. It will allow lenders to configure their company profile to adopt the new provisions from TRID 2.0 early, including the thresholds for the Total of Payments (TOP).

A while back Mid America Mortgage, Inc. announced that Spectrum Mortgage Holdings has signed on as an eWarehouse line provider for Mid America’s eCorrespondent division. Through this partnership, Spectrum will offer lower net worth requirements* on warehouse lines and purchase eNotes from qualified emerging mortgage bankers approved as Mid America eCorrespondent sellers. Spectrum will not require Mid America eCorrespondents to possess net worth or cash liquidity requirements beyond their respective states’ minimum, enabling many more aspiring mortgage bankers to participate in the emerging eMortgage market. Additional benefits of a Spectrum eWarehouse line include: no personal guarantees, no leverage covenants, no negative interest carry.

The popularity of text messaging is growing every year, and many firms and their clients now expect to use it as a tool to conduct business. Prohibiting the use of text messages is not only unsustainable for an increasingly mobile workplace, it limits how and where firms can communicate with clients. The Financial Firm’s e-book guide to compliant text messaging takes a closer look at FINRA and SEC guidelines, the risks of text messaging for business, and the steps firms can take to enable text messaging — while minimizing risk.

CloudVirga launched a new mobile app that will enable real estate agents to collaborate with mortgage loan officers in real time. This native mobile app allows instantaneous and secure exchange of loan documents and communication between real estate agents and loan teams for a faster, more efficient mortgage experience. The mobile app, available for both Android and Apple devices, makes it easy for real estate agents to check a loan’s status, view and send pre-approval letters and upload purchase contracts from virtually anywhere. Real estate agents can also use the app to share leads with loan officers.

Late last year Cloudvirga announced the addition of five top-30 lender customers to its digital mortgage platform, and it added a sixth top-30 lender in December. It raised a $20M Series B led by Blackstone Group portfolio company Incenter. To date, the firm has raised over $27M in total funding to scale its enterprise-class technology and invest in vendor partnerships, including a recently announced integration with DocuTech. Schreck has overseen several high-profile additions to Cloudvirga’s leadership team, including the appointment of former ShiftPixy CFO Stephen DeSantis as chief financial officer, First American executive Jim Portner as chief product officer and former Dell and IBM executive Sean McEvoy as chief customer officer. In December, Cloudvirga co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Kyle Kamrooz has received top industry honors. He was also recognized by National Mortgage Professional Magazine as one of the mortgage industry’s most influential professionals under 40.

Home Point Financial Corporation unveiled its partnership with SafeboxIQ, an automated mortgage document submission platform. SafeboxIQ allows Home Point Financial to manage the loan submission process easily and securely, providing accuracy and on-time closings. This once manual process is now automated and paperless, allowing for increased convenience and efficiency for Home Point’s Realtor® partners and borrowers. SafeboxIQ digitizes loan files, identifies missing documents and notifies appropriate parties when documents are due or missing. The program also tracks progress and can close up to 15 days faster than manual processing. Utilizing this technology allows more time to be spent building customer relationships and growing businesses for both Home Point and its client base.

Calyx Software announced it has launched Zip, an affordable, easy-to-use loan interview platform that loan originators can deliver to prospective borrowers via a branded URL.

Borrowers can easily begin the loan application process online or via any mobile device. The Zip interview prompts borrowers with questions that apply to their unique situation and loan inquiry, which improves the borrower’s experience and the quality of leads originators receive. Find out more about Zip features.

Stewart, national title underwriter and eMortgage technology developer, Pavaso Inc. are partnering in their efforts to promote and deliver a fully digital mortgage closing process. Pavaso is the developer of a leading national real estate eClosing software platform. Stewart is among the industry’s “Big Four” title underwriters and has long emphasized the development and implementation of leading technology in the mortgage process. This partnership is a strong strategic fit, designed to drive the development and adoption of an eClosing process that offers consumers more freedom, convenience, and transparency during what has traditionally been one of the most paper intensive stages of the mortgage transaction.

VantageScore Solutions engaged Oliver Wyman, a global leader in management consulting, to execute its annual market adoption survey. The findings offer a granular look at what types of companies are using its credit scores and in which processes. Among the findings are: While providing free credit scores to consumers is an area of the market, the report found almost 75 percent of the more than 8.5 billion VantageScore credit scores used during the research time period were used by lenders. Overall, more than 2,200 financial institutions used more than 6 billion VantageScore credit scores. This includes all 10 of the largest 10 financial institutions that used it in at least one line of their business. The study notes: “Many lenders pull multiple credit scores to underwrite each new loan, and therefore it is impossible to extrapolate market share for VantageScore specifically.” That being the case, Barrett Burns, President and CEO of VantageScore Solutions, submitted that it is also impossible for competitors to extrapolate any reliable market share data. No one knows the denominator, or said another way, no one knows how many scores are used in total and thus claims about a percentage of market share are questionable at best.

Ellie Mae partnered with COCC, a client-owned financial technology company servicing financial institutions throughout the Northeastern United States. This new partnership will allow COCC to offer the Encompass all-in-one mortgage management solution to members of the COCC cooperative. Matt L’Heureux, SVP & Chief Product Officer, COCC states, “Through this partnership, COCC will provide Ellie Mae’s Encompass solution to our clients to help give them more control with functions and applications that improve efficiency, enhance quality and ensure compliance.”

DocMagic Inc. has processed more than 300 million mortgage-related electronic signatures. This milestone achievement is the direct result of increased adoption of several DocMagic technologies that feature its comprehensive eSigning platform, which can be accessed as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) or on-premise enterprise platform. Each of DocMagic’s digital platforms reports a significant increase in volume, which the company attributes to lenders’ growing need to prove a TRID-compliant, 100 percent paperless mortgage process. DocMagic reports significant volume increases for SmartCLOSE and Total eClose, two award-winning technologies that enable lenders to comply with TRID and UCD (Uniform Closing Dataset) guidelines.

Roostify, announced that it has integrated its online mortgage platform with LendingTree, the nation’s leading online loan marketplace. The new integration makes it easier than ever for consumers to locate and apply with the right lender. “There is a digital gap in the mortgage industry: consumers mostly research and shop for loans online, but once they choose a loan the actual origination process is often still offline,” explained Nikul Patel, Chief Strategy Officer, LendingTree. “Our integration with Roostify brings the industry one step closer to the all-digital vision for a seamless consumer journey.”

Several days ago, as I left a meeting at a hotel, I desperately gave myself a personal “TSA pat down.” I was looking for my keys. They were not in my pockets. A quick search in the meeting room revealed nothing.
Suddenly I realized I must have left them in the car. Frantically, I headed for the parking lot. My wife has scolded me many times for leaving the keys in the ignition.
My theory is the ignition is the best place not to lose them.
Her theory is that the car will be stolen. As I burst through the door, I came to a terrifying conclusion: her theory was right. The parking lot was empty.
I immediately called the police. I gave them my location, confessed that I had left my keys in the car, and that it had been stolen.
Then I made the most difficult call of all, “Honey,” I stammered; I always call her “honey” in times like these. “I left my keys in the car, and it has been stolen.”
There was a period of silence. I thought the call had been dropped, but then I heard her voice. “Idiot”, she barked, “I dropped you off!”
Now it was my time to be silent. Embarrassed, I said, “Well, come and get me.”
She retorted, “I will, as soon as I convince this policeman I have not stolen your car.”
Yep, it’s the golden years.

Visit www.robchrisman.com for more information on our industry partners, access archived commentaries, or to subscribe to the Daily Mortgage News and Commentary. If you’re interested, visit my periodic blog at the STRATMOR Group web site. The current blog is, “How Good is Your Company’s Cyber-Security?” If you have both the time and inclination, make a comment on what I have written, or on other comments so that folks can learn what’s going on out there from the other readers.

Rob

(Market data provided in partnership with MBS Live. For free job postings and to view candidate resumes visit LenderNews. Currently there are over 300 mortgage professionals looking for operations, secondary and management roles. For up-to-date mortgage news visit Mortgage News Daily. For archived commentaries, or to subscribe, go to www.robchrisman.com. Copyright 2018 Chrisman LLC. All rights reserved. Occasional paid job listings do appear. This report or any portion hereof may not be reprinted, sold or redistributed without the written consent of Rob Chrisman.)