At the mortgage industry’s biggest conference of the year, the Mortgage Banker’s Association (MBA) annual gathering in Boston, the direction of the industry was made clear for 2017. MBA President and CEO David H. Stevens, opened the convention on a political tone with his message, “Today, you are being discouraged from lending to some first-time homebuyers,” Stevens stated. “Why? Because the fear of a mistake, even if irrelevant to the credit decision, exposes each of you to unacceptable risk. Because of overly aggressive and sometimes inappropriate enforcement actions by some key government agencies.”
Photo courtesy of National Mortgage Professionals
As the industry continues to adjust to the challenges of “Know Before You Owe” regulation from last year, it appears this adaptation came with rising costs. Speakers at the conference and conversations on the floor circled around how making careful decisions around risk have constrained the ability to innovate. More specifically, how the persisting regulatory environment and profitability challenges have made it extremely difficult to remain profitable in the mortgage lending space. This year, the huddled pep talk was on executing on plans for long needed automation and technology. We’re essentially moving beyond implementation to sustainability and innovation.
In the current housing market, speed is everything. Everyone involved is struggling to improve turnaround times, so boosting efficiency in the underwriting process can be the competitive edge that’s needed today. The mortgage business process is complex and deploying innovation to increase efficiency at all stages of the mortgage service lifecycle can be the key to survival. A move towards identifying areas where workflow management technology can ease the burden by automating elements of compliance, quality control and reducing unnecessary manual labor can enable skilled mortgage professionals to focus their attention on the complex matters at hand.
According to the survey conducted during the conference by Loyalty360, which polled more than 100 executives from leading mortgage lenders,
“revealed that more than nine out of ten of the respondents are somewhat or very interested in technology that automates key steps along the mortgage loan process, and 86 percent expect to spend more in 2017 versus 2016 on technology to reduce loan production costs by enabling a digital mortgage process.”
Tools such as automated valuation models (AVMs), automated appraisal risk scoring, secondary market error message previews, and comparable data validation are out there, and ready to be effectively employed early in the mortgage lifecycle to increase the availability of information and accelerate the overall process. With the availability of quality, verifiable data – there is clearly a winning opportunity here for all. The task at hand is how best to deploy it.
Amid intensifying competition, rising regulatory requirements and the long mortgage process, lenders now need to focus on automating data management and workflow from end-to-end. The good news is that it’s now possible to drastically reduce the mortgage service lifecycle with mortgage automation technology already available to the industry.
Read more or join the discussion on mortgage industry trends:
Stevens Opens MBA Annual Conference With Politically-Tinged Address
National Mortgage Professionals | By Phil Hall | October 24, 2016
Bye-Bye Regulation, The Mortgage Industry Found A New Focus: Technology Innovation
The hot topic at MBA Annual 2016 – Housing Wire | By Brena Swanson | October 26, 2016
Speakers at MBA Annual Focus on 3 Changes Coming to Housing
Get on the bus or get left behind – Housing Wire | By Kelsey Ramirez | October 24, 2016
Automation Key To Customer Experience For Mortgage Lenders
LOYALTY360 | Jim Tierney | NOVEMBER 11, 2016
This Is Where Mortgage Technology Is Headed
One day soon, entire lending process will be online | Kelsey Ramírez | October 24, 2016
As Far As Tech Innovation Goes, Here’s Where The Industry’s Headed
Short-term and long-term | Brena Swanson | November 8, 2016
Rising Costs to Originate Mortgages Spurring Innovation
Fannie Mae | By Cathie Ericson | July 5, 2016
