The deadline has arrived for mandatory submissions to the Federal Housing Administration’s Electronic Appraisal Delivery portal, but as many as one-third of lenders that originate FHA-insured mortgages have yet to use the new system.
The good news is most of the laggards have at least registered to use the portal, and any company that hasn’t taken that first step can receive credentials and begin submitting appraisals within two days of signing up.
The FHA phased in hundreds of early adopters and most of the stragglers are small players in the government lending space that may not need to originate an FHA loan right away and should be able to gear up fairly easily. Most lenders and vendors have been using EAD for at least the last few weeks, said Chuck Rumfola, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at Veros Real Estate Solutions, the vendor that built the FHA’s portal, as well as a similar system for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“There are lenders that have not submitted through the portal yet so they will have to. FHA has a lot of lenders that do really small volumes, so it’s not a big worry,” Rumfola said. “The lenders that are actively using the portal make up the vast majority of FHA’s endorsement volume.”
