During difficult market conditions, lenders need to stand out. Customization through tech can help lenders become more productive and effective. Here's how.
The continued adoption of mortgage technology means that lenders are constantly getting more productive, right? Not so fast! The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) and STRATMOR Peer Group Roundtables Program (“PGR”) held earlier this year found that the three best monthly loan officer productivity years were 2003, 2020 and 2021.
Having two of the most recent years seems to make sense but seeing 2003 just as productive as recent years and more productive than the mortgage tech boom of the last decade flies in the face of conventional wisdom. What is more likely is that loan officers are more productive in high-volume years, which matches perfectly with the results of the report.
However, just because loan officers are productive does not mean the entire mortgage workflow is. The report found that key lending fulfillment functions - processors, underwriters, and closers – did not always match loan officer productivity.
For example, the MBA report highlights that retail loans closed per underwriter per month dropped from 115 in 2003 to 28 in 2021. Possible factors listed in the report include the impact of regulations and compliance, changing investor requirements and overlays, repurchase fears, staffing difficulties and high turnover, appraisal challenges, and the shift in servicing portfolio retention loans.
“More recent productivity benchmarks from the 2017-2019 timeframe may be the most meaningful gauges of fulfillment productivity in the post-refi boom era,” the report concludes.
We agree, 2021 and 2022 data reflect another set of unprecedented market conditions, hence the need to create increasingly more efficient workflow configurations and customized tasking.
Lenders need to invest in tools that increase long-term productivity and efficiency for all areas of the mortgage process to remain competitive in today’s volatile market. Taking this philosophy a step further, lenders need to prioritize technology that can be tailored to fit organizational- and user-specific processes.
The VirPack platform makes this level of customization attainable to lenders. Our users have full control over the system’s functional and visual details. The software allows users to implement multilayered, complete customizations even within the loan level, increasing work efficiency while offering convenient, easy access to information from wherever the lender is located.
While lender users control all system upgrades and customizations at the company level, when necessary, VirPack also supports department-led system modifications and third-party, partner integrations.
Efficiency-driven workflow customizations allow loan officers and processors to expedite loan origination by making it easy for them to complete mundane tasks much faster. At the same time, compliance customizations – whether related to internal or external guardrails and regulatory requirements – are part of the permanent feature upgrades at the company level, similar to workflow configuration and tasking automation changes.
This way the system can give individual users customized flexibility within the platform but does not allow them to ignore the companywide, compliance-risk control guardrails.
Mundane tasking automation is one of the ways customization increases mortgage lending efficiency. Customer-defined loan origination customizations specify lender-approved tasks including related steps, regulatory compliance and deadlines. Ultimately, while monitoring completed tasks all parties involved stay on the same page.
VirPack’s streamlined loan processing workflow configurations organically leads to faster, more accurate loan data recording that helps reduce the origination to loan closing time-lapse to about 30 days. The customization process also supports open and more effective communication between mortgage technology providers, such as VirPack, and lender users looking for new paths to system efficiency improvements.
Lenders are now customizing and automating a progressively larger number of mortgage loan process tasks. Nonetheless, since full automation has not yet been achieved by the traditional LOS systems, various fintechs and new market entrants aim to further improve lending productivity and will continue to drive mortgage technology innovation forward regardless of market volatility or the interest rate environment. We aim to elevate the lending experience for both lenders and borrowers – and customization is one of the ways we achieve this goal.
By utilizing technology that can customize your lending cycle, your organization will be able to stand out even in a downward market.
Incorporating the right technology into your lending process can decrease the amount of time to close.
Investing in technology to improve your lending experience is crucial to remaining competitive in a downward market.