Scotsman Guide - February 2011 Residential Edition

Advise about advantages Documentation and customer-service demands often have contributed to inefficient short-sale processes resulting in delays, penalties and unnecessary foreclosures.

Servicers that outsource all or part of the modification or short-sale process can create best practices that ensure order from start to finish. Brokers can advise servicers about the following benefits:

• A standardized approach creates a more efficient process. Cost and time savings depend on systems that streamline important functions.

• Digitized documents simplify management. Paper files, printed faxes and e-mails are inefficient and prone to being misplaced or lost.

• Integrated fax solutions route documents without user intervention. Faxes are routed into an image repository automatically, creating a searchable database and full audit trail.

• Scalability is based on business needs. The offerings of third-party providers can adjust to meet business needs.

• Electronic work flow improves processes. By using work-flow routing and queues in their paperless processing system, servicers can enforce best practices and accountability. This ensures documents are processed in a timely manner and without lost paper work.

• Strict service-level agreements ensure performance standards. a good service-provider will have defined service-level standards based on customer specifications to ensure timely processing of documentation.

• Transactional content management provides greater visibility into the process. Providers that automate the processing and delivery of mis-sion-critical documents can give servicers and borrowers better visibility into the loan-modification process. When they can access documentation immediately, servicers can improve customer communication.

• Costs are often reduced. In many cases, third-party providers offer their services for less than it would cost to conduct the same business in-house.

• Robust reporting and tracking provide insight into opportunities for improvement. an outsourcing partner can provide reporting metrics that help servicing organizations understand existing strengths and opportunities for productivity enhancements.

• • •
By delivering troubled clients basic
information about HaMP and HaFa —
and by offering loan servicers insights
into the advantages of business-
process outsourcing — mortgage
brokers can build business and
strengthen their reputation. •
complete economics of a transaction.
yield-spread premiums, for example,
can give consumers benefits associ-
ated with origination and closing.

Needed clarification

as most brokers realize, every mortgage origination involves a complicated and sophisticated process, and consumers benefit from the relationships and work of the originator. More use of consumer-direct payments to loan originators could help consumers and the market, provided the Federal Reserve clarifies certain issues.

One area needing elucidation pertains to branch-office managers. It seems logical that consumers and the industry would be better served if a mortgage shop’s managers also were allowed to be licensed to close individual loans.

Some of the best community
branches have a producing manager,
someone who also writes loans. This
is an important path for business for-
mation and job growth at the com-
munity level. It seems completely off
base that the Federal Reserve should
prohibit profit-based compensation to
managers simply because they also
originate loans.

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