The mortgage industry is a mixed bag at the moment.

CEO Commentary | May 3, 2020

At the moment, the mortgage industry is a mixed bag of blessings and challenges. Refinance originations and pockets of purchase activity are keeping lenders quite busy in light of consumers’ personal finance challenges.

Disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $334.6 billion (2.0 percent). In March, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $1,127.3 billion (7.5 percent), according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

By May 1, the 10-year Treasury note hovers between .60-.65%.

For the prospective clients we’ve recently spoken to, VOEs and valuations remain considerable concerns during origination. Manual VOEs (verbal/written) still apprise 70% of all VOE volume. Appraisals have a multitude of concerns. I encourage lenders to evaluate AVMs where at all possible in today’s environment. Service 1st has a wide array of AVM options and we welcome the opportunity to craft a solution for your organization. An AVM solution could be a positive move towards reducing current turn times. Reach out to a member of our team to learn more. Additionally, if you’ve come across any of my recent posts, you’ll see I find a way to tout our VOE solution. S1’s turn time is 50% less than industry benchmarks. Our VOE platform, deployed in 2018, is frequently updated and incredibly efficient. Throughout the transaction, users never lose visibility of their order. Each system touchpoint produces a new status for reporting. Additionally, if an order cannot be fulfilled, you’re immediately notified. At no point do requests have the opportunity to become stale and dated. Lastly, the IRS’ 4506-T Processing (TRV) came back online last week following a considerable advocacy effort from NCS and our industry allies. We expect the IRS service to churn through backlogs slowly. We will keep clients apprised of updated conditions.

Until then, we are here to help and are always eager to answer any questions. Call us at (866) 606-5952 or email us at info@srv1st.com I truly hope this is a good month for you and your organization. Stay safe.