One of the things that happens every spring is a meeting of secondary-market executives sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association.
And it has become the custom for the federal housing finance agencies to use these meetings to trot out the latest bells and whistles for their origination and underwriting technologies.
At a press briefing, the Federal National Mortgage Association unveiled an electronic network that it said would link lenders with those who provide information needed to complete a home loan. First on the network is the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
William E. Kelvie, a Fannie Mae executive vice president, said lenders could now file FHA insurance claims with HUD through the network. Doing so would cut the processing time for such claims from 60 days to two, he said.
Fannie Mae officials also demonstrated a new version of FannieMaps, which allows lenders to see the demographic composition of ZIP codes around the country. The latest version will enable lenders to keep closer tabs on whether they are making loans in minority and low-income areas.
The big technological challenge at both agencies now is getting lenders to use the automated origination and underwriting systems. To that end, Fannie Mae included presentations from a few highly satisfied lenders.
Paul M. Peters, senior vice president of mortgage lending at Hibernia National Bank, Baton Rouge, La., said that Fannie's automated systems have allowed his bank to double mortgage volume without adding new staff - and while improving staff morale.
In a brief interview, Mr. Peters said that the $8 billion-asset bank moved decisively to automate its mortgage origination process because it viewed that as the only way to compete with large players such as Countrywide Home Loans. With only $500 million in annual mortgage originations, Mr. Peters said, there was no way his bank could make independent investments in developing technology.
He said the bank's search was quickly narrowed to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, formally the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. Hibernia settled on Fannie Mae because it believed the larger of the two agencies offers better customer service.
NanEtte Epperson, southeast region vice president of CrossLand Mortgage Corp., Salt Lake City, said the quality of loans CrossLand purchases from its Florida brokers was improving with the use of automated underwriting. She said CrossLand and the mortgage brokers it deals with are trying to better understand Fannie's mortgage score, which is considered a more accurate predictor than plain credit scores of the likelihood that a borrower will default.
Ms. Epperson said she was not concerned that brokers might turn away eligible applicants who happen to have low scores. Mortgage brokers want to make every loan they can, she said, and so does Crossland.
