Mortech: Tech Spending Up 8% in '05

The Mortech 2005 study forecasts that mortgage industry technology expenditures for 2005 will record a "very healthy" 8% increase over those of the previous year, to $3.6 billion.This 18th Mortech study finds mortgage lenders optimistic about expanding their businesses and heavily targeting subprime borrowers as they adopt management-by-modeling capabilities for fraud detection and collateral valuation. Mortech principal Jeff Lebowitz finds lenders broadly focused on reducing human interaction with loan files to reduce errors and shorten cycle times in mortgage originations. Guilford, Conn.-based Mortech LLC publishes its study annually based on scientific surveys of over 300 lenders. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.mortech-llc.com.