Mortgage technology

Despite a sluggish mortgage origination market, an energetic atmosphere surrounds technology advances in this sector of specialty home finance. “There’s never been a more robust selection of tech for originators,” said Jeff Taylor, president of Wendover Consulting.

Since launching its short sale module in November 2009, the default servicing technology provider Equator said approximately 1.2 million short sales have been facilitated through its platform.

Insight Lending Solutions, the developer of the PriceMyLoan automated underwriting system and pricing engine, has relaunched and rebranded its loan origination system.

National Bank of Kansas City used to depend on UPS to send and receive mortgage documents that required multiple wet-ink signatures and section sign-offs. Now the entire signature and disclosure process can be done electronically with an e-signature application from DocuSign. This has enabled the bank to avoid prolonged closing times, some of which used to stretch to more than 30 days, incurring hundreds of dollars in weekly fees levied by the larger banks to which National sells its loans.

How well a tool performs depends on how well it's used. Bank of York in South Carolina found that out this summer when Wolters Kluwer Financial Services conducted a review of the bank's use of the vendor's ComplianceOne loan origination and deposit systems, which Bank of York brought into production four years ago.

Mary Joine Dum, a leading expert on the use of computers in real estate appraisal, died on Dec. 15 in Brentwood, Calif., after suffering a series of strokes. She was 80 years old.

The parent company of United Wholesale Mortgage appointed Paul Orlando as its chief information officer and Bill Van Nort as chief technology officer.

MortgageKeeper, the anonymous referral service that helps lenders and counseling agencies connect struggling home owners with qualified sources of assistance, is ending the year with a bang.

During the 2011 Mortgage Technology Conference, MT convened its advisory board for a Q&A roundtable discussion about the latest and upcoming trends in the industry, which was published in the December issue of Mortgage Technology.

Loan origination system provider Ellie Mae added another product to its arsenal of mortgage technology software as it seeks to root itself deeper into its clients’ lending operations.

The U.S. Government Services Administration entered into a contract with eMASON that will allow federal agencies to purchase the mortgage technology vendor’s software at negotiated prices.

Loan origination system provider Ellie Mae is changing its strategy for integrating its technology and customer base with that of recently acquired LOS vendor Del Mar DataTrac, by offering the DMD's point of sale application to users of the DataTrac LOS.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has again delayed implementation of the Uniform Mortgage Data Program, an initiative to update and streamline the loan and appraisal data collected by the government-sponsored enterprises.

CU Members Mortgage reports it is seeing a 65% conversion rate and an acceleration of loan processing since it launched PowerSite, Mortgagebot's multichannel point-of-sale platform.

When the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act was enacted into law in 2003, it was supposed to prevent military personnel from losing their homes while they were protecting our country. But years later there continues to be evidence companies need to better track their compliance with it.

• Stepping Up— CIO’s role becomes more strategic

Mortgage document preparation technology vendor DocuTech acquired competing doc prep technology Docs3D in a deal announced Tuesday.

Many lenders are no longer getting mortgage borrower leads from the Google Comparison Ads platform, as the search engine giant has suspended its rate search and lead generation tool in all but four states and the District of Columbia.

BNC National Bank's Doug Brendel is shoulder deep in all of the challenges facing mortgage lenders in the new post-crisis market - expansive compliance requirements, new disclosures, compressed loan processing times, a growing mountain of documentation, and the need for staff buy-in to necessary changes in familiar work processes.

The deadline to nominate industry professionals to serve on MISMO's residential governance committee is today.