Preparing For What’s Next
With rates in flux and loan production costs alarmingly high, lean on your solution providers for improvements in cost and quality
March 14, 2022
Rates are dancing all over. As inflation and the Ukraine/Russian war wages onward, there’s growing consensus that Americans will interpret these disruptions as a negative influence when considering purchasing a home. Ultimately, late February/early March’s interest rate decline was short-lived, as Freddie Mac stated on Thursday, March 10th, rates had climbed to 3.85%, up from 3.76% last week. February’s uncertainty in financial markets caused investors to move to bonds, resulting in a fall in yields and finally a dip in mortgage rates. It’s been a bumpy ride the last year – considering that rates dipped to a record low in January 2021 of 2.65%.
According to the MBA, for the week ending March 4th, seasonally adjusted loan application volume increased 8.5% from the week earlier. MBA’s Refinance Index increased 9% for the same period, a decrease of 50% compared to the same week a year prior. Again, all likely to be short-lived refinance increases due to underlying market weakness and the Federal Reserve remaining steadfast towards raising rates. Throw in the MBA’s Q3 21’ Performance Report, stating IMB loan production costs had risen to $9,140 – it’s truly time to make certain your business plan and solution partners are in lockstep towards your year-end goals.
Competition is high again between lenders. So, it’s critical that your solution providers are attaining high performance in turn-time KPIs. In 2021, S1 outperformed our peer’s turn-time average, by more than 14 hours for credit supplements. This February, manual verification of employment requests were completed in an average of 25.6 hours -- with more than 61% completed in 24 hours or less. These statistics become even more critical as competing lenders are contacting your prospective borrowers within minutes of an origination credit report being pulled through the use of trigger leads.
Purchase markets result in higher loan manufacturing costs over refi.
As we’ve now transitioned into purchase, reducing manufacturing costs is a must. S1’s Income+ solution reduces your staff’s involvement in income determination by up to 40 FTE minutes per file. Income and employment data leveraged in Income+ are all third-party validated data from the IRS or employer – resulting in better quality and Day 1 Certainty eligibility.
Open lines of communication with solution partners are even more important during heightened times of market disruption. If you or your organization are completing a vendor assessment for credit and verification solutions, please consider S1 and contact our organization. You can even schedule a demo directly from our website at srv1st.com. We have resources and statistics readily available for review.
War in Ukraine
You can have a direct and positive impact on the people of Ukraine during this incredibly difficult time. Consider giving to Samaritan’s Purse or the American Red Cross. God bless.