Inflation is accelerating at its fastest pace since 1982, and it’s impacting the mortgage industry on many levels. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ November 2021 Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, prices have increased 6.8% year-over-year. As a result, mortgage rates are also rising. Freddie Mac’s data shows that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average exceeded 3.1% in December – an increase of 0.45% since last year.
In addition to climbing mortgage rates, inflation is also directly affecting organizations’ financial states in the mortgage industry. Between supply chain issues and labor shortages, companies trying to survive in the competitive market are struggling to cut costs and navigate the current economic conditions.
Fortunately, it is possible to do so. A trusted business process outsourcing (BPO) partner can help boost productivity and operate more cost-effectively. As you look into how you can reduce your company’s costs, it’s important to look at your everyday processes and how you can make them 1) more efficient and 2) less labor intensive. That way, your business can do more with less.
What solutions can help mortgage companies navigate inflation?
Outsourced services and new technology can help offset the burdens of rising prices, while enabling you to adjust to ebbs and flows in the mortgage market. Here are a few mortgage digital transformation solutions that can help you weather higher inflation rates:
Digital Mailroom
With many post offices short staffed due to the current labor shortage, mail is taking longer to get to offices. This means that your team has even less time to respond and/or process critical mortgage documents. Thus, you’ll need to open, sort, distribute, and react to incoming correspondence faster and more efficiently than ever before. With staff shortages and the growing need to cut costs, this can seem like an impossible task.
Fortunately, a digital mailroom solution turns the impossible into the possible. A virtual mailroom automates the entire process – from opening to distributing to storing mail. Such a solution enables your business to access incoming mail from anywhere and from any device, ensuring that time-sensitive files are processed quicker.
In addition to processing your mail notably faster, you will also reduce errors and labor costs, improve mortgage compliance with a highly secure process. A digital mailroom can help you decrease costs and overcome inflation today while also setting you up for success tomorrow.
Mortgage Lien Release Services
The mortgage lien release process is not hassle-free. And between fluctuating volumes, enhanced compliance pressures, and the labor shortage, the process is becoming even more difficult to manage. How can you optimize your mortgage lien release process and reduce expenses in order to navigate inflation?
That’s easy: find the right partner!
With an experienced partner by your side, you can decrease lien release rejections, reduce liability, satisfy borrowers, and ensure that the process is being done cost-effectively with a best-practices approach. The right partner will make sure that all the documents needed to successfully process lien releases are in your possession, that they are provided to the county with correct borrower information, and that the correct documentation is provided to the borrower to close the loop. Not to mention, top partners maintain state-of-the-art lien release and assignment software that provide real-time insight into file statuses, on-platform exception handling, automatic file and message logging, and other features that expedite the process, keep you in the know, and reduce costs.
Whole Loan Purchase Review Service
Correspondent investors struggle to maintain turn times and satisfy their lender partners when they don’t have the right tools to expedite the loan purchase review process. This can hurt your relationships, your overall customer experience, and, consequently, your bottom line.
With a mortgage audit workflow automation system and a team of experienced professionals, investors can optimize turn times, improve loan quality, and reduce costs – even as inflation continues to impact the market. By outsourcing your whole loan purchase review service to a trusted mortgage digital transformation partner, you can automate file submission, quickly identify and correct defects, and turn a 5-7-day turn time into a 3-day turn time. You can achieve the fast, cost-effective process you need to overcome inflation.
Loan Boarding
Loan boarding is yet another daunting process that can be outsourced to better navigate inflation. Rather than struggling to hire and retain employees during the current labor shortage, you can offload the loan boarding process to a trusted partner. And that’s not the only way that outsourcing can save you money during these difficult times. The best loan boarding partners offer variable cost models, so you always have the support you need when you need it, but don’t have to exceed your budget when you don’t.
Top partners use automated document deficiency identification and reporting to automatically identify missing documents that are required. This eliminates manual “Stare and Compare” processing with a technology-based solution to identify servicing data discrepancies while indexing documents to identify risk stemming from missing files. By switching to a mortgage loan boarding service, you not only reduce the time wasted completing these manual tasks and save money, but also improve data quality.
Mortgage QC Services
Another way to reduce your costs is to outsource mortgage quality control (QC) services. A Mortgage QC partner can help you cost-effectively fulfill government self-auditing requirements – on both a post-close and pre-fund basis. The right partner will find and train qualified staff, keep up with evolving agency requirements, and conduct the required QC processes on your behalf. The best QC vendors also have integrations with the top loan origination systems (LOS) to further streamline the process.
How to get started with mortgage digital transformation today
With inflation rising, it’s never been more crucial for companies to implement digital transformation solutions than it is now. From mailroom automation to mortgage quality control, adopting new technology and outsourcing are practical solutions for modern companies with employees working both at home and in the office.
With over 30 years of experience and unmatched mortgage industry expertise, MetaSource is a global leader in digital transformation, bringing the right mix of technology and services that will help you achieve your business goals.
Contact MetaSource to find out how we can help you navigate inflation through digital transformation or download our Post-Close QC Whitepaper to learn more about how outsourcing mortgage QC services can help you cut costs and maintain strong relationships with agencies, investors, and warehouse line providers.