The Movement Toward Digitizing the Mortgage Process
Nearly every industry seems to have gone digital: you can order almost anything you want or need online 24/7; you can call friends across the globe via your handheld device; you can even have a visit with your physician online, get diagnosed and have a prescription sent to you. But when it comes to the digital landscape, one industry seems particularly slow to make it to the virtual world, though it stands to gain a number of efficiencies and cost savings from doing so. We’re talking, of course, about digitizing the mortgage process.
Title Companies among those Leading the Call for Digitizing the Mortgage Process
It turns out title companies are among those who are spearheading the movement toward e-closings, to speed home title insurance approvals. Having the information quickly will speed the process, experts say, and e-closings would allow title companies to allow customers to choose how they would like the process to play out: in a traditional in-person format, or as a digital hybrid.
Complex Considerations for a Complex Industry
Like many industries that take their operations online, the mortgage process is complex and highly-regulated, with loads of sensitive information exchanged. In fact, the average loan file can exceed 500 pages, according to housingwire.com. But some digital experts say the digitization of the mortgage process is within reach, and already a hybrid process is beginning to take hold.
Touchdown: Digital Mortgage Solution
According to https://blend.com, “Out with the Old, in with the New: How Digital Mortgages are Changing Home Lending for Good,” the digital mortgage first gained mainstream attention during the 2016 Superbowl, when Quicken Loans launched their Rocket Mortgage product: a digital mortgage loan application. Since then, the article points out, banks, lenders and third-party tech organizations are trying to create the digital mortgage game-changer.
It’s been a long time in coming, say experts, who gesture toward the piles of paperwork typically needed to complete a mortgage loan, the mountains of forms that need signing at closing, and the long, drawn out wait times while a loan officer does the required research. Experts say mortgage loan origination can cost a financial institution $7,000-$8,000, much of it in the form of monotonous, repetitive tasks required of staff. Digitizing the mortgage process, then, can save on costly overhead, while improving the customer, or borrower, experience.
Technologies are catching up, with digital solutions emerging for many facets of the complex mortgage process, including technology that enables electronic signatures and secure electronic delivery and storage of forms, as well as e-closing capability.
Is the mortgage industry ready for a digital solution?
According to https://notorize.com, which bills itself as the first online mortgage closing platform, only 0.0005% of mortgages today are executed electronically. In 2016, just 5,000 of 10 million mortgage closings in the U.S. were e-mortgages. Throughout the evolution, however, the possibilities of technology have to be balanced against the regulations the industry faces. So while consumers may be ready and willing, the industry is taking a thoughtful, measured approach.