This week at the Predictive Methods Conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., suffered from a little gloomy weather — what the locals refer to as June gloom.
But inside the conference, hosted by Veros, the mood was relatively brighter. One such bright spot for me was the breakfast speech delivered by Marianne Sullivan, SVP of Credit Portfolio Strategy Underwriting & Pricing, for Fannie Mae.
Sullivan brought up a key point: With mortgage markets slow, now is a great time to improve quality compliance and invest in technology. Sullivan, in particular, declared in her own prediction that eMortgages may be “the next frontier” in origination. There are currently only 250,000 such electronic loans on the MERS database, she added, a number she hinted could be greatly improved.
“New and recent graduates are delayed in starting their careers and this delays household formation,” Sullivan said to the crowd of 300 reported attendees. This is fine, since the private mortgage market is behind in recovering market share.
“We keep talking about private capital … (the market) is just not getting the investors in,” Sullivan added. In the meantime, she said firms should consider working on new and innovative ways to control quality in an efficient manner.
Sullivan seemed confident in her mortgage finance colleagues, and added that the vast majority of firms reached a Uniform Appraisal Data, or UAD, compliance rate ahead of deadline.
However, one audience member, someone who works with appraisers, did not share Sullivan’s enthusiasm. “Our problem is with individuals, not with processes,” he said.
