DS News - Bank of America

86 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Freddie Mac Addresses Self-Employed Underwriting Freddie Mac, the Washington, D.C.-based government sponsored enterprise announced that its asset and income modeler (AIM) is now available for self-employed borrowers through Loan Product Advisor, the company's automated underwriting system (AUS). is is the industry's only AUS-integrated self-em- ployed income assessment solution. With pro- prietary technology provided by LoanBeam, AIM for self-employed simplifies underwrit- ing of this borrower segment by automating the lenders' income calculation process and speeding up the mortgage application process while maintaining strong credit underwriting standards. "ere are millions of self-employed work- ers in the United States and that number is only expected to grow," said Andy Higginbo- tham, SVP and COO, Single-Family, Freddie Mac. "Loan Product Advisor's AIM for self- employed borrowers provides our lenders with a new way to expand their business efficiently. It gives them a competitive edge to help grow their business in a tightening purchase market and gives them the confidence they are delivering loans that align with Freddie Mac's purchase eligibility requirements as captured in Loan Product Advisor." e U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report- ed that self-employment makes up more than 10 percent of total employment in the United States. is demographic continues to be an important source of jobs for around 15 million people and is expected to grow at the same, or faster rate, than the overall workforce. According to Urban Wire research, in 2007 80 percent of both salaried and self-employed homebuyers obtained a mortgage loan. As of 2016, 74 percent of salaried homebuyers used a mortgage compared to just 67 percent of self-employed buyers. at's a 13 percentage point drop for self-employed compared to a 6 percentage point drop for salaried buyers. "Together with Freddie Mac, AIM for self-employed borrowers helps us deliver cutting-edge technology to provide the very best customer experience," said Kirk Donald- son, LoanBeam's CEO. "Automating income calculation is a game changer for lenders and their processing staff." "At Freddie Mac, we're continuously in- novating to better meet our lenders' needs to cut costs, drive efficiency, and deliver a better borrower experience," Higginbotham added. "AIM for self-employed borrowers is a win for the industry, and we're excited to make it broadly available." FLORIDA Black Knight & LERETA Enhance Tax Reporting Services Black Knight, Inc. a provider of integrated software, data, and analytics to the mortgage and real estate industries based in Jacksonville, Florida, has entered into a strategic relation- ship with LERETA, LLC to enhance its tax reporting services to Black Knight's MSP servicing system customers. e relationship will allow servicers on MSP to experience enhanced integration to improve data exchanges, a reduction in pay- ment timeframes, the elimination of manual report entry errors, improved processing with unique functionality, greater accuracy, en- hanced tax-specific processing, and improved customer experience. "is alliance demonstrates our continuing commitment to driving innovation in property tax servicing," said John Walsh, CEO of LERETA. "It also shows how the respective leaders in tax service and servicing systems can work together to improve this critical servicing function. Servicers using LERETA for tax on the MSP system will now have more automa- tion and decrease in risk." e integration will allow loan servicers to onboard loans faster and they will no longer need to create manual tax reports and other manual processes, which will improve reporting accuracy and responsiveness for the servicer, the tax provider, and loan processing systems. e system enhancements mean de- creasing the risk of delays in paying taxes and reducing tax penalties while offering better collaboration and improved customer service. "Integrating LERETA's tax service with Black Knight's industry-leading MSP system demonstrates our ongoing commitment to continuously enhance our technologies with the highest-quality capabilities," said Joe Nackashi, President at Black Knight. "is innovative tax service will further streamline the onboarding process for our clients, increase process transparency and provide a better customer experience." LERETA introduced Total Tax Solu- tion (TTS), the core processing system for LERETA's outsourced tax clients and an ASP solution for standard tax reporting clients, in 2016. "Customer service is always the biggest concern for servicers, and the launch of our Total Tax Solution has changed the way our customers can support their customers," Walsh said. "TTS dramatically improves the transparency of tax service, which has helped reduce the number of real estate tax-related service calls by over 30 percent. e implemen- tation of TTS has also resulted in industry- leading customer service call times; and 85 percent of tax-related calls are resolved on the first call, dramatically improving customer experience." e Black Knight MSP loan servicing sys- tem is a single, comprehensive platform used by financial institutions to service over 34 mil- lion active loans. MSP is an end-to-end system that includes all aspects of servicing, including loan boarding, payment processing, escrow administration, and default management. NORTH CAROLINA Wilmington Struggling With Delinquent Mortgages e overall delinquency rate across the nation has fallen on a year-over-year basis for the past 11 consecutive months according to a CoreLogic report. However, some areas are still struggling to recover following natural disasters in late 2018. Several metropolitan areas in North Caro- lina are still struggling from Hurricane Flor- ence, with seven metropolitan areas experienc- ing an increase in their serious delinquency rates, with the largest gains occurring in the is Miami's home vacancy rate, the highest in the nation. Orlando and Tampa have the second- and third- highest vacancy rates at 16 percent and 15 percent respectively. Source: LendingTree study on the metros with the highest homeowner vacancy rates STAT INSIGHT 17%

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