Industry Briefs June 9, 2021
Mortgage Collaborative: Staff Retention Tops List of Lender Concerns
The Mortgage Collaborative, San Diego, announced results of its inaugural The Pulse of the Mortgage Industry survey ranking mortgage lenders’ top concerns based on 598 executive responses from the co-op’s 234 lender members. The survey found these six issues to be most critical for mortgage lenders in 2021:
- Retention of existing staff;
- Enhancing customer experience at point of sale;
- Scaling and modernizing loan manufacturing process to better insulate against volume fluctuations;
- Measuring operations and employee productivity;
- Implementing and integrating new technology; and
- Fair lending compliance.
“After a lender hiring frenzy to manage last year’s historic volumes, we fully expected staffing to be one of the top concerns this year, but to have it rank as lenders’ No. 1 concern was truly a surprise,” said Rich Swerbinsky, chief operating officer and president of TMC. “As much as the ‘hire-and-fire cycle’ has come to define how lenders typically manage the peaks and valleys of origination volume, there is also a real concern among lenders about the human impact of this strategy, as well as the operational and financial effects, and lenders seem to be ready to embrace alternative means to better manage volume fluctuations. This aligns neatly with the overall theme we observed in the list of lenders’ top concerns of modernizing the generally inefficient mortgage loan manufacturing process.”
Download the full report here.
JLL Introduces Real Estate Data Platform JLL Azara
JLL, Chicago, released JLL Azara, a data platform that enables organizations to make data-driven portfolio, facilities, space and workplace management decisions.
“Capturing and leveraging data has so much untapped potential in the commercial real estate technology space, with benefits that can extend across entire organizations, impacting not only business decisions but overall employee experience and sustainability practices as well,” said Sharad Rastogi, President, Revenue, JLL Technologies.
JLL Azara uses machine learning to unite siloed, disparate datasets into one platform, providing a single source of information to enable insight from data in real time.
Blackstone Funds to Acquire QTS Realty Trust in $10 Billion Transaction
Data center real estate investment trust QTS Realty Trust, Overland Park, Kan., and Blackstone, New York, announced Blackstone affiliates will acquire all outstanding shares of common stock of QTS Realty Trust for $78 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $10 billion, including assumption of debt.
The purchase price represented a 21 percent premium to QTS’ closing share price on June 4 and a 24 percent premium to the volume weighted-average share price over the past 90 days. Both firms said they expect the transaction to close in second-half 2021.
Upon completion of the transaction, QTS’ common stock will no longer be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. QTS will be jointly owned by Blackstone Infrastructure Partners and Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust.
Jefferies LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC serve financial advisors to QTS and Hogan Lovells US LLP and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP serve as legal counsel to QTS. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Barclays, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC act as financial advisors to Blackstone and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serves as its legal counsel.
Housing & Education Alliance Selects IndiSoft’s RxOffice Client Management System
Housing and Education Alliance, a HUD-approved counseling agency in Tampa, Fla., selected IndiSoft’s RxOffice CMS as its HUD-certified client management system to meet demand for counseling services.
IndiSoft is making enhancements to RxOffice CMS to facilitate compliance with government requirements and to increase efficiencies through workflow and case-type functionality so counselors may serve as many citizens as possible in a cost-effective and efficient manner, said Hans Rusli, IndiSoft CEO.
Housing and Education Alliance, (HEA) is a 501 (c) 3 HUD Certified Housing Counseling Agency that was founded in 2002 to provide culturally sensitive bilingual housing counseling services. HEA provides complete housing services to residents throughout Central Florida who want to purchase a home or who are seeking foreclosure prevention services.
Homespire Mortgage Approved as Seller/Servicer Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac
Homespire Mortgage, Gaithersburg, Md., has been approved as a servicer for both government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
As a seller/servicer, Homespire will have access to an increased range of mortgage platforms to further meet the needs of its borrowers, supporting its mission to help all homebuyers responsibly and affordably finance their dream of homeownership.
ENACOMM Partners with DialAmerica to Deliver Omnichannel Support
ENACOMM, Tulsa, Okla., partnered with business process outsourcing contact center DialAmerica to offer an expanded customer service platform to clients of both organizations.
Through the partnership, ENACOMM customers can supplement their self-service offerings with DialAmerica’s as-needed agent assistance; with ENACOMM’s open API digital gateway, DialAmerica clients can implement any platform in ENACOMM’s tech stack.
LendingPad, LodeStar Integration Speeds Origination, Closing Processes for LendingPad Clients
Loan origination system developer LendingPad integrated with LodeStar Software Solutions’ rate calculator platform to streamline the origination and closing process for clients.
The integration will allow mortgage lenders using the LendingPad platform (and their applicants) to search and compare loans with accurate rates and cost estimates included. Leveraging from a scalable cloud infrastructure, LendingPad is a web-based LOS that focuses on streamlining the back-office operations for lenders to improve efficiency, reduce costs and help loan originators focus on their production.
