Freddie Mac and Ellie Mae are joining forces to bring greater automation to the industry in the latest installment of the government-sponsored enterprises’ initiative to updates its tools and services.
As a result, Ellie Mae is integrating Freddie Mac’s Loan Product Advisor into Encompass, its mortgage management solution, this summer in conjunction with Freddie Mac’s phased rollout of their Loan Advisor Suite.
“We are very pleased with the progress we’ve made so far with Ellie Mae and are looking forward to the enhancements to Encompass coming this summer,” said Andy Higginbotham, Senior Vice President of Single-Family Strategic Delivery at Freddie Mac. “Having Encompass tightly integrated with our industry leading Loan Advisor Suite will bring greater certainty and significant operational efficiencies to our lender customers.”
The announcement comes on the heels of Freddie Mac announcing Loan Advisor Suite in late March, which would provide lenders with “actionable feedback” throughout the loan production process, thereby helping lenders lend more often and with more confidence.
The tools announced in March, which included the additions of Loan Closing Advisor, Loan Product Advisor, and Business Intelligence to the previously announced Loan Advisor Suite, transformed Loan Advisor Suite into a flexible, end-to-end loan delivery solution that executives with the GSE say can increase lender efficiency and provide earlier insight into representation and warranty relief.
Freddie Mac first mentioned the Loan Advisor Suite at the Mortgage Bankers Association's 102nd Annual Convention & Expo that took place last October,
According to Freddie Mac, Loan Advisor Suite is a “flexible, end-to-end loan quality solution,” which has been in development for the last year in collaboration with national, regional and local lenders and industry vendors.
While the announcement of Loan Product Advisor at the MBA Secondary convention in New York City focused on the integration of Loan Product Advisor into Encompass, the new tool is available, for free, to all lenders.
The new tool will roll out this summer and was designed to not only speed up the underwriting process but to also require minimal training due to the similarities to its previous look in Loan Prospector.
Higginbotham previously explained to HousingWire that when lenders start using the new program, they will be able to cure any loan issues during the origination process rather than post-closing, which will help lenders’ bottom lines and help ensure “clean” loans are delivered to Freddie Mac.
Higginbotham further explained at the MBA conference that although Loan Product Advisor wasn’t designed specifically for compliance, they are getting a lot of positive feedback from lenders that it is helping reduce compliance issues.
Freddie added that while they are not here to fix TRID, they are here to make sure all the data is accurate.
Higginbotham noted that the program would continue to be updated as lenders start to use the product and give more feedback. The product now is based on feedback from Freddie’s work with 15 lenders on creating the tool.
And while compliance isn’t Freddie’s primary goal in creating the tool, due to positive responses from lenders on the matter, Freddie noted that it would be open to making that a focus in future update, possibly in the form of partnering with others who have compliance as their focal point.
