Radian’s Jill Cadwell talks decision engines, lender woes

Today’s HousingWire Daily features a crossover episode with the Housing News podcast. For this episode, HW+ Managing Editor Brena Nath interviews the senior vice president of settlement services operations at Radian, Jill Cadwell.

In the episode, Cadwell discusses automated decision engines within the mortgage industry and addresses some of the challenges and pain points for lenders during the pandemic.

Here is a small preview of the interview, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Brena Nath: Our industry navigated a lot of complex obstacles during this pandemic period, especially when it came to closings. It seems like we gained a lot of traction in some areas, but what specific pain points are lenders still facing when it comes to closing?

Jill Cadwell: Well, certainly the pandemic offered a lot of mountains to climb very quickly. We were scaling mountains and finding different ways to solve some of the issues presented to our industry. One of these issues was that you couldn’t meet with people face to face, but yet, we’re still dealing with their ultimate line of credit, which is monetary. So, it became essential for all states to still transact both refis and purchases, which created many obstacles for the lenders…I think the detractors for the lenders are that although we had 29 states that offer RON-type closings, whether through legislation or emergency legislation through the pandemic, they are all different. For a lender and a technology platform to solve for all of them is very problematic. It really is essential that our federal government adopts the SECURE Notarization Act, as it will provide a base in which we can set up closings and lenders can solve for every state consistently.

HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling articles reported across HW Media. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories coming across our newsrooms that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Elissa Branch. If you have a pitch or an inquiry relating to podcasts, you can reach our team at alloyd@housingwire.com.