One of the things I enjoy most as Chief Business Officer at Covius, is getting to “MC” various industry leadership events that Covius curates. Last month, I moderated Covius’ latest webinar, Housing Price Outlook & Managing to Best Borrower Outcomes in the Year Ahead. The webinar examined various dynamics within the servicing sector: equity risk, compliance, best practices in loss mitigation and digitalization trends.
Let me share some highlights:
- Allan Weiss (of Case, Shiller Weiss HPI fame) looked at fluctuating home values from both a macro and micro level. He paid special attention to recent origination vintages (2020-2022) and showed how projected home price trajectories are increasing collateral risk in certain MSAs. One of his key observations: the largest declines in the western part of the U.S. are concentrated in the highest priced homes. In the east, it is just the opposite—the lowest priced homes are declining faster.
- Covius’ top compliance expert, Jennifer Keys, provided an in-depth review of the CFPB’s enforcement activity and discussed the agency’s stated agenda when it comes to loss mitigation, which comes down to “doing everything possible to avoid foreclosure.” She also reviewed eight “watch points” that can put a servicer in the CFPB’s crosshairs.
- Ryan Zois and Ben Milgram, two top servicing executives at Rocket Mortgage, shared their views on best practices in loss mitigation and discussed borrower reactions to 40-year loan modifications. In their experience, while borrowers initially bristled at the longer terms, they eventually came to understand that, in addition to giving them short-term breathing room, there were options to accelerate payments when their economic situations improved.
- The final speaker, Covius’ head of settlement services, Joe Chappell, discussed the digital transformation that is gaining traction within the loss mitigation sector and the advantages it is delivering to both servicers and borrowers. He focused on recent innovations in data and analytics and explained how this is enhancing decisioning. He also covered the value of data transparency, the insights digital dashboards can deliver and how digital doc prep and delivery is improving the customer experience.
It was an engaging presentation and worth a watch if you couldn’t attend. It continues to be an interesting time for our industry. Many influencers, including both micro and macro economic considerations, seem to work in concert but then at times, countervail. Check out the recorded session on demand here.