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M R EP O RT | 17 www.fics.com ™ | 972.458.8583 FICS ® , WWW.FICS.COM™, LOAN PRODUCER ® , COMMERCIAL SERVICER ® and MORTGAGE SERVICER ® names and logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of FINANCIAL INDUSTRY COMPUTER SYSTEMS, INC. Automate Loan Origination and Mortgage Servicing Avoid After-Hours Work by Scheduling Programs, Reports and Interfaces with our API Originate and/or Service More Loans Per Employee Comprehensive Investor Reporting and Accounting Flexible Forbearance Functionality Paperless Servicing and/or Origination Loan Origination, Mortgage & Commercial Servicing Software Your Mortgage Software Partner Since 1983 affecting the default market. "The economy is in a pretty bad place," said Tendayi Kapfidze, Chief Economist of LendingTree, during the "Economic Overview Impacting Default" session. "During the financial crisis, the economy shrunk 4.8%. We had a decline in the second quarter [of 2020] of up to 30%. That's not going to persist, but even if we get all but 9% of that back, that's going to be an economy that's about 10% smaller than it was at the beginning of the year. The question is how long will it last, and what changes are going to occur in the economy as a result of it." "We are in a once-in-a-lifetime event," added Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist and SVP of Research, NAR. "We may actually be in a new economy, with a large percentage of people able to work from home in the future years. Without a doubt, we plunged into a recession, with more than 50 million people apply- ing for unemployment insurance at some point. That's more than one third of the labor force." However, there is job creation occur- ring in some sectors, while there are job losses in others, Yun added. And the housing sector is enjoying a bounce, even as unemployment remains high. "We expect very strong activity in autumn and winter of this year," Yun said. A session on compliance and govern- ment outlook examined how the govern- ment is handling moratoriums, timelines, and updates to compliance rules, as well as what the future will look like once moratoriums expire. Decisions about moratoriums, foreclosures, and forbear- ances will sharply impact servicers' busi- nesses in the year to come. "We are seeing a lot of activity from our borrowers," said Patrick Cox, SVP Operations for PHH Mortgage Corporation, during a session entitled "The Servicer Perspective." He continued: "While we had a tremendous increase in the requests for forbearance in March and April, we have since seen a decrease in activity in new borrowers reaching out to us. We do anticipate a lot of those borrowers who are currently on forbear- ance extending. "One surprising thing we found is that a lot of the borrowers who asked for for- bearance in the March/April time frame actually continued to pay," Cox added. "We expect that behavior to continue." He also noted that bankruptcies have fallen to about half of what they were in March.