TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
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M R EP O RT | 7 MTECH More than 25 customers, includ- ing one of the five largest banks in the United States, American Federal Mortgage, Lennar Mortgage, and IBC Mortgage have already signed on for the product. "Blend has always been com- mitted to partnering with the financial services industry to simplify processes and expand its ability to serve more cus- tomers," said Nima Ghamsari, Co-Founder and Head of Blend. "With the rise in gig economy and non-traditional work, income verification can be an obstacle for many consumers to gain access to financial services despite a strong ability to repay loans. Through Blend Income Verification, bank- ing teams can confidently verify a consumer's income in real-time without requiring time-consuming data entry or document uploads. It's really the easy button for veri- fying a consumer's income." Blend Income Verification is an authorized report supplier for both Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter (DU) validation ser- vice and Freddie Mac's asset and income modeler (AIM), allowing financial services firms to take advantage of these programs for mortgages they manage through Blend. Additionally, the prod- uct will be fully integrated into Blend's cloud banking platform, enabling customers to rapidly activate and configure the new income verification capabilities across products. Redfin to Allow Homebuyers to House Hunt Together on FaceTime HOMEBUYERS WITH AN IPHONE OR IPAD CAN USE THE REDFIN APP TO SEARCH FOR HOMES, LISTINGS TOGETHER. R edfin, a technology-pow- ered real estate brokerage, announced that homebuy- ers using the Redfin app can now house-hunt with their friends, family, or real estate agent while using FaceTime. This comes as Redfin adds support for SharePlay, a set of features that make it possible for iPhone and iPad users to share experiences completely in sync while on a FaceTime call. The new experience is avail- able through the Redfin app on iPhone and iPad devices running iOS 15.1 and iPadOS 15.1 or later. "The ability to house-hunt with family members or your agent at any given moment, no matter where any of you are physically, is a game-changer," Redfin CTO Bridget Frey said. "In a market where one-third of homes accept an offer within a week of listing, buyers need to make decisions quickly about what homes they want to tour. Until now, there hasn't been an elegant way to have this kind of shared virtual home search experience on-the-go." To get started, homebuyers on a FaceTime call can open the Redfin app and use SharePlay to search for homes and browse listings together. When someone shares their search with the other callers, the filters they're using, along with the map, homes, and photos they look at, will sync to everyone's devices. Throughout the FaceTime call, when anyone finds a new home they want the others to see, they can share it with the group with the touch of a button. "When a home hits the market, being one of the first people to discover and tour it gives you a competitive advantage," Seattle Redfin Agent Shoshana Godwin said. "There aren't enough homes for sale, and the good ones fly off the shelves. If I can make a quick decision on a FaceTime call with my client about whether it's worth their time to tour a home, we can book a tour and make an offer before other buyers beat us to it." Mortgage Coach and HomeBinder Partner to Engage Homeowners in Managing Financing THE INTEGRATION AUTOMATES MORTGAGE COACH'S TOTAL COST ANALYSIS MORTGAGE LOAN COMPARISONS WITHIN HOMEBINDER'S HOME MANAGEMENT PLATFORM. M ortgage Coach, a plat- form enabling lenders to create digital and accurate home loan options for consumers, announced an integration with HomeBinder, a centralized home management platform that keeps homeowners connected with mortgage lend- ers, real estate agents, and other authorized professionals. Powered by Mortgage Coach's Total Cost Analysis (TCA) presentations, the integration enables homeowners to compare refinance and home equity scenarios directly from the HomeBinder home management portal. Mortgage lenders partner- ing with HomeBinder provide homeowners with a complimen- tary digital home management platform, or HomeBinder, upon closing of the loan. HomeBinder communicates with homeowners on behalf of the lender, central- izing all aspects of home man- agement such as maintenance reminders, document storage, appliance recalls and home value. The integration with Mortgage Coach enables homeowners to compare how their current mortgage would perform against a standard refinance and a cash-out refinance at 15- and 30-year terms with the trusted insight and ac- curacy of Mortgage Coach TCAs. Through the integration, home- owners are also empowered with an interactive financial modeling experience. For instance, home- owners can adjust variables to see how applying additional money toward their monthly principal would shorten the length of their mortgage and save money on interest. To help loan originators keep borrowers engaged in the home financing process over time, rule-based automation prompts HomeBinder to periodically invite homeowners to review their fi- nancing with a refreshed Mortgage Coach TCA illustrating how much money they could save by taking advantage of current interest rates. Additionally, loan originators can proactively engage homeowners by uploading custom TCA compari- sons into the client's HomeBinder, allowing them to demonstrate the benefit of a future transaction or reinvestment. "Educating borrowers inspires a level of trust that translates into increased conversion and bor- rower referrals, and automation ensures every fundable opportu- nity has a differentiating mortgage advice presentation," Mortgage Coach President Joe Puthur said.