TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
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8 | M R EP O RT MTECH LoanBeam Wage combines advanced machine learning with layered optical character recognition (OCR) technolo- gies to automatically extract and interpret the variety of income data contained in a borrower's unstructured paystub and W-2 income documents, with no human involvement. Sales teams receive a single, summarized view of a borrower's income that sepa- rates data into fixed and variable income streams. Underwriters can also review the borrower's source income documents at any time and calculate any adjustments to a borrower's income with an audit trail of all changes. "While the majority of mortgage applications are qualified using wages, and some of this is certainly being automated through 'digital' income verification solutions, often not all borrower or co-borrowers' income can be accessed this way. In addition, the cost of verification of income (VOI) and verification of employment (VOE) is rising," said Roby Robertson, LoanLogics Head of Mortgage Origination Automation. "By automatically capturing income data from a borrower's structured and unstructured documents, LoanBeam Wage empowers lenders to evaluate income early in the process, determine the need for VOI/VOE and make income calculation faster, less expensive, more accurate and more reliable." Currently, paper and PDF documents, such as paystubs and W-2 forms, are used to qualify borrower income on roughly 70% of all applications containing wages. The process typically requires a lender's human staff to review income documents by hand and retype data into spreadsheets or the lender's system of record, which increases the chances of delays and costly errors. LoanBeam converts paper- based income verification into system-based automation through a robust set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that can be connected to a lender's system of record and integrated into a lender's automated workflows. Linking Homebuyers With Assistance Programs DOWN PAYMENT RESOURCE'S HOMEBUYER ASSISTANCE SEARCH TOOL HAS BEEN ADOPTED BY REALTOR.COM TO SUPPORT ITS "CLOSING THE GAP" INITIATIVE. D own Payment Resource (DPR), a nationwide data- base for U.S. homebuyer assistance programs, announced that Realtor.com® has deployed DPR's search tool that helps home shoppers find homebuyer assistance programs. DPR maintains a comprehen- sive catalog of all of the homebuy- er assistance programs available in the United States, including down payment and closing cost programs, Mortgage Credit Certificates and affordable first mortgages. According to DPR's Q1 2022 Homeownership Program Index (HPI), there are 2,238 home- buyer assistance programs, with at least one available in each of the United States' 3,143 counties. Realtor.com® has deployed DPR's search tool on Realtor.com/ foreveryone to support its Closing the Gap initiative, which is aimed at increasing the homeownership rate of underserved and underrep- resented communities. The search tool can be embed- ded in an organization's website and enables home shoppers to search for homebuyer assistance programs by entering property, household, and relevant eligibility information. "Record-high home prices and record-low housing inventory are making it very challenging for people, especially underserved and underrepresented com- munities, to become homeown- ers—further exacerbating the homeownership gap," DPR CEO Rob Chrane said. "The good news is that there are thousands of homebuyer assistance programs available to help with down pay- ment and closing costs, including many designed to support people of color becoming homeowners." "Giving home shoppers the abil- ity to find down payment assis- tance programs directly on Realtor. com is another step forward in our Close the Gap initiative," said Mickey Neuberger, CMO for Realtor.com. "This program brings together many different parts of our business in a focused effort to increase the home ownership rate for underserved and under- represented groups. Systemic discrimination in real estate has