Q: How has the mortgage market in 2020 compared to other recent years?
COVID-19 has forced us to adapt, to reach out to each other in different ways (Zoom, RingCentral, and other video conferencing meetings), and to work as hard as we have ever worked even while trying to home-school our kids, and possibly having a spouse also working from home. Q: What short-term and long-term impacts do you expect to see in the mortgage industry after Covid-19 and 2020 so far? A: Beyond the tremendous volume we have seen a short-term tightening of mortgage guidelines for “riskier” transactions such as government loans with credit scores under 660, cash-out refinances, and investment property purchases and refinances. This should be a short-term impact. A hopefully long-term impact will be the utilization of hybrid closings, where a borrower can sign the vast majority of their loan documents electronically, and only meet to sign a handful
A: We have experienced unprecedented volume in 2020, beginning in early March, with the onset of the COVID pandemic. So while we were sending everyone home to work, we started setting monthly volume records, like so many mortgage companies. Of course, this volume was primarily refinance volume and the percentage of refinances began exceeding 70% of total volume, which is unusual.
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Q: How has COVID-19 changed the way you do business?
A: We realized what we assumed to be true, that ours is a business where most of us can successfully work from home. However, at the same time, we have also realized that personal connection and seeing teammates face-to- face is a critical part of our process running smoothly, and having people feel connected.
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