In an effort to improve the mortgage lending experience, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae required significant changes to the Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) used in residential loan transactions. Knowing this would create more transparency and efficiency for their clients, George Mason Mortgage embraced the challenge.
“The way that (mortgage application) data is now being collected, and the thoroughness of that data has made our processors and underwriters more productive, so they can handle higher loan volumes—which is a win for the whole organization,” Bill Landon, GMM CEO said. “They’re not stopping to get clarification or chase down additional borrower information, because everything they need is right there.”
The keys to success were starting early, leveraging our partnership, including our production teams and providing continuous education and support. “Our job was to translate old 1003 into the New URLA for our clients and also our employees. Communication was key” stated Margie Ambrosio, SVP Information Systems at GMM. “We needed to ask the right questions and understand the answers. From a technology perspective, our success was measured by ease of use and user understanding and satisfaction.”
Change never comes easily in an industry as complex and as highly regulated as ours and this was certainly no exception. George Mason Mortgage was able to navigate the URLA changes with ease, without disruption – and we were able to share our best practices in a case study by ICE Mortgage Technologies.
