Case Study on Mortgage Underwriting Services for a Mortgage Lender

The Customer

Our customer is a rapidly growing mortgage lender specializing in wholesale and retail lending. He is a licensed mortgage lender in over 20 states and has a prominent presence in the West Coast. The customer approached Outsource2india, as their in-house team of underwriters was not able to manage the increase in volume. At Outsource2india, we provided the customer with a dedicated team of underwriters. With the increase in underwriting capacity, our customer was able to handle more loans every day.

The Challenges

Our client was not able to manage the increase in volume with their existing team of in-house underwriters. The customer also faced several other challenges, such as -

• A long queue of loans that needed underwriting
• An insufficient mortgage underwriting team which was not able to handle the increase in loan volume
• Underwriting experts in the in-house team were tempted to take up work in other mortgage companies
• Training new underwriters for the team was resulting in increased expense and time loss
• The customer's brokers were frustrated with the delays and decided to take their business elsewhere

The Solution

Our customer was not sure if mortgage services from Outsource2india would address their requirements, as their underwriting process was complex. However, they finally decided to try out our services. When we provided them with a dedicated team of experienced underwriters; as a result, customer was very happy with the outcome and immediately decided to outsource his entire mortgage underwriting business to us.

Here are few excerpts of our solution -

• With a few calls and a couple of webinar sessions, our experienced underwriters mastered the customer's processes and systems
• We generated a process document through the use of income calculation processes and investor overlays
• Our team of underwriters worked on the initial files with guidance and help from the on-site underwriters
• We efficiently brought in new underwriters to the team, nearly 5 times quicker than what customer was able to achieve in the past
• We set up a Quality Control team which helped us with data analysis and overall quality improvement
• We conducted regular weekly calls that brought in updates and feedback from all our team members

The Results

The customer was very happy with our services and is now outsourcing all of their conventional and Home Affordable Refinance Program loans (HARP loans) to our team of twenty underwriters. We complete the pre-underwriting required for VA and FHA loans, while the on-site underwriters handle the final underwriting. With the increase in underwriting capacity, the customer is able to efficiently manage more loans every day.

By outsourcing, our customer was able to leverage the following benefits -

1. We successfully reduced the turnaround time for underwriting from several weeks to less than 48 hours. Several files for underwriting were even completed in less than twenty four hours
2. With our services, the customer completely eliminated the cost incurred in training and hiring new underwriters
3. The customer's overall operational cost was reduced by half
4. There was a drastic improvement in the underwriting quality, as more files were efficiently closed
5. Since all the received files were given prompt attention, there was an improvement in the relationship between the borrowers and brokers
6. Our customer experienced an increase in business volume by 15% with the increase in underwriting capabilities and the number of satisfied clients