Articles

POSTED ON AUGUST 7, 2018 - 10:16 AM BY GREG BUTLER

If you ask mortgage professionals when the mortgage process starts, their answer is likely to be, “When the consumer fills out the 1003 application.” That is incorrect.

The mortgage process really begins when a consumer decides to buy a home, and lenders aren't the only ones guilty of taking an insular view of their role in the home-buying process. Each player on the business side of the transaction – the lender, the real estate agent and the title company – view their responsibilities as being separate, yet related activities.

With the changes the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) is going to bring not only to the mortgage lending process, but to the entire real estate process, it is more critical than ever for all these parties to start viewing themselves as part of a larger home-buying ecosystem.

TRID is expected to bring mass confusion in the early days of enforcement, and you can bet that, no matter how much pain it is putting on the business players, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau isn't going to take a favorable view of those companies that pass their pain on to the consumer.

Collaboration and communication are going to be the keys to ensure a positive closing experience for consumers, post-TRID. Traditionally, there has been a jockeying of the position among the players in the real estate transaction, particularly between lenders and Realtors, over who owns the relationship with the consumer.

There isn’t going to be any place for that kind of possessiveness in the post-TRID market. Everyone is going to have to learn how to play nice, get along and work together to provide the best possible experience for the consumer.

This is what TRID was really all about, and it's what the CFPB expects to see after Oct. 3. For more details on how to work better with real estate agents and title companies in the coming months, check out Pavaso’s white paper, The challenges beyond TRID production, in the HW Knowledge Center.