However, not everyone agrees. Phil Shoemaker (pictured), the president of originations at wholesale lender Homepoint, said automation could also potentially lead to mistakes in the origination process.
Speaking to MPA, Shoemaker said: “Oftentimes there’s a tradeoff between speed and accuracy in mortgages. The business is definitely moving in the direction of more widespread automation, but when you talk about speed, it can’t be at the expense of quality or accuracy, especially in a purchase market.
“Mistakes lead to more work and frustrated brokers and customers. Brokers want to have confidence in the decisions that they’re getting on the initial underwrite, and when they inevitably face complexity in loan files they want to interact with people to solve problems as opposed to a system,” added Shoemaker, who recently returned from his trip to Las Vegas to attend AIME Fuse 2021, which saw about 3,000 independent mortgage professionals meet up for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
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He nonetheless conceded that more sophisticated tech would be adopted by the industry, including wholesale lenders such as Homepoint, which together with rivals UWM and Rocket Mortgage controls more than half the wholesale lender market (recent figures showed that their share increased to about 55.3% in Q2).