Sign Illinois Banking Forbearance Agreement Online

Industry sign banking illinois document safe

good morning everybody thank you so much for joining us today I hope everyone had a nice weekend and enjoying some nice weather throughout the country I am here in Chicago and we are very happy to finally have what we like to call our spring in Jing so for those of you that aren't familiar Chicago likes to go from like 98 99 and then the next day like 52 and then the next day like 71 so it's real fun to see what you're gonna get but we will take it over our winters so hopefully everyone's doing okay now it's kind of a tough time in our world right now and then our industry with a lot going on so we thought maybe today we would just kind of do an industry kind of regulatory industry update mostly industry and just kind of talk about where we are where we're going what things have changed what we can expect we are gonna spend some time talking about some different things here believe it or not yes we are going to talk about round again but not for very long I'm we get so many questions every week on it that I wanted to do a little bit of an overview even though we have talked about it a few times we are just gonna do a very high-level same thing with ran a lot of people consistently asking us about Rin when what it is and how it works so we'll talk about it and if you think it's maybe going to be the new round we are gonna take a pretty deep dive into the housing market outlook and what we've seen what the trends are and what has been predicted and I'm happy to say that a lot of it is good news in those parts of the country we are going to talk about the mortgage market as well mortgage applications and loans and where we are with that stuff obviously we have to talk about Koba 19 impact is it here to stay meaning the changes that were implemented and what kind of changes we can expect to be required as we all kind of get back to a new norm remote working is it permanent is it not what are the benefits we're gonna talk about that as well and then we are going to talk about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because contrary to what a lot of believe a lot of believe they actually do still exist they've been pretty quiet during neste they've actually made some taking some measures to allow for kovat 19 and we're gonna talk about that as well so per usual if you have any questions we love to get questions please type them into the question box we have ellen crema with softpro moderating that for me today so she might jump in here and there to ask me some questions so ask away and if we my chance don't get to your question don't worry like we do every week we're gonna do a QA follow-up in our email with the link to this recording people ask us all the time if they can go back and listen to it and answer is yes all of the previous saved USC DEP Asst ODEs are available on the softpro blog which you can get to from our website and you can also sign up to get notifications as we post all sorts of good information there for our industry so please ask questions if you'd like and we will try and get to as many as we can and again if we don't we will follow up and send them out to everybody okay so let's get Ron out of the way first I only have a few things to talk about here and again I know it's kind of like you know what I equate this to wire fraud everyone wire fraud became like the hot topic and everywhere you went in every webinar in every class and every topic was wire fraud wire fraud wire fraud rightfully so it's still an issue but yeah it kind of gets tired of hearing about the same thing I kind of feel like that with Ron maybe not Rin that's kind of new but it is so important that everybody understands what's going on with Ron right now also that they some things might stay some things might change and we're going to talk a little bit about that so what I did was to not overload us on Ron stuff is I went and I took some of our most common questions we've gotten some previous webinars and episodes of save USC and I just wanted to make sure everyone understood the differences and what is going on between the two here so you have Ron and you have Ren you have remote online notarization and you have remote in-person notary which is written some people refer to it as AV and which is audio-visual notarization so the differences are pretty a lot of people get confused but as a high-level essentially a remote online organization is digital digitally signing Docs and digitally notarizing them meaning everything's electronic right this is a preferred method for many lenders right now and a lot of states and municipalities it is solely based on kba which is you know knowledge based authentication and credential analysis meaning you have to answer questions to prove who you are it's pretty safe it's very similar to a credit report or a login that you might have with a banking or loan application where they ask you what street you lived on when you were 10 what was your first car where any of these you're following house payments or location so essentially information that only you know that you should be able to answer so that's why it's the preferred method they feel that it's more secure no FaceTime zoom GoToMeeting excetera nothing like that it's done generally through a third-party run software and underwriters like to have a say in that as well which we're going to talk about so it's just a little bit more secure and also definitely the knowledge based authentication really does make the lenders feel a little bit more at ease so some states weren't ready they weren't ready to adopt it they didn't want to adapt it maybe not just ready but and then what they did was they added in what we're seeing called remote in-person notary Rin what Rin really is is it allows you to not be face to face with a notary it allows you to be at home and sign your documents or be wherever you are in the notary be at a different physical location so it's not an in-person but it's not remote online notation and the biggest difference is is while I am signing my documents well albeit whether it be electronic or physically signing it because it generally RINs have a combination of both but they always have still have a wet signature the notary is not actually notarizing them electronically what happens is I send the package to Ellen Ellen gets her package we get up on some sort of audio-visual type software could be FaceTime zoom GoToMeeting I verify I'm the notary I verify that it's Ellen I can physically see her she can hold up the license and there's a couple other things that I might follow depending on my state regulations but it's not knowledge based so it's visual day so I see it's her her eye actually physically via audio-visual watch her sign the documents and then what happens is she puts him in the mail or UPS or FedEx and gets them to me once I get them I go ahead and I actually notarized them with a wet signature there's no electronic notarization and one of the questions we get all the time is what date does that notary use for those of you around last week you probably remember we talked a little bit about this but there's not actually any true guidance or regulations behind this so since I am the notary and I watched Ellen sign it today when I get it I would use a notarized June nights so that's pretty much the rule of thumb that we've seen nationwide that said there may be a municipality or something that has actually put some sort of guidance in place and the notary should know that but what we've seen is it's the day that the borrower or the signer is actually signing the documents so when I simply get that package I notarize it and then we send it off to all parties so it's you know it's a pretty big difference both are remote if you will one's electronic one is not that's really the best way to to describe the two a lot of people do want to know if Ron is here to stay I'm sure many of you have heard about the secure notarization act of 2020 when this first came out back in March as an immediate response to kovin everybody was following this right so what it really basically says it says hey we are in a pandemic people can't go anywhere we don't want to haunt the industry so for all you states out there that don't allow Ron or even Rin for that case but in this case was specifically for Ron we are going to pass a federal law saying this is legislation on a federal level that as soon as it's passed every notary in every state can do and you know electronic closings remote electronic closings so what happened was when I first came out it ended up getting pushed back behind the stimulus cell so you remember how far how long that stimulus bill took to go through and so it's actually still awaiting about and they're still awaiting a vote because what happened is in the meantime a lot of the states that didn't have Rahn legislation took it upon themselves to create Rahn legislation and they're not you know waiting to hear or reliant on what's happening on this federal act so not to say that they still won't pass it I don't know because honestly it's it's kind of pointless at this point in time many states already passed our emergency Ronn bills and at this point I don't think the federal government is ready to step in and say we are ready to nationally say that remote online notarization is okay and we're gonna supersede States so the verbage and it doesn't supersede states in states where it's allowed if it's already allowed you do have to follow those rules and guidelines but if it's not then you are able to use this to do run I don't think it's really gonna to get much more traction what happened was they had to then change it and say you know listen we had that go in and add all these national emergency declarations all these national emergency temporary orders for Ron and we even have bad timing in and saying hey if yours ends able first we can at six months it's a no you know we only put this in place for this pants dem agree and we haven't passed it at a state level so it is looking less likely to get accomplished what is looking likely is all to the American land title Association along with um um other trade association groups like the MBA notarization groups they've been working to get a national model in place not one that just says hey you can do a run even if your state doesn't say so but more of a model in place for s states more and more states adopted that the rules and regulations kind of look the same so if you have interstate transactions that you don't have to deal with you know the models from one state versus another looking so different so I feel like that's probably what this will get shifted back to which is what they were working on prior to this Virginia of course is kind of a in a league of their own on this but we'll see what happens we'll see I don't think that much is gonna happen with this of course I've been wrong many many times and they'll protest it this week and you guys will all email me about it so we'll have something new to talk about next time if they do okay so a lot of people also do want to know what states do have permanent round which versus emergency legislation I mean here's what I'll tell you on this it is a very fluid situation right it is something that changes all the time so you have right now there's 24 states at least my last check I'll this is information from American Line title Association who is a great resource for all real estate kovat information and for Ron so you can see the ones that are in the green they have what we call permanent Ron legislation it's also important to know and understand sue just because the state has permanent Ron legislation doesn't mean that prior to this whole kovetz situation they were actually had implemented or using it so a lot of times it passes legislation or a governor signs off on it then it's gotta go to the Attorney General it's got to have all the rules and regulations mean how are we going to do this in our city in our state's so 24 states have permanent Ron legislation but that doesn't mean in all 24 states up and running and you know from this point forward they're gonna be full-blown runs it just means it's allowed and in many of them they're working on rules and ranks and legislation behind it so that people have the same guidelines to follow 47 states have authorized Rahn through existing law or emergency action so that's pretty high percentage right so what that means is is in our response to this hope and Saima can covet 19 they said okay we need to figure out a way to people can do closings without going face-to-face and as they have to socially distance or quarantine so they are allowing ron's to happen even though they're saying this is not permanent meaning this ends you know June 30th this ends this day or so on and so forth so it's important that people realize that if you've gotten in the habit of maybe doing it runs in your state it may not be something that you're going to be able to continue to do not saying you won't I think in some areas where it was initially put in place as an emergency or temporary order you will see that they will have a quicker adaption to Roth and then they may have before and also you'll probably find that some of them will list the temporary port or emergency portion and just write some guidelines around it and leave it in place so not all of them and again I don't know who's gonna do what and it changes all the time but it is important to know that it's there but a lot of them are temporary or emergency so we get a lot of questions about well what about my state how do I know so just be mindful that again this is very fluid it changes everyday as you well know so just make sure you research rules and regulations in your state right that's a no-brainer you should be doing that anyway whatever municipality you are working in and having transactions and purchase or sales or reef eyes in you need to know whether or not they accept your recordings you know just because the lender says you can do Iran doesn't mean that local county is gonna take the electronic recording so some of that due diligence is gonna fall to you there are so many different places you can go to find this information now especially in our current state one of which is the National notary Association if you go to their website you can pull up your state and find the most current information personally I mean they can only keep up with as fast as it's coming in right so I personally I would still check your local municipalities it's your best resource the American land title Association has an incredible Kovan 19 page that they update all day every day they too also have a lot of recording run on R in state requirements and local municipalities you know but at the end of the day especially in more rural type counties and whatnot you should really be checking with where you do business um if they're closed that's another thing you need to find out can you still record and if so how and then like I said it's just fluid so just check constantly always make sure you're up to date just because something is not allowed today doesn't mean it's not allowed tomorrow and vice-versa so okay so people ask us a lot for you know who should I use do you have any recommendations for a remote online notarization company the answer is they're all pretty much the same right so we have integrated with expedite with all at night which we went over a long time ago and you can also you know reach out we can happily get you that information but at the end of the day there's just a couple things to think of one underwriter review and I put it on here twice because it is very important so if you are considering a third-party remote online authorization software please please please make sure your underwriter has approved them not every underwriter is approving all platforms so I don't know which underwriters are approving which ones so it would fall to you it's a very common question a lot lot of them have it right on their website so I would not get that information secondhand anyway if I were you I would reach out to your underwriter and say hey we're looking at platform a B and C are they approved by you and do you have a preference if you don't you know internally you don't care then see what the underwriter says also you need to analyze the risk demand and expense right so the next two kind of go hand in hand like research before you spend which I'll chat in a second but you know what's the red meaning you know what you're gonna get out of it versus what you have to put into it also demands you know are you getting a lot of requests for ROM closings because just because it's fast and just because people have used it here and there it doesn't necessarily mean it's a benefit to you right in some areas like it's it's happened it's a hot that's pretty much how almost every closing is happening in some areas and some of our customers are telling us like we've done one in six months if you've done one in six months it's probably not you know beneficial for you to invest all this money you should just work with your underwriter and see if there's a different option or work with your lender to see if you can use who they're using so you know don't run out and spend money and so I got to get this software and then you don't even know if you're ever really gonna use that platform or what kind of return you're gonna have so research before you spends not only research whether or not you have the demands and that you understand the risk of using it but also just some pretty standard questions right how does it work how much does it cost what's the implementation time what's my turnaround time how many available notaries do you have in my area can you even do business in my area not all platforms can do business because they don't have no ron notaries in specific areas remember a lot of this is new to them in areas because they don't have any they didn't have people doing him and those areas before and now it's allowed so just keep you know ask those questions and then again I reiterate verify the provider is purview by your underwriter I mean you don't to spend all that time and money and then the underwriters say nope so talk to your lenders if you do business with a lot of repeat lenders go ahead and talk to him see who they recommend and who they are most comfortable with and then the last thing I'll say with this before we move on is if you are used to doing the notaries yourself if you for being the notary within your office you don't use an outside notary service please make sure that whatever platform you're using allows that many don't because it they're their notaries have actually you know been certified as remote online notaries it is a different process many states or municipalities have requirements that you need to do or meet before you can do Iran that are different than a wet signature standard notary so do your research make sure that a it's allowed make and if it's allowed make sure that your in-house notary has met all those requirements so you want to make sure that if you spend that time and money you're obviously gonna be able to use it so okay you made it through we're done ironic promise I'm not gonna talk about it much anymore I might throw it in a few other places but we're gonna move on to what I think is some fun stuff which is the housing market so the housing market we get asked all the time I think everybody in our industry I'm sure you guys get asked this all the time as well right what's it look like what's happening well you know going into this I know it seems like 10 years ago but a couple months ago we we had a pretty strong real estate market right stronger than it'd been in a long time it was a buyers market I'm sorry a seller's market for a change it had been buyers market over the years we're seeing you know these low interest rates and it was a hot hot market and people were buying buying buying selling selling selling what's great for us then you introduced those low rates now we've got refinances on top of all the purchases so overall for us as an industry things looked really great then cove it hit right nobody really knew what to do and then suddenly everything is shut down so you know everybody's experience has been a little different because every state or city has handled it different as I mentioned early on I live in Chicago we had some of the toughest guidelines in the country we actually just literally just went into our first phase of reopening and it's it's not reopening it's like if you're outside that's a okay but you can't still go in anywhere do anything so you know what we've gone through here is very different than per say maybe somebody in Georgia and maybe someone in Texas or Washington or you know so everyone's kind of had their own experience and it's gonna have different levels of how they've been affected but this is more of just a national overlook so I thought this was a fun fact 53% of homebuyers that were recently survey surveyed this past week are more likely to buy a home in the next year because of CO vid 19 I don't think I saw that coming you know and then when I figured out why I was looking at all the reasons I thought that makes such perfect sense so overall most economists and people in our industry are saying the housing market should rebound fairly quickly and it's partially because we were coming off of a really good market right unemployment and is starting to go down and a lot of areas as things reopen people are back at work so you know it's it's very different than the recession that we saw in oh and oh nine so we overall are expected to have a pretty quick rebound now some people are telling me we don't have anything to rebound from we never saw holiday other people are saying we saw a huge dip and we are looking forward to rebounding so why are homebuyers saying that because of co vat19 they want to buy well one is and I think most of us can relate to this they're tired of the small space they're living in they've been quarantined for you know we've been quarantined for own four months as of today can I mean if you're living in a small space and you're used to being out and about I mean that's something that people are starting to think about now and they're saying I don't want to want to live in here a small space I want to go ahead and look at maybe buying something bigger working remotely has opened up so many opportunities for people we're going to talk about working remotely and whether it's here to stay but in many cases more people will continue to work remotely and what happens is they can now look outside of commuting zones right so if they're paying top dollar to rent in the city they can go to the suburbs and buy or a more rural area and buy a house because they don't have to worry about that you know daily commute anymore so a lot of them said that's a big reason obviously low rates I mean come on right now the average mortgage rate for a 30 for 30 year fixed at least yesterday was 3.15 obviously they vary depending on the loan and the borrower but there historically low I'd I mean I think this may be the lowest that they've ever been while tracking it Quarantine also decreased spending so a lot of buyers have more money they have down payments they have increased savings they feel more comfortable investing because they have money in the bank where before maybe didn't want to stretch themselves too thin because they had nothing to fall back on well they're in quarantine people aren't going out people aren't spending as much so you know in general most people with the exception obviously people who have maybe lost their job or whatnot but most people who are been lucky enough to not been too affected by this have more money coming out of Cove in nineteen than they did going in also in some areas they've seen especially cities or what we call hotspots if you will so like New York City parts of California those are areas that covet hit pretty hard right and so what they're seeing is a decreased home prices so now we're saying okay normally I couldn't afford to buy right there but because of kovat I got more money in the bank I'm gonna work remotely and I can now afford to buy here because the prices have decreased because of the pandemic please understand that that is not a norm throughout the country in most areas prices have already started going up and it's because you have buyers willing and ready to buy so you also have to think about you know sellers who pulled houses off the market and are now putting them back and we're gonna talk about that as well so overall from this snapshot things look really good right they it's okay at least we have something positive we've got low rates we've got people with more money we've got people who want to buy because they've been stuck in there you know smaller spaces for quite some time you know another thing I don't have on here but I'll add in is current renters that maybe had some struggles through this but didn't get help from their landlords overwhelmingly responded that they have no interest in renting again when their lease is up that they don't they didn't like being reliant on a landlord they really wanted kind of you know control their own destiny if you will so I do think you'll see a lot of renters who didn't have a good experience through this with their management company or landlord look to maybe buy these homes as well so according to a new survey from NAR they found 65% of people who had already attended an open house meaning freak Ovid would go into an open house today no problem now I bet if you had asked them that a month ago the end they would not be at higher percentage but you have to keep in mind things are opening up right so you know we in Chicago have envy of the rest of the country of things opening up we see people eating out and uh peaches and just know one day we'll be there but with the reopening of the economy it is it's not just the ability it's the peace of minds so two months ago a bar where a buyer might say I'm not comfortable putting my money here I don't know what's gonna happen right so now they're starting to see things happen some sort of normalcy you know businesses are reopening people are getting jobs back so they have more confidence in their investments so you have that percentage of buyers that were kind of sitting on the fence during this that are now leaning towards buying instead of not it doesn't mean every buyer is it just means in general people who were already thinking about maybe buying are now seeing that you know things are moving on not that Cove it has gone please don't think that I'm saying that we're gonna talk about that but just the economy itself in the cities and states are reopening so people are more open to actually purchase homes the fact that 65% of them are interested in going to an actual physical open house I mean honestly I think part of that is people are just tired of paying home they want to get out they want to see things they don't want to virtually see it anymore right so just two things to kind of think about here and and as we see more and more states going to further phases of reopening I think we'll see the real estate market rebound pretty quickly in those areas as well well I just spread like a really pretty picture I just said everything's great we're rays of Sun shines there's unicorns flying around so what's going on how come you know I don't have all this business what I mean there does you know have some problems that come along with all the goods so first of all buyers will be facing historically low housing inventory due to koban so many sellers have pulled their houses off the market because they don't want people in and out of them right and they also didn't want it to sit for two three months and then post kovat 19 a bio or Co they've been trying to sell this for you know two hundred days and blah blah blah I don't need I'm gonna lowball them so the the housing inventory was already uh low it was that's why it's a seller's market it was already low going into kovat but really you know now it's historically low I think they're they said there's like less than three months worth of inventory when generally our industry carries ten months of inventory in a normal market so that's a really big deal so you have these really low rates so you have people running out to get these mortgages and they've got money to spend there's not the inventory and what happens every time we have low inventory we get what inflated prices right so we have people out there in especially hot markets in areas that maybe would not have been as affordable like we just talked about New York San Francisco you know hot spots people are going in and bidding and they're getting a imbedding worse so now you're gonna end up with inflated prices in hot markets and then even not hot markets the prices are rising second home prices people were trying to unload them because they uncertainty of the economy and how people are just buying them up left and right so you're gonna see a surge in second home purchases and you're gonna see a surge in those prices as well so you know it's all of its good except for the fact that when we don't have inventory it leads to high prices bidding wars bidding wars also cause what higher prices that maybe the borrower can now not qualify for also appraisal issues we've we've been there right we all pay this for it well you're getting a loan so the appraisers got to come in and say it's worth it so it is a domino effect obviously a trickle effect of all the other good stuff but just something to keep in mind is you know there's there's areas where we've talked to people where they said my last five closings were sight unseen purchases because they were so afraid they were gonna go off the market we actually sold a house share this we sold a house in Minsk Ovid and not only did we sell it but we did get over asked price which was crazy we got five offers in one day and it closed like 15 days ahead of schedule because the buyers were so afraid what might happen during KO that they wanted to get it closed so it's it's been a it's a really interesting market there's so much good but we do have to keep an eye on the inventory and make sure that we don't over inflate these prices because people are then not going to qualify and appraisals are not going to be mad as well so another sign whether we like it or not that the real estate market is picking up is i buying i buying kind of came into a lot of areas Atlanta Dallas Fort Worth Raleigh it's not something that we love in the real estate industry by any means but this is an actual sign that's saying okay I buying us back meaning Zillow open door all of them I just picked these two so open doors reopening in seven markets nationwide for those of you that maybe don't don't deal with a buying or have followed it both open door and Zillow completely shut down their eye buying when this kovetz started start things all started they stopped doing it they said no more so the fact that they're ready to go back into these markets is a sign that the real estate market is picking up it's also a sign that with low inventory there's gonna be less for your traditional buyer where to go out and buy directly from real estate agents and sellers so open door is reopening in seven markets nationwide and they plan to reopen in 20 additional markets in the coming months that's a lot they did you know they've made some changes I mean I don't want to spend too much time going over all this so they launched three-digit Island I mean I you'd think I work at a technology company I could figure out how to not get at that side email thing to pop up but trust me I have nothing open I have followed everything ideas told me to do so I'm sure all of you that I've gone here every week are used to seeing my little emails pop up but I apologize for that anyway so they've changed they have some different guidelines like for example open doors launched three digital contact free products to help customers buy and sell homes amid physical distance and guidelines so just because I reopened doesn't mean they're throwing open houses and you know people are in and out or anything like that same with Zillow they're resuming in 12 markets nationwide they're not allowing any open houses they have new health and safety measures meaning when they buy a home from a seller they sent one of the things they're doing i sending in a crew to clean and disinfect it and then of course increase virtual options so it's back they wouldn't be back if they didn't think the market was going to pick up so while we might not like dealing with the i buying aspect of it from closing and of it is a good sign for our industry as a whole all right so we talked about some of this stuff but you know we can't go over all this stuff and not talk about the aset Cove it has on stuff so contactless showings are gonna be a thing it's gonna be where the realtor goes in unlocks the door goes and sits in their car you know no more than four people or you know two people depending on the state or whatnot we'll go there and view the home come out and then they will socially distance and discuss it so the days of hopping in a car with a realtor or meeting and showing the house together you know we're not back to that by any means it's you know most states that are even allowing showings have some sort of guidance of social distancing and contactless showings open houses right now are just not happening virtually but for sure not happening might be something in the future but it's definitely not something that people are going to now also there's a lot of limitations on how many people can be in one place at a time so that's another reason virtual listings are definitely gonna continue people even people that want to go look at the houses are going to really do their due diligence online and they're going to narrow down a lot more they maybe would in the past so if I was normally gonna go look at ten houses you might narrow that down because I can virtually see them and take toilets virtually down to three maybe four to limit the houses on going in and out of and such limited people for showings I know Michigan is a good example of that they can have no more than four people have the at a time and they have to socially distance you know not all sellers really want people in their house right now either so there's a lot of talk about new disclosures for kovat 19 meaning do we think that states or local municipalities are going to require sellers to disclose if anyone has had Co mid-nineteen within the house so as of right now I don't know of any and if there are some they might just be doing it as a hey no one here had that type thing but there's not an actual requirement that people need to disclose that not to say it won't happen but right now there there is no I mean it would it would be tough I think I mean the whole HIPAA thing so it's not technically an environmental thing where they could get away with it but who knows and it's on the table we'll see what happens kovetz been a big boost for rural real estate people don't necessarily want to run in buy a house in hot spots when in hot spots or generally bigger cities right you have Detroit New York City even Chicago Atlanta San Francisco LA so people are saying hey if I can work from home and I can afford more outside of the city I don't really want to be where the you know largest points of infections are so they actually is causing people to go look for more rural real estate and then I buying of course we just talked about but there may be a lot more i buying then sellers don't want to deal with buyers coming in and out of their house so they're just gonna call it Zillow and open door and say hey what's your offer and not deal with it so kind of just an overall picture of kovetz effect on the real estate all right so I'm not gonna spend too much time talking about the mortgage market as it is not my area of expertise but I know a little so I'll share my little with you one is you know mortgage applications for purchases are rising we saw a huge influx of refinances over kovat simply because the rates were so low right so people decided to do a lot of refinances I will say refinancing with cash out was difficult for a lot of people just because of tightened mortgage requirements but refinances as a whole was up and that is was helpful to our industry right you know it's it's a closing so it's a transaction right now we are seeing a slight decrease in refinance loan and that's to be expected we usually only see them for you know well three four five months and and then kind of goes down up down and up purchase applications were up eighteen percent compared to the same time last year you know this past summer into the fall is really when the real estate market really picked up nationwide again everybody has a different experience based on where you're at and then we're actually have 6% from a week ago why because we have historically low rates right people have a little bit more money at least the people who want to go out and buy and then also you know a good sign for the mortgage industry is that the cares Act forbearance requests have dropped across all investor type loans for eight consecutive weeks so for those of you that I don't know this is where people could contact their lender the government said if they've been impacted by kovat 19 or having financial difficulty during this time you can work with them so that they don't have to pay their mortgage for up to 12 months depending on what the circumstances are so the fact that that has got the request for them have gone down over the past eight weeks it is also a very good sign for the mortgage market as well you know the cares Act and the forbearance is it's really what caused all the new co vid nine teen and and the care is I is really is what has made getting a mortgage in a lot tougher right now than it was six months ago so obviously here's your downside right low inventory leads to high prices making harder for buyers to qualify for mortgages inflated home prices lead to appraisal issues and then obviously social distancing requirements may cause operational issues so there are a lot of lenders now saying no more drive-by appraisals right so we got to figure a way to get you in there we're not gonna praise the house because we don't feel like it's you know good enough so that's something to keep an eye on so each I'm just kind of going over the code that effect on each of these so the big is the fact that colvett has had in the mortgage industry is one that they were required to allow those forbearances that's a lot of money for especially private lenders that are holding those loans so think about the lenders that are holding jumbo loans more times on that when a lender issues a jumbo loan they're not selling that in a secondary market they hold on to those right and so now somebody with these massive jumbo loans can't pay their mortgage so they have to qualify for the forbearance but you know it was fairly easy to qualify for and so these lenders are not getting the money that they need to sustain their normal day-to-day operations also covin 19 with causing such an epic economic slowdown you have people who lost their jobs you have businesses that shut down you have businesses working at limited capacity so from from a lender standpoint they're saying well we can't you know we've got we've got to make some changes we have to make sure that the buyers that are actually applying for these loans are gonna be able to pay for them so they have increased minimum credit scores there so your credit is more critical than ever gone are the days of 618 624 loans it's rising your debt to income ratio requirements are lowers well they don't want you to have a lot of debt because you know they just went through this where people couldn't pay their bills cash out refinances have much stricter requirements simply because they don't know where the market was heading and they didn't know if the equity was gonna stand in the houses that's longer review times they're really you know going over these applications with a fine-tooth comb reserves are becoming more important I mean that makes perfect sense right people losing their jobs but they don't have any money in the bank can't pay a mortgage so since they literally just live that they're saying hey listen if you don't have a certain amount of money in the bank you really can't qualify for this loan because what happens if you lose your job we're not out of this yeah the verifications of employments are we 24 hours of funding and then another one in here is the reason obviously for that is people are losing our jobs left and right they want to make sure that they're actually still employed self-employment has changed quite a bit it's a very difficult loan to get right now used to be you could prove back to 120 days for your self-employment income and now it's 10 days because 120 days ago you may have still been doing a lot of work pre-coated or right at the beginning of this and now you're not doing any so now if you want to get a loan for self-employed people of the world it's ten days verification so that's a big change there's also some two new documents that they're requiring that Fannie and Freddie I believe are requiring as well and it's a it's a lot to document for a self-employed loan so who's most affected by these tightening of mortgage applications well obviously worse with lower credit scores self-employed borrowers which I just talked about jumbo mortgage applicants some lenders have completely stopped doing jumbo loans and and with with good reason like I said they don't generally sell them or if they do it's not as easy to sell and people aren't buying them right now so right now it's very difficult without a huge downpayment to get a jumbo mortgage and many of your bigger lenders like quicken and Wells Fargo when I have completely suspended it they said it'll come back but more when the economy is back at a full and then applicants with low down payments I mean even your strong young applicants with good you know good - very good credit are being hard to put 20% down where before they would maybe be able to put three or five or ten so every lender has different rules and regulations but it does have an impact on who is buying what obviously so just something to think about that borrowers are having to work a little harder for their mortgages in today's environment okay so just as a whole look we call it the Cova defect in our industry you know one of the things we've been talking to a lot of customers about recently and what I've been talking to a lot of people just in general is you know as states are starting to open up and as businesses are getting back to what you know normal if you will you know what is normal this has been an unprecedent unprecedented time for our industry right so okay I am in a state that is going to allow us to come back into the office sooner than later so I mean obviously there's been settlement agents and attorneys and title companies operating and people have been at the office because they've been doing these dry Pikul drive up closings and you know all these different stuff crazy stuff that you guys have had to do but just going back to kind of a norm of you know people working in the office versus from home there's gonna be all sorts of safety measures that knee to be taken into account for right you still have to have a social distancing so if you are in a small office that's gonna be very difficult also when and how like how do you make that decision so these are just things to kind of think through and what you can use to think through is have you really been affected like does it really matter if you guys are a hundred percent back in the office or is there a percentage of employees that are killing it at home I really don't need them at the office let alone maybe every day maybe they can do both but so that's something to think about like can I keep a percentage of my staff remote and still you know be operating at what I want to operate at a question and a lot of people are asking is you know our company is gonna downsize their burn can mortar space so if I have 50 employees and I found that 25 of them really good at working from home and I don't need them in the office and they want to work from home I don't need space for 50 anymore so it's actually could be a cost cost effective to allow them to stay from home working from home then you're gonna have the whole subset of employees who are just not comfortable returning and that's okay right there may come a time where everything is reopened and you know Cove it has kind of plateaued and you can actually say either you have to come in or you can't have a job but right now that would be very difficult so you have to factor in it maybe someone doesn't want to stay remote long term but they're just not quite there yet as far as coming in remember everyone's had their own experiences known people who's had it or lost people or lost jobs or so on and so forth so we do have to be very sensitive and mindful that everybody's kind of got a different take on it and that's okay but just something to kind of think about when you're thinking about reopening your offices so what is a closing look like Doran Cove at 19 and Post Cove at 19 well we've talked about this before we've talked about the drive-by closing so wha you know also the closings that are in office but separate rooms and nobody's within 10 feet of each other and we've talked about Ron and ran and so I don't think a lot of that's gonna change too much I think maybe you'll have less drives up closings and people will start coming back into the office but I don't think we're gonna have 10 people sitting around the closing Abell I think people are gonna be in masks I think that people in the title companies and settlement agent organizations are gonna have to you know have some sort of process in place that they wipe everything down provide masks for people who don't have them it's it's going to be a different environment for quite some time and so I think we just kind of need to embrace it to make it work and I think our industry does that very well proven by the fact that you all have been able to continue business through this craziness I mean who ever thought honestly that many of you will be setting up little canopy tents outside and customers would be doing drive-through closings I mean it's it's fantastic what you all have done and I have no doubt moving forward you guys will find a way to make any rules and regulations work within your office just a few things to kind of think through like what your process will be and some people will want to know your process some people before they come in are gonna say okay so what's your process like do you wipe it all down is every pen new you know is everyone wearing a mask is or will I be separated so I'm kind of maybe start thinking about documenting that because people are definitely gonna ask so I think it's important that you think that through remote working the new norm so for those of you that don't know I have worked for softpro for ever in 18 years oh that's crazy 18 years and I have worked remotely for seventeen and a half of those so this is not my new norm it is been my norm I generally do travel quite a bit so working from home is very easy for me I like it it's it's not for everyone I tell you I happen to be married to someone who it is not for he's not as productive he likes going to the office he likes the structure so it's it's definitely not for everyone but there is a lot of things to consider so we just talked about reopening and how you're gonna go about it and some of you may have never closed but you're not working in a hundred percent capacity in office and some of you maybe are reopening so it really just depends but you know when you have employees working from home we just talked about this it's cost-effective they're not taking up space in your office so there is that factor employees also save money because commuting they're not eating out so employees are generally especially new hires I mean I'm not looking for you to like cut somebody's salary but new hires are generally apt to take less money as a salary if they were able to work from home because they are able to save money elsewhere it also is not a stressful they are not commuting back and forth so in cities bigger areas or even rural where they have to drive an hour each way it does cut that time back and that gives them back to the employee you know we I think we've all found through this whole Colvin pandemic that we have the technology to keep us all connected I'll tell you again seventeen and a half years I've worked remote I have never once felt removed I have never felt never once felt not part of a team you know between all of the audio-visual the zooms that go to meetings to go to webinars even the house party you name it Google hangout there's a way to stay connected through the technology and it's even easier and less expensive than it's ever been and in the past though employees sometimes feel a lot more productive at home I know I do there's no constantly going in and out of meetings there's no one popping into your office to talk there's no stopping in the break room to have you know a conversation with somebody you know they also don't say okay it's 12 o'clock I'm gonna go take my lunch from 12:00 to 1:00 generally a mindset of working from home is this is what I have to get done today and I'm gonna do everything I can do to get it done it's a proven fact when you allow people to work from home you have less turnover people are going to think long and hard about leaving a job for another job when they have to give up the convenience of working from home especially someone who has a spouse that may travel or has children it's just something that makes their life a lot easier it also also allows you as a company to have access to global talent so if I am allowing people to work remote and I'm here in Chicago and there's a great candidate and even southern Illinois or Missouri or Minnesota or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania for that matter I can hire them I don't need them in my office so it opens up a lot more opportunities for your or firms especially for jobs where they really don't need to come in so you know maybe you could hire some your marketing team remotely or your searchers are your typers whatever it is you're doing it does open up the pool of candidates when you don't have to hire people who can drive in and out of the office every day and then of course Cove 8:19 people are gonna be less likely to be running back to the office because they just don't feel comfortable so for the record I'm not telling you all that your employees should work remotely I'm just saying our industry didn't not really embrace it prior to this and the feedback that I've heard from many many customers they cannot believe how productive their employees have been from home so if that's the case maybe rethink your structure and this is a great perk and it's a great selling point for your company and you don't have to have them work you know remotely a hundred percent it could be some in the office some outside things so just think about it I know our it's kind of new to our industry but I think with everything we've gone through it's pretty clear who should be in the office and who should be at home right okay so I did tell you that the CFPB is actually still in existence and they've not much to really talk about they have been pretty quiet really all they've done is that they've worked with say FHFA they've worked with HUD and they're just kind of continuing their role as consumer protection so they are providing guidance for consumers you can go to their website and say how do I get mortgage relief even as a renter what type of protection do I have they're offering stuff on how to avoid avoid covet 19 scams and financial scams from people so they're not implementing any like new rules and regulations they're just kind of there to help the consumer which is you know what they should be doing so they've got a co bid page on their website which is consumerfinance.gov and it is pretty helpful if you have anybody that really needs some help with their mortgage forbearance or relief options it's pretty user friendly and it takes them exactly where they need to go they also provide a lot of flexibility to financial companies and for reporting if you will so they are postponing data collections from a lot of industry partners and unregulated rules so that they would normally say collect this data quarterly they're saying okay we're just gonna collect it once a year so they're not saying we're not going to get the information they're just saying you don't need to worry about it right now so that you can work with your consumers and your business so don't worry about reporting this stuff to us so they're not expecting that quarterly information on HHH MDA even regs see from the Mortgage Lenders which is a pretty big relief to these lenders who are trying to deal with all this forbearance and the cares Act so it's it's been good that they've loosened the reins again please all rules and regulations are still in effect it's just they're kind of taking a hands-off of the supervising supervisory role and saying okay let's get through this together we'll help the consumer and then you know we'll go back to normal they they have stepped in with the cares Act pretty strongly and they are definitely warning servicers on how they guidance borrowers because obviously a service servicer is not going to want too many borrowers to have forbearance because then they're not getting the money it's understandable but you know the government and the stimulus Act and the CFPB and I'll say no they hang up to 12 months it's pretty it's pretty tough for a lender to say no to be quite honest I mean there's many cases you can't even ask if they were fired or not you know if they've lost their job or not lost a job if they were laid off or if they're having financial they know the burden is not on the borrower so they're trying to warn the servicers and saying don't ask leading questions you know you're there to help them you have to follow these rules so they are still watching them and issuing guidance it's just not as strong and stringent as it's been in the past so you guys made it you made an entire hour of me talking I apologize I generally have been trying to have other people on but sometimes I just have to do it all so that we can get through it hopefully it was informative again if you have any questions feel free to send them I think we may have had a couple come in I'll ask Ellen in a minute and if we don't get to them again we will email them to you so moving on to probably the best part of the day is our refresh and recipes fun fact this right here is actually not my recipe it is one of my favorites though but my daughter who recently turned 13 makes this for us all the time it's kind of her recipe it came from a cooking club thing she was in but I'll tell you as some in the best Spanish paella and it's so easy to make also the sangria is one of my favorites in the summertime we like to switch it up and do white you do not have to use schnapps or brandy if you just want to use the white wine I would also say then maybe use a flavored club soda if you don't want that much alcohol in it and actually if you don't want any alcohol and at all you can use club soda or ginger ale with everything else and make it obviously kid-friendly so um this is one of my favorite recipes in our house that I don't have to make I have made it but she makes it for us and I have three children who all love it I would love to know if anyone makes it I love when you guys send me I love when you guys send me the information and updates of what you are and aren't making so I I know we're kind of near the ends here and I just wanted to check in with Ellen to see if we have any questions and if so if there's any that you want me to answer hey Leslie we did receive a couple of questions during the webinar I was able to just answer them one off one of the questions was asking for the presentation slides so just a reminder we do record every one of these webinars and we make the video recording and the presentation slides available on our blog and everybody who registered and attended this webinar will receive an email with that information as well so you guys should receive that in the next day or two so keep an eye out for that if you're looking for the recording or the slides and other than that we didn't get any specific questions about the content which just speaks to your fantastic presentation skills Leslie I think but if anybody has any follow-up questions feel free to reach out to Leslie or I at any point okay great well thank you Ellen and thank you everybody for joining us we will send a recap just like Ellen said and we'll include a link to the slides and if anyone has any questions post this please feel free to reach out we appreciate when you spend your Tuesday mornings with us and we will see you next week