By KIMBERLEY HAAS
The president of Cornerstone Servicing says they are prepared for both ups and downs in 2024.
Toby Wells said in a recent interview with The Mortgage Note that although industry leaders hope for improvements after a tough year in 2023, people are worried about how much financial pressure American homeowners are under.
Inflation, the rising costs associated with ownership, as well as increases in taxes and insurance are at play.
“All of that kind of resonates in the potential for higher delinquencies and defaults leading into the latter part of ‘24. There’s concern about how to manage that,” Wells said.
Although there has been historically low foreclosure activity in recent years, lenders started the process on 22,575 properties last month. That’s up 11% from a year ago, according to the February 2024 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report by ATTOM.
There were a total of 32,938 properties with foreclosure filings – default notices, scheduled auctions, or bank repossessions – according to the report.
Wells said they help third-party lenders minimize delinquencies and maximize retention with team members and technology that deliver the experience modern customers are looking for.
“Typically, servicers attack processes from compliance and then efficiency, and then hope that has a great customer experience,” Wells said. “We’re absolutely fanatical about, ‘How do we create a better experience?’”
Wells said they look for employees who have a genuine desire to help others.
“You can teach somebody the technology and teach them the mortgage business, but you can’t teach care. And ultimately that’s essential if you’re going to deliver the experience needed to retain customers,” Wells said.
Artificial intelligence is helping. Wells said he thinks AI is going to play a material role in servicing mortgages moving forward in a positive way.
“AI helps us today with things like our virtual assistants. Customers go onto the website, and they have a quick question, maybe it’s, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock at night. They’re trying to find some information. The virtual assistant can generally help with most of those inquiries,” Wells said.
On Tuesday, it was announced that Cornerstone Servicing will be using proprietary compliance technology from Bizzy Labs to perform daily exception processing on servicing portfolios. The goal is to reduce errors, provide business risk transparency, and reduce per loan servicing costs.
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