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59 regulators, our competitors, allies, and friends. All the people that we interface with have all come together as a community and really bonded to the satisfaction of the consumer." "ough homebuyers briefly paused their activity at the start of the pandemic," said Steven Plaisance, Interim President of Mortgage Banking for Gateway First Bank, "they were 'resilient,' actively buying homes and seeking new mortgages in the second half of the year." Continued low interest rates meant refinance activity remained strong as well. Rick Seehausen, President and CEO of Cherry Creek Mortgage, credits his company's proprietary loan origination system for the ability to be nimble and achieve the company's best productivity ever. Volume doubled, but the company increased staff by only 15%. Even when activity spiked, loan processing time increased only slightly, from 21 days to 23 days. "I've been hearing about digitizing the mortgage process and electronic closings and have been involved in many committees and panels over the years, but it never got a lot of traction," Seehausen said. "But this last year, for the first time, I think it did." Closings still represented a bit of stumbling block, Seehausen added. "We had no problem originating loans, processing, underwriting, and closing them. We were just as efficient if not more so during the pandemic than we were pre-pandemic. But at the end of the day, if a borrower needs to get to a title company along with a seller and a real estate agent and notary, etc., face-to-face, it's a challenge. Seehausen added that various fintech companies are developing solutions to solve the issue. Another challenge, Gould added, was income, employment, and other necessary documentation. Tax filings for individuals and businesses were delayed three months, from April 15 to July 15. Some related documentation was delayed as well. Many businesses laid off employees or terminated them, but some of the traditional electronic verification methods lagged in updating this information. e issue was even more pronounced for some of the self-employed, many of whose businesses were particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Genworth and other lenders had to rely on additional online research, as well as telephone verification, to confirm employment and other pertinent information, Gould said. Buege added that consumers have become more comfortable with digital verification of income as well as digital submission of personal documents. Inlanta embraced screen-sharing technology to help lender/servicers and consumers somewhat replicate the connection they would have if conducting business in a more traditional setting. ough now there are adequate safety protocols in place that a customer can come into the office, many still prefer conducting business remotely, Buege noted. "ey have clearly shown us that mortgage, like so many other aspects of life today, is going online. ey like that they don't have to drive across town, have some coffee, do the application, then drive back home. e whole transaction is much quicker." Similarly, lenders could handle more closings virtually because they weren't wasting time driving from location to location, Buege said. TECHNOLOGY NEEDS OF REMOTE STAFF Genworth, Gateway, and others already had staff using laptops for some time before the pandemic hit. In that regard, they were better prepared than some others for staff to shift to work-from-home. However, some were challenged by slow internet connections. Genworth provided stipends to employees who needed to upgrade their internet speeds (if upgrades were available). Freedom Mortgage expected the declining interest rate environment and was concerned about some of the reports about COVID-19 as early as February, so they started buying staff "We weren't exactly sure what this was going to look like for our employees. … One of the biggest things we saw initially was people just figuring out how to stay connected with your staff and your manager, when you don't see them every single day." —Claudia Mobilia, SVP of Operations, Embrace Home Loans