DS News

60 is past September, the Five Star Conference & Expo returned to the Hyatt Regency in Dallas, Texas, for an in- person event. e DS News team was on-site, speaking with mortgage servicing's best and brightest to learn about the state of the industry from their perspective. Here, we bring you some highlights from those conversations. Bryce Fendall, VP, Default, Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, REO, Claims, Statebridge Company WHAT CAN THE INDUSTRY DO TO ASSIST STRUGGLING HOMEOWNERS AS THEY EXIT FORBEARANCE PLANS? For all mortgage servicers, that has been our focus for the last year-and-a-half: making contact with customers. ere's a kind of phenomenon taking place. When a borrower defaults, they quit reading their mail. ey know they owe the bank money, and they know what that letter is, so they quit reading the mail. We are sending them their options. We have learned to become creative to get them to open the mail. We have a lot of tricks that we use, including sending them overnight mail, sending boxes in oblong shapes. We have one mailer where we put dice inside of it, and it says, "Don't roll the dice, because you know we're here to help." We, as servicers, must continue to find interesting ways to connect with the homeowner. It's not that we're not there to help them; they are often not receptive to the help we offer. ey know they owe the debt, and they think that's the only thing we want. We only make money when the loans are performing, and when the loans aren't performing, it gets very costly for everybody involved. DO YOU ANTICIPATE A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN REO ACTIVITY? We are seeing an increase in foreclosure activity already. However, we also see an increase in resolutions. We send the notice that we're going to put the home in foreclosure unless a payment is made by a particular date, that date passes, and the loan goes into foreclosure. Sometimes, it comes to just that point where the borrower realizes, "Oh, I need to do something!" Right now, borrowers have many options, and many of them have equity. What we are seeing a lot of is getting the home into foreclosure, and then we get a notice or request for a payoff. ey want to know how much they owe so that they can pay it off. en, they pay it off or have worked out some other arrangements. I see our foreclosure volume increasing, but I don't know how many of those foreclosures will make it to the end. It's not going to be like what we experienced 10-15 years ago. We are still processing loans that were delinquent before the pandemic Feature By: DS News Staff VOICES OF THE FIVE STAR CONFERENCE Subject matter experts who attended this year's Five Star Conference break down the trends and challenges they are facing as we approach 2022.

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