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58 PLAN AND PREVAIL: HOW THE INDUSTRY CAN PREPARE FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE Economic downturns. Health crises. Natural disasters. e occurrence of events like these is inevitable, yet their timing and lasting effects are impossible to predict. ough the housing industry may not be able to pinpoint the next widescale impactful event, developing a well-grounded plan can help navigate it, mitigate risk, and get homeowners back on track. Because massive events often share similarities, lessons learned from the past should influence fu- ture strategies. Unfortunately, the housing industry has seen two major events—the 2008 housing crisis and COVID-19 pandemic—that have creat- ed significant challenges for homeowners and ser- vicers. However, the industry has responded with initiatives to leverage the latest technologies, design flexible policies, establish strategic partnerships, and continuously innovate, allowing the housing ecosystem to become stronger, smarter, and more resilient. Freddie Mac shares insights from learned experiences, both past and recent. PROACTIVE? REACTIVE? HOW ABOUT BOTH? During an unexpected event, speed to market is critically important to help a servicer's customer base. A proactive approach is generally lauded as preferable to a reactive one. While the former conjures associations of initiative and take-charge leadership, the latter is often unfairly derided as passive and wait-and-see. But is it really that simplistic, and does it need to be A or B? Being successfully proactive requires flexi- bility, not rigidity, and an acknowledgement that reacting to unique events is also okay—if it is for the short term. "No matter the event, we want to be able to flip switches, not by making wholesale changes but by having fundamentals built in, from policy to tech to testing," says Dave Lucchino, SVP, Single-Family Operations at Freddie Mac. "is limits the reaction so you can readjust to a more proactive state." TEST, TEST, TEST, STREAMLINE at malleability involves planning and executing solutions that are regularly tested and streamlined, with adaptability built in for unexpected variables. e same way that a sailor takes a new tack when the wind shifts direction, changes to a situation can necessitate tweaks in parameters to apply them in a more relevant way. Ten years ago, Freddie Mac responded to Hurricane Sandy by updating and refining disaster-related policies to better serve homeown- ers. It has continued to refine and adjust these policies—through the three major hurricanes of 2017 and beyond. e policies were most recently Sponsored Content