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MortgagePoint » Your Trusted Source for Mortgage Banking and Servicing News 6 May 2023 M T E C H » Seamless UI/UX: Use ChatGPT fea- tures directly in the native Big Purple Dot UI for an intuitive and seamless user experience. ZILLOW ANNOUNCES NEW HOMEBUYER SEARCH TOOL Z illow has announced a new way to shop that can assist homebuyers navigate a rapidly changing market and find homes that fit within their desired budget. The new filter shows homes within a range of all-in monthly costs, instead of list prices. A calculator also estimates monthly payments users could afford, based on down payment, income, and monthly debts. Last year's drastic rise in mortgage rates sent monthly costs for buyers skyrocket- ing—nearly $700 more than the year before in recent months—and are now $431 higher than in March 2021. High rates combined with record-breaking home appreciation have nearly doubled monthly mortgage costs since 2020. Rates are also extraordinarily vol- atile. Home prices nationwide started falling in June and flatlined this year, but shifting mortgage rates often swung costs by more than $100 month to month. "Shoppers looking at list prices struggle to figure out what they can really afford, because the mortgage rate is what makes or breaks a monthly payment. Adding in costs like taxes, insurance, and HOA fees can quickly bust a shopper's budget," said Aman- da Pendleton, a Consumer Finance Expert at Zillow Home Loans. "This new search tool does the math, so shoppers can confidently jump into finding a home they love and can afford." Shoppers can start with Zillow's linked affordability calculator, entering their down payment amount, income, and debts to estimate the monthly mortgage cost they can afford. Then they enter their monthly budget range into the filter to start shopping. Updat- ed mortgage rates feed into the filter, showing homes and hiding others to keep shoppers on budget as rates and price cuts change the monthly payment math. A new survey from Zillow Home Loans found that the most difficult financing activ- ity among prospective homebuyers is under- standing all costs associated with a mortgage payment, followed by figuring out how much home they can afford, and researching mort- gages and rates. "Fast-rising mortgage rates last year pushed monthly costs up with unprecedent- ed speed, dragging affordability to its lowest point in more than 20 years," said Orphe Divounguy, Senior Macroeconomist at Zillow Home Loans. "Beyond the high costs, volatile mortgage rates have made it extremely diffi- cult to plan and budget to buy a house." The new filter—coming soon to zillow. com—is the compnay's latest technology geared toward helping buyers navigate a challenging affordability landscape. Down payment assistance that's built into listings— letting shoppers see what's available for them where they are looking—as well as mortgage and affordability calculators, can all help homebuyers make sense of the fast-moving market. Although typical home values peaked in June before tapering off, mortgage rates that reached 20-year highs later in the year caused monthly mortgage payments to peak in October, Zillow data shows. TAVANT BOLSTERS ITS AI-POWERED TOUCHLESS LENDING PLATFORM T avant has announced the launch of Asset Analysis to Touchless Lending, the company's AI-powered digital lending platform. With this addition, Touchless Lending will have the ability to provide coverage over all four major underwriting compone nts, including income, credit, collateral, and soon, asset analysis. "This upcoming launch of Touchless Lending Asset Analysis will perfectly com- plement our currently available underwrit- ing products—Document, Income, Credit, Collateral, and Decision Analysis—and put Tavant one step closer to achieving our goal of enabling straight-through processing and fully automated underwriting for mortgage providers," said Mohammad Rashid, Head of Fintech Innovation at Tavant. "Our current