E&Y To Lenders: "Get with the Program."

Points of Pain... "Lenders use many disparate systems that don't talk to each other... Systems used to analyze property and borrower data are not linked to a lender's pipeline management system... Another major point of pain is the ability to share data with third parties." Yep, it's pretty ugly according to Ernst & Young's White Paper, The Impact of Operational Efficiency on Profitability, which concludes that commercial mortgage lending processes are quite inefficient. Questions? Contact Joe Rubin.

On the other hand, there are significant initiatives by technology providers and lenders to change this. Just listen to David Queen's vision for AMI Capital. He's seeking a "single input strategy -- the ability to input data just once for multiple subsequent uses -- as the primary ingredient for efficient loan processing. Database oriented underwriting systems, like North Shore Systems, are much better adapted to single input execution than the spreadsheet technology that the mortgage industry has been refining since the emergence of the PC."

Likewise, Ken Beyer, CTO at MortgageRamp, touts MortgageRamp's .NET (Microsoft) initiative, which features MultiTrak for financing multifamily loans in conjunction with Fannie Mae and GMACCM. "Several hundred million dollars worth of loans have already flowed through this process...By utilizing this technology, we have reduced the time from application to close down to as little as 10 days." DealCentral's Dashboard enables collaboration between parties for pricing, due diligence and securitizing of loans. ... While the pace of change may be frustratingly slow, these players and others demonstrate strong commitments to changing the way mortgages are processed. Stay tuned for more in the next PikeNet Dispatch.

--Peter Pike