NJLTA Strikes Gold

The New Jersey Land Title Association (NJLTA) recently hired Carmelo D. Bramante of cdb consultancy LLC as a consultant responsible for eRecording and eClosing implementation issues. The following excerpt is from the 2008 Spring Issue of the NJLTA's newsletter, THE ADVOCATE:

Our (NJLTA) Recording Practices Committee has been engaged in the task of finding a new consultant to replace David Ewan, Esq., who departed the position to join the New Jersey Title Insurance Company. David, a frequent contributor to THE ADVOCATE and the NJLTA's trail blazer for recording, legislation and electronic issues over the last several years, has left big shoes to fill.

Although the task appeared insurmountable, the committee struck gold in the person of Carmen Bramante, who brings over eighteen years of real estate and mortgage finance experience to the position. The New Jersey Land Title Association joins the Recording Practices Committee in welcoming Mr. Bramante as our new Recording Practices Consultant.

Carmen Bramante currently serves as Managing Director of cdb consultancy LLC, a firm he founded in 2004, providing consulting services in the areas of Asset Servicing, Operations, Credit Policy/Counter-Party Risk, as well as eRecording, eNotarization, and eMortgage origination, closing, investor delivery and servicing.

Read more.

cdb consultancy invites prospective clients to visit the cdb consultancy site or contact Carmen to discuss an engagement or project.

Major eMortgage Indicators: Moving toward Broad Adoption

by Mark Oliphant
eMortgage Director, Fannie Mae

Early last year, Fannie Mae released the results of a comprehensive, industry-wide research initiative, "eMortgages: Research Findings on the State of Industry Adoption," to assess the current and future state of electronic mortgages (eMortgages), predict adoption patterns over time, and catalog perceptions of value. At that time, we found eMortgage adoption to be growing slowly but steadily. Today, eMortgages are a reality for several lenders, and there is a solid pipeline of lenders in the planning and implementation stages.

In our research, the majority of the participants believe lenders to be the most influential drivers to broad adoption of eMortgages. Many technology vendors, title companies and closing agents indicated that they are ready to support the lenders in the planning, development, and implementation of their eMortgage strategies.

Lenders indicated the benefits of eMortgage to be:

• shorter processing time
• competitive advantage
• reduced operational costs
• faster funding
• increased profit
• improved secondary market price
• improved data integrity

Fully understanding the potential of these many benefits, our lender survey reported 44 percent of lenders expect their companies to implement eMortgages. Though difficult to predict, a critical mass of lenders could have eMortgage origination capabilities within three years. Seventy-two percent of lenders in our survey also indicated that they will implement eSignature technology, which analysts consider a leading indicator of market movement toward eMortgage adoption.

In fact, this year represents a significant turning point in eMortgage adoption. The MERSŪ eRegistry - the mortgage industry's utility for lenders to register their electronic notes (eNotes) - saw monthly registrations rise eight fold from approximately 500 eNotes per month in December 2007 to a current rate of a little over 4000 eNotes per month. We've also seen a spike in total registrations to approximately 18,000 eNotes in May of this year.





Most recently lenders, and particularly mortgage servicers, have realized additional benefits in using eSigning capabilities in a secure environment for loan modifications and other workout types. In response to the current mortgage crisis, Fannie Mae has been working with our servicers on new loss mitigation techniques through our "Keys to Recovery" Initiatives. There are a number of avenues to borrower assistance within these initiatives including streamlined refinancing for "underwater" borrowers and keeping people in their homes through foreclosure prevention. Fannie Mae has seen an increase in demand for eSigning in the servicing arena, and we have been helping our servicers streamline the loan modification process for borrowers, servicers, and Fannie Mae. We expect the adoption of these technologies and processes for loss mitigation to have a positive impact on adoption on the origination side of our business.

It is also worth noting that the Property Records Industry Association (PRIA) reports that electronic recording (eRecording) of mortgage-related documents is occurring in 27 states and the District of Columbia, with eRecordings up 25 percent in 2007 over the previous year. Lenders in our research perceived that eRecording is required for efficient business operations and is important for achieving the full value. This trend as reported by PRIA is another indicator toward broad eMortgage adoption.

Fannie Mae believes that broad adoption could be in the not-so-distant future. The benefits are real and the current market indicators point in an upward direction. To read more about the Fannie Mae eMortgage Research Results and Analysis and to learn more about eMortgages, including How to Implement eMortgages, visit our website at efanniemae.com.

Fannie Mae used independent industry experts' analysis of the results. Craig Focardi of Tower Group and Carmelo Bramante of cdb consultancy were key analysts in the Fannie Mae-sponsored research. Both were instrumental in the design of the research and the interpretation of the results.

cdb consultancy thanks Mark Oliphant and Fannie Mae for contributing this article.

The views and opinions expressed by the authors of the articles in this newsletter are those of the authors or the organizations they represent and not necessarily those of cdb consultancy. Readers of this newsletter should not infer endorsement of cdb consultancy by these organizations, nor does cdb consultancy make any endorsement of the contributors or their organizations.