Blog of the Mortgage

There was a time not long ago when I would make my case with a nice little letter to the underwriter on my loan at submission. I would explain the way I derived income (my own special math), what I knew about the job history (spotty) and why the assets were suddenly improving (lottery!).

In the end this was my way of endearing my underwriter to my methodologies and at many times it resulted, if nothing else, in a phone call to go over options for the borrower.

Most of the time it was to thank me for the letter and to notify me of my approval. Now, we're all getting re-trained and re-reviewing our expertise in full-doc underwriting. How to calc overtime, bonus, hourly, averages of changing incomes etc.

Unfortunately much of this isn't getting checked along the way and our DU Runs end up invalidated by the final underwriter for a number of reasons. Sometimes files end up in suspense and we're left scrambling to understand the underwriters thought process for THEIR decision.

Where this has been very fairly counter balanced is when the loans come in with cover letters or e-mail discussion threads between the loan officers and the AE. This significantly illuminates issues known to exist prior to the file being underwritten and helps the underwriter to understand the initial numbers or the back story of a loan.