With a potential surge in home foreclosures on the horizon, RES.NET, a technology platform provider for loan default management, says it’s revamped its real-estate owned portal to support growth and scalability.
The REO portal helps banks, mortgage lenders, loan servicers and real estate brokers coordinate to dispose of “real-estate owned,” or REO properties owned by lenders after they’ve foreclosed on delinquent borrowers.
RES.NET’s subscription-based agent membership gives real estate agents the opportunity to win REO listings from loan servicers and manage their own properties. Agents can gain limited access to RES.NET at no cost, allowing them to submit offers and short sales, and complete broker price opinions.
RES.NET has added role-based workflows to the REO portal, which is it said will make it easier for businesses to grow and scale. Improvements to the REO portal include:
- Dashboard enhancements such as updated search queues and property-level administration
- Business need workflows including a new role-based workflow to complement the current property-level defined options
- Property-level visibility enabling users to view all roles on any page and create personalized favorites
- Task enhancements such as new task creation, responsibility, designations and ownership
- New and improved administration tools including added vendor controls for eviction, title, and closing task deliverables.
Bill Colby
“Enabling the administrator to assign tasks based on the user’s role on the property and their association with the assigned task allows organizations to pivot based on operational or organizational need, easily adding new stakeholders to support future growth,” said Bill Colby, Product Department Manager at RES.NET, in a statement.
In February, the Biden administration extended forbearance and foreclosure protections for homeowners with federally-backed mortgages through June 30. Homeowners whose mortgages are backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, USDA, or VA, can’t be hit with a foreclosure notice until after that date.
Borrowers with federally-backed mortgages can be in COVID forbearance for up to 18 months, but many borrowers who stopped making payments at the start of the pandemic are scheduled to use up their eligibility at the end of September.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a rule that would provide a special pre-foreclosure review period that would generally prohibit loan servicers from initiating foreclosures until after December 31, 2021. Many lenders have voluntarily stopped initiating foreclosures while the rule is pending.
Delinquencies and foreclosures
Number of mortgages delinquent by 90 days or more (red line) or in foreclosure (blue bar) as of Jan. 1 of each year. Source: Black Knight Mortgage Monitor.
According to the latest data from Black Knight, only 3,700 foreclosures were initiated in April, bringing the total number of homes in foreclosure to 153,000 — a record low in records dating to 2005. There were still 1.768 million loans 90 or more days past due in April, 2021 — four times as many as before the pandemic.
For context, at the height of the housing downturn that followed the Great Recession, Black Knight counted 292,308 foreclosure starts in January 2010 alone. The total number of homes in foreclosure during the housing bust peaked a year later, at 2.25 million in January 2011.
Depending on the type of loan they have, they may be able to enter into a repayment plan, apply for a loan modification, or defer repayment until they refinance or sell their home. Homeowners and renters can learn more about their options on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s website.
