How to get the most out of underwriting

Often we focus on increasing our LOs’ efficiency. But is there a way to get more out of underwriting too?

How to get the most out of underwriting
Oftentimes in the mortgage industry, we focus on how to get the most of our loan originators. When we think of productivity, we think of sales. We think of how to get our LOs to become more effective and efficient in their work. But is there a way to also get more out of underwriting?

On the March 14 episode of my Lykken on Lending podcast, John Maynell of Motivity Solutions joined us briefly to share his weekly "Key Performance Indicator." This week, John discussed the metric "Submitted to Initial Decision," measured in hours. This metric tracks how long it takes underwriters to come to an initial decision on a loan application once it has been submitted. Keeping track of this time span can help monitor how underwriters are using their time; but, more importantly, it can help monitor the quality of what they're working with.

When underwriters take more time to go through a loan application before making a decision, it generally means that the application is more complex or that not enough information was provided to them. Keeping track of this metric can help you identify the bottlenecks to figure out what loan originators are missing when putting together the applications for underwriting. Like everything else, though, you can't really know what you're up against unless you measure it. As John from Motivity likes to say, "What gets measured gets results."