Helping Members Buy Homes, Post-Recession

As home prices have risen in Florida post-recession, even starter homes are almost out of the reach of first-time and lower-income buyers. Suncoast Credit Union has responded by enhancing the terms of its first-time homebuyers program and improving its lending systems to improve the process for all borrowers.

The maximum loan amount now offered under the CU’s First-Time Homebuyers Program has been increased from $200,000 to $250,000 for loans up to 97 percent of the purchase price without mortgage insurance, and credit standards have been widened (the credit union has applied funds from its Community Development Financial Institution grant to its loan losses fund to compensate for that change).

The portfolio loans are offered as 10/1 adjustable-rate mortgages, with a guaranteed rate for the first 10 years that adjusts annually thereafter. “Most members will sell their first homes before the rate begins to bump,” notes CUES member Vicki Lovett, chief lending officer with the $8 billion, 700,000-member CU in Tampa, Fla.

Streamlining its lending processes has also been a priority for Suncoast CU. “Our members are busier and busier, and they have higher expectations for service delivery. They know they can order something from Amazon and get it delivered in two hours,” Lovett says. “It’s our responsibility to figure out the technology to make lending as frictionless as possible.”

As mortgage lenders implemented the new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures, they spent most of 2016 redesigning loan processes. “We journey-mapped the entire process and tried to get rid of inefficiencies. It was a really long process, but we’ve moved away from being paper- and file-driven,” Lovett explains. “With the exception of closing documents that members still have to sign, our mortgage lending is now paperless.

“It’s hard to quantify at this point, but we have seen the benefits of redesigning and reorganizing our department. TRID added seven to 10 days to loan processing, but even with that we’ve been able to trim some days to close faster—and we’re continuing to work on improving our process,” she adds.

Suncoast CU uses the Mortgage Cadence loan origination system and communicates with members about their loan status and other credit union products throughout processing via the Intuvo email system. Next on the list of process improvements is implementing e-signatures at closing and a mobile app for borrowers to monitor their loan status. 

Suncoast CU originated $500 million in mortgages in 2015 and, even with scaling back during its process redesign last year, still handled $460 million in loans. The credit union expects to outpace that volume this year.

“What drives mortgage growth is good products,” Lovett says simply. “On the west coast of Florida, we’re several years out from the economic downturn. Our members are on the rebound, too, and ready to become homeowners.”

Karen Bankston is the proprietor of Precision Prose, Portland, Ore.