ATHENS, Ga., Oct. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --
FormFree® Founder and CEO Brent Chandler today released a statement
commending Fannie Mae's efforts to remove barriers to homeownership
by adding a positive rent payment history feature to Desktop
Underwriter®
(DU®).
The feature, which went into effect September 18, is designed to expand sustainable
homeownership — particularly for renters with limited credit
history. The feature is anticipated to benefit prospective
homebuyers and mortgage lenders alike by increasing the number of
applicants who receive an Approve/Eligible recommendation in
DU.
"According to Fannie Mae research, factoring in first-time
homebuyers' history of consistent rent payments is one significant
difference between the lender qualifying and not qualifying
applicants for a mortgage," said Steve
Pawlowski, senior vice president of Fannie Mae Single-Family
Products and Solutions. "Digital technology enables us to pull the
data necessary to unlock more homeownership opportunities for
qualified renters. Enhancements to Desktop Underwriter® such as
this one are a step toward making meaningful change."
Using verification of asset (VOA) reports supplied by authorized
report suppliers like FormFree, DU automatically identifies
recurring rent payments and takes them into consideration when
assessing credit eligibility for certain, qualified first-time
homebuyers. Only positive rent payment history is considered; DU
does not evaluate late or missing rent payments or count them
against a borrower.
Lenders using FormFree's AccountChek®
VOA reports in conjunction with Desktop Underwriter have already
begun taking advantage of positive rent payment history without
disrupting current workflows.
"Back in 2015, FormFree identified rent payments as highly
relevant to determining a consumer's ability to pay," said
Chandler. "In the years since, we've independently developed and
honed algorithms that can isolate rent payments in direct-source
checking account data with great veracity. We applaud Fannie Mae
for embracing this kind of technology as a tool for helping break
the cycle of systemic racism that widens homeownership, wealth and
quality-of-life gaps."
As a longtime authorized report supplier for the DU validation
service, FormFree has an extended history of providing asset data
for lenders to verify borrower eligibility. FormFree has also
enhanced AccountChek with proprietary features that may not be
available in competing VOA solutions. For instance, lenders do not
have to order a 12-month AccountChek VOA report to supply 12 months
of rent payment history to DU; instead, this feature is available
with AccountChek reports of any length, including 30-, 60-, 90- and
180-day reports. In addition, AccountChek has safeguards in place
to ensure the collection of 12-month rent payment history does not
unnecessarily expose lenders to non-rent transactions, such as
large gift deposits, that occurred more than 90 days but less than
12 months in the past.
For more information about positive rent payment history, visit
https://www.fanniemae.com/positive-rent-payments. Current
AccountChek customers who have questions about taking advantage of
this feature should contact their FormFree account
representative.
About FormFree®
FormFree® is a market-leading fintech
company whose revolutionary products
AccountChek® and
Passport® make for a more inclusive credit
decisioning landscape by enabling lenders to understand people's
true ability to pay (ATP®). Our vision is
to leverage source data and data-driven intelligence to usher in a
new era of transparent, fair and liquid credit markets. To date,
thousands of U.S. lenders and brokers have ordered millions of
FormFree's patented verification reports representing trillions of
dollars in loan verifications. FormFree delights borrowers and
lenders with a paperless experience, dramatically reduces
origination timelines and offers automated analysis and
standardized delivery to lenders and investors using a secure
ReIssueKey®. For more information,
visit https://www.formfree.com/ or follow FormFree on
LinkedIn.
Twitter: @FannieMae @RealFormFree #mortgageindustry #fintech
#digitalmortgage
his release was issued through Send2Press®, a unit of Neotrope®.
For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at
https://www.Send2Press.com
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SOURCE FormFree