You arrive at the doctor's office early. You are ready to be seen, but they are not ready for you. So you wait.
It is now 30 minutes after your appointment time. You are ready. But they are not. So you wait.
Your borrower sends in a document to be reviewed. It is ready to be reviewed. But the team member assigned to that loan is working on another loan. So the loan waits.
In the mortgage world, waiting can be one of the most frustrating hurdles in closing a loan. Whether it’s waiting on an appraisal, being blocked until a document gets reviewed, or managing availability among team members, each delay adds time, cost, and complexity to the process.
This week we explore common bottlenecks in the mortgage origination process and articulate how Charlie helps streamline these challenges through having multiple people working in the same loan at the same time, and smart, automated task allocation.
- The Appraisal Delay
Consider a loan where everything is ready to move forward, except that it’s on hold waiting for an appraisal. A delayed appraisal can stop the entire process, leading to frustration and confusion for borrowers. This is especially common when the only pending requirement is one person’s input. Delays like these increase the overall time to close and may even result in lost business if clients or partners grow frustrated.
How Charlie Helps: With Charlie, loans are no longer held up by single, linear processes. Through its non-linear, parallel workflow approach, tasks related to underwriting, document verification, and borrower communications can continue while waiting on an appraisal, helping the process to keep moving forward on all other fronts.
- Document Review: When Key Team Members Are Busy
Another frequent bottleneck is when a document is ready for review, but the assigned team member is tied up with other another loan. Waiting on one person to complete a review or sign-off is a significant issue that causes loan timelines to stretch unnecessarily.
How Charlie Helps: Charlie enables team members to work from skill-based queues instead of assigning 1-to-1 relationships with loans. As work becomes available, anyone with the skillset required to complete that work can do so.
In the example above, you do not need to wait for a specific individual to become available to review that document. A task would be created, placed into a queue where multiple team members have access, and the first person available can pick it up and handle the necessary work.
- Collaboration Bottlenecks: Allowing Multiple Users to Work in Parallel
The traditional mortgage process often involves team members working on various loan components sequentially. This setup means that loan processors, underwriters, and closers must wait for each other to finish a group of specific tasks before they can proceed, which can lead to extended timelines and significant productivity loss.
How Charlie Helps: Charlie’s architecture is designed to support no-record locking, parallel workflows, enabling multiple users to work on different parts of the loan at the same time without disruption. This approach lets team members address each loan’s tasks as they are ready, rather than in a rigid sequence, putting the right information in front of the right person at the right time. Whether it’s reviewing appraisals, validating borrower details, or confirming compliance, team members can move forward simultaneously on different tasks, ensuring that each loan flows smoothly through the pipeline.
The Charlie Advantage: Faster, Smoother, More Cost-Effective Closings
Charlie transforms mortgage origination by eliminating these common delays. By breaking work down into tasks and allowing simultaneous access to loans, Charlie reduces waiting times significantly. This approach not only speeds up the time to close but also lowers the cost per loan by optimizing how and when each part of the loan process is completed.
