eMortgages: Recorders ready to rock
I remember a few years back when the industry first started getting hot to record real estate financing documents electronically. It was always the County Recorders who got blamed for gumming up the process. That excuse is quickly fading from the list of reasons lenders aren't investing in the technology.
It's really a somewhat backward process in the mortgage space. In most industries, the manufacturers will get together and push for industry standards in order to reduce switching costs between input sources and open up their universe of suppliers. Those suppliers will resist as long as they can until they are beaten and then the top few suppliers get all of the business, being the low-cost providers. At least until the manufacturers try to bring it all in house to further decrease their costs, which pushes them away from their core and they go out of business.
In this space, where it could cost a lender millions of dollars and years of integration time to switch between suppliers, mortgage technology vendors are all about standards and SOA. Electronic mortgage recording was supposed to be one of the carrots that got lenders pulling the MISMO effort.
I'm looking forward to catching up with Harry Gardner and the rest of the MBA MISMO crew at the upcoming Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention to find out what really got MISMO rolling. I don't think it was the promise of all electronic mortgage lending. I doubt Fannie Mae would have to work so hard to get lenders to sell electronically if the lending community fully appreciated the benefits of eRecording.
But whether they do or not, it's coming. In fact, Illinois is the latest state to pass a law making it possible. This news courtesy of the folks at DocX, who have an uncanny way of knowing what's up in this part of the business
It's really a somewhat backward process in the mortgage space. In most industries, the manufacturers will get together and push for industry standards in order to reduce switching costs between input sources and open up their universe of suppliers. Those suppliers will resist as long as they can until they are beaten and then the top few suppliers get all of the business, being the low-cost providers. At least until the manufacturers try to bring it all in house to further decrease their costs, which pushes them away from their core and they go out of business.
In this space, where it could cost a lender millions of dollars and years of integration time to switch between suppliers, mortgage technology vendors are all about standards and SOA. Electronic mortgage recording was supposed to be one of the carrots that got lenders pulling the MISMO effort.
I'm looking forward to catching up with Harry Gardner and the rest of the MBA MISMO crew at the upcoming Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention to find out what really got MISMO rolling. I don't think it was the promise of all electronic mortgage lending. I doubt Fannie Mae would have to work so hard to get lenders to sell electronically if the lending community fully appreciated the benefits of eRecording.
But whether they do or not, it's coming. In fact, Illinois is the latest state to pass a law making it possible. This news courtesy of the folks at DocX, who have an uncanny way of knowing what's up in this part of the business
Illinois to Adopt e-Recording Law
Sponsored by Illinois Senator William R. Haine on February 7, 2007 and approved and signed by Governor Rod Blagojevich, Senate Bill 319 is now effective. This bill enacts the Uniform Real Property Electronic Act (URPERA) by providing authorization to the county recorders to receive and record documents and information in electronic formats.
The law provides that the recorder may receive, index, store, archive and transmit electronic documents. The recorder may also provide access to such documents by electronic means.
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