How CrossCountry’s Two Harbors win reshapes the servicing competition
Bruce Gehrke (pictured top), senior director of wealth and lending intelligence at JD Power, said the competition for Two Harbors was about more than one portfolio.
“At the heart of it, it’s another indication of how valuable servicing has become, or at least is being viewed currently,” Gehrke told Mortgage Professional America. “And I think that’s an important difference that we’ve seen. How much attention and investment they’re putting toward improving the servicing experience, the journey customers have after they close. It’s a different way to view the business than it had been traditionally.”
What CrossCountry actually bought
CrossCountry is the nation’s largest distributed retail mortgage lender, operating more than 1,000 branches across all 50 states. It has always serviced loans under its own brand, Gehrke said, but subcontracted the operational side.
“They subbed it out basically operationally, but they’ve always serviced for the majority under their own brand,” Gehrke said. “So this really gives them the opportunity to control that better. And we know through our data what we see is that the switch and the transfer of servicing rights is just something that resonates poorly with borrowers. And it always has.”
The RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing platform that comes with Two Harbors adds another layer of value, he said. UWM described its goal differently, scaling from 700,000 to 1.3 million clients, but Gehrke said the value of having an operating platform already in place is hard to underestimate.
