On August 26, HousingWire posted an interview with Dean Kirchen, Senior Vice President of WFG’s Default Title Services, identifying what the industry leader sees are the top trends in servicing this year.
The interview, exclusively available for HW+ premium members until it goes public on September 1, comes on the heels of HousingWire’s announcement that Kirchen has been designated one of the mortgage industry’s Top 50 Insiders for 2020.
Asked for his biggest immediate concern for the industry, he says “delinquency rates.”
“What’s scary to me is that with the forbearance programs and moratoriums that are going on, are people being mindful that these payments will be due in the future?” he asks HW Managing Editor Brena Nath. “And, how are they providing for a future stream of payments that could be due, in regards to their mortgage payment, that could be in excess of what they currently pay?
“Hopefully,” he continues, “people are being mindful of these obligations that are being postponed because not all lenders will be putting those on the back end of the loan. They could be due within certain periods of time, depending on who the investor is. A lot of borrowers are making payments even though they are in forbearance agreements, but then you have another group of individuals who are not making payments under the forbearance agreement. How are they accounting for these future payment streams that could be due that could be in addition to their normal monthly payment?”
He also believes that, “We’re mostly focused on the various legislation that will impact the way servicers do business in states. That will have an effect on whether forbearance, foreclosure moratoriums and forbearance loan arrangements are made,” and we could see “a whiplash effect if there’s forbearance or moratoriums that last for an extended period.”
