Quite frankly, many subservicers are asleep at the wheel when it comes to handling customers who are on the verge of, or have already gone into, delinquency. They really don’t have a good handle on their borrowers individual situations. In fact, in a lot of cases, it isn’t until someone has missed a few payments, that a red flag finally goes up, and they realize there’s an issue. And when there is an issue identified, some subservicers just chock it up as a part of doing business, and they’re on to the next customer.
That’s just not the way TMS approaches the subject of delinquency.
LIFE HAPPENS
For one thing, we do everything we can to make sure your customers never get to the point of delinquency; and if they do, we do everything we can to make sure they come out of it in a good way. We do it because, as we’ve always said, we’re here to help you (and your customers) Grow Happiness. This is real life, and things happen to people. We understand that. But we also understand that it’s the job of the subservicer to be on top of these things, and do something about them.
PROACTIVITY WINS THE RACE
So yes, just as sure as washing your car brings about rain, it’s a fact that there are going to be delinquencies. What we want to do is get out in front of them. That’s the best way to go so that there are no surprises, and there is no stoppage of revenue flow. Here’s how we do it…
SIME IS ON YOUR SIDE
TMS has the people and the technology to proactively monitor every aspect of a borrower’s experience. Our trained professionals know all the ins and outs of delinquency.
From a technology standpoint, we have one powerful monitoring platform. It’s called SIME—Servicing Intelligence Made Easy. This is what gives us the chops to handle these situations so well. SIME allows us to look for payment patterns (or lack of payment), anticipate problems, and review all communications we’ve had with the customer to create an up-to-the-minute snapshot of the borrower.
THE MODIFANTASTIC TRACK
If we see that a customer is headed for, or is in, delinquency, we put them on what we call The Modifantastic Track (you knew we had a special name for it). This is where we do a deep dive into the situation, followed by the creation of a modified payment plan designed to get things back on track.
When we’re alerted of a customer’s situation, the first step we have them do is complete a Borrower Response Package (BRP). Once that’s done, our digital and technological capabilities kick in, and before you know it, we close on a modification.
Here’s another difference between us and them: where most subservicers out there take 9+ months to complete the entire modification process, we finish it in 4-5 months. After all, how beneficial from your point of view is it to have this situation drag on for almost a year? Especially considering that when you multiply that by how many customers you might have in this kind of a situation, it can really add up (or to look at it another way, subtract from your bottom line).
OUR 30% RULE
By now we hope you’ve realized how important it is to have a subservicer that’s tuned in to delinquencies. And not only that, but adept at addressing them, and making them current again. That’s what makes all the difference.
Of those who are in a delinquent situation, TMS believes that you should expect to have 30% of those loans back current through modifications. It’s a tall order, but we think that’s the way to make lemons into lemonade.
TIME TO MODIFY?
The way you handle delinquencies affects so many different aspects of your business, from the way your customers feel about you to the way your bottom line looks. If your subservicer is not delivering modifications like the ones we’ve outlined here, we think you should modify your current arrangement and switch over to TMS.
We think you’ll find us to be pretty modifantastic.
