Situation
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insures default risk for mortgage loans to borrowers who are underserved by the conventional mortgage market. The value of the property, determined by an appriaser, is a key component of their risk assessment when insuring a mortgage. To ensure that property values are determined according to FHA standards and that appraisers are in good standing with FHA and the broader appraisal industry, FHA maintains a roster of FHA-approved appraisers. Appraisers are added or removed from the roster based on standard procedures.
Reviewing applications for appraisers interested in being added to the roster can be a labor-intensive process that involves multiple data verification and integrity checks. These applications can easily get backed up during periods of high volume. Recently, FHA experienced such a period of high volume, and, as a result, the process of approving FHA appraisers accumulated a backlog that left them 6 months behind schedule. More than 7000 appraiser applications would require review, and thousands of phone calls from appraisers regarding the status of their applications required response. FHA immediately engaged Concentrance during this period to provide extensive personnel support. This included staff to receive, log, and process new applications, as well as to monitor a hotline voicemail set up for appraisers to voice their concerns and inquire on the status of their applications.
Approach
Concentrance quickly put together an experienced team of reviewers to provide on-site and off-site support. The Concentrance team minimized the application backlog by reviewing anywhere from 300 to nearly 2,500 applications each month, and providing on-going support with incoming application reviews and telephone calls, answering all calls with low turn-around time. Additionally, we leveraged our mortgage finance experience and expertise in FHA procedures, programs and technologies to resolve issues recorded on the hotline and assist appraisers with a transition to an automated appraisal roster system.
Outcome
As a result of our engagement with FHA in this process, FHA’s backlog has been brought up-to-date. In seven months, the Concentrance team reviewed nearly 9,000 appraiser applications and responded to nearly 2,000 telephone calls each month. As phone calls continued to come in, the response time decreased to less than 24 hours. Our work was motivated by the fact that FHA’s Appraiser roster is vital to ensuring that appraisers have in-depth knowledge of and remain up-to-date on policies and procedures for conducting FHA appraisals. Our work helped minimize the application review time and, as a result, enabled FHA to divert more resources to implementation and to development and transition to the automated process.