Analytics Expedite Mortgage Reports

Founded in2004 in Kansas, TruHome is a mortgage banking Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) that provides a full range of private-label services to credit unions throughout the country. It enables credit unions that lack the resources to originate and service mortgages to extend those products to their members under their own private label.

When TruHome found that databases and manual reporting took up too much time, they looked for a solution and found it in Sisense. Having the analytics aspect linked directly to the data and accessible in a web portal makes it possible for them to find necessary information in just minutes, something that helped them effectively reach out mortgage holders affected by recent disasters to direct them to resources and extend a grace period for payment.

Tony Gandini, TruHome’s director of Mortgage Servicing, explained mortgage products entail high costs and exacting regulatory requirements that could be beyond the reach of smaller credit unions. “Even larger ones don’t want to invest in platforms to originate and service loans,” he added, due to the “large monetary investment” and documentation required.

That’s where their service comes in. They have about 40,000 loans in their servicing portfolio, according to Gandini. That entails a great deal of data that Gandini recalls having to get to through Crystal Reports, which entailed building queries and extracting data based on filter requirements.

“I had to manually do that over and over again based on whatever exception we were looking for,” he said. Getting the reporting done for all the groups as well as the “one off requests for the 45 clients” that required it entailed so much manual work that they were considering hiring two reporting people for support.

The BI and Analytics Solution

Instead, they opted for a BI and analytics solution. Once they put Sisense in place, they didn’t need to hire additional staff. The program’s dashboard eliminates the need for such manual inputs to get reports. That means no more “hunting and pecking for those exceptions” when preparing exception reports, Gandini says. Sisense it makes it easy to find whatever information is required.

Gandini says that Sisense was their analytics solution of choice because of its ease of use. “We’re not a large company,” he explained, meaning, they “don’t have unlimited IT and database resources.” That’s why the needed something that is easy to “manage without assistance from an IT or database group.” Siesense makes it possible for them to maintain the requisite databases without having to put in a dedicated IT person to handle it.

He also appreciates that Sisense users have their own forum in which they discuss problems and solutions, and offer direction for product enhancements. He finds that Sisense is responsive to those ideas. It also offers them options for development, though for the three years of use, they have not had to go beyond what’s included in their annual fee.

TruHome has Sisense installed on a remote server off-site. Users can access the dashboards they need through the web portal. After Hurricane Harvey struck Texas, and Irma struck Texas, and then wildfires ravaged California, TruHome was able to use Sisense to build reports and identify those homeowners affected in mere hours – a process that used to take days — and get in touch with them.

Gandini confirmed that there were about 3,300 affected in all, most from Harvey. TruHome identified them to put late charge and credit reporting stops on and get out disaster assistance team to reach out to members affected. That included getting them connected with their insurance companies and with government aid sources like FEMA.

After a claim is filed, TruHome acts as a “conduit between them and insurance companies,”‘ to help expedite the process for the homeowners, something that they do for any loss of property, Gandini explained. If the homeowner is affected monetarily, they can be put in forbearance, which grants them 90 days without payments, and can be extended under extenuating circumstances.

For the homeowner affected, having the right information made available can help ease the pain of recovering from a disaster. That’s where analytics can make a positive difference.

Ariella Brown