Paperless Florida Home Loan Future Looks Bright

The progress has been slow, but steady. Some day, buyers, you’ll be able to complete the entire Florida home loan process without leaving your desk chair.

The real estate industry has accomplished a great deal in the race to slash paper from mortgage deals, industry insiders say, but there’s still a long way to go. More big companies, trade groups and entrepreneurs are investing in technology platforms, back-end systems and software to automate the transactions, but most individuals are still closing Florida home loans the old-fashioned way.

“There’s only been a handful of complete e-mortgages done in limited trials,” said Brad Eaton, vice president of mortgage products at real estate technology company a la mode. “But there are more and more individual pieces being done.”

Examples of online Florida home loans

Eaton pointed to “hybrids,” or mortgages that incorporate some paperless and some electronic elements, as growing in popularity. For example, a Florida home loan could start out electronically, but when the loan package is delivered to the lender, “they could do an electronic closing,” Eaton said.

Harry Gardner, senior director of industry technology for the Mortgage Bankers Association, agreed that this would be the wave of the financial future:

“People are adopting it in pieces. The more pieces you can capture, the more streamlined you can make it, but if the application procedure was done by hand, for example, there’s nothing to stop you from entering it into a loan origination system and closing electronically,” he said.

More views on latest mortgage technology

Adoption of such paperless Florida mortgage loan procedures is proceeding little by little, experts say. One visible sign of progress is that both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are now accepting delivery of e-mortgages.

After mortgages are made, the original lender often resells them, and government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the largest secondary buyers in the country. If lenders are confident they can sell electronic Florida home loans to these mortgage giants, they are far more likely to embrace the approach.

Here’s another sign of progress: Stewart Title, a title insurance company has held a number of electronic closings, most recently teaming up June 6 and 7 with First Republic Mortgage Corp. and Trustcorp Mortgage Co. for three electronic closings using Stewart’s SureClose online transaction management system and eClosingRoom.

For the foreseeable future, paper and pens will still be required. But the day really may come where all mortgage decisions - such as applying for a Florida home improvement loan - will be made online.