Weststar Mortgage Leverages Mortgage Builder’s Software to Compete with Banking Giants

Diversified, independent regional mortgage banking firm finds Mortgage Builder LOS the essential key to “doing it all.”

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Southfield, MI, Februar 7, 2011 – A generation ago, finding a mid-sized mortgage banker that serviced its own loans and originated a broad range of products wasn‟t all that difficult, but the intervening years have seen an era of specialization and more narrowly focused offerings – unless you work at Albuquerque-based Weststar Mortgage. Weststar does it all, including small commercial real estate loans, private investor notes, construction financing, a full line of residential loans, and the company has over $1 billion in its own servicing portfolio. Founded in 1983 as a servicer, Weststar uses its own proprietary software to handle servicing tasks, but was having difficulty finding the right loan origination software (LOS) system to provide the robust functions it needed until it found Mortgage Builder, a leading LOS provider based in Southfield, Michigan. The way Weststar sees it, having the right LOS is a key factor in staying competitive during an era when huge banks are dominating the mortgage industry and seemingly have branches on every street corner in America.

Ryan Grandi, Weststar‟s senior vice president of mortgage originations, started off at Westar‟s servicing department with a summer job processing payments and later joined the firm full time as a loan officer. Along the way to becoming a senior officer of the company, he discovered that technology was the key to competing in Weststar‟s markets, and optimizing the field offices in New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Florida, Alaska, Missouri and Oregon would be far more difficult without the right origination platform. “We do so many things to diversify our revenue stream, we needed a system with great flexibility and customization potential,” he says. “We tried a web-based LOS that showed well, but just didn‟t give us the horsepower we needed,” Grandi explains. “It looked like a Ferrari onscreen, but it functioned as if it had a hamster on a wheel under the hood. We needed a robust answer, so I started asking our vendor partners about the best systems available. Fortunately,” he says, “I found Mortgage Builder on everyone‟s list.”

With business lines including commercial lending, manufactured homes, note purchasing and interim construction financing, Weststar‟s residential mortgage operation had to run like a top, both for their own production and for their correspondent lending channel. “In addition to government and conventional loans, we issue our own Ginnie Mae securities and we buy closed loans from community banks that prefer not to sell to the mega-banks,” Grandi says. “They know they‟ll lose depositors if they sell their loans to one of the banking giants, so we‟re a safe alternative for them. Thanks to our Mortgage Builder system, we‟re able to offer service that consistently outperforms the largest banks for both our retail borrowers and our correspondent business,” he notes. “That‟s critical because it lets us continue providing the many products we offer and keep service levels high.” Without the right loan origination software, Grandi says it is very difficult to keep the company as integrated as it needs to be. “Mortgage Builder has all the back-end functionality we need in addition to keeping the origination part of the process integrated, with all of our vendor partners included and the FHA Connection built in,” he says, which is particularly important since the majority of Weststar‟s originations involve FHA programs. “Like Mortgage Builder, we‟ve always been FHA oriented, including during the years when FHA lost popularity to non-prime conventional financing. It‟s like the country song – both our companies were „country when country wasn‟t cool.‟ Now, everyone is doing FHA,” he observes, “Like Weststar, Mortgage Builder was ready, and they were among the very first to offer the time-saving direct connection to HUD.”

Weststar had another unusual challenge when it made the decision to implement Mortgage Builder – the RESPA Good Faith Estimate form was changing at the beginning of 2010, and the company‟s existing system didn‟t support the change. “We signed the contract in September and we got functional in three months, thanks to Mortgage Builder‟s team,” he recalls. “Their training and integration process made the difference. I found them always willing and always available, showing they knew what it takes when you‟re up against the largest banking institutions in the nation,” Grandi says. “The people you talk to really know the mortgage business well, too, not just the technology.” He adds that after a year of using Mortgage Builder, they are still finding ways to make the system even more productive for Weststar‟s unique business model. “We‟re working on more automated workflow notifications when events happen, leveraging the reporting capabilities for secondary marketing and Ginnie Mae trading, and many other things Mortgage Builder makes possible,” he notes. “If it‟s part of mortgage banking, they have a component to make it easier.”

“Weststar Mortgage is a rare breed,” says Mortgage Builder CEO Keven Smith. “They have offices in the East, but they capture the authentic rugged individuality of the Old West, offering a broad range of services and performing them all well, regardless of the obstacles. We‟re very gratified to be part of the Weststar success story, and will continue to ensure they benefit from Mortgage Builder‟s award-winning capabilities as they grow, compete and thrive.”

About Mortgage Builder
Southfield, Michigan-based Mortgage Builder Software, Inc. has been providing industry-leading loan origination software (LOS) to mortgage banks, community banks, credit unions and other financial institutions since 1997. Mortgage Builder was the first LOS to provide its full capabilities in Application Service Provider (ASP) form, as Software as a Service (SaaS), and in the traditional licensed, server-based configuration, providing complete flexibility to suit all clients‟ business models. Mortgage Builder is an end-to-end, “everything‟s integrated” lending solution for both retail and wholesale mortgage production channels, automating origination, closing, post-closing, delivery, tracking and reporting functions. Essential enhancements like pricing and product eligibility (PPE), electronic document management (EDM) and electronic loan delivery functionality are built-in and available on demand, while compliant loan documents are provided at no additional cost. The company has been named by Mortgage Technology Magazine as one of the industry‟s Top 50 Service Providers for the fourth consecutive year, and was the winner of the magazine‟s prestigious 2008/2009 Help Desk Award for outstanding customer service and the industry‟s best technical support. Mortgage Builder is also a proud member of the Lenders One cooperative, the nation‟s third largest retail mortgage originator, and is the cooperative‟s sole LOS vendor partner. For more information, visit www.MortgageBuilder.com.