Battle Fatigue and Rusty Skills (On the Road‪)‬

Advising a panel audience at the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) Annual Convention in San Diego that they may be losing sight of the "forest for the trees," Stephen F.J. Ornstein, partner with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP, who works from the firm's Washington, D.C., offices, said, "One of the things we're losing sight of is that there are a lot of laws that have been enacted that would have drawn a lot of attention three or four years ago, and they haven't [now] because the secondary market hasn't been buying loans." However, there is going to be more attention paid to compliance with these particular laws, he suggested, adding that, as a result, "underwriting [becomes] so important that I'm reluctant to advise people to completely outsource it without [first] understanding it." Ornstein noted that long-time use of automated underwriting systems, "where you input the data and get an answer," has "atrophied a certain number of [those underwriting] skills. People have to be able to look at pay stubs, income, tax returns and [other] obligations," rather than solely relying upon automated services to do so, according to Ornstein.