MCLEAN, VA--(Marketwired - Apr 6, 2016) - Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) announced plans with Hope LoanPort® (HLP) to launch a new collaboration platform that will modernize the housing counseling industry so counselors can spend more time helping potential borrowers and less time on administrative tasks.
Today's announcement marks the first step toward connecting Freddie Mac's Borrower Help Centers and Borrower Help Network on a voluntary basis to a comprehensive, secure platform that non-profit housing agencies can use to share information and interact with lenders to help more families become successful borrowers. This new initiative is being designed to help non-profit agencies reduce costs, assist more clients, and assert the housing counselors' role as a critical bridge linking lenders and future homeowners.
"Our Borrower Help Centers and Network are on the housing industry's front lines, working with families in local communities. This strategic investment underscores our commitment to help housing counselors prepare more borrowers for sustainable homeownership. It also further demonstrates our conviction that HUD-approved counseling agencies are a very important gateway to homeownership for America's families today," said Danny Gardner, vice president of Affordable Lending and Access to Credit, Freddie Mac.
Freddie Mac's 13 Borrower Help Centers are HUD-approved non-profit counseling agencies located in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New York, and the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Borrowers can meet with housing counselors at the Borrower Help Centers in person or by telephone. The national Freddie Mac Borrower Help Network (877-300-4179) assists homeowners by telephone who do not live near a Borrower Help Center.
Connecting Counselors to Platform is Key to Helping More Borrowers
The keystone of the Freddie Mac modernization initiative is a dedicated software-as-a-service-(SaaS) based platform that will provide the participating Borrower Help Centers with new tools to work with consumers, connect with lenders and share sensitive data in a secure environment. By allowing all of the parties to work together more transparently, the platform can help reduce technology requirements, lower costs, and enable counselors to spend more time working with potential borrowers.
The rollout will begin by connecting counseling agency case management systems with the platform to streamline and automate several key processes, such as collecting, analyzing and reporting client data, assessing client readiness to buy a home, and referring clients who are ready for successful homeownership to lenders, seamlessly.