Situation:

A Berkshire Hathaway and Jefferies Financial Group company in the multi-family lending space was in the market for a “solid underwriting tool” that would provide their team with a more uniform underwriting system.  

The company had been using an outdated system and was looking for something that would allow their project managers to spend less time managing little problems and more time solving the big ones.  

Solution:

As part of LendingStandard’s beta testing group, the company quickly recognized the benefits of the intuitive platform, which reduces errors and increases efficiencies, to help their team of 20 to 25 underwriters successfully finalize more loans.  

As both teams continued working to make the features more personalized for the company’s needs, it became evident they were able to do more than just establish uniformity. The LendingStandard system created automations for the company’s process that weren’t there before. This prevented the confusion that had previously surrounded tasks and scheduling, and it kept the underwriters organized and on track to ensure no to-dos were left undone.  

“LendingStandard sends reminders to help get things done. That alone is worth using the platform; it saves a lot of man hours,” said the company’s Vice President of Underwriters. “Our loan committee can go in and review our underwriting narrative and add comments for everyone to see right there in LendingStandard, without downloading it and re-uploading it to the system.”

By minimizing the time spent on the minutiae of the details, workloads of more productive assignments actually increased—yielding greater progress and investment in the work itself.  

“I think the same number of people are probably able to handle a greater volume. And if we’re not handling a greater volume because of other business reasons, I think it’s definitely providing us with an advantage in terms of freeing up time for those difficult ‘big-brain’ tasks,” he continued. “LendingStandard gives us more time to do the stuff with heart.” 

Results:

While they may not be closing more loans just yet, the team has more time for something even more important—the time to rediscover the art of lending. 

“Instead of spending time grinding through financials and putting them in a spreadsheet – and just going through the process of actually creating an application to send to HUD – LendingStandard helps us with those tasks, making them more efficient,” the Vice President added. “Our people have more time for problem–solving.”  

In addition to more time for the “big brain” tasks and the ability to reconnect with the art of their practice, underwriters also got back an invaluable aspect of the business that can’t be measured: an improved quality of life.   

“I think people have more time to become comfortable with the things that are making them uncomfortable about any given deal,” he said. “And that’s important; I don’t think you can put a value on it because it’s absolutely critical, not only for our reputation as a company, but also the ability to give the people that work here some work–life balance.”