Special Report: Servicing Software Update.(Brief Article)

Last year, lenders managed to originate an estimated $2.5 trillion in home loans - some experts put the figure closer to $2.7 trillion - with only a modest increase in staffing. Just to put that in perspective, before 1998, annual lending volume had only exceeded $1 trillion once - during the 1993 refinancing boom, when the industry just surpassed the trillion-dollar mark.

The 2002 boom in lending kept originators busy, but they handled the volume in large measure because they had technology to help them do more and do it faster and cheaper than in the past. But loan officers were not the only ones busy last year.

Servicers saw record portfolio churning. That meant loan boarding and loan payoff activities were running at a pace far exceeding the normal average. And at the same time, rising delinquencies and defaults, byproducts of an anemic economy, kept credit counselors working overtime as well. In short, 2002 was a messy ...