March 2023 Loan Selling Advisor Enhancements
We’ve got more Loan Selling Advisor® enhancements to share with you, including updates that can enrich your loan delivery process to help increase your efficiency and capacity to sell and deliver more loans. Here’s what’s available now and coming soon.
NOW LIVE
Retirement of Old HMDA Data Points
Effective February 27, for newly unallocated loans, the “Old” format for the following three Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset (ULDD) datapoints, is no longer accepted and clients must use the “New” format:
Old Format | New Format | MISMO v3.0 Definition | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Sort ID | MISMO v3.0 Data Point Name | Sort ID | MISMO v3.0 Data Point Name |
|
608 | GenderType | 608.3 | HMDAGenderType | The borrower’s or interviewer’s statement about the borrower’s gender. |
609 | HMDAEthnicityType | 609.1 | No Change | The borrower’s or interviewer’s statement about the borrower’s ethnicity as defined in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. |
610 | HMDARaceType | 610.5 | No Change | The borrower’s or interviewer’s statement about the borrower’s race as defined in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Up to 5 Race Types may be included per borrower. |
The retirement of these three Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data points (ULDD Sort IDs 608, 609 and 610) and replacement with the new datapoints (ULDD Sort IDs 608.3, 609.1 and 610.5) was outlined in the ULDD Phase 3 documentation which included the following Implementation Note: This data point will not be supported after May 2019.
Visit the ULDD FAQs Q30 for more details.
Loan Selling Advisor Client Testing Now Available for Credit Fee Updates
Beginning February 15, our Loan Selling Advisor Production Baseline UAT Client Test Environment (CTE) was updated to allow clients to test their interfaces with the Export Guarantor Rate Sheet XML Format Interface Specification or Pricing APIs, Credit Fee in Price request type. Users may also take out test contracts and allocate sample loans to the contract to view the fee details assessed under the new Credit Fees framework.
This CTE is in response to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) news release issued on January 19 announcing additional changes to our pricing framework which include new base grids based on loan purpose type, new Debt-to-Income Ratio >40% credit fees and updated fee rates and fee assessment criteria for certain existing credit fees. The new credit fees and credit fee changes are effective for settlement dates on or after May 1. Learn more about these changes by reviewing our Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide (Guide) Bulletin 2023-1 and redesigned Exhibit-19 Credit Fees.
If you’d like to test your integrations before the new fees become effective, please reach out to your Freddie Mac representative to obtain access to our Production Baseline Client Test Environment (CTE) and our prepared loan samples.
Want to know, prior to delivery, if a loan may be eligible for a credit fee cap, as defined in Exhibit 19A, Credit Fee Cap Eligibility Criteria? We’ve developed a new, map-based Area Median Income and Property Eligibility Tool. The tool returns information, including area median income (AMI) limits, to help you assess if a borrower meets the AMI% requirements and qualifies for certain loan products.
Correspondent XChange – Operational Bifurcation Agreement Added to the Guide
To provide greater transparency, Guide Bulletin 2023-6 introduced a new Exhibit 29, Correspondent XChange® Operational Bifurcation Multi-Party Agreement, for interested Sellers. The agreement is effective March 1 for new Correspondent XChange Sellers and May 3 for existing Correspondent XChange Sellers.
Correspondent XChange is one of the executions available under Servicing-Released XChange®, Freddie Mac’s suite of executions that provides market liquidity for Servicing Contract Rights. This helps participating Sellers easily transfer Servicing to an approved Servicer.
Please reach out to your Freddie Mac representative or the Customer Support Contact Center (800-FREDDIE) for more details on this update and more about how to take advantage of Correspondent XChange.
We Need Your Feedback: Loan Selling Advisor Q1 Client Survey
We know you’re busy, but we need your input to help make Loan Selling Advisor (LSA) better for you and your team. As an experienced Loan Selling Advisor user, you’re the expert we need to hear from.
Click here to take the Loan Selling Advisor Q1 Client Survey. It’ll just take a few minutes to tell us what you like, what your pain points are and what things you would like to see added to enhance your Loan Selling Advisor experience. Your responses will be completely anonymous unless you request a follow-up.
We’d love to hear how we can improve our tools to meet your needs.
COMING SOON
Improved Menu Options and Online Help Features for Loan Selling Advisor Users
Beginning March 13, we’re renaming the “Data Sets” main menu option in Loan Selling Advisor to “Export Data” for more intuitive and action-oriented navigation options.
We’ll be adding even more improvements to navigation functions in Online Help to reduce time scrolling and searching for context specific help.
March Digital Certificate Renewals for Selling API Integrations
Effective March 19, we’re renewing the digital certificates for our system-to-system (S2S) application programming interface (API)-based integrations (including the Selling APIs) in our production environment. Industry standard best practices recommend we renew our digital certificates annually. To make this process as seamless as possible for all users, we align all our digital certificate renewals at the same time each year. Please click here for the certificates.
Impacted production URLs include:
- lassvcs.freddiemac.com
- ewebsvcs.freddiemac.com
- api.freddiemac.com
Which integrations are impacted?
- Any lender using a S2S interface to one of the impacted production URLs implemented with a one-way SSL not hosted by a software partner.
Any integrated partner (lender or software provider) that has built to Freddie Mac applications AND implemented a one-way SSL.
Please review these updates with your information technology or information security administrators to determine if your organization is impacted. Contact the Customer Support Contact Center (800-FREDDIE) for more information.
March 18-19 Extended Maintenance Window for Loan Selling Advisor Production Environment
The Loan Selling Advisor production environment will undergo planned maintenance the weekend of March 18 - 19. During this time, all of Loan Selling Advisor process and functions will be unavailable. We highly recommend you do not process loan delivery records during the maintenance window. Loan Selling Advisor’s welcome page will be updated with be updated with reminder messages.
We are continually looking for ways to make your interactions with our systems as easy and secure as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Users may always check the Single-Family Technology page for the most recent system status information for Loan Selling Advisor.
Critical Edits for Sales Concessions and Purchase Price Amount
Effective April 3, a new “Warning” message will be added to Loan Selling Advisor for loans originated using Loan Product Advisor® (LPASM). The message will enforce the existing Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide (Guide) requirements in Section 5105.5 (b), Sales concessions and Section 6302.5, Loan data required for all Mortgages. Guide Bulletin 2022-7 included a reminder that for ULDD Data Point Purchase Price Amount (Sort ID 195), you must enter the purchase price amount of the property net of any adjustments made for sales concessions.
In September 2023, we’ll update the “Warning” to a “Critical” message, preventing loans from being delivered when there is a discrepancy between LPA and Loan Selling Advisor data. We encourage you to update your processes and systems to to meet all delivery requirements in advance of this update.
While our Guide requirements apply to all loans, the “Warning” and “Critical” messages will only apply when you’re delivering loans that were submitted to LPA.
Loan Quality Advisor and the Post Fund Data Correction tool will be updated to reflect new messages later this year.
Need more help? Check out the ULDD webpage for technical resources and delivery requirements or contact the Customer Support Contact Center (800-FREDDIE) and select the “Loan Delivery” option.
New $275,000 Low Loan Balance (LLB) Cash Specified Payup
Later this spring we’re introducing a new cash-specified payup type for 30-year fixed rate mortgages when you sell for cash using our mandatory or best efforts contract options. These options will soon be available when you generate a Cash Rate Sheet or take out a Mandatory Cash contract and when you submit a request through our Cash Pricing API or Cash Committing API. The new cash-specified payup type and eligible products are shown below.
Cash-Specified Payup Type | 30-Year Fixed Rate | 15-Year Fixed Rate |
---|---|---|
Max LLB <= 275,000 | YES | NO |
Loan Selling Advisor’s Online Help and other cash-specified payup resources will be updated soon to reflect the new cash-specified pay up type:
- Sell for Cash
- Cash Specified Payups Overview
- Sell and Deliver Mortgages with Specified Characteristics to Freddie Mac
- Cash Specified Payup FAQs
- Import Cash Contract Specification & Sample Files (.cvs or .xml)
Related Documentation in the Developer Portal for the Selling APIs: Cash Pricing and Cash Committing
For questions and further assistance, please email: [email protected], contact your Freddie Mac representative or call our Customer Support Contact Center (800-FREDDIE).
Updated AIM for Direct Deposit Delivery Requirements
Effective June 1, as announced in Guide Bulletin 2023-6 ,we are streamlining our loan delivery requirements, and are no longer requiring the delivery of value “H85” for ULDD Data Point Investor Feature Identifier (IFI) (Sort ID 368) for loans leveraging asset and income modeler (AIM) using account data (direct deposits)
On the effective date, Loan Selling Advisor will be updated to prevent IFI “H85” from being delivered. You must update your systems by this date; however, you are encouraged to implement this change immediately. The applicable Loan Product Advisor feedback message will also be retired on June 1, 2023.
Reach out to your Freddie Mac representative and/or approved software partner for more information on this and other ULDD loan delivery requirements.