Our January spotlight of the month goes to Mike Goodman, Senior Software Engineer, Technical Lead. The spotlight recognizes Mike’s commitment to Brace Software’s Engineering Success. He talked to us about how Brace has contributed to his professional growth as well as his impact on Brace.

What is your position and what does that entail? *

I’m a senior backend engineer and technical lead. That means I get to plan, build, and work on a lot of the fun backend systems we have here (like our APIs and loss mitigation rules engine) and to enable everyone else to do the same. …

Our December spotlight of the month goes to Alice Erickson, Director of Finance and Accounting. The spotlight recognizes Alice’s commitment to Brace Software’s Financial and Business Success. She talked to us about how Brace has contributed to her professional growth as well as her impact on Brace.

What is your position and what does that entail?

I’m the Director of Finance & Accounting. I’m both the Head of Finance and the Controller, which means I manage almost everything related to money and financial analytics at Brace.

Tell me about your career before joining Brace and how you ended up here.

I started out in public accounting before getting my MBA from UCLA. …

Background

When Congress passed the CARES Act in March 2020, it allowed borrowers of “federally backed” mortgages to ask for a six-month payment forbearance. To date, nearly 7% of outstanding mortgages are now in forbearance versus only 0.25% of loans in forbearance in early March. This number is only expected to increase as more and more Americans file for unemployment and apply for financial assistance. As this crisis unfolds, we see a tidal wave of work in the future for servicers and the need to adopt technology enabled solutions will be crucial.

As a reminder, a forbearance:

Is a temporary postponement of mortgage payments. It is given to a borrower who is facing a short term hardship. The missed monthly mortgage payments are always expected to be paid back at some point in the future, either through a full reinstatement of the loan (a lump-sum payment of missed payments) or through a repayment plan, or through other means. Furthermore, the servicer is obligated to review the borrower’s full financial position at the end of the forbearance period for a “permanent loss mitigation solution.” …

Banks, lenders, and mortgage servicers are seeing a flood of requests for mortgage payment relief. Average hold times for some of the largest mortgage companies are between three and four hours, according to estimates by Digital Risk as reported by the WSJ. For those customers in dire need of having their payments paused, help cannot come soon enough.

When assistance finally comes, the confusion starts. Banks’ and servicers’ borrower-facing communications are full of legalese and industry terminology, and many of them do not take the time to explain the short-term and long-term options for a borrower in an understandable manner. What is a forbearance, anyway? Companies are throwing this word around like everyone knows what it means. In essence, payments are paused for a period of time, including principal, interest, taxes and insurance. There are no penalties tacked on for having these payments paused and there is no negative impact to your credit report, as you will not be marked as late on your mortgage. …

What makes you unique in the space? Brace is the first platform aimed at bringing the broader, end-to-end mortgage servicing suite into the 21st Century. Starting with loss mitigation, we’re building software to systematically replace the outmoded, largely paper-based, and legacy systems status quo. We’re building technology with frameworks that have only become available in the last few years — applying lessons from origination and drawing further expertise from well beyond the traditional confines of the mortgage industry.

What this has allowed us to do is something novel, but necessary: design a product that keeps in mind the interest of each stakeholder in the mortgage lifecycle — creating better borrower experiences, better servicing and compliance workflows, and better investor outcomes. …