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For this release, we anticipate the following introductions in your environments. Each entry below is linked to their specific update containing more information. Major features are documented in the Blend Knowledge Base accessible at Blend Help Center.
Announcements
(New) New Integration with The Work Number® by Equifax for Verification of Income and Employment
In late 2021/early 2022, Blend built and announced a new integration with The Work Number® by Equifax for Verification of Income and Employment. This new enhanced integration gives you access to additional Equifax mortgage income and employment verification services, in addition to other benefits. In order to access these additional services, you must migrate your current integration to the new one. Equifax will no longer offer support for the old integration effective December 1, 2022. Blend sent announcements about this to impacted customers in early 2022 via email, and most customers have already migrated to the new integration. If you have not migrated yet or have any questions, please reach out to your Blend Account Team and/or Blend Support (support@blend.com).
(New) Support for Freddie Mac’s Positive Cash Flow Analysis in Loan Product Advisor (LPA)
Freddie Mac announced an enhancement to their underwriting service, Loan Product Advisor (LPA), that would include a review of a borrower’s bank account data to identify a history of positive monthly cash flow activity as part of its technology’s loan purchase eligibility assessments. This feature is designed to increase home ownership opportunities for homebuyers. Blend is mentioned in the press release as an initial designated service provider, and we will be able to support this service when Freddie Mac begins offering it in LPA on November 6, 2022.
How to enable:
Lenders must use LPA, and must contact Blend to enable long asset history. If lenders already use LPA and have already enabled another Freddie Mac feature in Blend that relies on long asset history (e.g. the Rent Payment History feature), then there are no additional steps that Blend needs to take in order to initiate the Positive Cash Flow Analysis when running LPA.
For lenders who run LPA in their Blend environments:
In order to initiate the Positive Cash Flow Analysis, loan team members need to run LPA for the loan. Blend will include the asset report reference ID in the LPA submission automatically, and 12 months of the borrower’s asset data will be made available to Freddie Mac so that LPA can perform the analysis. Results will be delivered in the LPA feedback messages.
For lenders who use LPA outside of Blend:
If a lender has not set up Blend to submit to LPA and instead use a separate system (e.g. their LOS), loan team members will need to ensure they include the asset report reference ID in the LPA submission from the non-Blend system being used to run LPA.
This feature does not include any changes to the borrower or loan team workflows. If you would like to enable this feature, contact Blend Support or your Blend representative to enable long asset history and/or LPA in Blend, and/or contact your Freddie Mac representative to enable Positive Cash Flow Analysis in LPA. For more information about the Positive Cash Flow Analysis service, please refer to the Guide Bulletin or reach out to your Freddie Mac representative.
Maintenance Announcements
You can now find all maintenance announcements here. Subscribe to get updates.
OS Updates On the Production Mongo Cluster
Blend will be updating our production mongo clusters. The update is to keep us in line with security patches in the future. No downtime is expected during this change.
Services: Identity
(Updated 11/9) Email and SMS Notifications Database Migration
This was originally scheduled to occur on November 9th however it has been rescheduled for November 16th. Please see below for additional information.
Blend will be migrating our production database to improve scalability and performance. This will impact borrowers' ability to receive email as well as lenders’ ability to send them. Emails sent during this time will need to be resent after the maintenance is complete. Because this will impact automated notification emails for disclosures issued during the affected period, we suggest not issuing disclosures during the affected period or alerting borrowers to their disclosures through another method.
Expected downtime: 2 hours
Services: Email and SMS notifications
Releases to Preview Environments (Test/Dev/Beta)
(New) Ability to add the company address to the signature block for Pre-Approval Letters (PALs)
(New) Ability to add Loan Originator’s Title to the signature block for pre-approval letters (PALs)
(New) Now Available: Private Mortgage Insurance
(New) Updated MISMO handling of self-employment fields
Updated Loan Cost Worksheet Flow
Updated lender pre-approval letter workflow for borrower recipients
(New) Blend Sign for Custom eSign Follow-Ups
Releases to Production Environment (Prod)
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