Positive Rent Payments
Reduce eligibility barriers with positive rent payment history
Available in Desktop Underwriter
For too long, lenders have been unable to easily consider first-time homeowners’ history of consistent rental payments when seeking to qualify them for mortgages.
Desktop Underwriter® (DU®) now uses asset report data to consider a borrower’s 12-month positive rent payment history. We believe this innovation will help more first-time homeowners qualify for a mortgage. Together, let's make more renters, homeowners.
You can identify a borrower’s rent payment history with an asset report.
Do you already use asset reports?
Making an Impact
Learn how Thrive Mortgage is helping first-time homebuyers ensure their rent payment history counts towards their mortgage evaluation.
Resources
DU Release Notes
Read the DU Version 11.0 September update release notes for more information.
- Educate the borrower about what the verification of asset (VOA) process is, how it works, and get borrower consent to order a VOA report.
- Enter the monthly rent payment amount in the loan application.
- Order a VOA report with 12-months of asset data from an authorized report supplier. Enter the Reference ID in DU and ensure that the rent payment amount entered aligns with the withdrawal amount(s) in the VOA report.
- Review the DU Findings messages to see if positive rent payment history has been considered.
- Identify opportunities where rent payment data could provide a more favorable recommendation by using the Fannie Mae Connect Report.
Pro Tip: DU will issue a message if ordering an asset report could improve the underwriting recommendation. So, if you didn’t order a VOA report and your casefile did not receive an Approve/Eligible recommendation, it’s easy to order a report and resubmit to DU.
Resources to talk to borrowers
Borrowers may have questions about asset validation. Here are some tips to proactively help:
- Share what validation is
- Discuss the process and how it works
- Assure them of the security measures your company has in place to protect their information
Here are resources to help with your conversations:
First step in helping qualify more homebuyers
In a recent sample of applicants who had not owned a home in the past three years and did not receive a favorable recommendation through Desktop Underwriter, 17% could have received an Approve/ Eligible recommendation if their rent payment history had been considered.