Jim Morrison
I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time talking to people about TRID in the last year. I learned what it was supposed to do, what it all means, what people were doing (or not doing) to prepare for it. Now that the industry has been operating under the new rules for nine months and gone through the busy spring season, I think we can say how it all turned out.
From the perspective of the boots-on-the-ground people who work in real estate, it seems to have turned out very well. Conveyancing attorneys, real estate agents and loan originators all tell me that despite all the dire predictions, they’ve seen very few TRID-related delays.
The nightmare scenario where sellers had their entire lives in a moving van en route to the home they were about to buy when suddenly their closing was delayed three days? As far as I can tell, it hasn’t happened (yet).
So it was much ado about nothing? Another Y2K? Not quite.
There was more than a year of preparation, especially on the part of lenders and conveyancing attorneys, that went into making the October 2015 TRID implementation go relatively smoothly. Heavy investment in technology and training seems to have made the difference. And the CFPB delaying the start date so it coincided with a slow time in the market cycle didn’t hurt.
In fact, lenders tell me they can still close loans just as quickly as they did in the pre-TRID era. Most have no problem closing most loans in 30 days or less.
True, we’re still in the early stages, and the CFPB said it is relaxing the enforcement of minor errors for now, so there is uncertainty what future enforcement will ultimately look like – but it looks all that preparation paid off.
