Ellie Mae, a software and services provider for the mortgage industry, said Monday that it had donated its professional services to Acorn Housing, a national non-profit organization providing free housing counseling to low and moderate income homebuyers. Acorn also provides foreclosure prevention services to assist homeowners who are currently in default on their mortgages to renegotiate their programs with loan servicers. “Acorn Housing has a very aggressive goal of helping 25,000 low to moderate income individuals avoid foreclosure in the coming year–that’s more than six times the volume we’ve done in the past, and Encompass has really been the lynchpin in our ability to carry through with that initiative,” said Richard Hayes, director of strategic projects for Acorn Housing. Founded in 1987, Acorn Housing has been an Encompass Anywhere user for over a year and will be using Ellie Mae’s donated professional services to create a custom workflow that simplifies and streamlines its negotiation process when acting on behalf of homeowners with defaulted loans. Acorn can use the Encompass platform to perform credit checks, obtain title, order AVMs, and other functions tied to working with troubled borrowers. “Ellie Mae’s professional services will help us to customize Encompass Anywhere to automate many of the functions in the foreclosure prevention process,” Hayes said. “That will save us countless hours while ensuring consistency and raising accuracy across the board. In short, we’ll be able to help more people in less time.” It’s unclear if the partnership includes linking activities performed via Encompass to servicers’ systems of record for loss mitigation. “It’s great to be a part of Acorn Housing’s valiant efforts to assist so many homeowners who are in dire need of foreclosure prevention services,” said Sig Anderman, chief executive officer for Ellie Mae. “We are happy to do our part in helping homeowners who might otherwise be forced to lose their homes.” Ellie Mae’s Encompass LOS suite is one of the industry’s most used — the company says that its ePASS network handles roughly one-third of all mortgages originated each year. For more information, visit http://www.elliemae.com.

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