Become part of the future of the mortgage industry with Fannie Mae’s Day 1 Certainty™. Launched in 2016, Day 1 Certainty brings together advances in technology and the availability of big data to enable lenders to simplify the way they originate mortgages, helping them grow their business and meet market demands. It provides lenders with fully integrated online tools to validate key data about borrower income, assets, and employment, as well as streamlining the appraisal process. That means lenders can deliver more loans faster without sacrificing quality, allowing them to lend with confidence to qualified borrowers and provide borrowers with a better customer experience. It also means greater certainty that when a lender sells a loan to Fannie Mae, it stays sold.
Day 1 Certainty makes the process of originating loans faster and more efficient by automating some steps and reducing paper dependency. Both advances help lenders meet borrowers’ increasingly high expectations for ease and speed in the mortgage experience.
Why Adopt Day 1 Certainty?
Since data standardization became a priority, the industry has struggled to efficiently produce superior quality data within a paper-heavy process. After much trial and error, the solution to these struggles is not only possible, but readily available with Day 1 Certainty.
Making the mortgage origination process easier and more efficient has come down to four elements: accuracy, digitization, simplicity, and automation. Over the past seven years, technology and processes have emerged that can ensure better data quality across platforms — which improves accuracy of critical information, in turn generating superior quality loans. Superior data quality also makes it easier for lenders to digitize and simplify certain processes, to the point that they can automate numerous tasks — reducing manual labor and enhancing the efficiency of the origination process.
Day 1 Certainty leverages these advances by allowing lenders to use independent third party data to verify application information early in the mortgage process.
The resulting streamlined loan process also improves the borrower experience: Obtaining income, employment, and asset information from verified vendors may eliminate the need for duplicate documents and verifications, so loan officers don't have to ask borrowers to submit information multiple times during the application process.
Even better: Lenders enjoy freedom from representations and warranties on key loan components, helping them confidently underwrite loans faster and easier.
Get to Know Day 1 Certainty
Three components come together to give lenders confidence in loans processed with Day 1 Certainty:
Desktop Underwriter® (DU®) validation service releases lenders from paper-based processes by validating income, assets, and employment through approved third-party data vendors. In addition, lenders are offered rep and warrant relief on validated components. Lenders who have already tried the DU validation service have reported significantly more efficient business processes: loans with at least one component validated closed (on average) eight to ten days faster than loans without validation, saving meaningful time for their loan processors and underwriters and lowering origination costs.
Property Inspection Waiver (PIW): A shorter origination process benefits lenders and borrowers. With a PIW, an offer to waive the appraisal for eligible transactions, borrowers may also save money. A PIW provides a no-cost alternative to an appraisal, while eliminating appraisal-related delays. Lenders who exercise a PIW will find that they may be able to shave days off the loan origination process and can also take comfort in rep & warrant relief for property value, condition, and marketability.
Certainty on Appraisal Value through Collateral Underwriter® (CU™): Harnessing the power of CU analytics and a database of more than 26 million appraisals, lenders can streamline their review process on approximately 60% of appraisals submitted to CU. With a CU risk score of 2.5 or lower, the appraisal is eligible for freedom from reps and warrants on the property value. The lender remains responsible for verifying property eligibility and the description of the subject property.
Day 1 Certainty has the power to transform the borrower experience and your business — and represents the future of the mortgage industry. To learn more about how you can put this powerful suite of capabilities to work for your business, visit
