UWM rollouts include title policy alternative product

United Wholesale Mortgage is rolling out a product that will allow brokers to bypass their need for title insurance. 

Title Review and Closing, or TRAC, is one of three new and updated tools from the leading wholesale lender announced Saturday. The other offerings include UClose 3.0, an updated version of UWM's platform for hybrid and virtual closings, and Safe Check, which allows borrowers to get an appraisal waiver pre-check before submitting their loan. 

"These exclusive offerings will allow for a faster, cheaper and more efficient experience for all parties involved," said CEO Mat Ishbia in a press release. 

UWM under TRAC will review title and closing documents and check to make sure the title is clear, bypassing the need and expense of a lender title policy. The title documents will be ready in an average of 3-5 days, according to UWM. The firm will apply a loan level pricing adjustment of 20 basis points for refinances and 30 bps for purchase loans. 

The tool is available in most states, the company said, and it's not available for manufactured homes, home equity line of credit loans or select Freddie Mac products. 

TRAC becomes one of the industry's newest title insurance policy alternative products, after Fannie Mae in April said it would accept a written opinion from an attorney in lieu of a policy in limited circumstances. Freddie Mac already allows the alternatives in certain cases. The American Land Title Association, following Fannie's announcement, cautioned the industry about the risks of forgoing a policy.

The lender's UClose 3.0 is an upgrade to the prior version launched in 2018, and offers hybrid closings for all loan products. The full virtual closing is only available for conventional loans and is not permitted in 10 states, including remote online notarization holdouts California and Georgia. 

The Safe Check product allows borrowers to get an appraisal waiver pre-check before submitting a loan and uses a soft credit check to avoid trigger leads and the expenses of a full credit check on a borrower. 

The products are UWM's latest offerings in a bid to capture greater market share, after announcing in June Game On pricing, which shaves up to 1 percentage point across all of the lender's product types. Parent company UWM Holdings reported second quarter net earnings down 53% from the first quarter, and has yet to announce its third quarter earnings release date.