How MoXi Can Help You Own In Mexico

[TRANSCRIPTION]

Alex (00:03):

Hi, I am Alex Koper. Very excited to have our very special guest today on, and that's April Carroll who heads up our technology team at MoXi. April. Thank you so much for being here today. Really pleased to have you. And you've been part of the MoXi team for going on two years now, right?

April (00:22):

Almost, yes.

Alex (00:23):

Awesome. Well, we're very happy to have you, and I know you work behind the scenes with your team on behalf of our customers on a regular basis, and you probably don't get a chance to tell the whole world what it is that you do. That helps us. So talk to our listeners or viewers if you don't mind, for just a couple minutes about you and your team and your work at MoXi.

April (00:51):

So I'm April. I've been in the mortgage IT business for 12 years now. This was my first experience with doing stuff with the foreign properties and stuff. I've had a lot of fun with it. There's a lot of opportunities to be creative and build things that have never existed before, and I think that's one of my favorite things is just coming up with all the new ideas.

Alex (01:13):

Yeah, absolutely. And what are some of those new ideas that you have contemplated and then actually taken into production that help our customers?

April (01:25):

Well, I've created a flow in a system that was designed to originate United States loans. So we've completely revamped it, hacked it, made it completely custom, and now it works for us and it streamlines the entire process from start to finish.

Alex (01:38):

And what are some of the advantages? That's terrific. What are some of the advantages of leveraging or building MoXi's technology on the rails of a US mortgage origination system?

April (01:52):

It makes it so everything seems familiar to the borrower despite being different. It makes the whole foreign transaction seem a lot less foreign. So when you take things that people are used to seeing and just replace them with the things that are relevant to us, it makes everything just more transparent and easier to follow when going through the process.

Alex (02:11):

Nice. And how about security, like data security as it relates to sensitive financial information when clients are or real estate partners are interacting with MoXi digitally,

April (02:24):

We only allow loan documents to be uploaded through our secure portal. We will not accept documents sent via plain email, and we let our borrowers know that that is not an option.

Alex (02:35):

So safety and security, as far as data is concerned is really paramount at MoXi it sounds like. And it sounds like perhaps that's another element of the work that you and your team do from a systems perspective is ensuring the security and safety of borrower information and making sure that clients have access to those kinds of secure systems. Is that right? Okay. Talk to us a little bit about the borrower portal that you mentioned. What is that and how do clients of MoXi interact with the borrower portal?

April (03:11):

Borrower portal is a website that you go to upload all of your documents securely. The loan officer or MA will request the documents from our loan system. The request will go to your portal and you'll be provided with different buckets, so to speak, to upload your loan documents too.

Alex (03:31):

Nice. And so underwriting conditions would appear in that portal as well, generally, right.

April (03:37):

Related documents or documents that require signatures also go through the bar portal as well.

Alex (03:42):

Nice. So really start to finish. You can interact with MoXi digitally and in a secure way, but also kind of have that complimented by the service of the mortgage advisor or the client concierge on the MoXi team. Is that right? Great. Okay. So MoXi's committed to customers to have kind of a no surprises mentality, and I know that's something that you and your team really focus on each and every day. Talk to us a little bit about how you and your team work and build technology to help our customers have no surprises when it comes to their transaction.

April (04:30):

We've integrated a bunch of borrower communications into our system, so when an item it has been received or something's happening, an email will go out automatically to the borrower letting them know of the updates. We've also created some documents that disclose fee information like the estimated cash to close and a CD closing disclosure.

Alex (04:53):

So provide

April (04:54):

Full breakdown of what's been paid, what's owed at closing, the fee amounts, a full breakdown of the loan information, stuff like that.

Alex (05:03):

Very cool. And how often does an estimated cash to close or closing disclosure or the document talking about estimated cash to close what's been paid, what still needs to be paid? How often does that typically go out to a client?

April (05:17):

Typically they're being sent every two weeks or so, but if we have a major change in the fee amounts, we'll send that out sooner so the borrowers aware of any major impact to their cash to close them out.

Alex (05:29):

That's awesome. I think it really is a terrific example of MoXi's commitment to transparency for sure, as well as no surprises. So there really are no surprises when you get to the closing table, you know, all along what's being done on the loan. I know that many of our clients might not know this, but a loan file or a borrower or client moves through various different milestones in the process. And these milestones you and your team have built out to support MoXi's business specifically and to help our customers. Can you talk a little bit about the communications that happen internally as it relates to some of those milestones?

April (06:16):

So once a milestone in our system is completed, an email go out to the next loan team member and let them know that the file's ready to be worked on, and this sort of eliminates the risk of files just sitting there and getting lost.

Alex (06:30):

April, what are you most proud of your work so far at MoXi and provide us the information, but also tell us all about it.

April (06:40):

I've spent the last 18 months going through building out workflows, building out automations, making everything start to finish, so everything loan related is contained in that one L o s system. And I think that's been the biggest, my proudest accomplishment.

Alex (06:55):

That's amazing. That's amazing. And talk to us a little bit about some of the differences that are specific to Latin America or Mexico from a systems perspective that you had to code and create to ensure that our clients and our team members at MoXi have an error free experience from a loan origination standpoint,

April (07:23):

All of the closing documents, every closing document for loans in Mexico, they're completely different from the us. So I created forms in the l o s that will allow our team to automatically generate those documents using data that's pulled from the loan file. So that eliminates user error when it comes to manually entering data. It's data that's been entered into the file and used throughout the process. Along with that, I had to create some very custom fields to accommodate things like our dates because of the date format in the United States is different than what's in Mexico. I've created fields that translate data from English to Spanish to generate properly on those Spanish loan documents, stuff like that.

Alex (08:12):

That's amazing. So what is the date format in Mexico? I know this is a big one. How is it different than the United States people might not know?

April (08:20):

So we have month, day, year in the United States and in Mexico it's swapped. So it's day, month, year, and those fields don't exist in the United States version of the system. So that was another thing we kind of created just for us, which is pretty cool.

Alex (08:37):

So it's kind of interesting, right? MoXi makes loans in US dollars, but the loans are secured by property in Mexico, which is on a different currency. Mexican pesos. I know you and your team have done a lot of work behind the scenes in coding our loan origination software to be able to accommodate some of those items. Talk to us a little bit about some of those fields or some of those areas where input needs to go in and Mexican paces and come out in US dollars or vice versa.

April (09:12):

We have it built out. We have a whole special form for properties that have the purchase contract in pesos. What our team member will do is just enter in the pesos amount, it will work some magic in the backend using some custom formulas, and it will spit out the value in US dollars.

Alex (09:29):

Nice. And that takes into consideration the date as well? Right of the agreement?

April (09:36):

The team member will enter in the date from the exchange rate and they will go on and enter in the amount for that specific date because it fluctuates constantly. So we want to make sure that the exchange rate we're using in the file is the date that's on the purchase contract.

Alex (09:52):

Nice.

April (09:53):

And then we have other items that the exchange rate doesn't get finalized until closing, and we have an automatic daily update where the exchange rate for the day will automatically pull in and calculate those values based on what the rate is at this point in time.

Alex (10:09):

Switching gears a little bit to talk about the estimated cash to close worksheet, the closing disclosure, some of the documents that are automatically generated for clients, so they're kept informed throughout the loan process. Talk a little bit about the work that you've done to estimate amounts of cost for third party things like hazard insurance, for example, or transfer tax, some of those kinds of items that really have the ability to significantly impact the amount of cash to close on a foreigner purchase transaction, but might not be known yet.

April (10:47):

I worked with the team and we looked at the historical data for hundreds of loans. We pulled out those values, we made charts, we looked for trends, and then from there we just used the information that we found to do a best guess estimate.

Alex (11:04):

So it sounds like you've established based in market area, for example, a Notario fee for a property of a specific purchase price. And when we generate an estimate of cash to close and we don't have the final vendor invoice, the estimate is probably more accurate than a very long or wide range as far as percentages go. Does that sound about right?

April (11:32):

We spend a lot of time on that so we could be certain that we were giving the best estimate as possible.

Alex (11:38):

When you think about how, from a technology perspective and the work that you and your team do every day, how does that set MoXi apart from another lender or lending option when a foreigner's considering a purchase transaction or a refinance or a cash out refinance transaction, how does your team's work set MoXi apart?

April (12:03):

I feel like it sets us apart because our main focus is being completely transparent, no surprises. We work that into everything that we build and we make that our main focus.

Alex (12:14):

And April, what's on the horizon from a technology perspective for you and your team for MoXi, for the remaining part of 2023 and into 2024? What is your team working on from a technology standpoint that will better serve our customers and our business partners?

April (12:33):

We're working on building out a new borrower portal, easier to access for our borrowers. There'll be less issues for those that are trying to upload things from other countries outside the United States. It'd be a place to e-sign documents, upload documents. Eventually you'll be able to pay your loan fees on there so it'll be all integrated into one spot.

Alex (12:54):

And many people might not know that when the loan closes or the transaction closes, clients get their keys and disbursements are made to in a purchase transaction, the seller and other third parties, the work doesn't really stop there for MoXi. From your perspective, talk a little bit about some of the items that you and your team have put together to help facilitate that process that extends for months after the closing date, and again goes to help clients ensure security of the transaction.

April (13:36):

We've built out tracking for our post-closing department so they can track the status of the recorded deeds and the other remaining documents that are lingering post-closing. We've built in automation so they can click a button and automatically follow up on the status of those items.

Alex (13:52):

That's terrific. That was really good. There's

April (13:54):

Recording too, so they can pull a report and see at a glance all of the files and what's left or what's remaining, what's pending. We also have some reporting for the 10 90 eights as well.

Alex (14:08):

So April, throughout the loan process, it's necessary for the MoXi team to have conversations and or exchange information with external third parties. For example, outside legal counsel as an example. And I know you and your team have worked really hard to ensure that that can happen in a secure environment. Talk to us a little bit about how MoXi works with its legal vendor. As an example, inside of kind of the same system,

April (14:39):

We've built out a special workflow just for our legal vendor. We granted them access to our system, so they're always working directly in the file. Your information never leaves the file once it's uploaded, it's never sent in an email to anybody. It's always contained in our secure loan system.

Alex (14:58):

Terrific.

Speaker 3 (14:58):

Thank you.

Alex (14:59):

Periodically, I have an opportunity to talk to various different people in the local community and various different MoXi team members and feature for all of you, our viewers, various different aspects of some of these complexities and some of the work that the MoXi team does to make the process as seamless, as secure and as fun as is possible. So hope you enjoy. Today's guest had an opportunity to talk with April Carroll, who heads up our technology team. It's a really important part of our offering at MoXi, and really important in keeping transaction secure and safe, but also keeping clients, foreigners, buyers in particular, informed throughout the entire transaction in a language that they can really understand and with a process that they are accustomed to when getting a mortgage in the United States. So hope you enjoy our chat today. Thanks so much for watching and we'll talk to you soon. Bye for now.