HomeVision is led by co-founder Jeff Foster, who previously worked for Credit Suisse, Apollo Global Management And black stone. He also served in US Treasury Department during the recovery of the real estate market.
The technology company already provides the mortgage industry with an AI-powered collateral underwriting tool, known as MIRA, which Newrez has been using for six months. The technology reads documents and makes decisions on standardized tasks, enabling subscribers focus on exceptions and more complex elements of each loan file.
“Their investment accelerates our ability to move beyond collateral review and provide more intelligent, scalable underwriting solutions throughout the mortgage origination process,” Foster said in a statement.
New platform
Under the new partnership, the companies plan to expand the platform into additional underwriting components, including income, assets and credit. The goal is to reduce origination costs, improve accuracy, and enable borrowers to make faster underwriting decisions.
Baron Silversteinpresident of Newrez, said in an interview with Housing wire that the technology will be designed to help lenders better deal with the volatility of the mortgage market.
“We hope this will provide significant benefits for us, not only in making our existing team members more efficient, but also in providing flexible capacity.”
Deployment of the new platform is expected to begin in 2026, and HomeVision will provide additional tools over the next 18 months.
Silverstein said the platform would initially focus on more standardized and commodified mortgages before expanding to more complex products, including loans in the unqualified mortgage (non-QM).
Buy or build
At Newrez, the technology will first be deployed in direct lending channels – retail branches and call centers – before expanding to wholesale and correspondent channels. Human underwriters will continue to play a critical role in the process, Silverstein added.
“We still think we’re going to take market share“said Silverstein. “I don’t expect we will have significant staff reductions to implement this. I think it’s going to make our existing workforce much more efficient.
HomeVision will also market the platform to other lenders, a factor that influenced Newrez’s decision to take a minority stake in the company.
Newrez invests heavily in proprietary technologies, notably in its H2O origination platform and in its Servicing Director division to interview operations. The company employs approximately 400 technology professionals among its 6,000 employees.
But the lender plans to pursue other partnerships in the future. With so many AI tools available, Silverstein said the company will consider what it should build or buy — decisions to be made on a case-by-case basis.