Joe Wilson's Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog

Overall satisfaction among mortgage customers has declined to 739 on a 1,000-point scale, down 18 index points from 757 in 2008, as a result of tighter underwriting standards and longer turnaround times. The average time required to approve and close a loan has increased to nearly 47 days, compared with approximately 30 days in 2008, primarily due to increased scrutiny of loan applications and higher origination volumes driven by increases in refinancing. This increase in turnaround time has a considerable impact on satisfaction, as satisfaction averages only 723 when the time from application to approval takes six or more days, compared with 798 when the process takes less than six days. Similarly, satisfaction drops from 772 to 736 when the time from approval to closing takes 14 or more days.

In addition, lending criteria has tightened, as the study finds that credit scores are higher among mortgage customers and the percentage of loan applicants who have been faced with requests for additional documentation has increased considerably to 45 percent in 2009 from 33 percent in 2008.