MortgageRamp, a majority-owned subsidiary of GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corp., has unveiled Aurora, a suite of web-based products designed to automate all phases of the commercial mortgage-loan process.

The product contains four integrated modules: origination and packaging (designed for mortgage brokers, mortgage bankers and other employees of large financial institutions) and underwriting and closing/delivery. The two front-end modules will be the focus of this review.

Loans can be originated over the web or in-house. The web-origination module boasts Propertyfirst.com and ACB (America's Community Bankers) among its clients, is branded with the client firm's logo and colors and is integrated into the client's website.

To launch the loan-request process, the borrower or broker submits a form to select the desired loan (e.g.: equity or mezzanine financing). In return they receive an assortment of soft quotes from various lenders pre-selected by the financial institution or other Aurora buyer. The borrower can then fill out more detailed information to obtain a hard quote from one of the lenders.

All of this information is entered only once, according to chief technology officer Ken Beyer. "From the day the borrower initiates the loan until the day the lender gets a check in the mail to pay it, there's no data that must be re-keyed," he says.

Data collected during origination is automatically transferred into the packaging module, which includes a preliminary underwriting component that calculates LTV and DSCR. The packaging module also allows for input of operating statements, rent rolls and borrower information.

After packaging is complete, the loan request is submitted to a lender for approval. Several modes of delivery are available, including print output, online delivery, or export to Excel.

Even if brokers don't originate deals over the Internet, the loan-request process works in much the same way. These users initiate the process in-house using an Aurora component called Deal Central that contains origination and packaging components. What differs is that Deal Central doesn't access Aurora's pricing engine, which calculates the soft quotes, so the loan request must be submitted before quotes are given.

Web-origination clients also have access to Deal Central. In addition to loan sizing and packaging features, Deal Central contains a pipeline-management feature, which tracks the progress of loan requests through the system, and a feature that generates customized reports using data entered in loan requests.

"You can see summary trends by reporting on this data," says Beyer. "You can see that multifamily deals in a certain region and a certain range typically don't make it and so avoid spending so much time originating those deals."

The main strength of the front end of this system would seem to be its capacity to create one generic application electronically, eliminating the time and cost involved in preparing paperwork for submission to multiple lenders. "This software brought us down from 90-day closings to 10-day closings," Beyer claims. Additional value comes in the ability to mine data from past transactions and track loan requests throughout the approval process.

Aurora's user interface is detailed without being distracting, and the software is easy to use. Data appeared to flow properly between forms, and there were no system crashes or major flaws apparent. The current version of the software is not Mac compatible, but Beyer says that a Mac version will be released June 30.

The ability of this product to manage the loan process from start to finish would seem to be a significant asset in an industry cluttered with software products that address only certain aspects of complicated processes. If the sometimes techno phobic real estate community is willing to rely on an automated system to process major deals, we may see increased productivity for brokers and an end to long closing times for commercial loans.

MortgageRamp recently received a second round of financing totaling $50 million. With 14 minority investors including Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Fannie Mae, Allied Capital, S&P and Moody's, the firm seems poised for success. "If we do nothing else but investor business, the company is very successful," states executive managing director Edward Finkenstaedt.