Twenty-two years ago, when he was chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, Doug Duncan was tapped to lead the effort to create a truly electronic mortgage, one that would start online at the application stage and end at recordation in the local courthouse without ever being touched by human hands.

Today, Duncan has moved on to Fannie Mae, where he holds the same chief economist post. But as far as online mortgages are concerned, not much has changed. “We’re closer today than we’ve ever been,” Duncan says. “But only a handful of true e-loans have been closed to date.”

Dan McGrew of Pavaso, a digital closing platform, figures some 6,000-10,000 e-loans have been completed in just the last two years. That’s still just a drop in the proverbial bucket when you consider that more than 6.6 million home loans were written in 2017 alone, according to data from the MBA.

But digital lending is coming, the dozen or so mortgage professionals and vendors interviewed for this column agree. It’s just a matter of time.

“It’s going to be like getting a car loan; there’s no reason you can’t do that with a mortgage,” offers Joe Langer of Blue Sage Solutions, a cloud-based digital lending platform. He describes the future mortgage this way: Would-be borrowers will log on, input basic information and the system will auto-populate an application. Then the system will interconnect with other programs to pull in such key information as income, tax returns, liabilities and assets.

Based on that and other data, the program will tell you how much you can afford and explain your various loan options. Once you make your choice, it will make sure your specific loan fits into the lender’s investor requirements.

“It will be a 1-2-3 process,” Langer says. “You’ll go from application to close in a matter of hours.”

What’s driving the change? First and foremost, there’s the ever-present motivation to increase efficiencies and save money. Lenders earned just $480 on each loan they made in last year’s third quarter, according to the MBA’s latest figures.

The past several years have been “challenging” for bank profitability, says the MBA’s Marina Walsh in something of an understatement.

Homebuyers, particularly younger ones, also are pushing for speed. In a recent survey by Elle Mae, a popular loan origination system used by some 2,300 lenders, some 3,000 people who had just purchased a house were asked what they would change about the lending process. The No. 1 answer: Make it go faster.

“They want to know why they can buy a $125,000 car in 2.5 hours, but it takes six weeks to buy a $125,000 house,” says Joe Tyrell of Elle Mae.

There are still roadblocks, though. One is the mortgage business itself, which has been slow in adopting digitization. Another is well-meaning federal and state regulators who put rules into place to protect consumers that make it more difficult for lenders to automate. And a third rests with the country’s 3,100 or so county courthouses, many of which still record liens by hand.

“The industry needs to be where consumers want to be,” says Gagan Sharma of BSI Financial, which administers mortgages on behalf of lenders and their investors. “I don’t believe consumers are the bottleneck. If anything, they are what’s bringing the industry along.”

To make it happen, regulators have to get on board, adds Langer of Blue Sage. “While they have the interests of consumers in mind, some of the requirements we’ve seen in recent years have added to the complexity. ... It’s hindered our ability to provide faster service.”

To have a truly electronic mortgage, though, the note must be closed, delivered and recorded automatically. And when you are dealing with state-by-state rules, says William Decker of MAXEX, a business-to-business loan exchange platform, that could prove the toughest hurdle of all.

“The closing is the most difficult step to scale,” Decker believes. “And then all those counties have to weigh in. Ninety-nine percent of all loans are still physically delivered to the county courthouse for recordation. They’re making progress, but it’s taking a long time.”

Pavaso’s McGrew predicts that 2019 “will see the fastest technology growth the mortgage business has ever seen.” And in 10 years, he offers, paper will be a thing of the past. “There will be no paperwork involved whatsoever,” he says.

Despite the accelerated pace toward digitization of the entire mortgage process, from application to close to recordation, there will always be a need for loan officers, perhaps not to take an application and gather all the supporting documents, as they do now, but in more of an advisory role for would-be borrowers who want or need some hand-holding.

The result, then, will be similar to the trend in the real estate sector, where consumers now go online to find a house and engage an agent later in the process to take care of all the legal details.

“Consumers are going to want choice,” says BSI Financial’s Sharma, who believes that down the road, the mortgage business will look much like the financial brokerage business. “There will be online loan platforms as well as traditional loan agents, each serving a different market; one for those who don’t want to speak to anyone -- nor do they need to -- and the other for those who want to sit down with an adviser in front of them and talk.”

At this time of year, it’s always fun to look ahead to what might be; in our case, what new houses might look like in the future.

Unfortunately, no one has a crystal ball that can predict exactly how much bigger or smaller newly constructed houses will be or what will be inside. But the folks at Porch, a website that connects homeowners with professional repairmen and remodelers, have taken a shot at it.

They analyzed current and projected trends to predict what houses of the future will be like as far off as 2036. But for our purposes here, we’ll concentrate on what they think new houses will look like in 2026, just eight short years from now.

Some of Porch’s predictions seem to be off the mark, perhaps by a wide margin. Others are quite surprising. Despite the current trend for building smaller houses to combat the affordability crisis, for example, Porch boldly suggests that houses will grow larger, not slim down further, with more bedrooms and baths.

According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the average house in last year’s third quarter declined to 2,495 square feet. And the National Association of Home Builders says house sizes have been falling for the last three years as builders add more entry-level houses to their product mix.

But the Porch report asks: “Why have less when you could have more?”

Using Census Bureau data from 2016 as its baseline, Porch reckons that houses will be more than 200 square feet larger on average in 2026. That’s the equivalent of two rooms, 10-by-10 feet each.

All this will happen, Porch prognosticators suggest, on smaller and smaller lots, from an average of nearly 31,000 square feet in 2016 to 28,000 in 2026 and 2,050 in 2036.

One of the trends that is driving up house sizes is the number of bedrooms and baths.

Houses with two or fewer bedrooms are expected to continue to decline to only about 10 percent of all new construction in eight years, while those with three bedrooms will fall to about 39 percent. Even at that, three-bedroom abodes will still be predominant.

The rest of the new houses built in 2026 will be four bedrooms or more, Porch predicts. Nearly 37 percent of all new houses will have four bedrooms by 2026. But those with five sleeping rooms will account for more than 14 percent, a 3.6 percentage point increase from 2016.

Meanwhile, houses with a single bathroom are heading for oblivion. Two baths will continue to dominate, but they, too, will be fewer and fewer, according to Porch’s predictions. In 2026, only half of the newly built houses will have two bathrooms. The rest will have either three or four, but mostly three.

Garages will be larger in the future, Porch suggests. Only 7 percent of new homes in 2026 will have a one-car garage, while 60 percent will have room for two vehicles and 25 percent will hold three. About 8 percent won’t have a garage at all.

After a brief increase over the last decade, the number of single-story homes will decline, but just slightly over the next eight years, the report indicates. At the same time, two-story production will grow, but again, ever so slightly.

What’s all this going to cost? Porch weighs in on that, too. In 2016, it says, the average price for a 2,600-square-foot house was $198,000. In 2026, the average cost of a slightly larger 2,700-square-foot house will be $252,000, a jump of $54,000.

As Porch sees it, decks are on their way out, replaced by patios and the iconic piece of American architecture, the front porch. Ditto for fireplaces, which won’t be found in 60 percent of new construction in 2026. (Here, the report considers a fireplace as a source of heat, not for its romantic quality, which is why most people want them.)

Still, there’s more to what goes into a home than space and rooms, the report notes. “The house of the future could be more energy efficient and durable and incorporate exciting advances in automated technology.”

Along those lines, it points out, giant home builder Lennar, already pre-wiring its houses for Wi-Fi compatibility, has taken smart home technology to the next level by building Alexa, Amazon’s smart digital assistant, into all its new production. And California has mandated that solar panels be placed on every new house built within its borders.

(Next week: Future Financing)

To get a sense of how Uncle Sam misallocates its scarce housing assistance dollars, look no further than the differences between the Fed’s Section 8 program for low-income renters and the mortgage interest deduction claimed by buyers who finance their homes.

According to data gleaned from government sources by Apartment List, an online marketplace for renters, the mortgage interest write-off in 2015 “cost” the Treasury some $71 billion in revenue it did not collect. That’s more than double the $29.9 billion set aside for funding Sec. 8, which is usually administered through local housing authorities.

Furthermore, high-income households claim $60.6 billion, or roughly 85 percent, of the total interest deduction, and middle-income taxpayers claim $6.2 billion, or about 9 percent. Only a measly $4.2 billion is claimed by low-income taxpayers.

The Section 8 Program offers tenant-based assistance. Participants find their own housing to rent in the open market, and pay a portion of their income toward rent. The local housing authority covers the rest with Sec. 8 funds from the federal government.

Only 11 percent of low-income households, three out of four of whom are cost burdened, get help with their rents from Uncle Sam, while more than half of all high-income families claim the mortgage interest write-off.

On a dollar-to-dollar basis, Apartment List says federal housing assistance averaged $1,549 for high earners but only $416 for low-income folks.

The average cost of child care has reached a point where it is nearly equal to the U.S. median rent, according to research from HotPads, a website linking renters to properties.

The typical cost of child care is $1,385 a month, whereas the median rent is $1,500 in the 48 metropolitan areas studied. But in 12 of those regions, child care costs exceed monthly rents.

In relatively inexpensive Pittsburgh, for example, you can expect to pay $225 a month more than your rent to have someone take care of your kids. You’ll pay a lot more in rent in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but child care still runs about half your rent in those spots.

About half the seniors who complete government-mandated counseling to obtain a federally insured reverse mortgage -- aka Home Equity Conversion Mortgage -- go no further, according to Ibis Software, which tracks HECM counseling sessions.

The main reason most folks decide against taking out a reverse loan: They are not thrilled with how much money they’ll actually receive, according to Reverse Mortgage Daily, an online trade publication.

The appraisal may come in lower than expected, meaning applicants won’t get as much as they anticipated. Also, fees and closing costs may be too high, eating into the proceeds.

Shortages of houses for sale are starting to ease in some places. But if you’re looking for a spot where there are plenty of choices, look no further than the South Florida county of Miami-Dade.

More than 14,275 condo units are formally listed for sale there, and that doesn’t include the nearly 47,500 brand-new units currently in the development pipeline east of Interstate 95 in the tri-county region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, according to the latest figures from Condo Vultures Realty.

Based on the current sales pace in Miami-Dade, it will take 15 months to sell off what’s listed right now. A balanced market is considered six months’ worth of supply.

One reason for the inflated inventory: Inflated pricing.

In the first nine months of 2018, the average transaction price of a sold Miami-Dade condo was about $433,814, or $314 per square foot, Condo Vultures reports. But the average asking price of a still-listed apartment is about $989,550, or $554 per foot. That’s a whopping 128 percent higher than the typical price achieved between January and September of this year.

Anyone who tells you you need to have a 20 percent down payment doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. Many loan programs out there call for only a 3 percent down payment, and some even allow for someone to contribute to that amount on your behalf.

Nevertheless, if 20 percent is your unnecessary goal, it will take 7.2 years to save enough to buy a median-priced house, according to research economists at Zillow. That’s an increase of 1.5 years from 30 years ago. And that’s even if your rate of savings matched that of buyers three decades ago.