Best Efforts Commitment Option

The Best Efforts commitment option offers Sellers the ability to lock in a competitive price for a single Mortgage Loan, for a specific property and borrower(s), without incurring borrower-driven fallout risk.

Fallout occurs with respect to a Best Efforts commitment when a Seller cancels a commitment, when the commitment delivery due date lapses prior to the delivery of the Mortgage Loan to Pennymac, or when Pennymac rejects a Mortgage Loan due to failure to meet Pennymac guidelines or commitment terms.

If a Mortgage Loan closes, the respective commitment becomes a mandatory-delivery commitment and is subject to the pair-off policy. Please refer to Commitment Cancellation, and Pair-Off.

Pennymac recognizes exceptional circumstances and may waive the pair-off fee, at its sole discretion. For example, if a correspondent locks a Best Efforts commitment and subsequently determines the Mortgage Loan does not meet Pennymac eligibility requirements, or Pennymac rejects a delivered loan due to a guideline violation, Pennymac may elect to waive the pair-off fee if the client has not exhibited a systematic trend of locking loans outside of guidelines.

Note: Each Best Efforts commitment (i.e., lock, and relock, if applicable) counts toward a Seller’s fallout ratio. Pennymac actively monitors fallout and may suspend or terminate a Seller’s selling privilege if excessive fallout occurs.

The total price for each Mortgage Loan is comprised of the base price, loan-level price adjustment(s), and servicing release premium, each as noted on the applicable rate sheet. Each Mortgage Loan is subject to applicable fees in effect as of the commitment lock date/time, or as otherwise noted in the Guide.