Faster is often better -- but not always.

Modern technology has vastly shortened the time it takes to qualify for a mortgage and close on a home. The internet continues to streamline the real estate process with new programs that improve efficiency at a blistering rate. But there are still some real estate transactions where speed can cause an uncomfortable squeeze.

The need for speed is everywhere in real estate and finance these days. Quicken Loans’ Rocket Mortgage, for instance, advertises a loan approval in minutes. And the length of time houses are on the market gets shorter and shorter every year.

But does all that speed leave enough time for buyers to do what they need to do?

First, let’s look at the ever-shortening time spans.

According to real estate company Zillow, last year saw the fastest pace ever for house sales. A typical abode was on the market for just 81 days, with many markets coming in much quicker than that: 41 days in San Jose, for example, and 43 in San Francisco.

Ever-more sophisticated technology has helped speed things up, but the acceleration has mainly been caused by hyper-hot housing markets, where decent houses for sale are few and far between.

According to Zillow, “the fastest-selling month on record was June 2017, when the median valued home took 73 days to sell, including closing.”

“Tight inventory accounts for much of the crunch,” the firm reports. “The number of homes for sale has fallen on a year-over-year basis for 37 consecutive months, leaving fewer options for buyers -- which contributes to higher prices.”

Many people in the real estate business are happy that things are speeding up so rapidly. Jonathan Corr, president and chief executive of mortgage software firm Ellie Mae, thinks the efforts of tech firms like his may shrink homebuying timelines even more.

Zillow pegs the average homebuying transaction as taking four to six weeks from contract to closing, but Corr says it could soon be even faster. He notes, “If you’re a consumer, you want the process to be shorter.”

No doubt sellers and real estate professionals are happy to be getting their money quicker. And borrowers refinancing their loans want to see their transactions close ASAP so they can lower their rates or tap into their equity right away.

But what about folks who are selling one home and buying another? Or merging two households into one?

They can usually only move so fast, no matter how quickly the lender is ready to hand over the money. And if they can’t get everything done in time, everyone else is stuck in neutral.

Until technology vendors devise an electronic way to physically move possessions from one home to another, for example, buyers are going to have to make their moves the old-fashioned way. And that can take time. Atlas Van Lines, for instance, recommends allowing two months to execute a move properly.

The company’s list of the myriad details involved can be a little daunting. Its recommended tasks begin two months before moving day, and cover everything from measuring furniture to be sure it fits in the new place, to

turning utilities off in the old home and on in the new. You’ll also need to make arrangements for pets, get your deposit back if you’re a renter, and on and on.

In other words, most moves take time.

Still, technology doesn’t have to be the bad guy, squeezing you into an uncomfortably quick move, according to Joe Tyrrell, Ellie Mae’s executive vice president of corporate strategy. For one thing, it can help your lender be more efficient in ways that will benefit you.

Most lenders sell their loans off to investors in the secondary market, and the numerous investors who buy loans all tend to have different requirements. While that doesn’t seem to matter on the consumer side, buyers may be annoyed if they are required to fill out extra documents before closing because your lender switched to a different investor. But Ellie Mae, among others, has software that can remove that irritant.

Another Ellie Mae program makes for a more pleasant borrowing experience: It analyzes applicants’ behavior and predicts when they are most likely to initiate contact with their lenders. That way, lenders can make sure they are available at those particular times.

“This lifts (borrower) confidence, and fewer loans fall out of the pipeline,” Tyrrell says. “There are plenty of competitors in the mortgage space. If it’s not high-tech, people will go someplace else.”

-- Freelance writer Mark Fogarty contributed to this report.

Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped “save” more than 68,000 borrowers from foreclosure in this year’s first quarter by modifying their loans so the payments are more affordable.

That brings their total foreclosure preventions to more than 4.1 million, and drops the two companies’ rate of seriously delinquent homeowners to 1.1 percent as of the end of March, according to government reports. Hey, you can’t help everybody.

But according to another report from a well-respected real estate analyst, you sometimes can’t even help those you’ve already helped. That’s not a riddle. Rather, it describes the rate of recidivism, or the folks who lose their homes anyway, no matter how much assistance they are given.

An investigation by analyst Keith Jurow found “compelling evidence that a large and growing percentage” of owners are re-defaulting on their loans.

“Once, twice, even three times,” he said. “The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that modifications, as an alternative to foreclosures, have been a massive failure.”

Jurow told me in an interview that “the numbers are mind-boggling.” Consider these figures, which he offered in his column in the “Advisor Perspectives” newsletter:

In the last half of 2012, 24 percent of borrowers who received a loan-mod from Fannie Mae had re-defaulted within a year. By last year’s fourth quarter, 37 percent had re-defaulted. Even worse, 30 percent who received a modification in 2017 re-defaulted within 90 days. Ninety days!

Hope Now, a consortium of government-approved counseling agents -- companies that service home loans, investors and other mortgage market participants -- counts a total of 8.4 million mortgage modifications since 2007. This includes mods made under the federal HAMP modification program begun in 2009, proprietary mods made directly by lenders, and Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s own mod programs.

In most cases, permanent changes to an original mortgage are made by reducing the interest rate, stretching the loan term, adding unpaid interest to the principal still owed or reducing the amount owed. In other instances, temporary changes such as a reduction or deferment of the scheduled payment are made until the borrower gets back on his or her financial feet.

Because the temporary solutions don’t change the terms of the original loan, they are not reported under regular modification data. However, under the heading “other workout plans,” Hope Now says there have been 16.4 million temporary mods.

In all cases, all borrowers who have received a modification are considered current. Thus, the delinquency and foreclosure figures reported by trade groups and the government are highly misleading.

Loan-mods were seen as a critical part of the solution to help troubled borrowers avoid losing their homes. “If millions of delinquent mortgages could be modified, this would drastically reduce the number of homes that would have to be repossessed,” says Jurow.

But the result was far different, he says. Instead of solving the problem, it only “succeeded in artificially pushing up home prices and fooling everyone into thinking that the worst is over.”

Here’s what Jurow calls “the really shocking number”: By 2015, one-third of new loan-mods were on mortgages previously modified and whose borrowers had defaulted again. And the problem is not limited to Fannie Mae, which the analyst says is carrying $144 billion worth of mortgages it believes are uncollectible.

A 2014 review of loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) found that nearly 3.3 million had been modified. But about 57 percent of those borrowers had already re-defaulted, according to Jurow’s report. Another review found that of the FHA loans that had been modified, nearly 60 percent re-defaulted within 36 months.

“The FHA default rate is the worst,” Jurow said.

Some of the nation’s largest banks are in the same boat. At Bank of America, the re-default rate on “troubled debt restructurings” is 45 percent. At PNC, it’s 57 percent. At Wells Fargo, it’s 35 percent.

These and other lenders, loan servicers and Fannie and Freddie “have been able to pull off this charade because hardly anyone knows how bad the re-default situation really is,” Jurow said. “Even mortgage pros don’t really know that there is a problem. How could they? The re-default numbers ... have been buried where few people can find them.”

“It’s hard to get good data,” he said. “They hide it. I really had to dig.”

Jurow’s worrisome analysis is meant to be a warning to mortgage investors and their advisers, who he says “don’t have a clue.”

“There’s only one plausible conclusion we can draw from these worsening numbers,” he says. “Mortgage modification has failed as a solution to the mortgage delinquency problem. Millions of borrowers continue to become delinquent regardless of their financial situation.”

But there’s a message here for borrowers, too: When considering a modification, make reasonably sure that you can fix your financial situation and avoid getting into trouble again. Otherwise, you are only delaying the inevitable. And it could cost you dearly.

For the rest of us, beware. The market in your area may not be as strong as you suspect.

The foreclosure crisis has not gone away. Eventually, lenders and investors have to come down on these serial defaulters.

They haven’t yet, Jurow speculates, because there are so many of them that it could throw the housing sector into another free-fall. But if and when they do, it could impact the value of your own home.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is going to end badly,” the analyst said. “It’s like a ticking time bomb. Sooner or later it’s going to explode. You can only kick the can down the road for so long.”

Appraisals are sometimes a big issue for buyers and sellers. Never mind that there’s a shortage of journeymen appraisers, which is why it sometimes takes weeks to obtain a valuation. That alone is a major headache. But the main problem is that no matter what the buyer is willing to pay, it’s the appraisal on which the lender bases its decision about how much to lend.

If the valuation comes in too far below what the buyers have offered, they either have to come up with more cash to make up the difference, or the sellers have to lower the amount they’re willing to accept. In today’s market, where there’s no shortage of buyers willing to pay above the asking price, the onus usually falls on the buyer to make good or step aside for the next guy.

There’s nothing anyone can do about that. But at least the process is likely to become more consumer-friendly -- and possibly even less expensive -- under a couple of initiatives put forth recently by two big appraisal-management companies. Both aim to override the shortage of appraisers and lessen the time it takes to learn what the appraiser thinks the “subject property” is worth.

In one instance, Computershare Property Solutions is offering lenders a hybrid type of appraisal in which the valuator never visits the property. Instead, a licensed realty broker or home inspector gives the house a look-see, takes pictures and reports findings to a desk-bound, state licensed appraiser, who uses that information and an automated valuation system to come up with a number.

This type of bifurcated system has been in use for some time by lenders making home equity loans, but it is new to financing used to buy a house, says CPS President James Smith. And he thinks it will be successful because it addresses the lack of experienced appraisers, the high cost of appraisals and the long lead-time between doing the work and handing in a complete report.

“Brokers and inspectors know the property,” so they can present an accurate picture of its condition, Smith says. And while appraisers never see the property, they “can do more work and get more done” by staying glued to their computers.

“At the end of the day,” the finished, hybrid product is “still an appraisal,” he adds -- one that can be turned around in four or five days, as opposed to several weeks for a traditional valuation. And at a much lower cost: $145 as opposed to several hundred dollars.

Meanwhile, HomeBase from Valuation Partners is a link that provides everyone in the process -- the buyer, seller, realty agent, appraiser and lender -- a single, central point of contact so they can remain informed 24/7.

For the seller, it sets the appointment and provides all the pertinent information about the estimator, including a photo, automobile information and appraisal license number. And for both seller and buyer, an educational component informs them about what to expect when the appraiser shows up.

CEO William Fall expects the product to help speed up the long, drawn-out valuation process. “With the seller’s and appraiser’s schedules being what they are, it can be difficult to set up appointments,” says Fall. “But when you know when the appraiser will be there, you can say with almost absolute certainty when his report will be turned in.”

Houses sold faster last year than they ever have, according to Zillow.

Median time on the market, from listing to closing, was just 81 days. But June sales occurred quicker still: in a mere 73 days.

Since it often takes 30 days to get to the settlement table from the day a contract is signed, that means houses sold in roughly 51 days last year, or less than two full months. Of course, some listings languish for months, but others sell within a few days.

Many people move from one house to another to enroll their children in better schools. But that often means paying more for their new digs.

Consider two similar houses: They’re just two miles apart, and in the same Cincinnati neighborhood, but each is located in a different school district. One is valued at $137 per square foot; the other, $217, according to a white paper by Collateral Analytics, a firm that develops analytical tools to support banks and investors.

That’s a difference of 58 percent. The biggest driver, the company’s analysis found, is the quality of education at the schools the residents of those houses would attend.

In Cincinnati, the part of town covered in the report has two high schools. One earns an 8 out of 10 from greatschools.org, and a 10 for college readiness. The other, just a couple miles away in another school district, gets an overall rating of 3, and a 3 for college readiness.

Differences like this can sometimes be magnified at the grade-school level. In Mission Viejo, California, the other locale covered in the study, researchers found a whopping $300,000 spread among nine different elementary schools.

Another report, this one from the National Bureau of Economic Research, seems to solidify Collateral Analytics’ numbers. That report, “Using Market Valuation to Assess Public School Spending,” found that communities’ investment in their schools has a direct impact on property values.

For every additional dollar spent in state aid per pupil, it said, house values jump by about $20.

“A better education means a certain type of school,” says Tom O’Grady of Pro Teck Valuation Services, an appraisal management company. “But a certain type of school may end up meaning a pricier home.”