Grabbing consumers during their home search can help you keep them through the process
Realtors can be a gold mine for originators. Imagine how much more freedom you’d have, however, if you didn’t need to rely on them for business.
If you can get to the customer first, you’ve got a leg up, and that’s what Nexgen HB, a full-service business development and technology company, offers their loan officers and lenders. Through a national MLS called HomeScout, Nexgen offers originators and lenders a way to reach customers prior to the point of sale by getting involved in the home search process and, by extension, reach them in their “private ecosystem.”
“Think about the role reversal: being able to incubate a consumer to a point of being able to throw them back out to a listing agent, and how that can be an opportunity to grow a new relationship, to re-leverage and grow an existing relationship at a deeper level, that’s always what we’re after,” said Greg Bollinger, business development manager at Nexgen HBM.
Even though homebuyers often start the homebuying process with a realtor, research shows that a majority of potential buyers begin searching online before they even decide to contact a realtor. Reaching them in this moment and having them essentially become your customer first means that you are then able to offer that client to a realtor, which is something that most other originators aren’t able to offer.
Bollinger says that Nexgen HBM has had more than 4 million homebuyers on our HomeScout platform, which results in a “tremendous” amount of data. The company is using this data to go deep into mind – and buying habits – of the consumer.
“We have a pilot going that with 80% confidence we can tell when someone is going to actually purchase a home, and we’re going to have some data analytics that are going to be available for agents and loan officers that’s going to deepen that. Right now we have a lot of data available but we’ll have that paired with some confidence of when people are actually going to purchase – that’s going to be a game changer.”
In addition to being able to bring them clients, realtor partners also like the speed at which these deals are closed. And depending on how much effort an originator puts in, a recent Nextgen HBM study found that using HomeScount can increase conversion rates by 5-15%, Bollinger said, adding that they also did a study with one of their national accounts that found the speed to close on a transaction when a consumer is using HomeScout is 11% faster.
“That’s another month of cash flow in today’s market, and that’s huge,” Bollinger said.
Nexgen HBM has another product, The Sold Home Alert, which is an automated drip campaign that goes out to an originator’s sphere of influence to let them know what homes and properties in their neighborhood have most recently sold for. Bollinger said it’s a great way to follow up with clients and leverage listing appointments for agents, and might also serve to make more homes available for sale.
“There’s so many pre-approved buyers sitting in pipelines right now because of low inventory. But if we had a higher inventory right now, the crush on the industry would be a lot less. Everything’s kind of coming to this precipice, but I think we have the products and tools that will help generate inventory in the marketplace by having consumers be confident in the value of their home,” Bollinger said.
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