The mortgage industry and the role of originators has been transformed – but there are ways to keep pace
The COVID pandemic inadvertently transformed the mortgage industry and the job of originators – forcing them to rely on technology and automated solutions.
Even before COVID, brokers had increasingly been experiencing the ‘Amazon effect’, with borrowers demanding greater efficiency and faster closing cycles.
Now, an upcoming webinar will explain what loan officers can do to get the most out of the technology they are already using to close even faster.
Find out more: Attend the Freddie Mac webinar on outperforming your competition
But just using technology isn’t enough to separate yourself from the competition. David Fulford, Vice President, Lender Strategy and Integration at Freddie Mac, said reporting and metrics were essential tools for assessing the level of success of a loan process.
“It’s important to track both successes and failures, as both can teach you a lot,” he said.
He cited one of the key advantages of leveraging technology - reducing the risk of loan fallout, which can often be a result of using antiquated manual processes when originating a loan.
“When you can use source data, instead of paper documents, to quickly assess a borrower’s options and make more informed prequalification decisions, you greatly reduce fallout,” he said.
But technology is more than just a processing tool. As the market is pushed to further rely on technology, industry experts are having to reconsider ways of harnessing the full potential of digital mortgage systems, so that lenders can provide borrowers with even speedier solutions for the loan origination process.
“There are too many apps, and it can be confusing for a customer to know which one to use. At some point there has to be more integration of technology between businesses, or I could see customers getting overwhelmed and just choosing to call the lender or go to their website,” Fulford stressed.
He highlighted some of the more common errors being made with digital solutions on the origination side that could potentially put customers off.
“Companies have to make sure the experience is consistent between mobile, web, and phone. If each channel looks and feels different, customers can get confused and ultimately may dislike the experience enough to go elsewhere,” he explained.
“The future is about providing the right data at the right point and time in the origination process – often through bite-sized application programming interface (API) solutions – so that lenders can easily operationalize and create a customer experience that sets them apart from their competition,” he said.
Mortgage lenders taking part in this free webinar will receive a vast array of information about the valuable benefits they can achieve through automation. And they’ll get valuable insights about practical ways they can implement it to deliver a superior borrower experience and turn more mortgage applications into loans.
