Executive on the big changes at play – and on the way
They’re two of the most common reasons a mortgage professional might decide to make the switch from a lender to a broker shop: a greater sense of autonomy and ability to snag higher commissions.
But while they might enjoy greater freedom after making the change, the reality is that many see their earnings whittled away because of the need to pay for marketing, processing and other considerations.
The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the mortgage space has been much discussed in recent years – and one of the most fundamental ways it’ll do so is by putting power back into brokers’ hands, according to a prominent mortgage executive.
Pavan Agarwal (pictured top), president and chief executive officer of Sun West Mortgage Company, told Mortgage Professional America that AI solutions – including Angel Ai, the company’s own offering – would help remove some of those hurdles to the broker space’s growth. “All those support problems are taken away,” he said.
“The AI does the marketing, the flyers, the websites, in just a couple of minutes. You get the open house websites, open house flyers and [more]. And then the other big expense that brokers have is processing – the AI does the processing, so you save on that. I think technology is what’s going to solve the problem, and let more people become brokers.”
What a very good loan officer or underwriter might spend hours doing, Agarwal said, Angel Ai has the ability to solve in a couple of minutes – whether assessing tax returns or complex bank statements, or reviewing guidelines and meeting compliance requirements.
Bringing about a more efficient mortgage journey
The conversation around AI has accelerated in recent years with the increasing uptake of chatbots and other models, although Agarwal emphasized the value of being able to draw upon decades of experience in the mortgage space to make Angel Ai as efficient as possible. “Sun West is 44 years [in operation] now, a history of long transactions and every scenario that is loaded into the AI,” he said.
For Kimber White, who’s set to take the reins as board president in 2025, NAMB’s status as a tight-knit community was in ample evidence throughout the four-day conference.https://t.co/ddOPCJWmeF#mortgageindustry #mortgagetrends
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) October 23, 2024
“AI is only as good as the training data. We’ve seen it all, and we’ve seen every kind of paystub, we’ve seen every kind of utility statement, every kind of tax return, every trick in the book. It’s trained on all of those.”
What other ways will AI enhance the mortgage and financing process?
Having taken huge strides in building a better industry for brokers through AI, the company’s latest steps have been rolling out free credit repair to borrowers. That’s been gaining “tremendous momentum,” Agarwal said, working with merchants to resolve disputes.
A full insurance system is also on the way, meaning homeowners’ life and auto policies are all done through interacting with AI. “It’ll get you your insurance policy and a rock-bottom rate,” Agarwal said.
Another way AI is promising to improve the outlook for borrowers, according to Agarwal: in the payday loan space, where exorbitant and unmanageable fees and rates of interest are often the norm.
Through Angel Ai, he argued, customers “will be able to get… a loan at credit card or better than credit card rates. That’s one-tenth of a payday lender’s cost. So they can get on a system where they’re getting into the mainstream, off the payday loan process – saving money, repairing and building credit, so they start getting off this sort of predatory path and into mainstream finance.”
That ties into one of Agarwal’s core beliefs: that AI is promising to bring equity and fairness back to the mortgage process. Sun West, always a minority-focused lender, has discovered that its approval and decline rates have been normalized across all races thanks in large part to its use of AI.
It’s something he views as a key value proposition for the company. “The other AI systems out there haven’t really been used for something like this,” he said. “They haven’t really been used for running a whole company, running a whole industry. Writing emails and completing your college term paper – it’s not the same thing. This is real industrial strength, heavy duty lifting.”
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