Tech Perspectives

As the former EVP of American Brokers Conduit, I know, if you’re going to be in the wholesale lending business today, you have to be in a position to offer mortgage brokers tangible value for working with you. There are few lenders today that truly recognize that the lender/broker partnership is just that. Professional brokers today want to work with a lender that can not only handle their transactions with efficiency and care, but work with them to develop opportunities to grow through today’s challenges.

Wholesale lenders have been turning to technology for many years now in an attempt to develop stronger ties with mortgage brokers. At least that’s what they say they’ve been doing. It is becoming clear that many of the nation’s largest lenders have put millions into wholesale mortgage websites, less for the broker benefits that the technology could offer and more for the efficiencies that it offers the lender. Now that brokers are living or dying by the efficiencies they can leverage in their own businesses, they are taking a closer look at the “free” tools some wholesale lenders are offering.

But that’s not to say that mortgage brokers aren’t eager for technology today. In fact, they are dependent upon solid tech tools now more than ever before, especially in the areas of file delivery, marketing, business planning and mortgage planning. But settling for wholesale lending technology that serves the lender without offering efficiencies to the broker is not working very well today.
 
While at ABC, our brokers told us that they needed to get findings quickly for all of the wholesale lending products that we offered, so we leveraged Fannie Mae’s Custom Desktop Underwriter platform to offer up guidelines and return conditions for a range of conforming, jumbo and other loan products. The tool allowed brokers to access the familiar Fannie Mae tool to get findings on our products, whether they went through Fannie’s site or a contract underwriting site, such as eMagic.

This allowed our mortgage broker partners to get preliminary approval letters, which got them in front of the borrowers more quickly, offered them greater efficiencies and freed up time for marketing or borrower-counseling efforts. But there were some issues. Both Fannie Mae and eMagic needed lender sponsorship before a broker could access the system, which created internal work. Also, brokers had to leave our wholesale website to get their findings and then import them back.

Finally, to offer full support, we had to have internal professionals that understood the different platforms our sources were using to underwrite loans. We needed a better tool that was offered on our site that would be easier to support for our brokers. That product became eSubmit, which enabled brokers to submit directly to CDU through our website.

The point isn’t that we launched a new broker-facing technology, the point is that what we had developed and launched was driven by an analysis and direct feedback of how our mortgage broker partners were working and what their needs were and not just our need to be more efficient. It accomplished both. It was a mutual benefit.

One of the odd truisms about technology in any business is that the more powerful the tool, the harder it is to get user adoption. Change is never easy and we’ve seen that over and over again in this industry.

What we have learned is that you cannot just offer mortgage brokers powerful technology. Wholesale lenders must back that up with comprehensive training programs and a holistic approach designed to show brokers how the tool enhances not just the process but the growth and profitability of their business.

In my previous organization, we called it the Advisor Center, and we leveraged it to provide as much training and professional development as we possibly could. We made this freely available to all of our approved brokers. Much of the material presented was geared toward helping brokers master the tech tools we were making available, but just as much or more was provided to help them with other aspects of their business.

We had found that mortgage brokers would come to the site to see how to leverage the technology to increase efficiencies or lower costs, but they would stay to learn the newest changes to loan programs or to sign up for a
free call with an industry professional on business growth strategies or just to interact with other brokers from around the country.

If you think about how the business has changed, and is still changing, mortgage brokers are finding that borrowers are expecting them to know more about the loan products they are offering. More sophisticated borrowers emerged from the most recent refinance boom and they expect their loan officers to be able to explain all the features and benefits of the loan programs they are considering. Many brokers are finding this difficult, especially now that the mortgage business is in such flux and lenders are changing their offerings almost daily.

One answer to that, and one many are now pursuing, is the creation of an online product advisor that helps mortgage brokers master the nuances of the various loan programs in an effort to make them better at counseling the borrowers
they serve. The addition of more mortgage calculators and online models that illustrate how loan programs work are also making our brokers better qualified to work with borrowers to find the most suitable product.

It has always been important for a mortgage broker to be able to suggest the right product for the right borrower at that particular point in their life cycle. But today, brokers need to know why it’s the right product and what it
means to the borrower’s future.

The bottom line is that while technology is essential to the success of mortgage brokers and the wholesale lenders who work with them, it does not stand alone as a solution for any part of the broker’s business. If wholesale lenders only offer loan processing or closing technology to their broker networks, they are not offering enough to earn their business or to expect their loyalty.
 
The key to long-term success for both the wholesale lender and the mortgage broker lies in doing whatever is necessary to help the brokers build sustainable businesses. Part of that means offering solid technology that serves the brokers’ needs to be efficient and minimize costs as well as the lender’s need for efficiency and cost control. But the other part of the equation involves offering the support necessary to get high technology adoption rates among brokers and in offering the information required to help them build stronger quality businesses.

That means offering more information to mortgage brokers, more training, more hand-holding. That’s the only way to ensure that there will be value for the borrower in the origination process, which is the only way to get repeat and referral business. In addition, as brokers become more dependent upon relationships with other business partners, including real estate agents, accountants and real estate attorneys, borrower satisfaction will be an extremely important metric. The only way to ensure satisfied borrowers is to make certain that there is value throughout the lending process, from the first contact with the broker to the closing table and beyond.
 
Lisa Schreiber is now president of LSK Consulting, a mortgage strategy advisor and speaker. LSK Consulting was formed to deliver Lisa’s 21 years of experience in building profitable and quality brands, technology platform, training and education to companies that are looking to grow their organizations in a strategic and cost-effective model. LSK Consulting focuses on strategic planning/vision, implementation of business platforms, bridging business and corporate goals, fostering customer-centric communication and branding. The company is based in Lovettsville, Va.

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