As executives discussed the state of mortgage lending at the Seventh Annual ENGAGE Event in Denver, Colo., a lot of hot-button topics came up. For example, the discussion around what the future lending process will look like was very insightful. Here’s what was said:
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“Looking back at my immediate family, my grandparents couldn’t afford to own a home. My parents were the first to buy a home and they worried about how they were going to pay their mortgage, but owning a house meant that they had arrived and could secure a future for their family,” shared Molly Dowdy, Co-Founder of NEXT, the mortgage technology conference for women. Molly has nearly 20 years experience marketing in the mortgage technology space. She is also a member of the PROGRESS in Lending Executive Team.
“My parents still live in that home today. My point in sharing this story is to say that we have the power to create a more inclusive and transparent mortgage process.”
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And most believe that begins at the point-of-sale. “We have to elevate the customer’s experience,” said Pamela Stahl, the Product Manager for VirPack, a leading provider of document management and delivery technology for the mortgage banking and financial services industries. Leveraging 6 years of mortgage lending secondary market management experience, she joined the mortgage technology industry in 2011 as a product manager for a leading Loan Operation System before joining VirPack in late 2016. With almost 12 years combined mortgage and mortgage technology experience, she has a proven history of producing and delivering innovative mortgage lending SaaS technologies.
“We as an industry have done a lot in recent years to embrace mobile technology. We’ve launched mobile apps and we send the consumer mobile alerts, but we don’t use this technology to really explain the process,” Stahl continued. “Improving the customer experience is not just about pushing out automated messages in real time, it’s about helping the consumer truly understand what’s going on at all times.”
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Everyone agrees that the borrower has to be more informed at the frontend, but what happens after that? “We’ve focused a lot on the beginning of the process and how we can make that better for the borrower, but we have forgotten about the backend of the process,” explained Matt Hydrew, SVP, Enterprise Solutions at Mortgage Cadence, an Accenture Company. Matt specializes in the execution of enterprise software solutions with Mortgage Cadence, which focuses on end-to-end, SaaS based residential lending technology in the United States market. Mortgage Cadence solutions manage the workflow process, imaging, document prep, secondary marketing and other important components to a true end to end digital mortgage platform.
“If lenders are not efficient and communicative of everything that goes on in the backend of the process, all that communication and explanation on the frontend amounts to just window dressing,” Hydrew notes. “We have to use technology to genuinely improve the whole mortgage process an fully communicate that to the borrow up to and including the closing of the loan.”
Why is this important? Data shows that 34% of the buying power rests with millennials and they want a better mortgage proces. “We have a lot of very slick applications in this industry, but without borrowers to feed into them we have no business,” explained Brandon Perry, President at TTP Enterprises. Brandon oversees all operational and administrative activities of TTP. Brandon brings over 16 years of experience in various financial services industries to TTP, which enhances the company’s ability to maintain it’s position as industry leader in providing customers with an advanced marketing solution.
“The mortgage process of the future has to reach people of all ages and backgrounds in a more meaningful way so buying a home doesn’t remain just a very long, complicated and stressful thing to go through,” concluded Perry.