TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
Issue link: http://digital.themreport.com/i/1463706
M R EP O RT | 27 EXPERT INSIGHTS How fast do loan officers need to be when it comes to sales, and how can they get faster? Zitting // When the data sug- gests a contact may soon be in the market for a home, the faster you can engage, the better. That does not necessarily mean they are going to buy right away—the sales cycle for home purchases is growing longer because there's so little inventory. However, once a buyer is ready to move, they will usually take the most recent advice they received. That could be the teller at their community bank, or an agent that they had a conversation with who tells them which lender to use. You want to make sure it is you. The lifecycle of the homebuyer is long, but you should engage early and be there to answer questions throughout the process so that when the time comes, you become their best option. What is credit migration, and why is it important for mort- gage sales? Zitting // Credit migration is moving from one level of credit quality to another. We look at it in terms of a borrower's credit and finances improving over a period of time, to where it meets the minimum credit requirements established by the lender. It is important to realize that today's credit denial can be tomorrow's closing. In fact, credit scores soared during the pandemic because many people were able to pay down their debt. With the improved economy, credit migration opens up a world of opportunities for loan officers, starting with their existing contacts. One thing MonitorBase does is monitor a loan officer's databases for credit migrations and send alerts when a contact's credit improves. I can tell you, there is a lot of untapped business in databases with loan applicants who did not qualify six months to a year ago. And it is possible that some do not even realize they now qualify for a mortgage, so loan officers need to monitor credit changes and act quickly. Once the bor- rower is ready, they may move on to a different lender. What can machine learning tools help tell us about bor- rower behaviors? Zitting // There are so many data points that even if we were to look at it manually, you would not be able to keep track of it all. Machine learning tools help us identify whether there is a trend happening in credit or geography, based on patterns in consumer behavior and what consumers have done in the past, to indicate if a mortgage transaction is likely to happen. This information is taken into account to predict who will probably be in the market in the near future, which helps lenders and loan officers channel their marketing efforts toward the right contacts. The bottom line is most loan officers are sitting on a ton of untapped business in their data- bases. But they also need the right technologies to identify early intent-to-buy signals, so they know when and how to reach out to someone who is ready to buy. Because if they cannot do it, someone else will. "The lifecycle of the homebuyer is long, but you should engage early and be there to answer questions throughout the process so that when the time comes, you become their best option." —Louis Zitting, Founder and CEO, Monitorbase