HousingWire recently spoke with its CEO, Dustin Gray Milestone LabsAbout the importance of the borrower relationship and how Milestone Labs helps mortgage providers build lasting relationships with their borrowers.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!HousingWire: How has the current market affected the way lenders approach customer relations?
Dustin Grey: You don’t have to be an economist to know that this is a challenging time to buy a home or get a loan. Home prices and interest rates are high, and most Americans are stretched financially. This means that people will probably be stuck in their homes for longer, and transactions will be down by at least 20-30% over the next year – maybe even more.
Another way to think about it is that there are 110 million homes in America – and 106 million of those Will not done Transaction in the next year. So if you’re a lender, the question you should be asking is — how do I connect those 106 million households tomorrow? What seeds can I plant now that will grow in the near future?
From our perspective, it is time to weather the storm, invest in relationships and engage in playing the long game. If you are an LO, you need to offer your clients something that fits the narrative of today – make the most of the home you have, while having someone to borrow money from or need to move. Be on-call to assist. That’s where Milestone fits in.
hw: what kind technology What Lenders Can Use to Improve the Borrower Experience
DG: For the past few years, home owner engagement has been pretty basic — most apps focused on home values, home equity, and market reports. It was fun to watch when home values were skyrocketing, but it’s kind of depressing when the market starts to flat or fall. Milestones takes a more holistic and comprehensive approach to homeownership – it’s all about providing customers with solutions for all things home related. Consumers don’t want a dozen apps to do a dozen different things — they want an experience that’s all in one place, and simple.
Lenders need to focus on anything that meets customer expectations for speed, convenience, collaboration, transparency, certainty and personalization. In other words, experiences that mirror the rest of their digital lives.
They need to focus on experiences that are on par with any national portal or direct-to-consumer lender I would consider table stakes nowadays (website, LOS, CRM, etc.). However, what we typically see is that the focus (albeit important) is primarily on the “lead-gen-to-closing-table” part of the borrower experience. In this market, when transactions are few and far between, lenders need another set of tools that extend that value proposition beyond the closing table.
They need technology that truly delivers an experience to borrowers want to come back regularly between Exchange. The experience needs to foster a sense of education, equity options, wealth management and growth, and demonstrate the overall financial well-being associated with homeownership. In doing so, they will be positioned to hold that borrower when they are ready to renegotiate (or ref if rates fall).
Technology that builds strong relationships with real estate agents/professionals is also important, as these relationships typically provide the bulk of a lender’s borrower leads/opportunities.
HW: What makes borrower relationships so important to the mortgage business?
DG: In short: Relationship is everything.
There’s a McKinsey study from a few years back that says borrowers consider exceptional customer experience almost as important as getting the best rate and knowing that a lender provided an amazing customer experience (word of mouth, referrals, etc.) via) was the highest. Important factors in choosing a lender. So, if you think about it, in this current market where rates are much higher than they have been in years, lenders need to focus on building relationships that drive this important word of mouth/referral behavior ( all while streamlining operations and reducing costs).
It starts with lenders redefining their value proposition. In our mind, the narrative goes something like this:
- I am more than your loan officer – I am your advisor who can help you make better decisions and build wealth from your home.
- When we pay off your loan, I’ll give you a landlord portal. It’s going to show you how to take care of your home, troubleshoot problems, make improvements, and educate you on common pitfalls to avoid.
- At some point in your journey, you’ll probably need money – to improve your home, buy a second home or pay for something else in your life. When that day comes, I’ll be available to discuss your options at the push of a button.
Another thing to keep in mind is that D2C lending brands (with very deep pockets) are aggressively targeting consumers. These national players are bundling services and also cross-marketing their portfolio of companies. Maintaining borrower relationships knowing that loyalty (ie, repeat business) is disappointingly low in the mortgage industry between Transaction is critical to ensure that consumers don’t get swept up in these D2C marketing/advertising campaigns and funneled into their ecosystem when they’re ready to transact again.
HW: How does Milestones Labs help mortgage professionals build stronger relationships with their borrowers?
DG: Lending is a rare, big-ticket transaction – one that has historically had high customer acquisition costs and low repeat business for lenders. On the surface of things, it’s a difficult business model to execute — and particularly vulnerable to things outside the lender’s control.
Milestones helps mortgage professionals build trust, solve problems, and provide value to homeowners at scale. The technology gives homeowners an all-inclusive homeowner experience that includes: home value and equity monitoring, home maintenance reminders and how-to articles, cloud-based document storage, various projects around the home One-click access to hire professionals for and much more. really in debt want to get back into the milestones platform, as opposed to a typical CRM-type experience that’s just pushing messages one way But a consumer. Ergo, borrowers regularly interact and derive value from milestones and associate the experience with their lender, which builds built-in trust.
Milestones exist to help lenders increase loyalty – because most consumers transact with a lender once, and never again. By bridging the gap of years between originations, the lenders never lost touch with their customers.
HW: How does Milestones Labs help mortgage professionals build stronger relationships with real estate agents to increase borrower referrals?
DG: While it is paramount that today’s mortgage professionals focus on providing an amazing experience for the borrower, they cannot lose sight of the fact that the majority of their buying business is going to come from real estate agents. Having technology that continues to build those relationships and provide value to real estate partners is critical.
Today, a mortgage professional can bring their real estate agent partners into Milestone seamlessly – at no cost to the agent – and allow them to provide the same toolset. their Related landlords and prospects. This creates an ecosystem, or “home team”, where the homeowner is getting increasingly more value.
Thus, agents get a more engaged database, which increases their repeat and referral business, and mortgage professionals are with these clients every step of the way.
A happy and productive real estate agent is definitely going to remember what helped them build their business. It’s a win for everyone involved.
