Recipe for Success – Lender/Broker Alignment

If your business model relies on accepting applications from mortgage brokers, the relationship between you and your brokers is pivotal to your success.

A lack of lender/broker alignment can lead to a high portion of deals that fail to close, more applications with fraud present and worse harm to reputation in the broker community. When a deal doesn’t close, a lot of people lose time and money – sometimes it is clear who is responsible for the deal not closing, while other times it is less clear, thus leading to finger pointing and damaged relationships.

The most common discrepancies or disputes that occur between lenders and brokers relate to discrepancies in the mortgage application – the information submitted on the application may change after the point of application or you or your insured may disagree with information in the application.

In the past year we have seen increased lender/broker alignment thanks to technology. Davis and Henderson’s EXPERT tool is a great example of this. The introduction of this web-based application almost eliminated the fax machine and lenders and brokers are more aligned because they can share and review the same information: credit reports, application details, etc… They can also electronically transmit their applications and mortgage documents to you right through the same platform.

The same has occurred with the Purview application. While historically Purview has been a tool that lenders have used to validate home values, equity, and home ownership information, in recent years a version of this application has been made available to brokers. How does this improve lender/broker alignment? Brokers being encouraged to run an AVM at the point of application in Purview will be able to benefit from the information you see when you perform due diligence and run your AVM – this way everyone is aligned and dealing with the same data when assessing the property value provided by the client.

Communication is also another staple of good lender-broker alignment. If your clients don’t clearly understand your lending guidelines, there will constantly be differences of opinion over lending decisions - and sometimes just because your guidelines were not clear enough or because they were misinterpreted.

This strong communication can be achieved through social media. Getting connected to your brokers and sharing insight into how they can be more successful working with you can make a world of difference. The challenge is that so many lenders get so hyper-focused on blasting out rates and banking their success on competing based on rate, when often rate is only one of many aspects of a mortgage that a broker and their client will consider. Providing your brokers with tips to help them be more successful getting their deals closed gives you the competitive edge.

So now you can see how you can leverage technology to improve your alignment with your broker partners. Aligning technology and digital communication is your recipe for success and a long term lender/broker relationship.

For more about creating better lender/broker alignment please contact Purview for Lenders today by calling 1.855.787.8439.