According to motivational speaker, Tony Robbins, “The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.”[i] This sentiment certainly rings true within the mortgage industry.
As a mortgage lender, your relationships with fellow mortgage professionals and customers determine your customer satisfaction and long-term success.
Below, we’ll examine why relationships are so important in the mortgage industry. We’ll also provide relationship-building tips for mortgage lenders.
Table of Contents
The Importance of Relationships in the Mortgage Industry
These days, many mortgage discussions revolve around technological innovations. Data, digitization, and automation undoubtedly enhance the loan origination process. However, relationships are still the foundation of the mortgage industry.
So, why are relationships so important?
Here are a few reasons:
- Mortgages are ultimately about borrowers – At the end of the day, the purpose of mortgages is to get borrowers into homes. For a borrower, becoming a homeowner can be a very exciting, rewarding experience. Mortgage professionals at every stage of the lending process need to keep this in mind and align their business approaches accordingly.
- Mortgages require a team of professionals – Mortgage professionals join forces to get borrowers the mortgages they need. From real estate agents to loan originators, many people play a role in the process. Cultivating positive relationships with these professionals can serve you well. You never know when these connections may bring you new customers or come in handy when you have industry-related questions.
- Mortgage challenges are best solved through collaboration – The mortgage industry is increasingly interconnected. Digitization has allowed many players within the industry to identify challenges, collaborate on solutions, and produce helpful products. Without close inter-industry relationships, this game-changing innovation wouldn’t be possible.
How to Build Relationships Within the Mortgage Industry
If you want to improve your relationships with other professionals in the industry, there are many ways to do so.
Here are a few strategies:
- Network – Establishing a network of mortgage professionals can be very advantageous for your mortgage lending business. For example, real estate agents in your area can send mortgage applicants your way. Likewise, loan processors and vendor partners can help you understand areas of the mortgage industry that you may not have much first-hand experience with.
- Attend mortgage conferences – While there are many types of networking events out there, mortgage conferences are some of the most exciting. During these events, you can learn about the latest innovations within the industry and hear from leading industry experts. You can also interact with mortgage professionals from across the country.
When you attend these events, make sure you put yourself out there and get to know other attendees. In addition to forging strategic professional relationships, you may even make some new friends along the way.
Once you get back home, you can share your experiences and insights with your team, which may spark valuable in-house brainstorming over the coming months. - Listen and learn – The mortgage industry is always evolving. You can use your new relationships to broaden your understanding of the mortgage landscape. Get to know your vendor partners and find out what they’ve been focusing on recently. Their input can sharpen your industry expertise and set your mortgage lending business apart.
- Pay this education forward – As you soak in insight from other mortgage professionals, make sure to pay it forward. For example, realtors typically don’t have the same degree of credit expertise as mortgage lenders. If you engage with realtors at networking events, you can help them understand the nuances of the changing credit landscape. By aligning your understanding of credit, you and realtors in your area can provide customers with more accurate information and a more cohesive experience.
- Establish trust – Trust is at the core of all good relationships. Whether you’re building a relationship with a borrower or another mortgage professional, establishing trust is key. You can earn trust by being honest, transparent, and empathetic every step of the way.
- Always keep the borrower in mind – Everyone within the mortgage industry is ultimately working towards the same goal: getting borrowers into homes. Keeping this goal in mind at all times can bring you and other mortgage professionals together, even if you fulfill different roles within the industry.
Focusing on this goal can also help you provide better customer service. As you reflect on the significance of a first-time home buyer achieving a major milestone or a newly married couple starting their life together, you can inject every stage of your lending process with passion and purpose.
The Benefits of Participating in Mortgage Organizations
Another way to form valuable connections within the mortgage industry is to join mortgage organizations, such as the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) or one of the various industry collaboratives.
As a member, you’ll be able to engage with other mortgage professionals on a regular basis. In turn, you can stay up to date on upcoming educational events and exciting tech trends.
Participating in these organizations will also give you ample opportunity to bounce ideas off other mortgage professionals and work together in the face of new challenges.How to Strengthen Relationships With Your Borrowers
So far, we’ve discussed how you can create meaningful relationships with other mortgage professionals. But what about your borrowers?
As a mortgage lender, your relationships with customers are crucial to your long-term success. Rather than viewing these relationships as purely transactional, see them as opportunities for personal connection, education, and service.
You can strengthen your customer relationships by offering:
- Credit education – While credit is very important in today’s world, many people don’t understand how it works. As a mortgage lender, you can share your credit expertise with borrowers and educate them on the factors that make up their credit scores. By helping your borrowers become confident credit users, you can set them up for success and earn their trust and appreciation along the way.
- Mortgage education – You can also walk your borrowers through the mortgage lending process step by step. In doing so, you can set yourself up as your customers’ trusted advisor and partner.
- Credit score improvement support – Oftentimes, aspiring homeowners don’t have high enough credit scores to qualify for good rates. Some of your applicants may not qualify for a mortgage at all.Rather than leaving these borrowers high and dry, you can help them increase their credit scores over time. At Certified Credit, we make this process easy with our collection of credit score improvement tools. These tools can help you identify areas of credit improvement for your borrowers, forecast how various changes will impact their credit scores, and recalculate their scores on the spot when they’re ready to apply for a mortgage.By providing this guidance, you can build valuable relationships with aspiring homeowners. As mortgage rates continue to rise,[ii] these applicants will greatly appreciate your support. They may also be more likely to work with you again on refinances and purchases in the future, knowing you’ll do what it takes to secure them the very best rate. Thus, you can transform first-time borrowers into life-long
- A personal touch – Finally, don’t forget to add a personal touch to your professional relationships. For example, you can ask about your borrowers’ families and goals for the future. As you get to know your customers on a personal level, your relationships will become that much more enjoyable and memorable. Your customers may be more likely to provide you with referrals and repeat business as a result.
Quick Tips From the Certified Credit Client Success Team
Here at Certified Credit, our tagline is “More Than Just a Score.” That’s because our services extend far beyond credit reports. We embody this tagline’s sentiment every day as we nurture positive relationships with our clients and fellow mortgage professionals.
Our Client Success team understands the importance of taking a people-first approach to mortgages first-hand. Here are a few of their quick tips for building positive relationships in the mortgage industry:
- Network, network, network
- Be sincere and humble
- Work as a team
- Always do what’s right
- Keep the borrower’s end goal in mind at all times
- Appreciate the significance of helping borrowers get into homes
With these tips in mind, you can forge fruitful relationships in the mortgage industry with ease.
Build Your Relationship With Certified Credit Today
At Certified Credit, we’ve had the privilege of building relationships with a wide variety of industry experts and mortgage professionals. Thanks to these relationships, we’ve pinpointed many areas of opportunity for workflow improvement and innovation.
Armed with these insights, we’ve created a growing suite of mortgage lending solutions, which include:
- Affordable mortgage credit reports
- Automated lead generation and prequalification
- Automated verification of income and employment (VOE)
- Credit score improvement tools
- Fraud and risk support
- Settlement services
- Money-saving strategies
When you partner with our team, we’ll take the time to understand your business. After that, we’ll match you with solutions that resolve your current challenges so you can take your mortgage lending business to the next level.
Are you ready to enhance your relationships in the mortgage industry? Partner with Certified Credit today.
Sources
[i] Tony Robbins. 20 Empowering Relationship Quotes.
https://www.tonyrobbins.com/tony-robbins-quotes/relationship-quotes/
[ii] Rocket Mortgage. Guide To 2022 Housing Market Predictions And Forecasts.
https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/2022-housing-market-predictions
