It’s been widely stated in the mortgage space that lenders need to invest in tech in order to survive in this climate.
But while the traditional mortgage world has a plethora of technology solutions, the reverse mortgage space does not.
A number of companies operating the reverse world have seized on this opportunity, creating technology that is designed to address the specific processes involved in handling a reverse mortgage loan.
Here are three tech solutions offered by companies in the reverse space that are making huge strides to improve the HECM lending process or originators, issuers and lenders:
1. The originator’s solution
Myloanofficer.us by Reverse Focus
It takes a lot more work than it used to in order to close a decent volume of reverse mortgage loans, and that means LOs need to double down on their consumer outreach to get the job done.
Reverse Focus’s customizable website service is designed to help LOs do just that with a HECM-specific website package that includes educational content, a loan calculator, a blog page and lead forms – all designed with targeted language to enhance search engine optimization.
Plus, the site can be fully integrated with Reverse Focus’ CRM, Sales Engine, so that leads generated from the site are automatically placed into queue for drip marketing campaigns and tracked every step of the way.
“The value proposition is that you have online validation,” said Reverse Focus Sales Director Mike Floth, adding that having quality, compliant content is key.
“This is a turn-key, content-rich solution that has been combed over by compliance,” Floth said.
2. The lender’s solution
MortgageSAT by ReverseVision
This program is specifically designed to gauge the loan experience of reverse mortgage borrowers so that lenders can better assess the quality of their services.
Created in partnership with STRATMOR GROUP, MortgageSAT surveys borrowers on every aspect of the loan closing, providing the results in an online portal where lenders can drill down to review specific aspects of the process, even looking at an LO’s performance to determine where the coaching opportunities lie.
The program also enables lenders to compare themselves to the competition, allowing them to size up how different aspects of their process compared with that other lenders thanks to STRATMOR’S considerable database of 120,000 surveys.
The end goal is to help lenders grow their number of referrals, and the program’s ability to shed light on certain aspects of the loan process and how they impact customer sentiment is essential to making that happen.
For example, how damaging is it to ask a borrower for the same document twice during the loan process? MortgageSAT reveals that this happens 28% of the time and diminishes the likelihood of a referral by 46%.
“There’s a huge difference in having a borrower surveyed by a third-party independent partner versus having your own sales and marketing team do it, and you don’t know how you perform against the national average if you’re not part of the STRATMOR dataset,” said ReverseVision VP of Sales and Marketing Wendy Peel.
“The HECM lenders that are investing in technologies have recovered more quickly than those that have continued to do business as usual,” Peel added. “It’s the expansion of technology that is allowing everyone to create a new normal.”
3. The issuer’s solution
Pricereverse.com by Baseline Reverse
Pricing a reverse mortgage is vastly different from pricing a traditional mortgage, with far more variables to consider. That’s what prompted Baseline Reverse to create pricereverse.com, an online pricing engine that helps issuers manage the secondary market functions of the HECM loan business.
The site allows issuers to create price sheets, bid on closed loans, track the delivery of those loans and manage their interest-rate risk.
“Two loans with the same interest rate on the same program will pretty much have a different price every time, because there are going to be other factors that go into it, like how old are the borrowers, what state do they live in, how many borrowers are there, what’s the property value. There are a number of things that pretty dramatically drive the pricing for each loan,” explained Baseline President Dan Ribler. “If you’re doing everything manually, you’re going to mess it up, and that’s expensive.
Ribler said even those in the reverse space who do not use Baseline’s tool are impacted by it, just because they have to adjust their pricing models to remain competitive with the output created by Baseline’s price sheets.
He also said pricereverse.com presents a great opportunity for traditional lenders looking to get into the forward space.
“They won’t have to build out all these capabilities… they can use this entire secondary pricing solution that will do everything but originate loans for them,” he said.
In today’s competitive market, Riber said leveraging tech to enhance efficiencies is crucial to survival.
“If you’re not being efficient, good luck,” he said. “The guys who are efficient are going to eat your lunch.”