Celebrating 40 years in 2025, STRATMOR has continuously evolved, leveraging deep industry expertise and cutting-edge insights to help our clients navigate the ever-changing landscape of mortgage lending.

Welcome to the January 2025 Insights Report

Welcome to STRATMOR Insights
Garth Graham
Senior Partner
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This year STRATMOR celebrates a significant milestone — our 40th anniversary. For four decades, our firm has had the privilege of guiding you through the ever-changing mortgage landscape, providing expert advice and personalized solutions that help you achieve your financial goals.

As we reflect on the past 40 years, we are deeply grateful for the trust and loyalty you’ve shown us. This milestone, however, is not just a celebration of our past, but a renewed commitment to your future. The mortgage industry continues to evolve, and we are more dedicated than ever to staying ahead of these changes, ensuring that we continue to provide you with the most innovative, effective strategies in the years to come. Our experience has prepared us to thrive through every challenge, and we will continue to adapt and grow to meet your needs in this dynamic market.

To kick off our 40th year, we asked our STRATMOR advisors to share the “one thing they would tell clients to focus on as we start the new year.”  With an eye on the rapidly shifting economic landscape, regulatory updates, and technological advancements, our experts explore the key trends and strategies that will shape the future of lending in 2025 and beyond in “Resolve to Evolve: Actionable Insights to Thrive in 2025.”

Toasting to the new year — and our 40th anniversary — Customer Experience Director Mike Seminari draws parallels between the wine business and mortgage industry in his latest CX Tip. It’s well understood in the wine business that no matter how fancy the marketing or shiny the tech, success or failure is all about the consumer’s experience when they take that first sip. Lenders often prioritize flashy marketing and tech solutions over the more subtle yet impactful focus on the customer experience. “But,” Mike asks, “what if the greatest ROI lies in elevating CX? What if investing in how we serve clients could yield the strongest, most sustainable growth?” In “The Case for CX ROI: Seven Ways CX Can Boost Your Bottom Line,” Mike highlights seven ways lenders can invest in customer experience that will produce financial returns in 2025.

Thank you for joining us for the January Insights Report. Your success remains our top priority, and we are here to support you every step of the way. STRATMOR provides a wide range of advisory services to facilitate, optimize and address the challenges lenders are facing today, including strategy design and implementation, financial benchmarking and performance, process review and improvement, maximizing servicing assets, optimizing your customer experience initiatives to get more business, technology procurement and implementation, M&A and strategic options, and much more. STRATMOR’s advisory team is available now to discuss these services. Please contact us to learn more.

In-Focus
Resolve to Evolve: Actionable Insights to Thrive in 2025

To start the new year, we asked STRATMOR advisors: “What is the one thing you would tell your clients to focus on as we start 2025?” A clear takeaway emerged: adaptation is essential. Companies that resist change risk falling behind, while those that evolve with the market will maintain their competitive edge.

More Insights

More Insights
January 2025 Customer Experience

What if the best way to grow revenue is to improve the quality of our service? What if profits are just waiting to be unearthed in the rich soil that is our customer experience? Our question this month: “What is the case for CX ROI?”

STRATMOR Studies
November 2024 STRATMOR Studies

STRATMOR's Technology Insight® Study

STRATMOR’s Technology Insight® Study gathers data on how lenders feel about their experiences with the systems and the vendor services and support available in the mortgage market today. This information is vital to lenders considering updating or changing automation capabilities to meet the needs of today’s borrowers.

Popular Articles

Popular Articles

Sales Compensation: Do You Get What You Pay For?

Origination costs are at an all-time high. Given that sales costs will continue to be the largest component of retail origination costs, what can be done to manage this beast?

 

Retail Mortgage Branches: Which is Better, EM or Corporate?

Understanding the key characteristics of the Expense Management Branch (EMB) and comparing the key performance metrics between it and the corporate branch model is essential to identifying which is best for your organization.

 

What A Top-Notch Burger Chain Can Teach the Mortgage Industry About Secret Shopping

Secret shopping is the best way for lenders to remove the disconnection between perception and reality and pave the way for meaningful improvements in customer experience.

Recent Articles

STRATMOR’s Greatest Hits: Volume 2024
December 2024 Strategies

STRATMOR’s Greatest Hits: Volume 2024

As we approach the end of 2024, we’re excited to share our “Greatest Hits” compilation. This recap highlights the thought-provoking and impactful articles we published, showcasing the key insights, trends and discussions that defined our year.

Insights Gleaned from Mortgage Industry Events for a Prosperous 2025
November 2024 Strategies

Insights Gleaned from Mortgage Industry Events for a Prosperous 2025

It may seem like a coincidence that eight-time Grammy award winner Gloria Estefan took the stage at Concert MBA during the 2024 Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Annual Convention in Denver this year. But her hit song “Get on Your Feet” resonated deeply, perfectly capturing the mortgage industry’s journey through one of its most challenging periods. After enduring more than two years of “nasty weather” — marked by high rates, low inventory and plummeting sales — the industry stands at a pivotal moment where Estefan’s lyrics strike a powerful chord.

Today’s mortgage business is dividing into two camps: those waiting passively for the next refi wave or rate decrease to bail them out and those taking bold, decisive action to reshape their future. The latter group is positioning themselves to thrive in 2025 and beyond.

Throughout 2024, STRATMOR’s experts have witnessed this firsthand while crisscrossing the country to participate, present at, and gain insights from industry events. While last year’s atmosphere was decidedly grim, 2024 brought encouraging signs of cautious optimism and renewed confidence in the industry’s future. This month, we share our key takeaways from recent industry gatherings, including the recent MBA Annual Convention and Expo held in Denver, and provide strategic guidance for capitalizing on the opportunities ahead in 2025.

Once Upon a Mortgage: Building Relationships Through Storytelling
September 2024 Strategies

Once Upon a Mortgage: Building Relationships Through Storytelling

If New York City is the finance hub and Paris is the fashion capital, then Los Angeles is undeniably the epicenter of storytelling. Whether in film or television, on TikTok or YouTube, LA is full of people eager to share their stories with the world. You can hardly step from one star to the next on the Hollywood Walk of Fame without bumping into someone with a fascinating and complex tale full of hope and despair, rejection and elation, love and heartache.

People from all corners of the globe flock to LA to test their mettle and pursue their creative dreams. Some, like me, came all the way from Minnesota.

When I moved to Los Angeles 15 years ago, I was bright-eyed and expectant, sure that my name and my music were on a rocket ship to stardom. And I had good reasons to be confident — record labels were clamoring for a chance to sign my band, I’d just entered a lucrative publishing deal with Sony Music, and I was constantly surrounded by other creative and talented people. The only skeptic at the time was my father, who warned that “less than 1% of people make it in the music business.” I just looked him in the eye and said, “That’s me … I’m the 1%.” And the rest is history. My band, Now The Rabbit Has The Gun, is world-famous and I’m a celebrity.

Wait a second (record scratch) … you haven’t heard of me? Or my band? Like so many aspiring creatives who come to LA with hopes and dreams, I never reached the heights of success that at one time seemed to be dangling at my fingertips.

But my story didn’t end there. It simply continued in another industry with an equally diverse and intriguing cast of characters. The mortgage industry, as many of us know, is made up of a very eclectic group of people, very few of whom dreamed their whole life of working in the mortgage industry. Rather, most of us sort of “fell into it.” We joke that once you’re in, there’s no way out, but the reality is, we kind of like being a quirky band of misfits, united in helping others achieve the dream of homeownership. Every time I meet someone new at a conference, I’m fascinated by the stories I hear. One person is a published author, another runs an Airbnb side hustle with campers in Big Sur, and another goes to every Bruce Springsteen concert within 500 miles. There’s even a “biker-chick” who spends weekends on biking adventures.

The point is: everyone and every business has a story. And we all love to hear stories. They help us connect with people, simplify complex ideas, and leave lasting emotional impressions. Most importantly, stories build relationships, retain leads, attract recruits, and even drive revenue.

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