How Can Originators Navigate Last-Minute Loan Volatility? >
It’s March … again. This week marks one year since I filled out my first-ever 100 percent accurate NCAA Basketball Tournament bracket — I had COVID-19 winning every game. This year I might be returning to...
How Can Originators Delight Their Borrowers When Cycle Times Are Out of Control? >
While the past year has been a gift of high volume for the mortgage industry, it has also been a source of frustration to strained fulfillment teams and to originators trying to communicate with borrowers about...
How Can Originators Ensure a Profitable 2021 Despite a Possible Refinance Cliff? >
After wrapping up a banner year in 2020, the mortgage industry is showing few signs of slowing down. It appears that the downward pressure on rates that created the booming refinance market may be the gift...
Giving Back This Holiday Season >
It’s that time of year when we’d usually be walking around our local malls and humming along to “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Of course, that song typically refers to the holiday season...
What is the Secret to Becoming the Lending Choice of Millennials? >
When was the last time you read an article on Millennials? Roughly a decade ago, we started hearing rumblings about how the mortgage industry had better be prepared for the coming-of-age Millennials. Everywhere we turned, there...
Originator Strategies for Surviving Market Constriction >
There are two types of originators; those in it for the short money and those in it for the long money. In other words, there are fair-weather opportunists and there are career builders. When the rates...
Can Digital Tools Help Lenders Achieve Both Efficiency and Borrower Delight? >
It’s certainly a good time to be in the mortgage business, at least financially speaking. The biggest concern that we keep hearing at our STRATMOR workshops is, “I just don’t know how we’re going to close...
What Does the Shift Toward E-Closings Mean for Borrower Satisfaction? >
Time has taken on a whole new meaning in 2020. While we wade through the likes of a pandemic not seen in 100 years, and experience interest rates lower than they’ve been in 50 years, we’re...
Invest in Referral Partner Relationships in a Refinance-Driven Market >
The wild ride of 2020 continues to bring us new and unexpected turns. Most recently, mortgage rates hit a new all-time low at 3.07 percent, which is allowing lenders to sustain unprecedented...
Maintaining Strong Sales and Customer Satisfaction as the Economy Reopens >
With all that has happened since the early days of March, change has become a constant and driving force in our lives. It has marked both progress and instability, social change and economic uncertainty. One of...
How is the Customer Experience Faring in the COVID Era? >
The past 90 days have brought us historically low mortgage rates, historically high unemployment rates and a roller-coaster stock market. As such, lenders have been struggling to keep up with bursting pipelines, scrambling to mitigate last-minute...
An Originator’s Guide to COVID-19 Communications >
In our recent PGR: MBA and STRATMOR Peer Group Roundtable meetings, we asked attendees how they would describe the current lending environment. Interestingly, there was marked split between those who see danger and those who see...
What Can COVID-19 Teach Us About Safeguarding the Customer Experience? >
With the COVID-19 pandemic bearing down on us and huge stock market drops ushering in a bear market, it’s a strange time to also be experiencing the lowest mortgage rates in the past fifty years and...
The Importance of the Borrower’s Perception of New Technology >
Lenders are spending more than ever before on tech as a percentage of loan costs, yet according to STRATMOR data, most lenders are not exactly satisfied with the technology choices they’ve made. And to make matters...
Prepare to Thrive in a Purchase-Driven Market >
The outlook for lenders in 2020 is a mix of sunshine and rain showers, depending on where you’re standing. While the Mortgage Bankers Association forecast calls for origination volumes to drop nearly 10 percent — from...