The market is promising for mortgage lenders. In 2020, the size of the mortgage market rose to $11.05 Trillion in the United States alone. And these numbers are only going to increase in the coming years.
However, business growth comes with its challenges. As a mortgage broker or lender,
- Are you prepared for scale?
- Do you have the right infrastructure, team, and technology to sustain the growth?
Heaps of paperwork and manual processes have resulted in a lot of inefficiencies in the mortgage business. Digitization can reduce such inefficiencies to a great extent, and the time is ripe for financial institutions to start adopting mortgage automation tools.
But how do you choose the best mortgage broker software? In this article, we will discuss the best mortgage broker software features. These features will help you in finding the right software for your business.
What is mortgage broker software?
Mortgage broker software is a digital solution to streamline the lending process from the first contact to post-settlement. Brokers and lenders also use Mortgage CRM to track the client journey, record all the data in one place, automate compliance management, document collection, loan submission, and identification of cross-selling opportunities.
Best Mortgage Broker Software Features
In this digital age, almost all jobs are on automation. Even mortgage lending has gone through a lot of technological innovation.
The advent of technology has made the job easier for mortgage brokers. There are several mortgage broker software that helps in the origination process.
1. Find leads from different channels
Today, one cannot rely on only one source of leads for their business. The rise in the number of digital channels has also increased the chances of finding more prospects. However, monitoring all the sources using different platforms is not possible for anyone.
In such situations, the software comes in handy. They integrate different digital channels like social media, email service providers, marketplaces, referrals, etc. into a central platform. As a broker or a lender, you can easily manage two-way communication with your prospective customers across many different channels.
Moreover, you can maintain a record of the leads capture, distribute leads to sales reps with complete details, and use these details for future evaluation and analysis.
Finnable, one of the fastest-growing Fintech start-ups for personal loans, states that their sales reps can view the complete customer history in their software system. Their data sharing over mails within internal teams has reduced by 60%, increasing efficiency and security.
Read the case study.
2. Automatic Updates
There are many updates to give to your borrowers during the mortgage lending process. However, your team might end up wasting time calling and pursuing the client for minor updates. Even your clients will not want to receive a call from you again and again.
Thus, an automatic application status update feature becomes an integral part of the mortgage software. The software can send messages to your borrowers every time they reach a particular stage in the lending process. Of course, it will help your customers with updates from time to time. But it will also reduce several hours of talk time for your employees. Thus, creating a win-win situation for both.
Apart from improving collaboration among all parties, mortgage software can also automate workflows. Moreover, brokers can also share information in real-time with different stakeholders. They can ensure that the right departments can access the documents at the right time. All of these have made the job of a mortgage broker easier than ever before.
3. Mortgage workflow automation
Manual processes are prone to errors. Duplicate document copies, losing track of loan status, repayment schedule, and status, etc. are some of the common mistakes. By automating workflows, brokers and lenders can streamline the loan management process from end-to-end.
Workflow automation in the mortgage is a series of automated actions that eliminate the manual process in the loan origination. It can benefit the lenders in the following ways:
- Increased speed accuracy: activities like application submitted triggers a notification to different departments for verification, underwriting, and other teams and stakeholders involved in the process.
- Increased productivity: automation can handle repetitive tasks, saving hours of manual labor.
- Lesser risk: by flagging the unsuitable applicants, automated mortgage software reduces the risk of bad loans.
- Scalable: Lenders can scale their business across geographies with the same amount of resources.
- Complete buyer journey tracking.
4. Paperless application portal
According to Fiserv, 67% of the existing home loan consumer in the United States feel comfortable with an online application. With a digital application portal, borrowers can complete a mortgage application, upload supporting documentation, e-sign disclosures, and monitor the status of their loan — in a single, easy-to-use location.
5. Document Management
The document management feature allows you to request essential documents from your clients. It will keep an eye on the crucial deadlines for you. It will also give your clients a gentle reminder to send the required documents if they fail to do so. Thus, ensuring that you receive all the documents on time and in the right format. The feature will allow you to see which client has processed all documents on every loan application that you are currently working on.
Using the document management feature will also free up your valuable working time. Sending emails, following up, and checking documents can consume a lot of valuable time. But with the document management feature, you can spend your time on other crucial tasks.
Moreover, the document management feature also helps in improving the customer experience. The feature simplifies the document collection process for the customer. Thus, resulting in faster turnaround times.
6. Compliance Management
For years mortgage brokers had to deal with crucial but complex compliance processes. And the increasing number of regulations is only making the process more tedious. Anyone in the lending business must follow these regulations without fail, such as:
- Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Fair Housing Act
- Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act
- Nationwide Licensing System and Standards
- Truth in Lending Act
- Nationwide Licensing System and Standards
Of course, these laws and regulations are to protect the consumers. But they also bring several obstacles for the lenders and can also be time-consuming at times.
Best mortgage broker software ensure that every team member is aware of these regulations, and their communication with customers (email, SMS, call) follows these guidelines. By making the information about a change in ordinance available to the team, lenders can thus prevent the lawsuits.
7. Origination and Servicing Functionality
Origination and servicing are the biggest challenges for any lender these days. All these processes consume a lot of time. They also need a lot of human and analytical resources. Moreover, these processes are also prone to the maximum number of errors and risks.
The best mortgage broker software provides an integrated origination and servicing feature. It is also crucial to have a scalable solution that can suit your requirements. The following are some of the loan origination features to consider.
- Automated decision making and borrower evaluation cycle.
- Data backed customer risk management.
- Efficient management of credit products, policies, rules, and scoring models.
- Easy integration of products, services, and data sources for seamless processing.
- Individual evaluation processes for different portfolio segments and business lines.
8. Credit scoring
It is not about finding a mortgage software with the biggest collection of features. It is about finding the right set of tools and features. These should be tools that can increase revenue and reduce risk. Lenders need technologies that can improve operational efficiency and make credit scoring faster, accurate, and safe.
Look for software that offers a built-in credit decision-making feature. The best mortgage software also integrates with major credit reporting bureaus and agencies. They offer access to proprietary scorecards that enhance credit bureau analysis.
For instance, LeadSquared Mortgage CRM seamlessly integrates with LOS (Loan Origination System), CIBIL, Experian Hunter, Perfios, NetBanking Connect, and PDF Statement Analyzer to automate borrower qualification & offer generation.
9. Analytics
One of the best features of mortgage software is detailed analytics. Insights on customers, team performance, and collection efficiency can help you plan strategies to increase your revenue. The mortgage broker software offers you reports on existing debtors, details on the average collection period, and much more.
Moreover, it also offers information on non-responsive debtors. Mature software solutions also predict people who do not intend to pay. All these factors will help you with greater operational efficiencies. Thus, resulting in improved performance.
Additionally, you can analyze past experiences and reduce your risk of lending money to the wrong person.
10. Best mortgage broker software has friendly UI
It is imperative to have user-friendly mortgage broker software. Complex workflows, outdated designs can make the experience horrible. It is valid for both your customers and employees. Therefore, look for software that is easy to use and understand.
Offering a smooth experience improves the productivity of your employees, thus resulting in a better return on investment for your business. Moreover, a user-friendly interface will also get your staff up-to-speed quickly. Eventually, it will help your business with more uptime and efficiency. Software with a well-designed workflow acts as a built-in training tool for your staff.
The following image shows an example of a friendly UI of LeadSquared mortgage software.
Having a demo session will help you understand the platform better. You will know if it will work for you in real-life scenarios or not.
Final Thoughts
Home sales will reach 6.24 million in the United States in 2020. And these numbers are only increasing year after year. Therefore, it is imperative to have the best mortgage broker software at your disposal. It will allow you to process more applications in less time, thus resulting in more revenue for your organization.
Look at these features while choosing the software application for you and your team. These features will help in improving your mortgage lending process and eventually improve the overall operations.
You can get all these features and more in LeadSquared mortgage CRM. Take a free demo and explore the benefits!
Further reading:
- What is a mortgage software? How does it simplify loan management?
- Top 10 benefits of mortgage origination software
- 17 innovative ways to find online mortgage leads
- Lending business trends 2021
Best Mortgage Broker Software FAQs
Mostly, mortgage brokers use LOS (Loan Origination Software) or Mortgage CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.
A mortgage broker software system is a platform for simplifying the stages of mortgage lending. It includes borrower profile management, mapping lenders and borrowers as per the borrower’s financial requirements, digital application processing, verifying applicant, compliance management, and more.
