“Anyone who has kids probably has seen them experience a moment of confusion over ‘old technology.’ In fact, there are hilarious videos online of children trying to use rotary phones, typewriters and 1980s-era Sony Walkman music players.
When you watch these videos, you can’t help but wonder how long it will be before a child looks at a pencil and piece of paper and wonders: ‘How do these things work?’”
Chris Backe, the Director of Financial Services at Velocify
Even with all of the technology available in the home buying process today, the overall buying experience hasn’t necessarily gotten better for consumers.
Purchasing and financing a home is still confusing and even a bit daunting — and it’s even more nerve-wracking when buyers don’t get the help they need when they need it.
To reverse this trend, agents and lenders need to find ways to give borrowers both the technology and the human expertise they desire, and at the right times in the transaction.
What is the real technological impact?
Backe states “it could not be a better time to improve the [buying] experience for consumers. Job growth and incomes are relatively strong, the U.S. is experiencing the highest home-sales rate in more than a decade, and the Mortgage Bankers Association expects purchase-loan volume will increase this year and again in 2018.”
Although the gains in technology have given potential buyers greater access to more information about home buying and mortgages, these consumers are not necessarily better informed.
Technology may have actually distanced borrowers from the human expertise they traditionally depended on to make the largest financial transaction in their lifetimes.
Recent data from the McKinsey Group shows that compared to social media, e-mail is 40 times more effective at gaining new customers.
Today, real estate and mortgage professionals are swarming to Facebook and Twitter, yet many agents and originators fail to respond to an e-mail from a potential borrower the same day it was sent.
Focusing on the customer
Making the buying and mortgage process faster and more efficient remains an important goal that also benefits consumers. Yet real estate and loan professionals who want to take advantage of today’s strong housing-market fundamentals to grow their business would be wise to focus less on how quickly they can move prospects through the funnel and more on actual client relationships.
Many lenders, for instance, now offer online portals where borrowers can gain approval for a loan all by themselves simply by answering a few questions, uploading documents and electronically signing a few disclosures.
No loan officer is needed. But is this really the best way available?
Ironically, many borrowers are not using these services. The major drawback of a consumer-driven mortgage process appears when a borrower has a question, and there’s no one around to provide an answer.
For online portals to be truly successful, human expertise must be available at key moments, and it must be provided quickly.
In Conclusion
Bache concludes by stating that “it may still be some time before printed paper goes the way of the rotary telephone. Keep in mind that cell phones have been around for decades, but they did not achieve mass appeal until manufacturers figured out how to deliver a better user experience.”
For what it’s worth, we should continue to push for the technological advances in the home purchase arena….but in doing so, let’s not forget that most buyers and borrowers would prefer the right home and mortgage to a fast one.
Find the right agent and lender that provides the right human touch.
The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of American Financial Network, Inc.
