Mortgage Lenders Plan to Spend More on Technology, Velocify Study Finds

Based on the responses of more than 500 mortgage professionals, the survey, "Growth in a Changing Mortgage Market," found lenders that relied more heavily on consumer direct channels made greater investments in marketing and sales technology and were more likely to experience high growth. In comparison, lenders that relied more on retail channels were less likely to invest in marketing and sales technology and less likely to experience growth.

"We found the results to be a wakeup call for retail lenders," said Chris Backe, financial services director at Velocify. "Putting all of your eggs into the loan officer basket and referral strategy is not a sound approach without marketing support and state of the art technology."

According to the study findings, however, retail lenders may be prepared to do just that. Survey respondents with substantial retail channels and high purchase volume said they plan to increase their technology investments going forward. And what's more, investment is being focused on technology that will drive growth, process improvement, and customer retention. Compliance is on the list, but ranks number four behind these top three drivers.

"We have seen how sales and marketing technology has helped with growth in our consumer direct channel and are planning to invest in technology to help drive growth in our retail channel as the purchase market continues to heat up," said Tony Pietrocola, the Senior Vice President at vLoan, an online mortgage lending platform backed by 40 years of mortgage experience from Union Home Mortgage Corp. 

Other findings of the report include:

• Lenders experienced significant growth in 2015; 88% percent of respondents reported their loan volume grew at least 5% since 2014.
• Mortgage lenders that rely more heavily on purchase loans and retail channels are not growing as fast as those relying on refinance business and consumer direct channels.
• Growing lenders were noticeably more likely to spend 10-20% of their revenue on marketing and also more likely to reinvest more than 20% of their revenue on marketing.
• Lenders with more than 200 salespeople were almost 30% more likely to report growth than were lenders with 10 or fewer salespeople.
• Lenders with high growth and higher marketing investments were most likely to be above average adopters of technology.
• For lenders that plan to significantly increase their technology investment, business is 22% more likely to come from purchase loans.
• Lead management, referral partner management, analytics, and marketing automation software were perceived to have the greatest impact on growth.

"With the purchase market finally starting to take charge, we were curious what strategies lenders were pursuing to take advantage of the current environment," Backe said. "We found consumer direct lenders are poised to leverage the strategies developed during the refi boom to sell purchase loans.  But there is no reason why retail lenders can't use these very same strategies to close their sales gaps and boost conversion rates. At the end of the day, lenders that invest in technology to meet changing borrower expectations are more likely to succeed."

The study was based on survey respondents from more than 500 mortgage professionals of all types, representing mortgage bankers, brokers, correspondents, wholesale lenders, banks and credit unions.  The survey was conducted in collaboration with Velma, a world-class provider of mortgage marketing automation, and Mortgage Coach, a leader in mobile mortgage technologies. Download the full study, Growth in a Changing Mortgage Market.

About Velocify

Velocify® is the leading sales acceleration platform. The company helps more than 1,500 sales teams sell more by bringing speed and control to the entire sales process. Velocify helps sales teams prospect with more precision, accelerate lead engagement, and implement optimized workflows, ultimately helping sales teams find and convert more leads. Velocify has recently been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in North America by Deloitte and Inc.  For more information, please visit Velocify.com or follow the company on Twitter @Velocify.

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SOURCE Velocify

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