How to Amplify Your Lending Business with Mortgage Referrals

Referral Partner Success with CreditXpert

Mortgage lenders experienced a rude awakening when, after years of neglect thanks to historically high refinance volume, they reached out to touch bases with their real estate agent business referral partners. The relationships they thought they would easily rekindle were no longer there.

When loan volumes fell, real estate agents who hadn’t heard from a mortgage broker or loan officer in years were suddenly getting multiple invitations to coffee or lunch every day. They ignored most of them.

But they didn’t ignore all of them.

The loan originators who got a call back were the ones who understood what it means to add value to their business referral partners.

What real estate agents need now

One of the reasons CreditXpert grew so significantly in 2023 is that our reports actually add value to real estate agents by helping their clients qualify for a mortgage loan — or a better deal on the next mortgage.

To explain how it works, our Chief Legal Counsel, Jen Sides, recently hosted an informative webinar with industry consultant and success mentor Laura Lasher.

As they visited about the work that CreditXpert is doing on behalf of American consumers and how our reports make it easy for more than 70% of mortgage loan applicants to increase their scores, they talked about the impacts this can have on other parties to the real estate transaction.

It comes down to educating the other parties involved to the impact our work is having on the consumer, Sides said.

“When you show how much you care to the other parties involved — the real estate agent, the insurance agent, etc. — and show them how much is affected by the consumer’s credit scores, working with you becomes a no-brainer,” she said.

In a market where consumers are unsure of whether a real estate transaction will benefit them, they will naturally wait. No one wants to make a mistake. Increasing their credit score makes every deal better and reduces fees like Private Mortgage Insurance. This gives borrowers more confidence and helps business referral partners get more business.

Automating the process for growth

Lasher, who has been involved in the industry for 40 years, recalls an earlier time when helping consumers with their credit was a long, complex and drawn out process.

While you could help some borrowers work through the old process, it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t something any lender had time to provide for all loan applicants.

“Before CreditXpert, you had to sit with the borrower and spend a lot of time explaining things,” Lasher said. “The borrowers we could help were the lucky ones, but we weren’t able to do it for everyone. Now, with credit optimization, it’s an automatic thing. You can help applicants in a matter of seconds.”

Better than that, the new CreditXpert Platform makes it easy for the loan officer to keep tabs on the applicant’s efforts, urging them to complete the process if necessary.

“Now that you can do this for everyone in a matter of seconds, why wouldn’t you?” Lasher asks. “It can really deliver better outcomes for nearly every applicant in just 30 days. I mean, you’re helping yourself in multiple ways, and of course you’re helping that borrower.”

Then, taking those success stories to business referral partners allows lenders to add real value to these important sources of new business. You’re not selling anything. You’re offering to make the transaction better and more satisfying to their customer. That’s a win-win.

“I love this tool. I think it’s just tremendous,” Lasher said. “Plus, if you can put a policy in place that drives you to help every applicant with their credit so that it positively impacts compliance and fair lending, that’s one less thing to wake you up in the middle of the night.”

See the CreditXpert Platform in action, click here to join one of our upcoming demo webinars.