When you have a team of mortgage agents, the more successful they are, the more successful you are – quite literally. Agent training and development are both time consuming and things that brokers have to constantly pay attention to. However, training and development lead to higher closing rates and more efficient agents who send more accurate information to your lenders, and thus, they can’t be ignored.
While training is great, it does still leave room for human error. Sure, a strong interview and thorough review of documents can uncover a lot, but it’s not foolproof and directly verifying certain information empowers you to know more. The reality is, the more tools and technology you put in place to help your agents learn more and be more efficient, the better it is for you.
An ongoing consideration for all brokers is building strong lender relationships. Institutional lenders monitor closing rates. Institutional lenders also monitor instances of fraud. When your agents have spikes in deals that fail to close or instances where suspicious information is appearing in their applications, this can damage the brokerage’s overall relationship with their lender. While with smaller lenders you may be able to have more personal relationships to overcome hiccups, it is a whole different ball game where the big banks and other institutional lenders are concerned.
So, let’s talk tools and technology. As a broker, a great first step is to look at what deals didn’t close and why. For example:
- Was the homebuyer unable to prove down payment?
- Was there an issue proving income?
- Was the value off?
- Were there mortgages that exceeded what was declared?
- Were there undisclosed mortgages?
- Were there other people on title?
Honing in on the specific areas of weakness help you to determine how you can provide better support. Look for tools and technology that do more with a single tool. A Property Details Report, for example, can uncover things like discrepancies in values, other people on title, undisclosed and incorrectly disclosed mortgages, etc.
Talk you your lenders. What tools are they using? Implementing the same types of tools as your lenders creates more alignment because you will be seeing what they will eventually see, before they see it. Catching these problem deals before your lenders do results in better service for your client and referral source, not to mention showing your lender that you are committed to protecting their interests and that you take your relationship with them very seriously.
For more information about how you can implement tools to help your agents better underwrite deals please visit Purview today at https://www.purview.ca/.
