Why Lenders Need to Reach Borrowers Earlier in the Home-Buying Process Timeline

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Why Lenders Need to Reach Borrowers Earlier in the Home-Buying Process Timeline

Home-Buying Process Timeline

Buying a first home isn’t just exciting, it can also be overwhelming throughout the home-buying process timeline. Purchasing a home is one of the biggest financial decisions that many people make in their lifetime. Therefore, selling mortgages for first time homebuyers is a great opportunity for you to provide excellent customer service. 

After all, consumers have a need for guidance from lenders during the beginning, middle, and end of the home-buying journey. 

Home-Buying Process Timeline

Why Engage With Borrowers?

Many borrowers are not at all familiar with how to take out a mortgage when they start the process. Without the lender’s guidance, consumers often wind up on an inefficient home-buying process timeline. So, this lowers their satisfaction with the home loan process. Also, this can reduce the likelihood that they will refer people to you. 

Reaching out to consumers throughout the process is the way to go. Also, prioritize providing value right away. This puts you in a better position to lock in prospects who are not inclined to shop around, and convert those who are. 

Engage Borrowers Earlier 

Waiting to engage with prospects at the start of the application process is not ideal. Doing so is a risk that can result in loss of business. So, it is necessary to equip borrowers with tools that provide value at each stage in the home-buying process timeline. 

Provide Value

Loan officers can help homebuyers by asking a series of questions before the application process begins. Such as, “How much house can you afford?” or “What is your maximum budget?” Also, tools can be provided. Besides being practical, mortgage calculators are educational tools that help. They give insight into the variables that affect the overall calculation. 

Borrowers can explore different loan scenarios on their own. Then, you play the valuable role of advisor by answering questions, monitoring market conditions, and suggesting products that meet the borrower’s specific financial situation.

The House Hunt

Once armed with information about their buying power, consumers can browse listings confidently. Although they’ll interact more with a real estate agent at this stage, it’s important for you to remain connected. Make sure to answer early-stage questions and work alongside the real estate partners.

Streamline Your Communication 

Every loan officer and borrower enters the relationship with their own communication style. It’s important to determine the best communication methods for each of your borrowers. 

One option is keeping your clients updated throughout the home-buying process through texting. Communicating via text can also be effective in helping you manage borrower engagement at scale. 

Jungo SMS

As a loan officer, updating your borrowers on their loan application status can be extremely time consuming. After all, how many times have you sent an email or left a voicemail only to never receive a reply?

These unopened messages are huge inefficiencies in your day. Plus, they can lead to the loan process taking longer than it should. However, consistent communication with your borrowers is a critical aspect of your business.

Texting updates are a great solution, and the Jungo SMS helps with this. When you add Jungo SMS to your Jungo account, you can easily send texts to a customer, right from your CRM. You can even send a mass update to a group. 

How Can Jungo SMS Help you?

Imagine your borrower was just cleared to close. Your LOS and Jungo automatically sync, and an automated workflow is started. The workflow sends a text to the borrower, co-borrower, realtor referral partner, and anyone else you’d like. You can even customize the messaging if you’d like! Now you can relax since everyone has been told the great news without you even having to pick up the phone.

Plus, you can automate or schedule your text messages for one less thing to worry about. Then, loan officers can provide the best possible experience to their consumers. An effective engagement strategy will prioritize consumer preferences. 

Look Beyond the Home-Buying Process Timeline

One of the common reasons a borrower may choose a specific lender is having an existing lender relationship or receiving a personal referral. For consumers who do already have a lender relationship, the existence of that relationship is not always enough for the lender to win repeat business. 

Personal touch matters when it comes to strengthening loyalty. So, a simple post-closing check-in call has the power to strengthen the relationship. It’s important that lenders invest in maintaining and reinforcing the lender-borrower relationship before, during, and after the close.

Bottom Line

Consumers look to lenders to learn about the mortgage process. So, lenders can gain clients by engaging borrowers early and providing exceptional customer experience throughout the process. 

The convenience, speed, and transparency of using communication tools helps streamline and improve the borrower’s experience. Then, borrowers will most likely remember their home-buying process timeline experience as a delightful one. 

Jungo SMS Business Texting Best Practices