12-20-2021 How are LO's Increasing Purchase Volume With Ben Teerlink

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In our Hot Topic this week we have Ben Teerlink, CEO/Founder at MobilityMMI & MobilityRE on the program to talk about some of the trends that he’s seeing with the data and how LO’S and originators are using his technology to more effectively connect with the purchase side of the business.

A lot of lenders, as well as mortgage loan originators, are working off of credit pole alerts; and that’s one way to do that, but his system is going to be much more effective; and we will hear all about that!!

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How are LO’s Increasing Purchase Volume With Ben Teerlink

Everybody, Merry Christmas. It’s December 20th, 2021. We’re on Christmas week. We’re so glad that you’re here tuning in and allowing us to share with you all what’s going on in the industry. That’s our passion. We love doing this. This show is created by mortgage professionals. It is for mortgage professionals, although we certainly are getting a lot more than just mortgage professionals tuning in. we’re so grateful to have you as our reader. No matter what part of the industry you work in, we are excited to have you here. Our audience is growing.

We’ve blown up yet another server. If you’ve been to the website, you’ll notice we’ve been struggling with some things. It was down for almost a week. It’s because of the amount of growth and finding the right server and the right technology matchup. I apologize to those of you who are looking for that, but that’s some of the things going on.

Our commitment is to bring you timely information. I might add in 2020 and do so in excellence that you can read them anytime and anywhere. I am thrilled to have the whole team on. We’ve got a lot to talk about. We have Ben Teerlink here who is the CEO and Founder of Mobility MMI and MobilityRE. We’re going to hear him talk about some of the trends that he is seeing with data and how LOs and originators are using his technology to more effectively connect with the purchase side of the business. We’re going to be all ears during the Hot Topic.

I am looking forward to having Ben on. I am pleased to have him as a sponsor and I am more pleased to have him as a friend. I’m excited to have him here joining us on the Hot Topic. If you haven’t checked out Industry Syndicate, I encourage you to go out and do so at IndustrySyndicate.com. They got a list of a whole bunch of shows related to the mortgage industry and real estate industry.

Also, I want to say a special thank you to our sponsor. With the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, we’re so blessed and honored to have our relationship with them. You’re going to read an update here from Rob Van Raaphorst in a minute, as well as Finastra. They are one of the longstanding advertisers we’ve had for many years. I love the partnership with them. Check out their Mortgagebot solution. Receive, manage, store, retrieve, and deliver loan files and electronic documents completely in a paperless environment.

Go back and check out Karen Jenkins in the episode we did on October 4th, 2021. Karen has got a great roadmap of where they’re going with their technology. When you have the number one FinTech company in the world saying and publishing on a show where they’re going, that’s valuable information. Check it out. It’ll help you a lot. I loved how transparent she was. I love the company.

Lenders One and Mortgage Collaborative, we’re proud to be partnered with and have them both as sponsors. Those are two great co-ops. We love both of them. I encourage you to check out membership with all of them as well as The Community Mortgage Lenders of America. Also, Insellerate where the leading-edge technology of mortgage expertise is combined with pre-designed campaigns comes together to enhance borrower engagement.

We have our friends at Knowledge Coop. Ken Perry and the team does a great job with their LMS or Learning Management System. We’ve got Mobility MMI. We’re thrilled to have them as a sponsor and Ben as a guest. Also, we have Modex. These two companies complement each other. I encourage you to check out both of these companies. More of our clients are signing up on both of them because they see how the data complement each other. I encourage you to check it out.

Also, Snapdocs. I love what Snapdocs is doing. They’re taking over the world when it comes to everything eMortgage technology. You’ve got to check out Snapdocs eMortgage Quick Start Program and all of the technology they’re building. We added SuccessKit. What SuccessKit does is help tell your story. Let another man’s mouth speak your story, not out of your own. That is what SuccessKit is about. They’re helping you successfully get your customers to give good testimony or references for you. Also, finally, Lender Toolkit or LTK. I love my friend Brent Emler there. We interviewed him on November 29th, 2021. Check out that interview. Also, finally, a special thank you to Rob, Les, Alice, Allen, Matt, and Jack Nunnery, our newest addition to the show. It is so good to have you here.

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Welcome to the Hot Topic segment where we’re going to be talking to Ben Teerlink who’s the CEO and Founder of Mobility MMI and MobilityRE. We’re going to talk to him on the program about some trends. I’ve asked him for specific information that he’s seeing in trends with the data and how LOs and originators are using his particular technology to more effectively connect with the purchase side of the market. Is anyone interested in that? Is that a hot topic or what? How timely is that?

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Ben, it is good to have you here. I appreciate it. I’m so grateful for your sponsorship of the show. I’m interested in you sharing the information. Let’s get into it if you’re ready and you’re up there. It is good to have you here.

It is great to be here, David.

When looking at the market, we’re seeing the loan originator’s percentage of refinance flip flop in 2020 and 2021. We’re moving into 2022. I want to start off by getting your perspective on that. Let’s start off by talking about flip-flopping. It’s there. I like some of the things you’re seeing as to how people are using your tools to get more purchase business. Talk about it.

It has been so interesting to watch. For years, it was always that 70/30 split of a purchase business here and refis are here. That shifts in a refinance boom and market. Over the last couple of months or so, it was pretty amazing to see that it was that exact flip-flop where the refi was so heavy. It was almost concerning in seeing that the majority of this business is refi.

Over the last couple of months, it’s been pretty interesting to see how a lot of our clients are utilizing the platform and our technology to say, “We know that that’s going to adjust. It’s going to have to focus back on the purchase. How do we best do that, and how can we be most effective?” We all know one of the most effective ways on that purchase is your realtor partners. Everyone has been so busy that they didn’t focus on that relationship quite as much over the last couple of months. We’re seeing a real shift where people are putting that effort and focus into them. They are making sure those relationships are good so that they can maintain volume levels of what they’ve been doing, but purchase instead of all refi.

It’s been a big challenge for the whole industry and seeing them. I can’t wait to get more into that, but let’s go over to Alice. Do you have any questions you want to start off with?

When I was looking at MobilityRE, it seems so interesting. I’d love to know what are some of the ways you’re seeing the LOs use the technology to get into this purchase business.

The first thing would be what we’ve tried to put in front of all the LOs. It is their current wallet share with their existing realtor partners. What we like to do is pull this and say, “Look at all of your realtor partners.” You might look at your wallet share report and see, “I have 60 agents that I’ve closed the deal with in the last year or so.” It will show you how many deals you closed with that realtor. Next to it, it’ll show how many deals your realtor did as a buyer’s agent.

It gives you your percentage of how much of that business are you getting. It’s been such an eye-opener for our LOs to look at that and say, “I thought I was getting all of my agent’s purchase business. I’m realizing I’m not even getting half of it.” They’re able to dive into that and say, “This is where that other purchase business is going. There’s a whole lot more business I can have.”

When looking down at the details of that, we are seeing that sometimes, that realtor partner might be sending a certain type of deal loan, size, amount, or whatever it may be to maybe a competitor or a different lender. It is having a visual on that and being able to say, “My agent must not know that we have this program that can handle these jumbo deals, these VA deals, or whatever it may be.” It’s giving the LO the ability to see all that and know that. They can then focus on relationships and say, “I’m going to spend more time communicating with these ten agents that have a whole lot more business to get that I didn’t realize and focus there. I’ll make sure that I can take care of them and tell them about all the great things that we can do.” That’s been one big part of it.

Without going too long on this question, some of the other things would be the co-branded tools we have within the platform that can help those realtor partners. It’s one thing to know which agents you want to talk to, but then, it’s that next step of how do you then engage with them? How do you build on that relationship and make sure that you are getting that business from your realtor partners? A lot of those things would be tools that we have and the integrations with all the different mortgage CRMs out there to then incorporate single-property pages, brochure creators, and customized home search apps that generate borrowers for the agent and loan officer. It has a lot of details, but those are some of the ways we’re seeing the LOs capitalize on that.

LO’s: It’s one thing to know which agents you want to talk to, but it’s that next step of how you engage with them and build on that relationship.

I like the wallet share analysis. That’s very helpful in managing a team of LOs and trying to keep the focus on the right opportunities in the market. With that said, are loan officers using this data, or is it corporate using the data and then pushing this information out to the LOs?

We’ve seen a shift in that. Initially, it was more on a corporate level of companies coming in, looking at this from the high level, and saying, “These are all of our realtor partners. This is where we’re at. Let’s meet with our LOs and tell them that they should focus here.” Over the last couple of months, since we’ve seen this shift taking place, we’ve tried to add those tools that are beneficial for the individual LO to log in and see this. What’s pretty cool about it is each LO will receive alerts and notifications about their realtor partners. It tracks them and notifies you when they take a new listing so that you can engage with them. It gives you those triggers when you want to have a conversation with those realtor partners of yours.

We’ve seen it transition from corporate-only down to the individual LO level where the LOs are in there daily. They are using it as a way to engage with those realtor partners when they see activity and what’s going on. We are seeing how effective it has been for these LOs to build and maintain those realtor relationships.

Building those realtor relationships is sometimes some of the most difficult things. I’m thinking about where to look. When you’re talking about LOs using this data, and what Jack touched on isn’t corporate versus the LOs, it seems like you’re helping LOs no matter who’s using it. I want to get some insights and if you could share some stories.

Here’s what we’ve seen. We’ve seen that a lot of the time, a manager will use this to log in and look at all of the LOs maybe in their branch. The LOs in the branch will also have access to this, but the manager may look at it and say, “I’m going to have a review with this loan officer. I can now see fifteen of their realtor partners that they have their foot in the door but not the majority at all of the market or wallet share from those agents.”

That manager will then sit with that LO and say, “Let’s pull up your MMI wallet share report. Here are the fifteen that I’ve identified as some pretty decent targets for you to start having some conversations with. What can we approach these fifteen agents with?” That’s what we’ve focused on. It is making integrations with all of those CRM products out there.

What we’ve found is a lot of these CRM products have created some awesome content to relay that messaging to your realtor partners. They’re like, “These are our loan programs. Did you know that we can do this? Did you know that we can close this quick and that we can do this?” Without relaying that helpful information to your realtor partners, it is not doing it any good. You have to approach with the right approach.

A lot of these CRM products have created some awesome content to relay that messaging to your realtor partners Share on X

What we’ve seen is you identify those 10 to 15 agents. You then put them on a specific drip campaign with great content saying, “Here’s why you should work with us on all these kinds of deals.” As that drip campaign starts to happen, these realtors are responding to the LO saying, “That’s awesome. I didn’t realize you guys can do that.” You could also be like, “We have the ability to do this,” and they would say, “That’s awesome. I’ve got a deal. Let me try this. Let me send this one over to you.”

We’ve seen that going from that higher level of, “Let’s meet with our individuals and show them how to do this.” That individual putting that drip campaign together and seeing the realtor responding to that LO, engaging, and sending deals has been very cool to watch. We’ve seen that scenario happen over and over again with different LOs that jumped in, created the action items, and started that communication.

What I find interesting is the discussion of, “Will the mortgage loan originator go away?” The answer is clearly no. How the loan originator works with the consumer and how they work with a realtor in getting business in the door is moving more to the consultative feature. You touched on that a bit. What I want to look at is when you start looking at the different ways that new realtor relationships are established, are you seeing any trends there that are significant?

That’s a great point that you bring up there. That is first addressing whether the originator will go away. There are plenty of things you’ve seen over 2021 where a consumer can jump on, get a whole lot done without talking to many people, and do it all online. That’s going to be for a very cookie-cutter type of deal where the LO is so valuable in being that consultant. They are helping that individual with, “Here’s how we can structure it. Here’s how we can do this. Here’s how it’ll benefit you.” There are so many people that want and need that as opposed to someone jumping online and getting a loan quickly. That’s a huge part for the loan officer.

The second part of your question is how does an LO go and establish a new realtor relationship? That’s one of the other things that we’ve created here. It is to help an LO identify the type of realtor and the type of production they may be doing that they would want to reach out to and have a conversation with. We’ve put together to say, “I want to find all the realtors in this county down to maybe this city specifically where I focus as a loan officer. I want to build relationships with these realtors doing this much volume.”

LO’s: One of the other things that we’ve created here is helping an LO identify the type of realtor and the type of production they may be doing, that they would want to reach out to, and have a conversation with.

Maybe they’re not the top producer in the area. Maybe they are that mid-range that’s up and coming. We let you filter down, identify, and find who those realtors are. It’s the same thing. You’re like, “Now that I’ve identified them in here, I’m going to put together this in my CRM with a different campaign that is, ‘Here’s what we’ve done to help other realtors become more successful and get them to that next level.’” Those realtors are appreciative of that because they all want to take it to the next level. If an LO can explain how they’re able to help their clients, get loans done, be that consultant with their client, help that client accomplishes those goals that they want financially, get into the right home and do it the right way, it creates so much value. It starts that relationship off.

As we’ve seen, if you take care of a realtor and do a good job for them, those realtors talk to other realtors in their office. They say, “My LO is so great. They did this.” Seeing in the MMI dashboard that we have, your LO can quickly see, “Here are four other realtors in that agent’s office.” You can ask, “Could you make an intro to these four other agents? It doesn’t look like they have a specific loan officer they’re using based on the data in the dashboard. Can you intro me to them as I’ve taken such good care of you?” That’s worked well.

That’s good. Alice?

Thanks. As I’m listening to all this, I’m thinking of how many loan officers do have a large amount of past refinances. Are there ways that they can capture those past clients for purchase activity by using the software?

There is. We’ve been around for thirteen years. In some of our co-branded tools and products like the Home Search app and other things like that, we have an excellent handle on all the new listings that hit the market. What we’ve created and have found to be effective is what we call a property monitor feature. What that’s going to do for an originator is when they log into their dashboard, they can go into their property monitor section. It’s going to have pulled in automatically every one of their past loans. We don’t pull it from the LOS. We don’t need to pull it from their CRM. We already have and know all of that and all the deals that a loan officer’s gotten. They click in there and might see, “I’ve done 700 previous loans. Here they all are.”

What we do is then monitor those every day with new listings that hit the market. What we’re able to do is then notify that loan officer and say, “That client of yours that you refinanced a year ago at 123 Elm Street listed their house this morning.” When they see that, they’re going to be able to reach out to that consumer and say, “I saw that your home is on the market. I hope things are going well. We’d love to chat with you and see if we can put things together for whatever it is you’re going to purchase next.” Most likely, if someone has put their home on the market, they’re buying something else.

The statistic we’re seeing is 70% of those people have not put their loans in place yet. Seventy percent of those people that list their home don’t have that next loan lined up and done yet. It’s a huge opportunity to take that past client list and get their next purchase when they list. It’s been a great feature to get purchased from your past loan officer.

I love the property monitoring. That’s good. It’s one of the cool features that you have. Jack, let’s get over to you.

Staying on that same frame of topic, a lot of lenders or mortgage originators are working off of credit pull alerts. That’s certainly one way to do it. What does your system do to help the originator in this situation try to stay connected with those refi clients? When is the right time to engage?

I agree. A lot is going off that credit pull. What we’re seeing, too, and we’re hearing this a lot from LOs and everyone, is credit pull can often trigger a whole lot of phone calls to a borrower. They pull credit and all of a sudden, 4, 5, or 6 different lenders are calling them saying, “Let us give you an estimate on this.” It can become frustrating even to the consumer to say, “I got bombarded with different lenders reaching out to me when I did a credit pull.” Many people are monitoring that.

With our platform, we focused a little more on that listing trigger saying, “It’s one thing to pull on the credit.” We’ve found that on the listing, the huge thing is timing. If you find out that they listed their home a week later or ten days after they’ve listed it, especially in this market, it is way too late. You’ve missed it. If you find out within an hour of that home being listed that 70% of those people don’t have a loan in place, it’s possible they have not had a credit pull yet. You’re going to be first to that.

The huge thing is timing. If you find out that they list their home a week or 10 days after they've listed it, especially in today's market, it's way too late. Share on X

They’ve already worked with you, too. It’s a much easier conversation with a borrower to say, “I have everything in your file. I need updated pay stubs and a couple of minor things and we can get you all ready to go. We can put together what your proceeds are going to be from here and what we can put into the next. Let’s get you going.” We’ve found that to be a much more effective approach and often a step before that credit pull. It is a great way to go about it.

Those are some of the nuances that you guys have developed in your product that help originators. Les, as you are listening in on this, I’m sure you’ve got more thoughts rolling around in your wonderful brain, especially being the outstanding person at Union Home that does so much of the training and direct. What are your thoughts as you listen to this? How could this change the industry and change LOs’ activity?

I do think if I’m an LO or even a company, I would want to be able to get ahead of that credit pull. As an industry, we keep talking about how to get up the funnel and not be after that credit pull because everybody’s after that credit pull. I wondered. It does seem like a unique position. Can you talk about what you see are the next steps? This is all shareable. We’re all getting the same listing trigger if I’m using your service. I’d like to understand that a little bit more.

We do have a lot of lenders and clients utilizing the platform. What’s nice is we’re monitoring previous loans for each individual on the platform. It’s your past client listed, here’s who you should talk to, and when you should reach out. What we’re also trying to do is say that is an awesome way to get in front of it before the credit pull. What’s the stage before that even? Is it maybe when they start that online search for new homes that they start shopping? What does the consumer get most excited about? It’s not getting a loan. It’s about finding the next home that they’re going to move to.

That ties back to the original product we came to market with several years ago that we continue to enhance. That is the Home Search MobilityRE product. We’re engaging with a couple of vendors in some beta. So far, it is showing some pretty amazing results. We’re excited about it. What that’s doing is moving to where the eyeballs are, and that is online. Consumers are searching from their phones and their desktops for different homes. We’re placing different ads on social media where all the consumers are to say, “Here’s a cool home in your market. Here’s what you could buy it for and what your payment may look like.” It gets that buyer engaged even before they list their home, before they’ve done a credit pull, or before they’ve done anything.

If we can start pulling that buyer at the top of the funnel of starting that home search, then we have all the things behind it. We’re finding that it almost gives the lender that thing they’ve always wanted, and that is having that buyer at the beginning. Even at that point, they’re referring it back to a realtor partner and saying, “I’ve generated all these online that are looking at homes. They’ve done this. I have them approved now. Here you go. Let’s find them a home in this neighborhood.”

If we can start pulling that buyer in that very top of the funnel of starting that home search, then we have all the things behind it. Share on X

We’re pretty excited about that. We think that’s where things are heading, which is giving consumers that one-stop shop. Allen had such a cool system that he talked about earlier in this, and that was the Moscow method. Those are the must-haves and the should-haves. We’re seeing a lot of these things are must-haves. You got to have these tools to be in front of it, be notified, be aware of what’s there, and then start some action items on it. We think this home search part of it is one of those to make sure you’re ahead of it.

One of the things that one of our audience wrote and said is, “I’m a customer of Mobility. I love what they do, but he hasn’t talked about the best part of the company, and that’s his team.” This is a fan, a customer, and one of our audience who says, “Ben is great, but his team is amazing.” Talk about your team.

I’m glad they did make that comment. In 2021, we’ve had pretty incredible growth, so we have added more to our team. We brought some industry pros that have been around and veterans that we are so excited to have with us. Without naming all the names, we’ve brought on an incredible team to help not only with sales, but also with the onboarding and the growth of our companies, and to roll out and train best practices to make sure that our clients are getting the engagement from all their users.

You hate to buy technology and then see that your usage is 20%. We’re seeing the flip of that where 80% of people are logging in almost daily. It’s because our team is so good at training and showing the value, why it’s effective, and how to get results. A huge kudos to our team for doing such a great job on that. I’ll throw one plug in here. We’re looking to add to that team. I’m putting that out. If there’s anyone on the sales side, support, or anything else, we are growing fast and adding to that team.

It’s a great company. Alice has one more question.

I’m thinking this through. I love technology. I love to think about how we are getting about our information. I hope my question is okay. When you’re getting my database as the lender and you’ve got my borrower information, the property information, and the realtor as I may have in my database, are you getting the listing trigger from the property itself?

Here’s what we’ve focused on. We talk a lot about this as we’re in the sales cycle meeting with potential clients. That is that there’s so much data out there. It’s available, but it’s so fragmented. It’s coming from so many different sources. What we’ve focused on at MMI is saying, “We’re going to go out and we’re going to gather all of that for you.” That’s a huge task to do. Once we gather all of it, what we’re going to do is then put it into a dashboard in a format that’s easy to navigate. It’s an easy user experience. We’re going to put all the relevant things in front of you of what you’re going to want to know and what you’re going to need or want to do with it.

With those listing triggers, what we’ve been able to do is make sure that we are getting those across the country and doing it in the most timely way we possibly can. We’ll give you a link to it. Many times, you’ll click right on it and it’ll open up a link. You can see it on Realtor.com or you can see it wherever it may be. Often, it will show, “This thing’s been on the market for less than two hours.”

We’re pulling from a lot of sources, but we make sure that from all the different sources that we get, it’s going to be the most accurate and timely we’d be able to get. It’s been great to see clients use it, look at their own data, validate that, and say, “This is good as it gets.” It is the way that we’ve done it, for the long answer.

What a great question, Alice. If you look at the complexity of this from where you’re pulling all the data and how you’re bringing it together, it’s an absolute must-have. I encourage people to reach out to you. On that note, as we wrap up this interview because we can go on and on, tell us how people can best connect with you and learn more about your product.

Thank you. The best way would be to go to our website. That would be MMI.io. We try to make it nice, short, and easy. MMI.io will take you there. There are a couple of short videos that give a little overview of what it can do on the ability to even request demos and request more information. You’ll have a lot of things right at your fingertips there. Right from there, you can communicate with us. It’ll have our contact, whether it’s support or it’s an inquiry on learning more about it. I would go right to MMI.io. You’ll have everything you need.

That’s very good. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your sponsorship. I appreciate, more importantly, the outstanding product you have for many in the industry. It should be for everybody in the industry. I hope, as a result, people will go to the website and follow up on it. I appreciate you so much.

Thank you for having me on. It’s always great to be on here with you. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas.

We’re excited to have joining us in the next episode, Joe Rojas. He is with the RedSapiens. I’m excited. I met this guy. This guy has so much energy. I’m looking forward to having him. We will be talking about coaching. It’s so much about business development. Joe is one of those magnetic personalities. You’re going to enjoy the interview.

I want to say a special thank you to our sponsors as we exit out here. They are Finastra, CMLA, Lenders One, Insellerate, Mobility MMI, The MBA, Knowledge Coop, The Mortgage Collaborative, Snapdocs, SuccessKit, and LTK or Lender Toolkit. Thank you all for tuning in. Share this show with others. I wish you all a Merry Christmas. I look forward to having you back here in the next episode.

About Ben Teerlink

Having been in real estate for years prior, as well as having earned multiple top producer recognitions, Ben was looking for a way to improve and enhance the mobile technology he could offer both his clients and potential new clients in the local real estate market.

The initial goal of the business when it started was to create a simple way to help prospective homebuyers during their real estate search get real-time price, pictures, and information on any home they were standing in front of quickly and easily on their mobile device.

The company quickly grew and gained traction across the U.S. among top real estate and mortgage companies.

Under Ben’s direction MobilityRE & now MobilityMMI continues to create new and relevant tools in the industry that have proven to make a huge impact to its customers.

By staying ahead of the curve, and being innovators in the space, MobilityRE continues to grow at record breaking pace.

12-20-2021 How are LO’s Increasing Purchase Volume With Ben Teerlink

How are LO’s Increasing Purchase Volume With Ben Teerlink

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