With mortgage rates now roughly 1.5% below their late 2023 peak, plenty of homeowners stand to benefit from exploring a refinance. That’s a dream scenario for lending institutions like yours. Not so very long ago, the refinancing arm of your business was probably languishing. Today, it can start gaining momentum.

So, what next? You don’t need to be like a high schooler hoping to be asked out, waiting by the phone. Instead, your team has the opportunity to proactively generate refinancing activity. An automated refinance monitoring tool like Dream Rate helps you make the most of the opportunity on the table right now. 

Tapping into the current refi boom

Any way you look at it, refinancing activity is (finally!) climbing its way out of the basement:

• In late October, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported that refinancing activity was 81% higher than the same week last year. 
• For the week ending November 7, Fannie Mae's Refinance Application-Level Index (RALI) reports a 108% increase year-over-year.
• The MBA Mortgage Refinance Index has been consistently trending upward since the start of the year, with a notable jump when the Fed cut rates in September. 

In short, homeowners are coming out of the woodwork, spurred by increasing excitement about lower rates and particularly motivated by the rate cuts coming from the Federal Reserve. 

Your team faces a challenge here, though. On the one hand, you don’t want to wait by the phone, crossing your fingers that borrowers will get wind of lower rates and give you a call. You don’t have a guarantee that those people will call your lending institution rather than your competitor’s.

On the other, you want to keep your loan officers free to handle the increased volume of refi activity when it comes. If you allocate too many resources to outreach, the level of service provided to refi candidates could suffer. 

We’ve got a way you can proactively spur borrowers to consider refinancing without adding work to your LO’s plates. Meet Dream Rate, our automated refinance monitoring platform. 

The secret sauce: Automated refinance monitoring

We designed Dream Rate to handle two of the biggest pieces of generating new refinancing activity for you. First, it connects to your CRM and your product pricing engine (PPE). The automated refinance monitoring tool continually compares leads’ desired rate for refinancing against what’s available in the market. 

It doesn’t just alert your loan officer if that criteria is met, though. Instead, Dream Rate also handles the initial outreach. By alerting the lead at the same time as your loan officer, it helps to build momentum. Ideally, that initial nudge becomes the force that drives that individual to the closing table. 

Together, the monitoring and outreach help you turn your existing database of leads into refinancing business. And Dream Rate does all of this without requiring extra work from your team. 

Getting into the details: How Dream Rate works

To give your lending institution a better idea of what this tool can do, let’s break down the three steps it uses. 

#1: Integration with your CRM and PPE

We designed Dream Rate to seamlessly pull leads from your CRM so you don’t need to do the work of entering them twice. 

The only thing your LOs need to do is flag the lead’s target rate. Maybe you asked them when they’d consider a refinance when you initially closed the loan. If not, the loan officer can set the individual’s “dream rate” based on what they know about the person’s financial situation. 

As a general rule, a rate 1% below their current one often means a refi would be financially advantageous. So if your LOs aren’t sure where to set the person’s dream rate, simply subtracting 1% from the current rate works.  

Dream Rate doesn’t just connect to your CRM. It also links with your PPE. In fact, we have functionality with all of the leading PPEs. 

This way, we’re not flagging good refi opportunities based on generalities. Instead, we precisely match a lead’s desired rate with what your team can actually offer. 

#2: Automated refinance monitoring

Dream Rate automatically tracks rate movement in your PPE. No one on your team needs to lift a finger. Instead, you can all dedicate your energy elsewhere, whether that’s optimizing the refinance landing page on your website or providing top-tier service as customers move through underwriting. 

#3: Two-sided alerts

Once a lead hits their target rate, Dream Rate moves from an automated refinance monitoring tool to an automated outreach one. It simultaneously sends two emails: one to your loan officer and one to the lead.

The email your loan officer gets pulls in key data about the lead, including their contact details, their property type, and their current rate. Your LO doesn’t have to go hunting for information. It’s all right there. 

At the same time, the lead gets a rate drop alert in their email, branded to your lending institution. It highlights the now-available rate and their current loan scenario, making it easy to see how they could save. 

With this initial outreach automated, Dream Rate paves the way for your loan officer to connect and explore next steps with the lead. 

The support doesn’t stop there. Once the lead reaches their target rate, we also automatically enroll them in weekly rate alert emails. This keeps the refinancing opportunity top of mind for them. If the initial Dream Rate email caught them at a busy time, the gentle but recurring nudges resurface their chance to save. 

Getting started with automated refinance monitoring and outreach

The uptick in refinancing activity presents a prime opportunity for your lending institution to generate more revenue. Better still, it enables you to do that using a database you already have rather than leads you need to buy or seek out. 

And the cherry on top of all of this is that tapping into the refi potential doesn’t have to cost your team time or effort. To see what Dream Rate’s automated refinance monitoring and outreach could do for your company, book a demo with us today.