Just a couple of decades ago, the mortgage shopping process looked pretty different. Someone might get a lender recommendation from their real estate agent, a friend, or family member. They may have then called that lender’s office or even scheduled an in-person appointment to explore their options. Loan officers got lots of time directly interacting with folks, making it easier to close loans.

Today, some people get a mortgage without ever talking to another human. That means you need to rethink your process for some borrowers — particularly millennials and Gen Zers. Delivering the digital mortgage rate shopping experience they expect helps you capture leads, warm them up, and move them toward the closing table. 

What borrowers expect from mortgage lenders

72% of prospective borrowers start their mortgage journey online, and they’re willing to continue the process there, too. Roughly 75% of people begin their mortgage origination process online. 

In other words, people are using mortgage lender websites to both shop their options and take early steps toward getting a loan. Your website needs to deliver on both fronts. You can help people understand their options and take next steps by meeting their expectation for: 

Speed and ease

The internet is designed to help people get the information they want quickly and easily. Web developers have widely circulated the three-click rule, which says that a user should be able to access the content they want within three clicks. The thinking goes that if they can’t, they’ll get frustrated and look elsewhere. 

Personalization

People visiting a website instead of calling into an office can make it harder to capture leads. Someone could find your lending institution’s site, look around, and leave without you ever knowing anything about them. 

But there’s good news: people are often willing to hand over personal information in exchange for personalization. To get information that’s tailored to their situation, they might give you their house shopping budget, desired zip code, and even their phone number and/or email address. 

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Transparency

In an era of digital scams and data breaches, people are increasingly wary of unsavory players online. Layer in the seriousness of a mortgage — the biggest financial decision a lot of people will ever make — and trust gets extra important. 

Consumers won’t be impressed by an ultra-low advertised rate if the quote they actually get from your company is nowhere near it. They want to partner with a lender who they feel has their best interest in mind. Using aggressive sales tactics or misleading information isn’t going to curry any favor. In fact, it will likely drive consumers away. 

How lenders can meet consumer expectations

Since today’s borrowers want fast, easily accessible, personalized, and transparent info, your mortgage lending institution has an opportunity. 

Fast, easy-to-access rate information

People want and expect speed and ease when they’re looking for information online. As a mortgage lender, then, you should ask yourself: when people visit my company’s website, what do they want to access quickly and simply? The answer is almost invariably: rate information. 

Fortunately, you can also make it fast and easy to deliver on this expectation. Deploy a rate table that’s integrated with your product pricing engine (PPE). This way, your site continually displays the latest rate information, and your team doesn’t have to do anything to keep your site updated.

You can leverage current rate info in other places to cater to consumers’ speed/ease expectations, too. Connecting your PPE to a mortgage calculator, for example, lets people crunch the numbers themselves.  

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Personalized rate quotes

Having opportunities for personalization on your site creates a win-win. Your lead can get tailored rates, giving them a better idea of what applies to their unique loan scenario. And you get a way to capture their information so your loan officers can keep nudging them toward close. 

With lead workflows on your site, you make it easy for people to get personalized rate info — and to collect the consent you need to contact them. This way, you can use further marketing tools like SMS texts and emails. Tapping those channels to provide more personalized information helps you use consumers’ desire for bespoke intel to your advantage. 

Plus, you can serve up all of this personalized info on something of a silver platter. With a customer rate dashboard, consumers get a way to view live rates that are tailored to them. They can price out their own loan scenarios there, too. 

Thanks to built-in data and analytics, that doesn’t take the power out of your hands. You can see how leads interact with their personalized dashboards. This way, your loan officers can best adapt their next steps to get them to the closing table. 

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Trustworthy information

For starters, use plain language on your site. Remember that a lot of your consumers aren’t familiar with mortgage jargon. They might not know the difference between an interest rate and APR, or what a point means. 

Clearly stating things in basic language can help your site rank higher, too. Readability isn’t a direct ranking factor, but the ways it impacts user behavior make it an indirect contributor. 

In addition to plain language, make sure the info you have on your site is transparent. If you’re displaying an interest rate that reflects points, for example, make it clear how many points apply. Better yet, consider adding a little blurb to tell the consumer what points are and how they work. 

The more transparent your website comes across, the more it builds trust with consumers. That makes them more likely to want to partner with your team for one of the biggest financial decisions of their life. 

The easy way to meet increasing borrower expectations

You might be thinking: sure, all of this sounds well and good, but who has the time and resources to act on it? Thanks to our suite of mortgage lender tools, you do. 

With our solution, for example, adding a rate table to your site can be much easier than you might think. And with it attached to your PPE, it stays continually updated without any involvement from you or your team. 

The same goes for lead workflows, calculators, personalized rate dashboards, and more. To see just how easy it could be to get all of this running on your site, book a demo with our BankingBridge team today.