Closing mortgage leads takes a long time⏳ and that’s killing your loan origination business😖

We looked into why this was the case and found a way to fix it using chatbots🤖

Check out the full story below👇

Why Does It Take A Long Time to Close Mortgage Leads?

So you have a bunch of lead gen channels set up to bring home buyers into your marketing funnel. 

Your real estate agent networks are strong, you’re running hyper-optimized Facebook and Google ads, and you’ve even publicized your mortgage offerings in the local magazine.

Homebuyers come through these channels at a pretty steady clip and everything seems like it’s going smoothly until suddenly it all grinds to a halt.

When leads come into your funnel there is pretty much just one hurdle that they have to overcome to convert into a paying mortgage customer but that hurdle is a big one and it’s one you are familiar with.

The 1003 form.

1003 forms are thorough, and with good reason. They ask for every single detail that a lender needs to make an accurate risk assessment.

But while this thoroughness may be necessary, it is also user-unfriendly.

The length, complexity and just the downright seriousness of the form make for a hellish lead generation process.

No homebuyer in their right mind will fill out a complete 1003 the first time they land on your landing page and expecting them to do so sets yourself up for abysmally low conversion rates.

The Imperfect Solution

To ease home buyers into the grueling application processes, most LOs don’t ask for all the details in one go. 

They ask for a few key details on the initial landing page, use those details to qualify leads and then once they have a good sense of which leads are good quality, they begin the process of following up to get all the remaining 1003 info. 

This system of lead generation works, but it is far from perfect.

The process of capturing the remaining 1003 information is soul-crushing to say the least.

The average home buyer is not a mortgage expert and that lack of knowledge coupled with the sheer importance associated with buying a house makes them wary of completing the form as soon as possible.

Rather you need to assuage their fears, answer their doubts, and help them up when they make errors.

The end result is a closing process that takes days if not weeks to complete.

The Conversational Solution

To be clear, chatbots are not a silver bullet. 

You still need to collect all of the necessary details and docs required for a complete 1003 even if you use a chatbot.

They can, however, help you frontload a lot more of that information collection so that you have to spend a lot less time following up with homebuyers after you’ve captured their lead information.

Here’s the full rundown👇

Homebuyers are coming in through the door from your various channels, just like with your traditional landing page.

Of course, now when they click on your links, instead of seeing a regular old form, they see this:

It’s an automated conversation with a chatbot that captures the exact same details that you are currently collecting through your forms except, it isn’t as cumbersome, intimidating or boring.

Rather than being greeted by a wall of empty form fields, homebuyers fill out one detail at a time in an interactive chat interface that’s more engaging than a regular form.

Rather than deciphering impersonal and cryptic form labels, homebuyers are guided through the mortgage application using language that is approachable and conversational in nature.

Best of all, rather than filling out the entire form all on their own, homebuyers have an always available Loan Origination expert walking them through the 1003 and in our experience that has meant that they will share their details without any handholding. 

In other words, you can capture more of that valuable 1003 information as soon as people click onto your page.

The end result is fewer panicked phone calls, fewer repetitive email chains, and most importantly faster closures.

Conclusion

The beauty of chatbots is that they can take an experience as boring as a mortgage application and make it feel truly delightful. At the core of this transformative potential, is an interface that feels human and offers reassurance to homebuyers who otherwise feel wary throughout the process.

In many ways, chatbots can be seen as a force multiplier for your loan origination business, delivering your ultra-personal customer service from the moment the homebuyer lands on the page without any additional labor costs. For you, that means spending less time following up and more time closing deals.   

If you’re interested in transforming your mortgage lead gen experience into a chatbot, check out our full how-to guide that will help you create an entire mortgage chatbot in a matter of minutes.