Hi
My name is Brian Sather and I am one of the creators of the mycahomeloan.com website. I want to take a minute and tell you all about why we decided to build the site and what we think it can mean to both buyers and agents. As with many business ideas, this one started out of the belief in technology’s ability to transform business. The internet and technology are enabling change and making massive improvements to every industry from cutting edge to low tech. Some industries respond quickly to change, others – not so much. Real Estate is much more the latter. We work in the final frontier of fax machines and co-branded flyers. The game is changing and so few of us are changing with it.
About a year ago, all of that started to change at DiVita Home Finance. We decided, it was time to take a big swing. We decided that if no one else was going to lead the charge into the next wave of technology enabled mortgage platforms and tools, we would. We began examining the processes and the tools used to learn about, apply for, and get a mortgage. We found out what worked and what didn’t (most of it), and asked ourselves, what would we do differently. What would our customers want us to do differently? We interviewed buyers, sellers, real estate agents and even other mortgage brokers and found 4 common themes.
- There is a lack of transparency to the mortgage process.
- Very few agents have the bandwidth or the expertise to properly nurture leads.
- There is a ton of homebuyers education available – very little of it is actually usable.
- A majority of homebuyers and agents feel that communication within a transaction needs improvement.
These themes continue to pop-up in every conversation I have with agents and homebuyers. Try an experiment for yourself. Go ask someone who recently bought a home if they understood the process? Did they feel confident that they always knew what stage the loan was in? Do they feel confident that they understood all of their mortgage options? Do they even understand the mortgage they got? Were they able to transfer documents securely? – or were they asked to email them? It is shocking to me that more often than not, people tell me that they had to email or fax a private document. There is just no need for any of these issues to exist. We have the technology and the expertise to do a better job. And most importantly, if we, as real estate and mortgage professionals do not start doing a better job, then someone else will.
That is why we built MyCAHomeLoan.com. MyCAHomeLoan.com is a technology based mortgage platform and portal that enables real estate agents to differentiate themselves and generate more revenue from existing leads and delivers a better mortgage experience to the buyer.
We focus on improving the experience for the buyer and the agent in the four problem areas.
- We make the entire mortgage process transparent to both the agents and the client, and we have a very clear service level agreement so everyone knows what to expect and when to expect it. That means total accountability on our end. In fact, if we do not deliver as promised, we write both the buyer and the agent a check for their time.
- We use sophisticated lead automation technology combined with industry expertise to deliver relevant, timely, and targeted information to keep leads moving through the buying cycle. Looking at this from the buyer’s perspective, we deliver the information you need so that when the time comes, you can make informed, confident purchase decisions.
- We have developed some of the best homebuying education on the internet today and put it together in a single location, and in a way that is useful and usable to anyone interested in buying a home.
- Our portal enable users and agent to securely upload sensitive documents and communicate with all parties in a way that is secure and documented.
Ok… so that last bit sounds a bit like a sales pitch. I get it. But it’s hard not to want to scream it from the rooftops. This is a better system than anything the currently exists. And – it will keep getting better. As we generate more data that enables us to better understand what the end-user really wants and needs, the smart technology built into the platform will just get better and better at delivering for you.
I want to invite anyone who has comments or suggestions to contact me directly. You can respond directly to this post. I will do my best to respond within the hour.
Thanks
Brian Sather
