Agent matching service Clever Real Estate is looking to win more business from mortgage lenders by teaming up with the customer relationship management platform Total Expert.
The integration of Total Expert’s CRM and customer engagement platform with Clever Real Estate will give lenders a “360-degree view” of borrowers as they head to the closing table, providing real-time updates and maintaining communications with agents.
“By leveraging data-driven insights and intelligent automation, lenders will be equipped to provide a more personalized and efficient experience to their borrowers,” the companies said in announcing the partnership Tuesday.
Founded in 2017, St. Louis, Missouri-based Clever is a flat-fee “paper” real estate brokerage that matches buyers and sellers with local real estate agents. The company charges sellers $3,000 or a 1 percent listing fee and provides homebuyers with a 0.5 percent cash back rebate in 41 states where the practice is allowed — everywhere but Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon and Tennessee. Clever says its agent network now numbers 12,000 agents across all 50 states.
In announcing an $8 million Series B funding round in December, Clever said it would use the additional funding to expand its team from 75 employees to 200 employees, with most of those additional staffers devoted to supporting the growth of Clever’s new platform for mortgage lenders.
Luke Babich
“Online lenders offer the best rates but lose out because they don’t have the tools to support a home buyer through their whole journey,” Clever co-founder and COO Luke Babich said at the time. “Clever fills this gap: We enable lenders to build a cohesive real estate team for their borrowers with a top agent, concierge service, and cash back at closing.”
Rival agent matching service HomeLight, which entered the mortgage business with the 2019 acquisition of digital mortgage lender Eave, is also a major provider of power buyer services after announcing in June an agreement to acquire cash offer provider Accept.inc and raising $60 million in Series D equity funding.
Partnering with mortgage lenders is an avenue for Clever to find homebuyers who aren’t already working with real estate agents and refer them to agents in Clever’s network who pay a 25 percent referral fee for the service.
On its website, Clever says that when mortgage lenders send the company unrepresented borrowers, they’ll get a call within 5 minutes from a “Clever Concierge” who will ask them about their situation and goals.
Clever’s Agent Matching Platform then picks two to three agents the company thinks would be a good fit, and the company helps buyers interview and compare those agents to choose the one they like best.
Josh Lehr
“Now more than ever, consumers are looking for a trusted advisor to help them navigate current market conditions and reach their financial goals,” said Total Expert’s Josh Lehr in a statement. “We’re excited to partner with Clever and strengthen customer relationships with timely, relevant communications.”
Total Expert announced in March that it had developed new capabilities mortgage lenders can use to monitor customers to detect when they’re ready to buy a home or refinance a mortgage, allowing them to automate personalized sales and marketing campaigns.
Minneapolis-based Total Expert called the new tool, Customer Intelligence, “the first fintech platform to bring customer insights directly into automated sales and marketing workflows.”
Total Expert says it provides its CRM and data-driven customer engagement solutions to more than 175 financial institutions, unifying data, marketing, sales and compliance solutions to turn customer insights into actions, increase loyalty and drive growth.
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