With mortgage rates having fluctuated significantly in recent months, homebuyers and their agents have been thinking a lot about how to make their next home purchase more affordable and less daunting.
John Paasonen of digital mortgage platform Maxwell and Robert W. Foos of Power Buyer Knock told Wendy Forsythe of Fathom Realty while at Inman Connect Las Vegas that real estate brokers have an opportunity right now to increase their value proposition by being selective about what companies and individuals they work with when it comes to financing.
Paasonen noted that, following the pandemic housing boom, there are now about 20,000 more loan officers in the industry today than there were just two years ago, which allows brokers to be very picky about who they choose to work with, since there are more options available.
Robert Foos, John Paasonen and Wendy Forsythe | Photos by AJ Canaria of MoxiWorks
He added that at Maxwell, the company empowers loan officers to adopt the role of problem solver for brokers, helping them create financing plans catered to specific groups of clients. As demographic shifts continue to take place among the homebuyer population, such as with increasing numbers of millennials, women and Latinos, loan officers should be creating plans that will assist those groups at an individual level.
“If your loan officer’s not helping you address the economics and the financial picture of those new segments, again, you should get a different one,” Paasonen said.
When it comes to alternative financing, Foos said that it’s unlikely that many new entrants will come into the market in the next few years due to the recent shakeup with rising prices, interest rates and inflation giving buyers and venture capitalists alike pause.
That said, even though it’s now a slower market, Foos argued that there’s still a place for alternative financing companies like Knock, who are still in a position to make buying a home more simple for consumers.
“We have shifted [our] messaging in 2022 to be primarily focused on instilling confidence back in buyers,” Foos said. “To get buyers back off the couch, to get buyers back in the game addressing affordability, addressing the ability to move on their own terms and timeline. It’s still about convenience, it’s still about powering buyers up, but now it’s not just focused on winning at all costs, it’s about making it more affordable and making it more within reach for buyers.”
See what other tips the financing leaders have for brokers by viewing the full video above.
