As winter begins to turn into spring, more potential borrowers are going to be entering the market; some looking to buy for the first time, others possibly looking to build their own home or refinance an existing loan. We’ve touched on mortgage quote seasonality before, and it’s not really a secret that the spring and summer are the mortgage industry’s busiest time of the year. With that in mind, here are three things you can do to prepare for the next several months of increased traffic and prospects.

We recently announced a new integration with Ellie Mae’s Encompass®, providing a third party origination (TPO) solution for our users. The new integration streamlines pricing and offers a centralized, secure web portal for lenders and third party originators to collaborate throughout the loan process. The integration allows for lenders to transmit proprietary pricing from Mortech for distribution of both initial and intraday rate changes, while also including base rates, SRPs, LLPAs, and layered profitability.

While there are several practical reasons to utilize this integration, we wanted to show some concrete, statistical reasons why and how this TPO integration helps TPO users on Marksman® with regard to bringing in leads and a higher quote volume. Using data from Marksman, we examined some different stats and results between TPO and non-TPO users.

As the data above illustrates, TPO users in Marksman process 98% more quotes than non-TPO users. Loan size is substantially larger as well, with TPO users processing loans that are 15% larger than those processed by non-TPO users. TPO users also have an average of five more investors than non-TPO users, making for more competitive pricing online for their borrowers.

Last week, Zillow Group celebrated it’s 10^th anniversary as a company, with festivities stretching, quite literally, from coast to coast. Zillow Group offices from New York City to Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Lincoln all celebrated the milestone, with a little help from NASDAQ, who allowed CEO Spencer Rascoff to ring the closing bell from Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

While Mortech is a little bit older than Zillow Group (we turned 28 last November), we’ve been a part of Zillow Group for over two years now, and are excited to be moving into the future with the world’s largest and most vibrant home marketplace. Check out some photos below from the festivities.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, many couples will be sharing dinner, a night at the movies, or some other form of a romantic evening. However, we were curious about the idea of sharing something a little different: a mortgage loan. We pulled some data from Marksman to compare co-borrowers and single borrowers, to see if there was an advantage to having a second borrower on a loan, or if it’s better to fly solo.

Looking at the compiled data, the answer seems pretty obvious: co-borrowing appears to be the way to go in most cases. Co-borrowers had a higher average FICO than single borrowers, and typically had a higher purchase price than those taking out a loan on their own. Co-borrowers also had a lower average LTV and DTI, making for a clean-sweep of advantages over single borrowers.

Of course, there can be drawbacks to co-borrowing as well. Putting someone else’s name on a loan surrenders complete control over decisions made regarding the loan, and some borrowers might not want to lose that control. Others might want to co-borrow, but don’t have an advantageous FICO score, so that the average score between the two borrowers would drop substantially. So, while co-borrowing is shown to have its advantages, they aren’t so vast that a lender borrowing on their own isn’t an option either. If a borrower is on the fence about co-borrowing, though, it might be a good idea to show them the advantages they could have from doing so.

Last week we published a blog of four simple ways to improve lead generation. The first among them was sending a seasonal email campaign, however I wanted to expand more on that this week, simply because of how prevalent emailing potential borrowers can be in the mortgage industry. Email is a quick and easy way to contact several different borrowers at once, and get your business noticed. Unfortunately for marketers, people do everything they can to avoid emails that they don’t think are relevant or interesting to them, making well-crafted emails a necessity for any business looking to use it as a marketing strategy. With continued increased compliance regulations around mortgage advertising and marketing, it's important lenders take full onus of ensuring they adhere to all compliance regulations when communicating with potential borrowers. So with that in mind, here are four ways to create and send better emails to potential borrowers.

As we move through January and into February, mortgage lending sits in its lowest point of the year. From 2010 to 2014, our mortgage quote data showed that November through February are the four months with the lowest average amount of mortgage quotes throughout the entire year. While it’s easy to sit back and wait for the market to pick back up again when spring comes around, there are some incredible simple things you can do to help improve your lead generation in this “slow period”.

This week we're showcasing new Mortgage Technical Support Specialist, Jessica Schwab. Jessica started here at Mortech in July, and lives in Lincoln with her husband, Mike.

Favorite things to do on her days off: I love to spend time with my family and friends. I enjoy shopping at local boutiques and grabbing a coffee with friends in my free time.

Favorite place to travel: Nashville, Tennessee.

Favorite time of the year: Summer.

This week we're showcasing Mortech General Manager, Doug Foral. Doug has been working at Mortech for over 12 years and, together with his wife Maddie, has three kids: Ada, Oliver, and Milo.

Favorite things to do on his days off: Raising our three wonderful children and traveling. 

Favorite place to travel: Always up for seeing new things.  A couple of my favorites include snorkeling off the island of Kauai, biking through Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor Maine and hiking the “red rocks” in Sedona.

Favorite time of the year: Fall – Beautiful time of year in Nebraska. I also met my wife in the fall, our kids were born in the fall, we were matched with our adopted son in the fall, and college football!

This week we're showcasing Marketing Manager, Katie Sheridan. Katie has been at Mortech for two years now.

Favorite things to do on her days off: Cooking, biking, hanging out with my dog, and/or traveling.

Favorite place to travel: Anywhere and everywhere! Ireland & Scotland have been my favorite countries to visit so far, but I still have many others on my bucket list.

Favorite time of the year: Early fall. The weather in Nebraska in the fall can be beautifully cool, yet sunny.

This week we're showcasing System Administrator, Matthew Baxa. Matthew has been at Mortech for nearly four months now. He's married to his wife, Ann, and the two of them have a son together, 20-month-old Jonah.

Favorite things to do on his days off: Read.

Favorite place to travel: Yellowstone National Park.

Favorite time of the year: The fall - cooler weather and football!

Favorite thing about working at Mortech/Zillow: Being part of a great team!

Favorite feature of Marksman: Online Rate Quoting. We're always working to push our customer's rates online to the most possible potential borrowers.