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Jordan: Your finance activity is up and here to talk to us about it is
Quicken Loans CEO, Bill Emerson.
Bill, thanks for joining us today.
Bill: My pleasure, Jordan. How are you? Jordan: Good.
How are you? Bill: Good.
Jordan: So, we've seen rates kick up a little bit.
Over 4% recently. What's the effect going to be on the market and what do
you see for the future of the mortgage market? Bill: Well,
I think right now you are seeing a ton of activity.
A lot of people are refinancing still.
Rates are still in the low to mid 4's,
so that doesn't really impact, I don't think,
a whole lot of people.
You know, when rates kick up a little bit,
I think it gives people a wake up call that they need to think about
what they are doing and stop procrastinating and take advantage of the opportunity,
but right now we are seeing some good activity.
I think longer term, the trend for interest rates is up and so if you're
really going to think about doing something,
you need to take advantage of it.
These rates are not going to stay this low forever.
Who knows, maybe another 6 months,
maybe another 2 days. You never know what's going to happen in the marketplace,
so I think anybody that's got an opportunity to save money and refinance or is
seriously thinking about buying a home,
there could not be a better time than right now to do that.
Jordan: One of the larger lenders came out recently saying that they are telling their
clients that, to file a mortgage application they have to wait 60 to 90 days.
Is Quicken Loans seeing the same difficulties in that? Bill: No.
We're not seeing the same difficulties in that.
There's probably a really good reason for that.
I think it's our platform.
It's a centralized nature of our platform that we built that allows us to scale.
We wouldn't have won JD.
Power "Best in Client Satisfaction and Mortgage Origination" back to back years if we didn't
know how to take care of our clients,
if we didn't know how to handle volume and we didn't know the right things
to do to make sure those clients are getting the service that they need.
A big chunk of that is the technology and is the platform that we built.
But no, any of those folks that are waiting in line,
just give us a call.
We'd be happy to help them out and figure out a way to put them
into a better mortgage situation for themselves.
Jordan: You mentioned the technology and the scalable platform.
What specifically does that focus on technology help in the mortgage process? Bill: Well,
I don't know if there's one specific thing.
I think that technology has become so critically important to our business and I think
it should become more important to the industry.
It's not just technology alone.
It's technology and process. So, what we've been able to do is take our technology
which has been built internally, leverage it tremendously on how we handle the mortgage transaction
from end to end. What we're able to do is give our folks that are
working on those loans visibility into what they should be working on and we help
prioritize that work so that at the end of the day,
they just need to figure out how to help out that client.
They don't have to make a decision around,
"Should I work on this client? Should I work on that client? Should I work
on this piece?" Really, what they can then do is dedicate their entire attention to,
"What is the best way I can serve my client?" and therefore provide the client
service that we need which allows us to be able to maintain great turn times.
I mean, average closing times for us is 30 days or less.
That includes conventional loans and government loans.
So, with the ability to be able to give that visibility,
give that prioritization with a home grown technology solution,
its really allowed us to grow,
scale and become a very large player in the industry.
Jordan: Bill, is there anything else you would like to mention? Bill: No,
I just think it's an interesting time in our industry right now.
There's a whole lot of uncertainty as to what is going to happen in Washington
with regulation. I think that anybody in this industry needs to figure out how to
not only leverage technology to help their client,
but also to be compliant with all the changes and all the things that are
going on in our industry.
It's a very unique time.
I think people that are properly positioned can do very well and do business the
right way and be compliant.
That's an important thing in our industry right now.
Jordan: Well Bill, thanks for joining us and giving us some of your time.
I hope this helped some clients get some insight on how technology can get them
through the mortgage process quicker.
Bill: My pleasure, Jordan. I'm glad to be here and thanks for doing what you
are doing. Jordan: If you have any more questions or would like to speak to
Bill, please visit our press room at www.quickenloans/pressroom and you can also follow us on
Twitter @QLnews or on Facebook at Quicken Loans.
Thanks.