The mortgage market is facing unprecedented challenges, and lenders can feel as if they are struggling to keep up. Decision-makers might be tempted to sound the alarm at the first sign of declining revenue or decelerating volumes. This instinct is solid: to course-correct at the organizational level, and to try and snap what feels like a skid. But acting first without knowing the true scope of the problem could lead to a dangerous oversteer.
Note we said lenders (plural). While it can sometimes feel as if your organization is going through hard times alone, it is important not to lose sight of the forest for the trees. If warning bells are blaring inside your organization due to changing market conditions, there’s a good chance they’re blaring inside other organizations as well. The first step is to figure out whether this problem is unique to you, or whether it’s plaguing your industry peers, and the market at large.
Timely peer performance metrics can provide you with a looking glass into what’s going on outside the walls of your organization. They give you actionable, anonymized visibility into how your lender peers are performing, so you can understand the challenges dozens of other organizations at your level are facing.
Most providers of peer performance metrics release this data either annually or twice a year, which can prove problematic when market conditions are changing rapidly, as they are now. There are, however, more competitive peer data platforms that publish this information monthly, giving you actionable insight into your performance across 20 unique metrics in the greater context of the markets.
ICE has received feedback from lenders who cited monthly data reporting cadence as a win for their organizations. While data is always anonymized (and lenders must contribute their own data to be published anonymously as well), they said the monthly “freeze frames” and rankings among their peer groups have proven invaluable.
With this data in your hands, you can know whether your operations staff is performing as well as staff at other companies in your peer group. You can also understand seasonal patterns and trends among your group and as we move into a purchase-dominant market, you can compare how your metrics stack up against your competition, including: days from application to funded, application to funded pull-through, and monthly funding volume compared to peers.
Actionable analytics do more than point out your deficiencies; they highlight your strengths as well. For instance, should you add a new loan product, you can see if its pull-through is better compared to other products. Competitive actionable analytics platforms will also allow you to get granular with your own internal data, which will not be shared with other organizations, featuring the ability to zoom in to get a clear picture of loan officer performance. When you know what’s working, you can lean in for greater efficiencies.
In this turbulent market, ups and downs are par for the course. When lenders are among the first to have the clearest information at their disposal, bumpy roads can become much smoother. Contact Black Knight today to learn how we can set you up with an actionable analytics platform to equip your decision-makers with the knowledge and the context to navigate a challenging market.