Mortgage Broker Loan Processing: The Complete Guide (2021 Update)

Although most mortgage brokers have a passion for advising clients and writing new business, many of the very best mortgage brokers in the country rate loan processing as the MOST critical function in their practice.  This article explores how getting your back office admin function right (and employing the right loan processing solution or service) helps to drive practice growth.

What is “Loan Processing”?

Loan processing refers to the back office administration function associated with submitting, tracking and settling a residential home loan.  The process encompasses:

• Gathering information and documents from the borrower (the client)
• Preparing the loan submission
• Submitting information and data to lender(s)
• Supplying the correct supporting documents to the lender
• Tracking the loan through to unconditional approval and settlement
• Settling the loan and managing the client relationship moving forward

Why Loan Processing Is The MOST Critical Function In Your Mortgage Broking Practice

We recently asked a sample of top-producing mortgage brokers what the most important function in their business is.  Perhaps surprisingly, most replied “loan processing”.

Although other functions such as lead generation, sales conversion, referral generation and loan strategy and structure often get most of the attention, loan processing is the unsung engine room of top producing firms.

Here are 3 reasons why your back office administration function is crucial to get right if you want to grow:

1. It usually doesn’t take many hours to recommend the best funding solution, but it takes many hours to process the loan. Around 20 hours, in fact.   So if you’re not efficient in processing, your time can easily get sucked away from sales, strategy or service.
2. The loan submission, approval and settlement process is a BIG part of the client experience, and it’s one that most clients don’t enjoy.  There’s a lot of documents, complexity and waiting.  There may also be deadlines and stress.   So if your loan process isn’t sharp, you run the risk of frustrating and angering clients.
3. Loan processing is a function that a broker can employ other team members to do.  This frees up the broker to focus on what they do best.  In other words, getting this function right offers you LEVERAGE.

The Ideal Mortgage Broker Loan Process

What does the ideal residential home loan process look like?   We’ve given a huge amount of thought to this question, and as a result have come up with the following “ideal” loan process.

Dozens of BrokerEngine software users have VALIDATED this process and provided input to refine and improve it.  So while any process can always get better, this is a workflow that has been thoroughly tested in the field by some very big loan writers.  It’s not just something we plucked out of thin air.

Loan Processing Stages

There are 15 loan stages in our recommended loan process:

Stage Name	Definition
1. Get Supporting Docs	Supporting documents are being collected from the client
2. Prepare Deal for AIP	Prepare deal for Approval in Principle (Pre-Approval)
3. Sent for AIP	Loan has been sent to lender for Approval in Principle
4. AIP Issued	Approval in Principle has been issued by the lender
5. Prep Deal for Formal	Prepare deal for formal approval (unconditional)
6. Sent for Formal no Val	Deal has been sent for formal approval with no valuation
7. Conditional Approval	Deal has been conditionally approved by the lender
8. Send for Formal with Val	Deal has been sent for formal approval with valuation
9. Formal Approval	Deal has been formally approved (unconditionally)
10. Mortgage Docs Posted	Mortgage documents have been issued by the lender
11. Mortgage Docs Returned	Mortgage documents have been received by the lender
12. Ready to Settle	The loan is ready for settlement
13. Settlement Booked	Settlement has been booked by the lender
14. Settlement	Settlement has occurred
15. Lost/Declined	The deal is not proceeding. The deal is automatically archived after 2 weeks

Tracking Loan Status

It’s important for a broker and their loan processors to maintain a real-time overview of which stage each loan is at.  These days it has become more common to use a “Kanban-style” dashboard to achieve this.  A good dashboard gives you immediate insight into how your pipeline is tracking. Here’s an example taken from BrokerEngine:

Each card contains key data, which highlight important facets of the deal:

Where the deal is running late or is in danger of missing a deadline, the tile is further highlighted with a red border to draw immediate attention:

Loan Processing Automation

Humans are well-suited to performing tasks like strategy, sales and service.   They’re good at solving problems and unsticking (both important qualities in a great loan processor!).

But there are some tasks that computers and software can do faster and cheaper than humans: particularly process-driven, data-intensive or repetitive tasks.

So, in between the loan stages, there are a many tasks that may be completed or augmented by smart software and automation.  These include:

• Client fact finding and document collection
• Status updates via email and SMS messages
• Phone calls to lenders
• Preparation of Loan Proposals and Advice Documents
• Preparation of Lender Submissions
• Preparation and Submission of Discharge Authorities
• Ordering and tracking valuations
• Applying for lender pricing
• Progress updates to Solicitors, Agents and Referral Partners
• Online applications

When you start to look at all the automation possibilities, things start to get very detailed, very fast.

Delegation and Teamwork

Mortgage broking is one industry that has proven relatively difficult to systemise.

The main challenge is being able to capture the detail and variability of every deal in an efficient way. Unless you have a good system for delegation, brokers can remain bogged down in explaining, checking and fixing work.

Solving delegation means brokers can get on to their next client conversation. If delegation remains a challenge for you, these articles will help:

• How To Build A Mortgage Brokerage That Runs Without You
• Growing Your Mortgage Broking Team: Who To Hire And When
• The Ultimate Pre-Research Checklist For Delegating Loan Research

Exception Management

It’s generally true that “all home loans are 80% the same… it’s the 20% differences that can sink you.”

In other words, despite the fact that the broad structure of all loan processing tasks may be similar, most loans have a few peculiarities that alter the administration steps or workflows.

These little differences can trip up many a new or experienced loan processor alike.  That’s why you need robust processes and workflows for dealing with these exceptions.

We’ve identified 33+ such exceptions that we call “1-Click Workflows”.  These include:

01. Lender Rebate	Lenders may offer a rebate in the form of a cashback offer post settlement, refund of LMI or fee waiver post-settlement.
02. Guarantor Home Loan	A client may use a guarantor to avoid a deposit requirement or reduce the LMI payable.
03. Fast Refi	Some banks offer “Fast Refi”, which allows the new lender to pay out the incumbent without the outgoing lender being notified. This is so the outgoing lender can’t call in their retention team.
04. Non-Standard Ownership Structure	The borrower may wish to purchase property with a particular share/interest. For example, 50/50 where both parties hold equal shares, or 80/20 where one party legally owns 80% and the other 20%.
05. Client Lives Overseas	The client may purchase property while living overseas. The borrower will need to ensure they are informed of appropriate witnessing requirements etc.
06. Construction	Construction loans entail a specific drawdown structure.
07. FIRB	Some migrants/visa holders may require Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approval.
08. Mat Leave/ Pregnant Pause	For clients who are planning to go on maternity leave or have children in the next 1-3 years
09. Deposit Bond	Some borrowers may require a deposit bond upon unconditional approval if they do not have sufficient funds at that time to pay the deposit or there are tax reasons for not doing so. Therefore a deposit bond will be required.
10. First Home Owners Grant	For borrowers applying for a First Home Owners Grant (FHOG)
11. Off the Plan	When purchasing property “Off The Plan”, there are certain risks that may apply.  Brokers may need to advise the client of the risks at appropriate times.
12. Debt Recycling	Debt recycling is a tax strategy that allows a borrower to convert non-deductible debt into deductible debt.
13. Purchasing in a Trust	Some borrowers may be purchasing within a trust structure for tax mitigation or asset protection purposes.
14. Rate Lock	“Rate lock” is a feature that allows a borrower to lock in a fixed interest rate between time of lodgement/approval and settlement date.
15. Favourable Purchase	A favourable purchase is where a client will purchase a property below market value from a related party (e.g. mum and dad).
16. Multiple Offset Accounts	Some lenders allow multiple offset accounts per loan.
17. Cross Securitisation	Cross-securitisation is where a borrower uses multiple properties to secure one or more loans.
18. Interest in Advance	Interest In Advance is where a borrower pre-pays loan interest for the next finance year or years. This brings in further tax deductions this year.
19. Refinance	Refinances have specific sub-processes.
20. Debt Consolidation	Debt consolidation
21. Simultaneous or Prior Settlement	Simultaneous or prior settlement
22. Repayment Type IO vs PI	Repayment type – Interest Only vs Principal and Interest (for Loan Strategy Report preparation purposes)
23. Split Home Loan	Splitting the borrowings between fixed rate and variable rate portiongs (for Loan Strategy Report preparation purposes)
24. SMSF	SMSF residential property loan
25. LMI Waiver	Where LMI is waived under medico or industry specialisation policy, the lender needs to be prompted to apply the waiver.

Within BrokerEngine, each of these 1-Click Workflows is specified using a simple checkbox.  These allows the broker to simply check off the exceptions that apply to a particular deal.  As a result, the downstream workflow changes accordingly.

Using Loan Checklists To Error-Proof Loan Processing

It is one thing to have processes, systems and procedures to ensure that your loan process is carried out in a standardised way.   It’s another to ensure it’s actually done that way, every time.

This is where checklists come in.  Checklists are a simple yet profoundly effective way of ensuring that processes are executed correctly, every time. (Read The Checklist Manifesto for examples of how checklists have transformed entire industries).

The only thing is that for lending, these checklists need to be Dynamic Checklists, as opposed to Static Checklists.

Static Checklists are the same for every deal, whereas Dynamic Checklists are customised checklists that relate to the specific deal at hand. With Dynamic Checklists, you have less chance of missing an important detail that can delay or derail your deal and frustrate your client.

These checklists not only ensure that everything is done right, but they also provide an audit trail for each deal in case anything should go wrong.   Here’s one example:

By adopting the right loan processing system, you free up time to focus on marketing, client acquisition and client service.  These are the activities that ultimately grow the value of your practice.

Cutting 5 to 10 Hours Per Deal Out Of Your Loan Process

We asked our users how long it takes to process each loan “the old way” (i.e. before BrokerEngine), and the consensus was that each loan requires 14 hours of work.  This includes meeting with the client, through to settlement and post-settlement care.

When you use BrokerEngine, this time is reduced to 4 hours, with the balance of the time being handled by a loan processor or admin team.  Here’s the data behind those figures:

Mortgage broking is too competitive to waste up to 10 hours per deal.  And if you want to grow, then ensuring you have the right back office support is critical.

If you’d like to know more, contact us for a Free Demo of BrokerEngine software.  We’ll show you streamline and automate your workflow, so you can get back to what you do best…

…sitting in front of more new clients, and creating amazing loan solutions.