Mortgage

Why You Need Good Data Now More Than Ever (and the Best Way to Get It)

We all know what happened to the mortgage industry in 2022. It was a painful year marked by stubbornly high home prices, skyrocketing interest rates, falling production volumes, rising costs per loan, and layoffs.

At Richey May, we saw how hard those market conditions hit our mortgage banking clients. For many, it meant acquire, get acquired or rapidly adjust staffing levels and expenses. We also saw a pretty striking trend: Anyone serious about staying in the mortgage business started caring about data more than ever before.

With 2022 in the history books and rates settling into more stable territory, it’s time to recover and rebuild – this time with better data. To give you some guidance on how to do just that, we checked in with two of our resident experts, BI & Analytics Director Molly Manuzak and Director of Business Development Spencer Smoot.

Why you need data more than ever (and how to get it)

Is re-investing in your technology infrastructure a 2023 priority? If the answer’s yes then, like most executives Manuzak and Smoot talk to these days, you’re probably motivated by one hyper-clear objective: to do more with less.

In today’s market, industry leaders trying to reduce costs are realizing that extracting meaningful insights from data can be a game changer in these conversations. And the most forward-thinking among them are turning to Richey May’s RM Analyze to learn what they need to know now more than ever – how to operate even leaner. A BI solution should highlight where there are opportunities to improve execution and reduce costs.

Real-Time Benchmarking

As more mortgage industry executives insist on ROI from the solutions they’re paying for (as they should), RM Analyze fills the demand for the BI and data analytics performance they need. The industry-specific solution not only provides state-of-the-art technology, it’s supported by a strong bench of talent who know the mortgage business. It delivers something you won’t find anywhere else – real-time, peer-to-peer benchmarking.

That means local and regional competitive operational metrics that get updated nightly. No filling out forms and waiting weeks or months for publicly available data. With RM Analyze, you can plug into Richey May’s benchmarking and get the intel you need overnight.

“We’ve onboarded so many mortgage companies onto RM Analyze, we’re now benchmarking them against each other,” Smoot explains. “We’re doing benchmarking you can’t do on other platforms because we’ve got the clients. And it’s real time. There’s nothing like it in the industry.”

And real-time data only begins to describe the breadth and depth of this BI solution’s capabilities. Backed by a cloud-native data experience platform that optimizes critical business information at scale, RM Analyze provides data-driven insights for every system from LOS to CRM.

“It’s not just a plug-and-play spot solution,” said Smoot. “The options really are endless.”

Up and Running Reports in Two Weeks

But what does onboarding look like with RM Analyze? And how long before you get the reporting you need? That’s where the rubber hits the road – and where that bench of talent who know the mortgage business comes in.

“A typical implementation takes about six weeks, but usually we’re giving clients reports within two to four weeks,” said Manuzak. “And then we’re working with them to teach them how to customize.

“Our solution is not black box,” she said. “We want to train you so you can use it – so you can essentially take the keys to the car and really own it, and then reach out to us as resources and trusted advisors.”

“We want to train you so you can use it – so you can essentially take the keys to the car and really own it.”

Once we complete the implementation and get you up and running on the platform, you can tap the Richey May team as needed.

“If clients come to us with a business problem, we can look at their data and help them solve it or tell them what we’ve done for somebody else,” Manuzak says. “So we can use not only our experience with other clients but our experience in the mortgage industry.” Tapping our team’s expertise can help you identify key areas of opportunity as well as guidance on creating efficiencies in those areas.

Best-in-Class Service, Better BI and ROI

Of course, the proof is in the ROI. And RM Analyze can literally pay off in days.

Case in point: “We worked with a client about four years ago who said they were going to do this in-house,” said Smoot. “And we circled back with them two years later to ask how it worked out. He said, ‘I’ve spent $500,000, we’re still not done with implementation, and I’m only getting two reports.’”

A proof of concept by Richey May’s team was delivered in 3 days was exactly what this client was looking for. “In three days, they could see 14 dashboards and hundreds of meaningful reports,” said Smoot. This was done without the need for any additional hardware, servers, or internal team members.

“It’s half the cost of a full-time employee, and you gain access to a strong bench of talent with an increasingly rich background in mortgage industry data,” he said. “And it’s led by executives with decades of cumulative mortgage and data experience.”

With RM Analyze, you have the tool you need to look more deeply at your business, gain efficiencies and not just survive in the years ahead but thrive.

Why wait another day? Get the state-of-the-art technology, robust reporting, best-in-class service, and real-time data you need today. Call (303) 721-6131 to speak with a Richey May Mortgage Banking Advisor or email us at info@richeymay.com.