Local Home Lender's Moneysource's New Loan Officer Web Sites Create 'Personal Assistants' To Simplify And Speed Up All Stages Of Loan Processing

Business Wire, Sept 5, 2000

Business Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 5, 2000

While many financial organizations are struggling to separate their web-site businesses totally from person-to-person customer services, Evergreen Moneysource -- a prominent home loan company headquartered in the Pacific Northwest -- has found what they believe is a better idea.

Each Evergreen Moneysource Loan Consultant now has his or her own personalized web site listing at emoneysource.com that can be accessed directly by customers, real estate agents, or other professionals involved in a home loan.

In effect, the loan officer's web site becomes an electronic version of a "personal assistant", capable of capturing or forwarding valuable information, expediting processing, and enabling the loan officer to deal with the home purchase process in a much more timely way. It allows the loan officer to easily handle more loans and helps the customer get a faster, more trouble-free loan.

Customers and agents can contact a loan officer any time of the day or night, seven days a week and the loan officer can serve customers from any location -- home, office, or on the road -- virtually anyplace he or she has access to a PC.

"We chose to make our internet service emoneysource.com a major financial commitment," reports Donald M. Burton, president of Evergreen, "and we spent many months and a substantial investment creating a very interactive, user-friendly web site."

The site provides important purchasing information such as "What can you afford?" "What will your home cost?" and "What are the steps to home purchase?"

Additionally, Evergreen's site provides useful consumer information on what schools, services, and amenities are located in or near the specific neighborhood a prospective buyer is considering.

A complete overview of knowing not only about the home but also about the entire community adds great benefit to any homebuyer and his/her family and helps to assure a successful home location choice.

"Increasing usage of the Internet is where all financial services are headed, but no one in our industry is quite sure what the exact relationship between interactive web sites and face-to-face loan consultant services will be," added Burton.

"However, loan officers who are already using the Internet to augment their personal service report that their loan transactions go faster -- faster prequalifications, faster approvals, faster processing -- you name it, and there are a lot fewer glitches, too! Some admit that the number of clients they can now serve has gone way up.

"Evergreen Moneysource's emoneysource.com site offers so many useful customer options that, in effect, we're encouraging the marketplace to tell us how they most wish to incorporate these new conveniences into their home buying process.

"At Evergreen, we envision the role of the web site as being an enhancement to - and extension of -- the highly dedicated level of service that Evergreen Moneysource loan officers already offers in person," Burton said.

"Younger adult customers, those who grew up with the computer, tend to be more receptive to using an online approach for almost the entire mortgage process -- right up to signing final documents," continued Burton.

"Other customers are now beginning to feel comfortable with the Internet for financial transactions. These buyers tend to use our web site primarily to complete and submit the application process but may prefer to deal via phone or face-to-face with a loan consultant after the initial Loan Application/Approval stage. That's absolutely fine with us."

Kimberly Terry of Seattle and Don Zender of Bellevue are both highly successful loan consultants in the Pacific Northwest. They report that the real estate agents and home buyer customers whom they serve really like Evergreen's a la carte In-Person and Online Customer Services flexibility.

"Some of our real estate agents are already completely sold on web-based loan application and processing," Terry explained. "They realize that their customers are often very busy. Offering a homebuyer ease in filling out information online, in the comfort of his or her own home or office, is a real plus.

"A real estate agent who is familiar with our web-enhanced service can become a hero in his or her customer's mind. Now even smaller real estate firms can offer the most advanced state-of-the-art high-tech approach to home financing, thanks to Evergreen," Terry concluded. "It's an approach that benefits everyone involved."

Don Zender, who is ranked as one the most successful home loan executives in the United States, observes "Many home buyers and real estate agents have mixed feelings. They know that being tech-savvy is essential as we move into the future, but they're not sure how to work with this, or how to present the Internet idea to customers.

"That's why we emphasize that using Evergreen Moneysource's web site is completely versatile: use it just to start the transaction rolling in order to get a fast prequalification; or stay with the Internet for efficient processing, or go online at times that best suit a consumer's style -- for example, to check on a loan's status. What matters is that these new options for extra speed and ease are always there."