Today, over 6% of all mortgages are in forbearance. That’s up from only 0.25% at the beginning of March.12 An astronomical increase such as this has the potential to lead to astronomical problems, such as potentially devastating consequences for borrowers who don’t fully understand their forbearance repayment options. On the servicer side, it can lead to massive increases in call volumes. Fortunately, there’s a way to effectively manage the strain on both parties in a simple, seamless, cost-effective way. How? By following in the footsteps of leading mortgage servicers who have already begun mitigating these concerns through data-driven interactive video.
You might be thinking, “Why would I create videos at a time like this? I’m so busy as is!” Well, internal monologue, I’m glad you asked!
To answer that question, let’s do a little role-play and put yourself in the shoes of your borrowers.
‐‐Setting the stage‐‐
When you were looking for a loan you went through a mortgage broker, who gave your information to lenders, one of whom extended said loan. Once your loan was approved, it was transferred to a servicer, who funneled your payments to the lender or GSE.
Your mortgage was getting paid off, your servicer was making money, the lender or GSE was getting their loan recouped. Everyone was happy.
But wait! Chaos ahead!
Enter stage left: COVID-19.
Businesses are closed! Paychecks have stopped coming in!
“How will I make my mortgage payments?!” you ask.
Enter stage right: The CARES Act.
Ah, sweet financial relief – you contacted your mortgage servicer to request forbearance. Now you have up to 180 days where you don’t have to make your mortgage payments!
Fast forward a few months – your forbearance period is about to end. Your mortgage servicer contacts you to let you know your payments are coming due. You start to panic! How are you possibly going to pay back all of that money in one lump sum?!
‐‐End Scene‐‐
Okay, role-play time over – you know where this is going. It ends with your borrowers freaking out, and your phones ringing off the hook.
Most people have never been in this situation before, and they don’t know what their options are. So not only are they anxious, but they’re getting mad because they’re waiting on hold trying to get in touch with someone who can help them. Hold time has increased from under 2 minutes to over 17 minutes for borrowers trying to get in touch with their loan servicers – and unsurprisingly, over 25% of borrowers are abandoning their calls.1 It’s a miserable scenario for everyone involved.
That’s why Idomoo created an Interactive Mortgage Relief Video Template that can be personalized for each borrower. It’s an effective way to communicate complex data with empathy – and taking the time to set this up now means you can get ahead of the chaos before it has a chance to start.
Our interactive Personalized Video template can be customized with your branding and is fast and easy to deploy; you can be ready to go in as little as two weeks. It allows you to present borrowers with forbearance repayment options in a way that is friendly and reassuring, reducing stress for your customers and strain on your phone lines.
The template can be adapted to cover any combination of repayment options available to the borrower, including lump sum payment, repayment plans, extended forbearance period, loan modification, FHA loans, and payment deferral.
Once you’ve sent a personalized video to your customers, they’re able to re-watch the video as many times as they want so they can access the information they need at any time; we’ll track this, so you can see specifically what each borrower is looking at and provide them with additional useful information.
Videos can also be updated with new messaging to fit the latest regulatory and economic changes. Just shoot your borrowers an email letting them know to check their video for more details, and we’ll handle the rest.
Things are complicated right now, but that doesn’t mean mortgages have to be. Idomoo is committed to helping borrowers understand their options, reducing the impact of COVID-19 on their wallets – and on your customer support.
To learn how you can get mortgage relief video out to your borrowers in as little as two weeks, contact us today!
