It has been a sellers market in the Bay Area for some years now, but things have started to slow down a bit for the typical broker. I speak about technology often in my on-line articles and also in my classes. The real reason brokers today need to utilize the latest technology is to stay competitive with the big firms and to stay up with lenders throughout the country.

In a down market, the mortgage broker’s ability to originate loans anywhere, at any time, is crucial. New technology being developed by vendors, net branches and lenders is being designed to empower the broker to more seamlessly transact with business partners even if they aren’t located at their desktop in the office.

As a mortgage broker, the No.1 thing I would be looking at is an online origination system. The ability to have your system online is of key importance. If you can have all your contacts and pipeline available to you wherever you go, it’s a big plus for keeping up customer relationships and volumes.

The second item brokers should be looking seriously at is -customer relationship management functionality. For a mortgage company, having the ability to know all your customers, log all your prospects and manage all that information electronically is critical. Brokers spend 80% of their time prospecting and can’t manage that today with the traditional Calyx Point system.

The third technology, that I think is critical, is imaging. Being able to leverage documents electronically and having the ability to move them electronically is an important trend. Lenders are now increasingly accepting e-notes which represent substantial cost savings.