Wholesaler Databases Available Online

BrokerOneSource.com recently reported that its Web site, which it describes as a marketplace linking brokers, wholesale lenders and service providers, was experiencing “phenomenal growth.” Since its launch in December, 17 lenders and 2,200 mortgage brokers have signed up for the service with 100-200 new brokers signing up each week, company product manager Steve Jordan told MortgageDaily.com.

BrokerOneSource is a business of lending technology and support services provider GHR Systems Inc.

Lenders and brokers that are signed up in the BrokerOneSource network reportedly originate more loans, reduce costs, increase pull-through rates and eliminate faxing rate sheets and applications.

The free service provides brokers with a single web address where they can query a database of the lenders’ products and access real-time pricing, then submit applications to the lender of their choice — rather than completing applications for the same loan on multiple lender sites and maintaining a paper trail to compare and contrast packages, the company said. As for lender members, they “can increase broker acquisition and reduce loan application costs by receiving decisioned applications right from the site.”

“Real-time decisioning with transaction specific pricing,” are some of the distinguishing features compared to other search-type sites, Jordan said.

One of those search-type sites is that of LenderLab.com, which has been around for about four years, has 355 lender members and over 4,800 mortgage broker members, and has grown steadily by about 30% each year, according to the company’s chief executive officer Dan Campbell.

Campbell said LenderLab is different from other sites of its sort mainly because it overlooks conforming loan programs and “offers mortgage brokers the industry’s most comprehensive and up to date search engine for finding loan programs offered by subprime, niche and nonconforming wholesale lenders.”

The wide number of lenders, loan programs and search variables that the site offers and allows also set it apart from its competitors, he added. Brokers reportedly have over 10,000 loan programs to choose from, and more than 170 search variables or criteria for each loan program provide an “easy, searchable format” to find matches to borrowers’ loan needs. With so many search capabilities, Campbell said the site had to be organized in advanced and basic search, and not only does it provide residential search, it is the only site of its sort that offers a commercial search.

At LenderLab, a MortgageDaily.com advertiser, brokers can also sign up for their own Web site, according to Campbell. Borrowers can apply for a loan through the mortgage broker’s site, which also has features such as mortgage calculators and pages of prewritten content on borrower and loan program subjects. A unique attribute of the broker sites is that they are fully customizable as brokers can adjust the placement of buttons and add other pages without having to hire LenderLab to make the adjustments.

Jordan said BrokerOneSource does not yet provide individual sites for brokers, but it is a possibility it will have these available by the end of the year.

“If and when we do … the approach that we end up taking will be different than any other offering out there,” as it will divert from the free “cookie-cutter” sites other companies offer brokers, Jordan said.

While, BrokerOneSource’s lender and broker network may be smaller in comparison to other competitors, Jordan said he’s “not at all worried about the incumbents that are out there” because “brokers are always looking for new and improved ways of doing things and just like any other innovation that comes along — like when Microsoft came along and IBM was king of the hill. That’s what makes our economy thrive is having new innovations and new products.”

BrokerOneSource said it expects to have between 5,000 and 6,000 brokers by the year’s end, “which will further illustrate the unique value proposition that BrokerOneSource provides to both brokers and lenders.”