by David Depman

Where do you get your ice, and why is the answer an insight to the future of the mortgage industry? Your ice has a back story filled with lessons on the nature of disruptive technology, and it may be more similar to the mortgage industry than it appears on the surface.

What Disruptive Technology is on the way?

If you consider the conditions in the mortgage industry, things seem pretty stable. ‘Tech’ doesn’t really kick up too much of a ruckus in these parts. There are some bells and whistles here and there, but for the most part, things are calm. So why should you worry about disruptive technology affecting the mortgage industry, and more specifically, the role of the loan officer? The simple answer is: because it’s already starting to do so.

Startups and emerging technologies don’t appear out of nowhere, there is usually some signal early on in the process. Tech magazines and websites like techcrunch broadcast and celebrate emerging technologies every day. The problem is often the reaction, or lack thereof, to the disruption. Think about Kodak. We all know that Kodak was crushed by the digital camera, but what you might not know is that Kodak engineer Steve Sasson invented the digital camera in 1975. He presented it to management a full 10 years before it started to destroy the company. “Management’s reaction was, ‘That’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.'”  Management’s inability to react sent the company on a journey to bankruptcy.

(On a side note, Kodak is in comeback mode, just one year after that bankruptcy)

So what meteor should a Mortgage-saurus look out for?

Below are a few companies and technologies that might be making a deep impact on Loan Officers in the near future.

• Loan Retention Software – (LRS) – LRS introduces an automated process that operates in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment on the Web. LRS along with the HarmonyLoan feature reconstitutes the way the lending process reacts to changing interest rates. (http://ratereset.com)
• Lenda – Lenda is a startup that wants to change the way Americans think about and interact with mortgage lending. The company offers consumers a way to approach the refinance mortgage market by providing a platform that allows borrowers to complete the home loan process completely online and without the use of a loan officer. Lenda is aiming to be the “Turbo Tax for mortgage”. (www.lenda.com)
• Lendinghome – Their tag line speaks volumes: what if Silicon Valley built a mortgage bank from the ground up, the right way? They’re a P2P platform that is based on the premise that real-estate lending is a complex, inefficient, non-transparent process that should be made simple and accessible for borrowers and investors alike. (https://www.lendinghome.com)
• AssetAvenue – Another P2P loan facilitator, AssetAvenue wants to transform real-estate lending and investing markets. They closed $13.28 million of deals in the week leading up to Christmas. AssetAvenue partners with lenders and borrowers to source loan investments up to $20 million. (https://www.assetavenue.com)
• And a wildcard disruptive technology: Trulia + Uber. Really. Uber is now featured on Trulia’s mobile app. When you find a house or apartment on Trulia, you’ll find a “Visit with Uber” button. The button calls a car, fills in the address, and away you go. How long until there’s a button saying: “Get your mortgage on the way” with a mobile application process? Hmm?

About that ice talk up there at the top, quite a few years ago, Guy Kawasaki delivered a commencement speech. One portion of this speech focused on the evolution of ice production. Ice harvesters were dominant until ice factories came along. Then ice factories got replaced when refrigerators came along. The key takeaway is that none, not one, of the ice harvesting companies got into the new technology of ice factories. And you guessed it, not one of the ice factories got into the refrigerator business. Both were displaced, and both went extinct. The speech is great, read it here.

So, what potentially disruptive technology are you keeping your eye on?