Purchase, Refi, Refi, Purchase.

Do you want to do one loan for every person you work with? Or do you want four loans for that same person? Clearly, in this case, the more the merrier holds true. The average buyer will go through a cycle like this: purchase a home, then refinance that home, refinance it again, then purchase their next home.

Many mortgage professionals skip over the refinancing phases and focus only on finding more purchase loans. This could be costing you repeat business.

For many home buyers, especially first time buyers, the purchase loan process is long and messy with so many moving parts. There are 2 real estate agents, a low low inventory housing market, deadlines, lots of emotions, and a date to move out of their current home or rental. The refinancing process, in comparison, can feel like a breeze after all that hassle. A refinance involves you and the borrower(s), maybe an appraisal, and then closing.  

Say you have a client that comes to you for their first purchase loan. The process is grueling, but together, you get through it. Later, the time comes for them to refinance, and you don’t offer to do it for them, so they go to someone else. They refinance with your competitor, the process is easy, and it all moves along smoothly. Even if your competitor didn’t give them better service, or offer them better rates than you could have, that client is now more likely to go back to the competition for their next refinance, and then their next purchase. All the time and effort you put in to helping them purchase their first home is gone, and you have now lost out on three additional transactions. 

While you may not want to spend as much focus on refinances, it might help to rethink how you look at them in your mortgage lead generation efforts.  This is how you keep your clients coming back to you for the next purchase. You earned them, now keep them.