Blend Labs Further Expands Mortgage Customer Base After Nations Lending Chooses Blend's Mortgage Suite To Streamline Originations

Last week, cloud banking platform Blend Labs, Inc. BLND, announced that its mortgage suite was chosen to streamline the mortgage origination process for Nations Lending Corporation. One of the fastest-growing mortgage lenders in the U.S., Nations Lending has achieved triple-digit revenue growth over the past three years and is now licensed to lend in all 50 states.

The announcement comes as Blend continues to capture a growing share of the mortgage origination market. Its suite of mortgage software processed more than 23% of total originations in the second half of 2022, which is a 60% increase over the 14.5% of originations processed in the second half of 2021.

Interest Rates Hold Mortgage Origination Market Down For Now, But Forecasts Are Still Optimistic

Mortgage originations in the U.S. have been declining in step with rising interest rates, falling from a record high of $4.51 trillion in 2021 to $2.75 trillion in 2022. In spite of that drop off in U.S. mortgage activity, the outlook for the global mortgage lending market is still bright with an estimated compound annual growth rate of 9.5% over 2021-2031 helping it reach a forecasted value of $27.5 trillion. 

Driving that growth is the increasing adoption of technology that streamlines the application through digitalization and automation. For consumers, tech makes applying for a mortgage a simpler and more intuitive process. For loan officers, automation and cloud-based systems eliminate redundancies and speed up the work involved in origination so that they can process applications faster and spend more time building better relationships with customers rather than slogging through paperwork. 

Blend And Nations Lending Leverage Tech To Capture The Projected Market Growth 

The May announcement from Blend is a signal that the company could be well-positioned to benefit from the increasing digitalization of the mortgage origination market. Its mortgage suite includes tools that automate and improve just about every step of the process from initial application to close.

Things like pre-qualification, pre-approval letters and document preparation can be done in seconds rather than days with the help of automation and improved workflows. It also enables innovative and improved customer service. 

For example, Nations Lending uses Blend to generate 12-month asset reports that allow the lender to look at an applicant’s rental payment history. For first-time homebuyers, that means a history of on-time rent payments can be used to supplement a lack of credit history, especially when those rent payments are higher than the potential mortgage payments they would be making. 

Those asset reports and other tools included in Blend’s digital platform have helped Nations Lending expand access to homeownership and propel four of its employees onto the Scotsman Guide’s Top Originators list for 2023.

“Through our platform model we can continue to deliver innovative technology that does not rely on a lender’s internal capacity – freeing up resources to spend more time building a great customer experience,” said Gaurav Nagla, head of mortgage product at Blend.

Featured photo by Towfiqu Barbhuiya on Unsplash.

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