Investing in tech to save costs and get business in the door has become ever more important in an origination market facing extended headwinds.
Recognizing the opportunities in the mortgage space, Grant Moon, former CEO and founder of fintech platform Home Captain, is gearing up to launch his new firm – BlueForceX.
As a mortgage technology optimization platform, BlueForceX would provide data solutions, cut inflated tech solutions costs, and advise market positioning strategies.
“Given the current environment, a lot of lenders out there are looking to save money. A lot of the technologies in the tech stack that mortgage companies are pretty embedded with have high switching costs, and they have little to no flexibility with other technologies to give an integrated stack that’s best for the particular lender. Each lender’s needs are different,” Moon said in an interview with HousingWire.
“Some lenders have a stake in the ground to improve their loan execution; they’re finding it’s faltering with their POS system. Some are having top-of-funnel issues as it relates to their POS [and] some are having call center issues,” Moon noted of the challenges lenders face.
With BlueForceX’s three business lines, the platform aims to increase lenders’ leads and pull-through rates on their funnel conversions, as well as grow their funded loan volume.
Home Data Solutions – a 50-state MLS data aggregation company – will provide data solutions and a stack for lenders to have 100% MLS coverage.
With the official launch set for the first quarter of 2024, Home Data Solutions secured 50 state licenses and has relationships with 700+ MLSs.
“Home Data Solutions is a pure-play tech company. We are already in negotiations with one of the largest providers of tech to the overall industry about serving them,” Moon said.
BlueForceX’s second line of business involves working with some of the top tech solution providers.
With BlueForceX having intelligence on what other providers are charging lenders for their solutions, it can offer different vendor options (depending on the lenders’ needs) without an excessive user fee.
“Being on the vendor side of the house [previously at Home Captain], I know their job as a vendor is to charge the lender as much as you can possibly get. We work with tech vendors that we believe are the top three in any respective category,” Moon said.
He added, “If we can get competition amongst the three other providers to drive that price down, we can create additional margin for the lender.”
In return, BlueForceX will get compensated on a percentage of the money lenders are saving.
The last line of business for BlueForceX is consulting services, which range from brand market positioning and strategy to even acting as a small team to fill any gaps for lenders that downsized.
“We like to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs who care about the overall business. We are augmented as part of their team attachments, where we come in and roll up our sleeves and accomplish what the lender is looking to accomplish, which a lot of that is, helping with their margin compression issues,” Moon said.
The platform has four clients under its consulting business. For example, its current consulting service involves helping a lender build out its conversion optimization platform and serving as an M&A advisor for another lender.
In the current environment where mortgage lenders are in a big contraction given the lack of inventory, rising interest rates and affordability challenges, lenders need support, Moon noted.
“Lenders need someone on their side that can do trench warfare. There is no silver bullet. But there are five things that they can implement in the course of three months that will save the business a tremendous amount of money. That’s where we’ve been able to focus,” said Moon.