Campbell Communications has just released its fourth annual survey of real estate agents on mortgage lending, which tracks their attitudes toward mortgage brokers and direct lenders. The report, "How Real Estate Agents View Relationships with Mortgage Providers in a Shifting Market," was released this week and is based on a February survey conducted by Campbell Communications of Washington.

Eighty-two percent of respondents were agents or individual brokers, while the remaining 18 percent were in management positions. Fifty-three percent had been in real estate for over five years, while 12 percent had been selling for one year or less, with the remaining agents falling somewhere in between. Most participated in more than 10 transactions in the past year with about 25 percent saying they had participated in five transactions or fewer.

Nearly one-third or 29 percent of respondents said they had average transactions in the $100,000 to $200,000 range; 26 percent had average transactions in the $200,000 to $300,000 range, and 31 percent had average transactions at $300,000 or above, while only 15 percent stated they had average transactions below $100,000.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents are principally buyer's agents, while about one-third were listing agents. Another 11 percent designated themselves as buy-side agents, legally representing the sellers' interests but primarily working with buyers.

According to the answers from most respondents, the closer to home the lender is, the better. For 57 percent of respondents, a mortgage lender is a partner to their firm. However, only a small percentage of that group said they recommended their firm's mortgage lender partner. Nearly three quarters of respondents reported relying on a separate list of informal mortgage partners or a single informal lender partner.

Forty-two percent of agents said they preferred a "local mortgage broker" to any other category of lender. Generally, agents recommend two mortgage providers to both non-minority and minority homebuyers.

Non-minority homebuyers (55 percent) tend to trust their real estate agent's recommendation of a mortgage lender and will tend to hire that lender. Minority homebuyers are less trustful -- only 48 percent use their real estate agent's recommended lender. One reason may be language. Agents serving Hispanics said that 42 percent of their homebuyers would benefit from foreign language support. They said 11 percent of all clients would benefit from foreign language support. "Translation services at closing" was identified as the most important foreign language service, followed by "Loan officers speak language of homebuyer."

Respondents rated 16 reasons that real estate agents might refer minority homebuyers to a mortgage provider. The most important was "reliable in meeting scheduled closing dates." The least important was "loan officer same race/ethnicity as homebuyer."

"The survey also pointed to two important services when it comes to serving minority borrowers," said Tom Popik, principal of Geosegment Systems in New Hampshire who authored the new report on the home purchase market. "One is that lenders need to be prepared to offer foreign language support, particularly for Hispanic borrowers. The other is that lenders need to have loan products that provide for things like alternative sources of down payments such as those coming from relatives."

In terms of alternative loan programs for minority homebuyers, survey respondents identified "down payment from relatives acceptable" as the most important factor.

For information on how to obtain the full survey results in the new report, "How Real Estate Agents View Relationships with Mortgage Providers in a Shifting Market," contact John Campbell with Campbell Communications at john@campbellsurveys.com or (202) 363-2069.

Published: April 17, 2007

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