Chime Technologies, a real estate tech innovator based in Phoenix, Arizona, has recently integrated ChatGPT functionality into its platform to streamline content creation for real estate marketing and communications. This integration marks a significant step towards enhancing the platform’s generative AI capabilities.Chime has been using Google’s machine learning algorithm to power its intuitive chatbot AI Assistant for the past five years. With the addition of ChatGPT, Chime aims to boost efficiency and productivity for real estate agents by automating content generation, idea generation, and content editing processes.The key features of the new ChatGPT functionality include auto-generated content for individual and mass communications via email and text, as well as for marketing communications such as blogs and social media posts. The platform also offers a library of templated, popular prompts, and the flexibility to create bespoke prompts based on specific customer needs.By integrating ChatGPT, Chime aims to address the time pressures faced by real estate agents in identifying, nurturing, and converting leads. The AI-driven content creation helps agents focus on providing a more personalized and human touch in the real estate process. It ensures that agents can engage their database with relevant and meaningful content, ultimately fueling the pipeline with sales-ready leads.This content was generated using AI and was edited by HousingWire’s editors.

Finding a dream home for your buyers can be difficult in a market plagued by low inventory and high demand. So what do you do when your buyers include more than a couple looking for their starter home or a growing family looking to raise their children? Throwing grandparents, adult siblings or in-laws into the mix can create a daunting challenge for real estate agents. A recent report by Rocket Mortgage broke down the increasing trend in multigenerational living, so the next time you work with multi-generational buyers, you’ll have all the tools you need to find them the unique home that works for their family. The report from Rocket says, “In the last five decades, the number of Americans living with multiple generations under one roof has quadrupled, according to the Pew Research Center. More than 59 million people live in multigenerational households or a home that includes two or more adult generations.”Most multigenerational households are using this living situation to save money. A few report living with family for child care or senior care. Regardless of the motivation, the most common multigenerational living arrangement is a combination of parents and adult children. Top of mind for these buyers is finding the balance between privacy and the joys of spending time with family. Privacy Key home features that could appeal to multigenerational buyers who value privacy could include: Basement apartment layoutsOn suite bathroomsSeparate office spaces“26.4% of respondents said privacy concerns are common,” the report said. Mitigating privacy concerns will often mean finding larger properties that can accommodate more family members. Common SpacesUnlike younger respondents, 30% of the older, parental adults surveyed said, “The greatest advantage of living in a multigenerational home is the increased time spent with their family. Parental adults are more likely to experience positive improvement with their mental health.” Common spaces that can provide family time that is important to older adults could include:Outdoor living spacesOpen-concept main floorsBasement or attic rec areasWhen working with the increasingly popular multigenerational homebuyer, keep these two key factors in mind. These buyers have needs that may differ from the standard homebuyer, but finding their dream home is possible!

The Schmidt Family of Companies, the parent company of Coldwell Banker Premier Properties, has announced its market expansion in Florida through the strategic acquisition of a sales office in Palm Coast.The acquisition involves the Palm Coast office from Coldwell Banker Realty in Florida. Situated in the Hammock Beach Resort, the office currently comprises approximately 40 independent real estate agents. The newly acquired oceanfront Palm Coast office will operate alongside the existing Coldwell Banker Palm Coast office, both falling under Coldwell Banker Premier Properties. The Schmidt Family of Companies brand maintains over 90 Coldwell Banker offices across Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Michigan, and northeast Ohio.Steve Carr, Region President of Florida operations for the Schmidt Family of Companies, expressed the company’s goal of expanding further into Florida and the strategic rationale behind the acquisition, considering the complementary nature of the offices and shared culture.Mike Schmidt, Chairman, and CEO of the Schmidt Family of Companies highlighted the company’s growth-oriented approach and commitment to providing top-quality service to clients while empowering agents and brokers.Gregg Hade, Regional Vice President of Coldwell Banker Realty for central Florida, expressed confidence in the office’s continued success under the leadership of the Schmidt Family of Companies and Coldwell Banker Premier Properties. He emphasized the collaboration and strength of the Coldwell Banker brand network.Coldwell Banker Premier Properties will begin immediate operations at the Palm Coast office located at 1 Hammock Beach Pkwy.This content was generated using AI and was edited by HousingWire’s editors.

When the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to zero on March 15, 2020 and set off an extraordinary real estate boom, Rocket Mortgage was ready. The Detroit-based lender’s unmatched combination of name recognition, digital infrastructure and consumer technology enabled it to originate more than $670 billion in mortgages in 2020 and 2021, smashing records in the process. Its parent Rocket Companies rode the wave to a stunning $9.4 billion in profit in 2020 and $6.1 billion in 2021. But more than 80% of Rocket’s volume during those years came from refinancings, data from Inside Mortgage Finance (IMF) showed. Its centralized call center business model, which Rocket relied upon to dominate an unprecedented refi market, isn’t as durable when interest rates are high, there are few refi opportunities and having strong relationships with real estate agents is what brings home the bacon. And Rocket is well aware. The lender made focused efforts to target the purchase market in 2021 and set up dedicated teams to cultivate relationships with real estate agents. Coming off multiple quarters of financial losses, Rocket has accelerated those efforts in 2023, embarking on a remote local loan officer hiring spree designed to capture purchase market business from real estate agent connections, sources told HousingWire. It’s not yet clear whether this represents a change in its business model or what level of resources Rocket intends to devote to grow this revenue line. Against the backdrop of rising rates, Rocket Companies has been betting big on the strength of its platform. Its announcement of a new CEO Varun Krishna — a veteran in the financial technology world who held executive positions at Intuit and Paypal, confirms that Rocket is fully committed to becoming a fintech company.“What is clear here is that their long-held view that when rates went up, they could simply change their focus to purchase mortgages is not holding up. Because in a purchase volume environment we’re in now, local originators have a distinct advantage over call center, centralized originators,” said Brian Hale, CEO of industry consulting firm Mortgage Advisory Partners. To gain insight into how Rocket plans to strengthen its local presence to capture purchase volume, HousingWire spoke to more than a dozen former Rocket employees, current retail loan officers and mortgage brokers who have been contacted by Rocket recruiters to join its local initiative. Rocket declined to answer HousingWire’s questions about the company’s efforts to strengthen its local presence; it noted in a statement that its hiring of remote mortgage bankers is not new.Shift in internal messaging, recruiting high-producing LOs There’s no doubt that Rocket’s model works exceptionally well when the environment is heavy refi. But it’s not as successful in a purchase market, a former president’s club account executive explained in an interview with HousingWire.“In the purchase market, there are a lot of times people want that more personal touch, you need to be developing relationships with Realtors, and that can be much more difficult to do at scale,” he said.It was around late 2020, early 2021 when executives started emphasizing the need to target the purchase market, according to multiple former Rocket employees, including former mortgage bankers, an account executive and a senior recruiter.Rocket tried different tactics to increase its purchase market share, including setting up teams that focused on cultivating relationships with real estate agents in 2021.Also in 2021, Rocket decided it needed to have some loan officers on the ground who are in close contact with real estate agents. According to a former senior recruiter, it was in the summer of 2021 that the lender started the “executive local loan officer program.” “The executive loan officer or the local loan officer program was not on the radar [when refis were booming], like even discussed or like a kind of a dream child project yet, I think that it became very reactionary to what was going on in the market,” a former senior recruiter said.With the mortgage market declining 70% year over year, the plan gained traction in early 2023. Rocket is currently recruiting remote local loan officers who have a minimum of three years of experience in mortgage loan origination, active NMLS and state licenses and a “proven track record generating organic referrals from your network that results in closing,” according to job postings on LinkedIn and Rocket’s careers website. The LOs are to be based in the West, Southeast and Northeast regions of the country. Job postings show that it is hiring remote executive loan officers in more than 30 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Florida, Tennessee and Washington as of July 31. The former senior recruiter trained other recruiters on how to reach out to high-producing, licensed loan officers before leaving Rocket in August 2022.Rocket pulled data to see who had “volume underneath them because they wanted people that are already doing well in the marketplace,” the former recruiter said. Messages were intentionally kept generic – not throwing too much out there but enough of a bait to get someone interested.“‘We just want to see if there’s maybe an opportunity to have you come work for us’ is what the recruiter told me,” Shane Kidwell, CEO of Dwell Mortgage, said in an interview with HousingWire in June. “I was told by the recruiter this division – Rocket retail started a year ago. So this isn’t brand new,” Kidwell noted. HousingWire reviewed voice messages and transcripts of phone conversations between Rocket and mortgage brokers and retail loan officers. Those messages commonly said “Rocket Mortgage is going local” and that it was a different division than its consumer-direct model. In December of 2022, Rocket said it would pay 40 bps on a Rocket lead, 115 bps on a self-generated lead and a $36,000 base salary for a local executive loan officer, according to the former senior recruiter.A mortgage broker who was contacted by a Rocket recruiter in June said Rocket would provide 37 bps on Rocket-generated loans, 97 bps for self-generated leads and $7,000 per loan.The comp structure “was lower than some places but the executive loan officers were provided the marketing materials, the brand of Rocket,” the former senior recruiter said. “They [positioned] it as we’re able to pay you a little less because of the value that we provide as the No. 1 lender.” While HousingWire was unable to confirm the size of the executive loan officer program, a mortgage banker who was recently hired by Rocket said he was told roughly 150 loan officers had joined as of late June.That mortgage banker is tapping into his existing real estate agent networks while leveraging Rocket’s brand name recognition with consumers.“It’s the branding that Rocket has. When you tell someone you’re going to Rocket, everybody knows who Rocket is,” the mortgage banker said. “With my previous employer, they didn’t have as much [name recognition]. (…) I’m still working with all of the real estate agents that I was working with in the past.” Another benefit for remote LOs in Rocket’s executive local loan officer program is the dedicated support staff.Remote LOs send their loans to a dedicated team of processors and underwriters who exclusively handle executive loan officers’ loans, the banker told HousingWire.And purchase loans are coming from markets across the country.“I don’t think that there’s anywhere that they’re not focused on,” the newly hired banker told HousingWire. “I think it’s everywhere, just trying to create a presence literally in every market.”Rocket declined to speak to HousingWire about its efforts to expand its local presence. In a prepared statement, a spokesperson said, “The country’s best mortgage bankers can’t always work out of one of its offices in Detroit, Cleveland or Phoenix, but that doesn’t keep them from working with Rocket and having the backing and support of the nation’s largest and most respected lender.”“Many of Rocket Mortgage’s remote mortgage bankers work out of their homes, while some have desk-share agreements in real estate offices or use co-working spaces,” Rocket’s spokesperson added. Possible channel conflicts for Rocket? Prior to Rocket’s accelerated local initiative, its origination business came entirely from its direct-to-consumer centralized model and its Pro TPO division – its conduit to mortgage brokers and historically a stronger source of purchase business.“But now, there is potential that Rocket local loan officers are going after the same geography as the brokers who are also forwarding business to Rocket,” Warren Kornfeld, senior vice president of the financial institutions group at Moody’s Investors Service, said.As is true for other lenders operating in multiple channels, Rocket needs to manage potential conflicts between its broker and remote local loan officer channels.It has always had multiple broker partners in the same neighborhood competing with one another, so from their perspective nothing has changed, Rocket said.“If a broker is working with a client and that client has had a relationship or a conversation with Rocket retail, Rocket retail stands down and its broker partner continues with the transaction as part of the commitment to the broker community,” Mike Fawaz, executive vice president at Rocket Pro TPO, said in an interview with HousingWire in early June.However, Rocket’s “apparent strategy to build out a retail channel” will create channel conflict stemming from different pricing strategies in its TPO and retail channel, Rick Roque, vice president of CrossCountry Mortgage and an industry consultant on partnerships and retail acquisitions. “What will happen is their internal operations will either better serve their wholesale or their retail platforms, it won’t better serve both. So there will be service-level challenges operationally. There will be conflict, internally and externally. And so you just create service-level challenges for the consumer,” Roque said.Challenges of offering different pricing and services would hardly be unique to Rocket. There are plenty of other lenders that also offer different services through different channels, including Caliber/Newrez and Pennymac, both of which work in retail, wholesale and correspondent channels.Even within the same company, retail loan officers can offer different loan pricing than their colleagues depending on their production volume.As to how to solve the broker versus local LOs conflicts?“I guess it’s with communication and geographic areas, and how they are going to do two businesses together. It’s one of those things that all companies say about cannibalizing a certain business. And what’s the tipping point when you go and do that? You don’t want to do it too fast, you don’t want to do it too slow. So, it’s a balancing act,” said Kornfield.Will going local be enough to move the needle?“A Realtor had a listing, I think he had like eight or 10 offers on the house. None of the loan officers called to introduce themselves to the listing agent except for Rocket Mortgage, which is very unusual,” Brian Parkinson, a mortgage banker at Alerus Mortgage, said.Parkinson said he believed that it was one of the local Rocket LOs who closed the deal, which indicates that “they are clearly making a shift as they have to with no refi business.”These are the kinds of proactive moves Rocket wants to see from the local loan officers they’ve hired.Rocket is making progress in its transition from refi to purchase, the data shows. By the end of 2021, less than 20% of Rocket’s production came from purchase mortgages, according to IMF. Fast forward to this year, and Rocket’s share of purchase business jumped to 55% in the first three months of 2023. Purchase volume in the first quarter came in at $9.4 billion, good for third overall on IMF’s rankings. But Rocket’s purchase gains haven’t kept pace with its rivals. United Wholesale Mortgage, which surpassed it as the top mortgage lender in America in Q3 2022, originated $19.2 billion in purchase mortgages (86% of its originations) in the first quarter of 2023. To boot, the average purchase mix for the top-50 mortgage lenders in America in the first quarter was 84.7%, nearly 30 percentage points higher than Rocket.What Rocket does have is nearly unlimited resources. If the lender wants to dramatically increase its purchase business through recruitment or other means, it has more dry powder than any rival independent mortgage bank.As of Q1 2023, Rocket reported $8.1 billion in liquidity — including $900 million in cash. The cost of originating the next loan is also quite low for Rocket – a lot of the underwriting and processing goes through technology and the main cost comes down to individual workers, according to Kornfeld. “The company has enormous unused capacity and unbelievable operating leverage(…) The company wants to drive as much volume efficiently through their machine,” Kornfeld noted.Another advantage to investing in local LOs is that retail originated loans have a higher gain-on-sale margin compared to the wholesale channel and the lender owns the customer relationship, Kornfeld said. “In retail originated loans, [lenders] own the customer. So, when that homeowner has other financing needs, they’ll come, hopefully, if you’ve done a good job, to you whether they’re buying a new property or whether they are refinancing their existing property,” Kornfeld noted.Rocket – a company with 8,236 sponsored MLOs according to the NMLS as of July 31 – would need to hire hundreds of loan officers to be a meaningful player in non-consumer direct retail lending, experts said. And the lender has not made any indication in its SEC filings that it is pursuing a new, distributed sales strategy.As with every other lender in America, Rocket may still be figuring out how to adapt to the high-rate environment, even if it means going against the grain of what they’ve done for decades — relying on direct-to-consumer business and mortgage brokers. Given that Rocket’s purchase mortgage market share improved marginally to 3.8% in Q1 2023 from 3.5% at the end of 2021, it would appear that the mortgage lender is simply testing the waters. By comparison, UWM almost doubled its purchase mortgage market share to 7.7% in Q1 2023 from 4.7% at the end of 2021. Analysts are split as to whether Rocket has shifted its strategy to go after the purchase market.Rocket hiring local loan officers is considered “incremental at best as it is not a big enough component to be classified as a change in strategy or a new division,” said Shampa Bhattacharya, senior director at Fitch Ratings.“If they were to grow it significantly and quickly and/or bolt on an acquisition, we would pay more attention to what it might mean for their profile.”But it does seem like a “slight shift in strategy” from what they’re doing and it would appear that they’re maybe more focused on being able to drive purchase origination by themselves as opposed to relying on third parties, said Kevin Barker, managing director at Piper Sandler. “Rocket is attempting to adjust to the market dynamics, given that they were so sensitive to refinance originations with their call center operations, and ultimately, the purchase market is dominated by access to Realtors, which requires a more distributed sales force,” Barker said.If Rocket’s going-local strategy is ultimately successful, “it could have a big impact on the market,” Kornfield said. Transitioning meaningfully from the direct-to-consumer channel and a broker strategy to an in-house local loan officer tactic would take time. “I think they could (be successful). It takes a long time to build up the relationships on a national level,” Barker said.

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Parental controls is another area where technology can assist, especially with the youngest children, and where Acree said he is getting more requests.

Parental controls is another area where technology can assist, especially with the youngest children, and where Acree said he is getting more requests.

Flagstar Bank, a top-25 U.S. mortgage lender, has long described itself as a “one-stop mortgage shop.” Flagstar made news in recent months, expanding its footprint and further diversifying its business model with the completion of the merger with New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) and the acquisition of certain financially and strategically complementary parts of Signature Bank.But it has built its reputation on its expertise in mortgage. So what exactly is a “one-stop mortgage shop?”“We can do everything, whatever it is you need,” said Lee M. Smith, senior executive vice president and president of mortgage at Flagstar. “From a mortgage point of view, you can come to Flagstar and we can take care of you.”“Flagstar is an originator and servicer that also provides financing solutions through its warehouse and MSR lending businesses,” Smith said. “We can buy loans, sell loans, buy mortgage servicing rights, sell mortgage servicing rights, and we have our own residential mortgage-backed securities capabilities. And now, thanks to our acquisitions from Signature, we also can offer cash and treasury management services that focus on mortgage clients and businesses.”The bank serves both business-to-business and business-to-consumer clientele. On the origination side, Flagstar originates in all six delivery channels — broker, delegated correspondent, non-delegated correspondent, bulk, distributed retail and direct-to-consumer.“It doesn’t matter whether you’re the biggest hedge fund in the country investing in mortgage assets, a third-party originator or you’re an individual borrower looking for a mortgage, you come to Flagstar, and we can take good care of you,” Smith said.Flagstar has been around for more than 35 years and has always focused on mortgage, even as it grew its banking and commercial business. If anything, it’s only doubled down on its commitment to the mortgage industry now that it’s a much bigger bank.“If you think of all of the challenges that an institution like Flagstar has seen — that we’ve navigated through all those cycles and have always been there for our business partners, it’s remarkable,” said John Gibson, senior vice president and national sales director of wholesale and correspondent lending for Flagstar. “Our partners have always known they can count on us. We’ve never exited a channel — we’re the only bank that’s actually stayed in the broker space throughout all those years and still continues to grow in that space.”Recent growthSpeaking of growth, the merger of NYCB and Flagstar, and the addition of the businesses that came with Signature, has created a $124 billion-dollar-bank. The three companies coming together have very little overlap and work well together, according to Smith.“If you think of Flagstar bringing a unique commercial banking and mortgage expertise, New York Community Bank with its multifamily expertise and Signature Bank with its private client group and its expertise in dealing with high net worth customers, it’s a very complementary business model,” he said.Another result, Smith said, is a strengthening of the liability side of the balance sheet given the much more diversified and stronger deposit mix which has resulted in the combined companies having a loan-to-deposit ratio that’s now less than 90%.Now, with the three companies under one Flagstar-branded umbrella, the bank can offer its clients an even larger array of products and services.“We’ve got more capital and more firepower [so] we’re able to do more with our existing clients,” Smith said. “The good news is, you’ve got three organizations whose values and cultures [align] and everybody’s working together to make it as seamless as possible for our customers while increasing the number of service offerings available to them.”Helping partners succeedEven with all the growth, mortgage remains a fundamental and very important vertical of Flagstar. The organization continues to focus on helping its mortgage business partners succeed. Gibson highlighted a few ways the bank helps support its clients.First, the bank has several support systems for its business partners, such as dedicated sales assistants and client advocates that can help on the manufacturing side of originations.Second, Flagstar brings value to its partners by providing resources like their monthly FLEX series that has featured speakers like Dave Stevens and Barry Habib who offer market intelligence and insights on how clients can grow their book of business in today’s challenging market.And third, Flagstar’s account executives are spread throughout the entire country, working locally in the markets where its partners do business. On average, these account executives have been with the bank for nearly 16 years.“The experience and the knowledge that they bring, not only from a process perspective, but also the expertise that they bring on product and depth of knowledge about the market — I think that’s one of our secret sauces,” Gibson said.Flagstar’s account executives can do business in all its channels, making it easy for clients who work with them to change to a different delivery type — for example, brokers who want to move to the correspondent channel.“We have 30-plus years of helping our business partners evolve,” Gibson said. “Because our account executives are experienced in the different delivery channels, that transition is seamless, and our AEs are able to educate their partners and support them along the way.”Looking forwardAs the mortgage industry cycles through a rough patch, Flagstar is positioned to continue to succeed.“I think 2023 is going to be a tough year for mortgage, but Flagstar has done what we needed to do to restructure our business so that we can be profitable in any interest rate environment,” Smith said. “I do think 2024 and 2025 are going to be good years for the mortgage industry as the Fed pauses and eventually reduces interest rates.”Gibson noted that anyone who’s been in the industry for a period of time has experienced these high- and low interest-rate cycles. With Flagstar’s longevity, the bank and its team are prepared to continue to support partners through any cycle. In fact, where other companies look to downsize and reorganize their mortgage shops, Flagstar continues to grow.“We’re investing in the TPO channel and we continue to support the channel by opening up and growing new business relationships,” he said.Flagstar is listening to its business partners and expanding its product set as well as investing in technology to improve ease of use and efficiency.“Ultimately, our strength and our commitment to the TPO channel has been unwavering,” Gibson said. “We’re one of the companies that is continuing to grow.”Find out more about how Flagstar can help your business succeed here.

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