Premier Member Editorial: The Year Mortgage Tech Finally Started Growing Up
Tim Nguyen is CEO and Co-Founder of BeSmartee, Aliso Viejo, Calif.
For nearly a decade, the mortgage industry has been inching toward digital maturity since Rocket Mortgage went publicly-live during the 2016 Superbowl. Many lenders began experimenting with borrower portals, mobile tools, and automation as far back as then. But the pandemic-era boom put real transformation on hold. Volume was easy, margins were fat, and many lenders didn’t feel urgency to modernize.
Then the market shifted.
The last three years after the boom have been marked by sharp rate increases, plummeting volume, and widespread consolidation. Hundreds of companies either went out of business or were acquired. And those who survived, often by being acquired by others, did so through one common strategy: cutting expenses, running lean, and retaining their most valuable originators and operations staff.
2025 isn’t the beginning of this shift. It’s the year the hard work, painful lessons, and selective investments of the past several years finally start to show results.
Why It Took So Long
The biggest reason mortgage tech has lagged isn’t the tools. It’s the mindset.
For years, the industry has told itself the same story: our business is too complex; our regulations are too heavy; our cycles are too unpredictable. And to be fair, there’s truth in all of it. We are complex. We are overburdened with compliance. We do live in a boom-or-bust industry.
But those truths became excuses. And the result was that long-term inefficiencies persisted, not just for the last decade, but for decades before. Manual workarounds, siloed systems, and custom patches became commonplace. They weren’t efficient, but they were familiar.
It reminds me of the old saying: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” When survival is on the line, people figure out extraordinary solutions. History gives us countless examples; one I often use is the invention of synthetic alternatives to crippling rubber shortages during WWII that gave birth to duct tape.
In our industry, we’re now facing that same kind of necessity. Margins are razor-thin. Competition for loan officers is fierce. Borrowers demand instant, mobile-first experiences. For many lenders, it feels like life or death. And just like those soldiers, necessity drives ingenuity.
The difference today is that we no longer have the luxury of making excuses. Configuration over custom, automation over manual work, and mobile-first strategies aren’t optional – they’re survival.
The Forces Driving Continued Progress in 2025
These forces aren’t speculative, they’re executing a tectonic shift in mortgage lending. The companies that win in this environment will be those who embrace configurability, mobile-first delivery, and speed.
• Thin Margins as the New Baseline. The MBA’s recent performance reports confirm what everyone on the front lines feels: production income remains negative for many and barely profitable for some. Costly custom builds, slow technology, and a laissez-faire decision framework are no longer tolerable luxuries.
• Recruiting as a Strategic Growth Lever. In a market with reduced volume, winning top-producing LOs matters more than ever. Today, LOs evaluate platforms, not just comp plans. Tools that help them scale and impress agents are now decisive.
• Borrower Expectations Have Permanently Escalated. Consumers now expect the same speed, clarity, and visibility from mortgage apps as they do from daily entertainment or e‑commerce. Slow, manual processes damage retention and undermine conversion.
• Regulatory and Market Shifts Are Forcing Change. Luckily, we’ve not had to deal with large scale regulatory changes such as the new URLA of 2021, but there’s always action in play. Legislators are (as of the writing of this article) waiting for President Trump to sign off on a federal ban on unsolicited trigger leads, forcing lenders to rethink marketing strategies. Meanwhile, FHFA now allows lenders to use VantageScore 4.0 alongside Classic FICO for GSE-backed loans, ushering in increased credit access for first-time buyers, renters, and rural borrowers. Add to that market uncertainty: rates are projected to decline over the next 2–3 years, but no one knows how much or when, and you have a landscape where long-term budget decisions are increasingly risky. Lenders must operate with flexibility and speed to remain competitive.
• Customer-for-Life and Full Lifecycle Ownership Are Becoming Essential. Elite lenders are moving beyond one-time loan origination. They’re building relationships across the borrower lifecycle – refinance, home improvements, future moves – to stay relevant, retain business, and deepen referral engagement.
Configuration Over Custom: The Maturity Shift
For years, the mortgage industry leaned on custom technology as if it were the only way forward. The result was expensive projects, brittle systems, and delays that frustrated both lenders and their teams.
The maturity we’re seeing in 2025 isn’t about promising overnight miracles. It’s about recognizing that configuration-first platforms put lenders in control. Instead of waiting on months-long development cycles for even modest changes, configurable systems allow lenders to:
• Adapt workflows and compliance updates without rewriting code, keeping pace with evolving regulations.
• Roll out new loan products and investor guidelines more predictably, without derailing other initiatives.
• Empower business teams to make adjustments without every request becoming an IT project.
• It’s not about changing everything in a week. It’s about removing the bottlenecks that made change painful in the past.
One regional lender I spoke with put it this way: “With custom code, I never knew when (or if) my request would get done. With configuration, I can plan my recruiting pitch knowing the tools will keep up.”
That’s the real advantage. Not unrealistic speed, but the confidence that your platform can evolve with your business.
Borrower, LO and Agent Experience as the Maturity Test
If you want to know how mature your technology really is, look at the experience it delivers for your borrower, your loan officer, and your real estate agent referral partners.
For borrowers, the test is simple:
• Can they start an application at an open house on their phone, pick it up later on a laptop, and receive real-time updates without chasing down their LO?
• Do they feel informed and confident throughout the process, or anxious and left in the dark?
For loan officers, the test is just as clear:
• Can they update an agent on loan status in seconds?
• Can they generate a pre-qualification letter on the spot, without waiting on operations?
• Can they adapt to new product offerings or compliance changes without being stuck in IT queues?
For real estate agents, the test is make-or-break:
• Can they refer a buyer in seconds, right from their phone?
• Do they have full visibility into the loan process without needing to call the LO constantly?
• Can they create or update pre-qual letters instantly during showings or open houses so they never lose momentum with a buyer?
If the answer across all three groups is yes, that’s maturity.
Then the question becomes how all your core systems integrate together to reduce friction, allowing you to focus on growth. Does the ecosystem behind it: your LOS, your POS, your PPE, your CRM, your documents vendor, automation, integrations, and compliance workflows deliver seamlessly to empower every participant.
In other words, don’t just ask, “Do we have a mobile app?”
Ask, “Do our borrowers, LOs, and referral partners experience our process as modern, transparent, and effortless?”
That’s the maturity test. And in 2025, it’s the standard the industry must meet to compete.
Don’t Get Left Behind
Mortgage tech has been “growing up” since 2016. But the past three years of turmoil proved one thing: only those who embraced lean operations and invested in configurable, ecosystem-first platforms could survive.
If you want to stay competitive, start with a 30-day internal audit:
• Are we building, or configuring?
• What’s our non-origination costs to close a loan compared to best-of-breed competitors?
• Do our mobile tools excite recruits and retain real estate agents?
• Can we adapt to market and compliance changes predictably?
2025 is not the beginning of that shift; it’s the moment the gap becomes undeniable.
(Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect policies of the Mortgage Bankers Association, nor do they connote an MBA endorsement of a specific company, product or service. MBA NewsLink welcomes submissions from member firms. Inquiries can be sent to Editor Michael Tucker or Editorial Manager Anneliese Mahoney.)
