Landing a Rocketship in the Stone Age
Let’s get something out of the way: getting a mortgage is a tedious, low-tech and painful experience, not just for buyers, but also for loan officers, account managers and underwriters.
Buyers miss out on homes when it takes too long to get financing lined up. Real estate agents lose sales when loan approvals aren’t properly vetted. Lenders spend thousands on avoidable production costs. It’s ludicrous, and we’re here to drag the sorry state of the home loan experience kicking and screaming into the modern age.
A little over a year ago, I was the Director of Product Management at Redfin where our team built the best home buying and selling experiences out there. Over the last six years I learned more about the nuances of real estate than I ever imagined was possible. We restored transparency to finding a home, and increased accountability in working with agents. We democratized MLS data, once the purview of a select few. We made scheduling and touring homes with an agent from your phone as easy as ordering a pizza. Most importantly, we made real estate fun.
Yet it wasn’t enough: our clients consistently complained that the worst part of the whole experience was getting a loan. So much time had been spent on the front end of the process, that everything else had languished. One of our investors described the process bluntly:
“…it was like stepping off this beautiful rocketship and landing in the stone age…”
Meet Approved
Approved is creating a more streamlined, automated, and delightful way for lenders and brokers to get their buyers through the home loan application. Our platform is easily integrated into lender workflows, and enables on-demand loan approval and origination in minutes, not weeks.
We do this not by cutting corners or skipping work, but by applying technology to the problem. Buyers are able to get an immediate sense if they qualify for a loan, and shave weeks off of a lengthy and invasive process. Real estate agents get a reliable way to qualify new buyers. Lenders save time and money off the cost of producing a loan, and provide a world-class product experience to their customers.
We’re currently in private Alpha, but if you’d like to learn more about the company or team and have some time to give some honest-to-goodness feedback on what we’ve built, I’d love to hear from you directly, or in the comments below.
What’s Next?
This publication is a place to talk mortgage and real estate technology, to engage, challenge and talk-shop in plain English, to hear about your buyer and lender war stories, and to learn and grow from you. We’ll keep you updated on our product, and hope to publish a few guest posts along the way.
Approved is here to solve real problems for buyers, lenders, real estate agents, everyone, because we all benefit when the process is efficient and transparent. We’ve been fortunate to surround ourselves with amazing advisors, friends and colleagues who inspire us to continue working on this important problem, despite the incredible challenges it presents. Thanks to all who have helped us along the way, and we’re looking forward to meeting and engaging with the community in the months to come. In the meantime, please check us out online.
