Millenials, if we’re to believe media revelations, are an information-empowered generation that seek less human interaction. They don’t need a real person to guide them through financial transactions. They simply want devices and software to automate the processes for them.

There’s plenty of truth in the cavalcade of hype surrounding technology’s influence on consumer behavior. The connectedness of our devices causes us to become more disconnected from the need for interpersonal service. Young consumers who grew up in an atmosphere where it was easier to ask Google than grandma have been trained to seek the efficiency of an application over the advice of a trusted advisor.

The fascination with this mindset, though, becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. Millenials crave efficiency via technology, the media locks in on that generational persona, and businesses cater more and more to removing the human interaction from their services. The snowball keeps rolling downhill, growing in size and speed.

Not All Technology Is Gain

Sometimes, though, everyone loses when we cater to the preconceived notion of efficiency through automation. There are many processes that are improved by diminishing the level of personal interaction. In other cases, the human experience, knowledge, and flexibility that’s only possible through direct interaction is necessary to deliver a quality experience.

That has been our experience in the mortgage financing world. As real estate agents, throughout our careers, we’ve interacted with mortgage lenders. They’ve proven to us, and our clients, that they have the skills and responsiveness necessary to make our transactions run smoothly. We’ve built up a level of trust with our most qualified lenders and those of our associates.

We recommend a list of these professionals to our clients because we understand the alternatives. We’ve seen the bad actors in lending. We’ve watched transactions go sideways. We’ve experienced fly-by-night operators and inexperienced rookies who botch transactions that put home buyers and sellers out in the cold. We know how expensive, painful, and inconvenient mistakes in the mortgage lending experience can be.

Technology has improved much of the processing and underwriting functions of modern mortgage companies. But as much as we love technology’s influence on the efficiency of our industry, we often cringe at attempts to use its influence on the selection of a mortgage lender.

Online Reviews: A Risky Selection Criteria

We’ve been told that millennials trust reviews as much as they trust advice from their friends. While online reviews are great for easily described products on Amazon, in today’s climate, they’re a poor way to judge a mortgage professional. Much like how real estate agents game the online review system for oodles of five-star reviews, mortgage lender reviews are a wasteland of trumped up data. The vast majority of lenders have no reviews on any given platform, so consumers are choosing between a select number of marketing-driven review profiles.

Most consumers don’t know this, though. Younger consumers trust reviews, so they trust Yelp. They trust Zillow and LendingTree. They trust whichever app has helped them buy the best bike accessory or webcam. It doesn’t work out as well for mortgage providers.

Anecdotally, we’ve had three recent transactions where our young buyers did their own research online and selected a lender of whom we’ve never heard before. These lenders came highly recommended from online review sites, so they were selected over our preferred lenders.

None of them closed on time. Twice, we had to “save” the transaction with one of our preferred lenders at the last second.

Our situation isn’t unique. Sit down at a real estate conference and ask a group of agents how they feel when a client selects a lender based on online reviews. The overwhelming response will be a groan. We’re not suggesting lenders to our clients for any sort of financial reward or kickback. We make money, and we make our clients happy, when transactions close according to plan. That’s our only incentive in guiding the lender selection process.

So the next time an app developer, industry consultant, or mortgage company owner says that we need to distance the personal connection of the lending process more to enable millennials, push back. That may be what they say they want, but we know better. Sometimes the best referral is done with a phone call to a trusted adviser.

Don’t believe the myth that millennials don’t need our personal advice. Get in front of your clients’ lending education process early, and explain the gaps in the information available to them online. Reinforce the importance of working with someone who has a track record and level of experience that everyone involved in the transaction can trust. Don’t give in when your clients say “I found a great lender on Yelp.” They’ll thank you for it later.

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Sam DeBord is a managing broker with Seattle Homes Group and Coldwell Banker Danforth. He is 2016 President-Elect of Seattle King County REALTORS® and has been featured in Inman News’s Top 101 In Real Estate and the T3 Swanepoel Group’s Top 20 Social Influencers. His team sells homes and condos in Seattle and Bellevue.

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