How Satisfied Are Borrowers With Their Mortgage Lender?

There are multiple factors that determine if your mortgage process was positive and successful.  Mortgage rate, closing costs, timeline and lender customer service are all important inputs to your mortgage experience.  While all these components are important, there is perhaps no better measure of the mortgage experience than borrower satisfaction with their lender.

In a way, borrower lender satisfaction encompasses all elements of the mortgage process.  If you are unhappy with your mortgage rate or final closing costs, you are unlikely to be happy with your lender.  If you missed your mortgage closing deadline, you probably blame it on the lender even if it is not their fault.  When customer service fails to meet expectations, lenders definitely bear the brunt of borrower frustrations.

Given its importance as a broad barometer of the mortgage experience, measuring borrower satisfaction with their lender was a key objective of the FREEandCLEAR Mortgage Survey.  The survey results indicate the lenders are doing a highly satisfactory job of meeting borrower expectations.

When asked to rate how satisfied they are with their mortgage lender on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the highest level of satisfaction, a robust 78% of respondents selected 7 or higher.  Furthermore, the four highest lender satisfaction options achieved the four top-ranked responses, in order.  The highest borrower satisfaction rating of 10 garnered 24% of responses followed by a 9 rating which drew 21% of responses and an 8 rating with attracted 20% of responses.

Borrowers are satisfied with their mortgage lender

Although the results are generally positive, there are some modest causes for concern.  The middle borrower satisfaction rating of 5 registered 9% of responses, the fifth most popular choice.  Certainly no lender strives for mediocrity when it comes to borrower satisfaction.  Additionally, the lowest rating of 1 was selected by 3% of respondents, exceeding the second, third and fourth lowest rating options.

So although a significant majority of borrowers seem to be very satisfied with their mortgage lender a meaningful number of borrowers are only moderately satisfied and a relatively small number are highly unsatisfied.  These results show that some lenders have the opportunity to improve the customer experience and level of service they deliver to borrowers.

These issues, however, are more than outweighed by the overwhelmingly positive results of the survey.  The high level of borrower satisfaction is another example of the FREEandCLEAR Mortgage Survey showing borrowers with a positive opinion of their lender.  Other survey findings showed borrowers with a high level of trust in their lender as well as a very favorable assessment of how knowledgeable their lender is about the mortgage process.  In general, the survey shines a very complimentary light on an industry that had been much-maligned in the wake of the mortgage crisis.

We will continue to provide a detailed analysis of each survey question on our blog in the coming weeks and you can review the full results from the FREEandCLEAR Mortgage Survey to better understand how borrowers think about and experience the mortgage process.