Qualia is well known in the title & escrow industry as a leading provider of title, escrow, and closing software. What some don’t know is that Qualia has built powerful technology for mortgage lenders as well.
At Qualia’s Future of Real Estate Summit, Qualia Co-Founder, Joel Gottsegen, discussed why many mortgage lenders are using Qualia to manage, deliver, and optimize digital closing experiences. Plus, what new Qualia features and products are on the horizon for lenders.
Qualia’s beginnings in title & escrow
Real estate transactions involve many players and therefore require a great deal of coordination and collaboration. Qualia has built a comprehensive platform for real estate. We started with tools for title & escrow businesses—the super connectors of the real estate industry.
“We call them the super connectors because title companies are involved in every transaction. Even those that do not involve a lender, such as a cash transaction, or a real estate agent, such as a refinance,” Gottsegen said.
Qualia is the core system of record for title & escrow. What we’re building for lenders is a “system of engagement” so they can effectively and efficiently interact with their title partners and the end consumer during a closing.
A system of engagement creates better business outcomes and improved consumer experience
A better system of engagement for lenders with their various title partners creates greater operational efficiency during closing. This translates to better business economics.
A system of engagement benefits a lender’s overall brand and reputation too. “When it comes to customer experience, your back-office operations are equally as important as those front-end, client-facing touchpoints,” Gottsegen said. “This is because back-end operations impact the speed, ease, and security of the closing—three of the most important factors for consumers when closing on a home.”
Qualia’s 2021 Homebuyer Sentiment Index asked future and recent homebuyers to complete the following sentence: “In the ideal closing experience, I want the process to be ______.” Respondents were invited to select their top three choices. Sixty-three percent of respondents said they wanted the process to be “easy,” 58% said they wanted it to be “secure,” and 47% wanted the process to be “quick.”
Qualia’s lender product suite enables secure and streamlined closing experiences
Qualia’s system of engagement culminates in an entire product suite for lenders through an integrated set of digital closing technologies. “Unlike other disconnected point solutions on the market, Qualia’s lender product suite spans both the experience layer and the operational core,” Gottsegen said.
He outlined Qualia’s existing lender products to demonstrate how Qualia’s products enable lenders to manage, deliver, and optimize digital closing experiences.
Qualia Connect
Connect is a communication portal for all transaction participants to collaborate during the closing process. Title & escrow businesses send an invitation for lenders, real estate agents, vendors and homebuyers, and sellers to collaborate on Connect. On this secure portal, participants can access documents, input information, and receive real-time progress updates on the status of the closing. Through this portal, lenders can give borrowers greater visibility into the closing process. “Information is centralized which creates a more streamlined, enjoyable borrower experience,” Gottsegen said.
Lenders also benefit from Connect operationally. They are able to gain real-time access to the status of the closing instead of having to follow up with a title company via phone calls and emails. Connect also includes a two-way LOS integration that streamlines a number of lender-title integrations including the ability to collaborate on closing disclosures.
Qualia Post
Qualia Post automates the collection of digital and physical trailing documents and integrates directly with the lender’s LOS. Post requests trailing documents from title companies who then log in to a simple interface to share documents. These documents then automatically flow back into the lender’s LOS. Lenders can use Post with any title company, regardless of the settlement software they use.
We’ve expanded Post’s capabilities so it can be configured to also collect any document from title companies including closing packages.
Qualia’s Physical Document Service
This service outsources the management of physical trailing documents for lenders. Qualia’s team collects paper trailing documents from title & escrow companies, QAs them on behalf of the lender, and ships them to the lender’s investors.
What’s next on Qualia’s lender product roadmap?
“Qualia Connect, Post, and the Physical Document Service are just the beginning of our lender suite of products,” Gottsegen said.
In the coming months, Qualia will continue to refine its current lender product offerings to ensure maximum value for customers. For example, we’ll soon introduce Dynamic Documents as part of Qualia Post. This feature will provide Post users with greater filter granularity when configuring document collection requests.
Gottsegen outlined two other areas of product development for mortgage lenders in the coming months:
- Tools and services for mortgage lenders to vertically integrate or attach title & closing operations to their business.
- More offerings to empower lenders to execute digital closings with their various title partners. On the title-side, we’ve built Qualia RON which currently enables title & escrow companies to execute remote online notarizations for seller-side and cash transactions. “Soon we’ll be building lender-side tools to further enable lenders and their partners to collaborate on digital closings,” Gottsegen said.
To learn more about Qualia’s lender products, click below to watch Gottsegen’s presentation from the Future of Real Estate Summit.
