Just two months ago, Qualia announced the launch of its newest lender-focused product, Qualia Post. (For more details on this product read our announcement here.) Within a short timeframe, Post is already gaining attention as a top product transforming mortgage lender operations.
Today, Post was awarded “Best Digital Mortgage Product” by FinTech Breakthrough, an independent organization that selects innovative fintech companies that are breaking through the noise in an increasingly crowded market to deliver game-changing solutions.
To understand what makes Qualia Post a breakthrough product, we sat down with Qualia’s CTO, Joel Gottsegen. Joel leads the direction of Qualia’s product roadmap to strategically implement new products that will transform real estate purchases for every stakeholder in the transaction. Joel offered insight on Qualia’s decision to create a lender-focused product and what this product means for the future of mortgage and title focused technology.
QUALIA: WHAT WAS THE KEY INSIGHT OR INSIGHTS THAT LED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF POST?
JOEL: The real estate transaction as a whole is very difficult. We initially developed the Qualia platform to help title companies manage the transaction more effectively. As we worked with more and more title companies, we also knew that a big challenge was coordinating between the different transaction participants. It became very clear from our years of experience building solutions for title companies that the title-lender partnership is especially complex and involves work that can be hard to manage for both sides.
Title companies receive an overwhelming amount of inbound communications from lenders requesting documents. Meanwhile, lenders rely on title companies to provide critical documents throughout the closing such as opening packages, closing disclosures, and trailing documents. Each of these documents requires a lot of time and communication to track down and exchange. If we can streamline that relationship, it’s really valuable to title companies and it’s also really valuable to the mortgage industry.
QUALIA: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO START WITH POST-CLOSINGS TO STREAMLINE THE LENDER-TITLE RELATIONSHIP?
JOEL: At Qualia we don’t assume we know better than the people who do this work everyday. We take a lot of time to speak with our partners and really understand their pain points and challenges. I traveled across the country and spoke with lenders to understand how we could help them manage their closing process better with title companies. Nearly every lender I spoke with cited post-closing as a top pain point so we knew we needed to start there with a product that would streamline post-closing operations.
QUALIA: HOW DOES POST DIFFER FROM OTHER SOLUTIONS IN THE MARKETPLACE THAT AIM TO STREAMLINE LENDER-TITLE COLLABORATION?
JOEL: Qualia has built web-based technology for title companies for years and we already have powerful integrations with lender workflow systems. Because we’re the main workflow tool for title companies and have successful and efficient integrations with lenders, we’re able to automate the post-closing process and eliminate extra work for both title companies and mortgage lenders.
Other solutions on the market that attempt to solve this coordination challenge are not technology-driven and require a manual and expensive third party process. Meanwhile, the other technology-driven solutions on the market have tried to be a middleman between title companies and lenders but are not the main workflow tool for either side. This creates more work for both transaction parties because they must manually submit documents and requests in a separate portal.
Because our post-closing product is integrated with the title companies’ main workflow software, lenders can automatically receive documents in a consistent way from their title partners even if they are working with dozens or even hundreds of title companies. Those title companies who are not yet on Qualia are invited to create a login for a secure portal. In this portal title companies can see outstanding document requests from lenders who are using Post and share them securely by dragging and dropping files. Not only is this easier in many cases than title companies’ existing workflows, it also protects the end consumer by ensuring that sensitive information is shared through a secure portal rather than email.
QUALIA: WHAT’S THE BROADER VISION FOR QUALIA’S LENDER-FOCUSED PRODUCTS?
JOEL: I mentioned before that there is a lot of collaboration required between lenders and title companies. There are a number of touchpoints at the beginning, middle, and end of the transaction. Our goal is to build technology that streamlines all points of contact between lenders and title companies. We’re going to be developing these products over the coming months and years.
At a high level, our goal is to take what we’re doing with Qualia Post—which is to streamline the post-closing process with title companies—and bring that level of collaboration and automation to every part of the closing process for lenders.
QUALIA: HOW DOES QUALIA POST FOLD INTO QUALIA’S BROADER VISION FOR REAL ESTATE CLOSINGS?
JOEL: Our goal at Qualia has always been to build products that make home closings more transparent, efficient, and affordable. In order to do that we started by working with title companies; however, we plan to work with every participant in the transaction in the years to come.
Post is a really important piece of this vision because both the title company and mortgage lender are important stakeholders in a real estate transaction. This is a huge step toward our broader vision to bring every stakeholder together on to one platform to complete closings online.
To learn more about Qualia Post and Qualia’s vision for the future of real estate closings, click below to speak with a Qualia Specialist.
