Home loan lenders who guide borrowers through the mortgage process earn the best reviews, according to a new study. However, customer satisfaction has declined overall over the past year, and stubbornly high mortgage rates may be partly to blame.
JD Power has released a new list of mortgage lenders ranked by customer satisfaction. The 2024 Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study has seen a shake-up of top lenders, with 2023’s highest-rated pair of lenders, Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation and Rocket bandagewhich falls out of the top five.
Prosperity Home Mortgage rose from number four to the top spot in the new study.
Bruce Gehrke, senior director of wealth and lending intelligence at JD Power, said homebuyers faced higher costs and intransigent interest rates. Mortgage lenders who work to understand borrowers’ challenges earn higher satisfaction ratings.
“Consistently, we see that lenders who take an active advisory role in helping their customers navigate the current market earn significantly higher customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy scores than those who treat mortgage lending as a transactional process,” said Gehrke. in a release.
On a 1,000-point scale, lenders in the rankings averaged a score of 727 this year, down three points from 2023. JD Power said smaller staff levels may have contributed to a decline in customer service.
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The study points to areas where consumers are most disappointed. JD Power said that in the 2024 analysis, the factors with the most significant year-over-year declines in customer satisfaction were:
When a representative is involved in the loan application process, overall satisfaction increases by 40 points, the study said.
The lenders that ranked in the top five of the JD Power survey were:
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Prosperity Home Mortgage, with a score of 772
Two highly rated lenders that did not meet the criteria to be ranked in the study were Veterans United (793) and Navy Federal Credit Union (748).
The Mortgage Origination Study is based on 7,534 surveys of borrowers who obtained a new mortgage or refinanced within the past 12 months.
Hal Bundrick is a senior writer covering mortgages for Yahoo Finance.
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