Survey Finds Customers Less Satisfied with Mortgage Lender

The crisis in the mortgage industry has made mortgage originators more cautious, resulting in longer loan origination times with tighter underwriting standards and a new survey finds all this affects borrower perceptions. Such scrutiny is having a negative effect on customer satisfaction standards, the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study found. Overall satisfaction among mortgage customers has declined to 739 on a 1,000-point scale, down 18 index points from 757 in 2008. The average time required to approve and close a loan has increased to nearly 47 days, compared with approximately 30 days in 2008, primarily due to increased scrutiny of loan applications and higher origination volumes driven by increases in refinancing. This increase in turnaround time has a considerable impact on satisfaction, as satisfaction averages only 723 when the time from application to approval takes six or more days, compared with 798 when the process takes less than six days. Similarly, satisfaction drops from 772 to 736 when the time from approval to closing takes 14 or more days. David Lo, director of financial services at J.D. Power, said, "Good underwriting and delivering a satisfying customer experience are not mutually exclusive, and some of the negative effects of a tightened lending environment can be mitigated by simply improving communication between lenders and customers." For example, satisfaction averages 793 among customers whose lender provided and met a time frame for the application/approval process, compared with 632 among those whose lender did not. In addition, satisfaction declines from 781 to 643 when customers were asked to provide the same information more than once. The lender with the highest score was BB&T at 783, followed closely by Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo) at 781 and then National City Mortgage (just rebranded as PNC Mortgage) and SunTrust tied at 769. Fifth was Wells Fargo at 754. At the other end of the scale is the now-defunct Taylor, Bean & Whitaker at 704, followed by CitiMortgage/Citibank at 711, Chase at 713, U.S. Bank at 715 and Countrywide (now merged into Bank of America and no longer a standalone brand) at 720.