With so much paperwork, documentation, regulations, and communication that goes into closing a mortgage, managing it all can be a challenge. If you’re a financial organization offering loans to multiple property buyers, then multiply this challenge by hundreds or even thousands of clients.
With a CRM, mortgage lenders can distinguish high-value prospects from various incoming leads, making growing your business a quicker affair. In this article, we’ll look at mortgage CRMs, their benefits, the main features you need, and some of the solutions available today, including entirely customizable options like monday CRM.
Try monday CRMWhat is a mortgage CRM?
A mortgage CRM is a software solution that’s designed to help mortgage and lending professionals manage relationships with borrowers from initial contact through closure. CRMs for different industries often include specific features that allow professionals to better manage their clients and work. For example, a mortgage CRM allows mortgage loan officers to track leads and potential clients, nurture customer relationships throughout the loan lifecycle, and monitor marketing campaigns all in one place.
The role of a modern mortgage CRM is to provide a structured system for teams or individual brokers to manage, store, and organize customer and lead data in one place. This way, mortgage professionals can keep tabs on where borrowers are in the lending pipeline while maintaining a record of documentation and communications to meet compliance requirements. Mortgage CRMs help loan officers accurately service their clients at each stage, whether it’s with necessary documents, additional information, or approvals.
Benefits of using a CRM software for mortgage brokers
If your team is still tracking clients and lending data in a spreadsheet, you’re probably missing out on a ton of valuable data. Shifting from spreadsheets to all-in-one mortgage CRM software not only helps mortgage businesses improve client relationships but also allows teams to work more efficiently by prioritizing tasks and leads. Let’s take a look at some of the core benefits of using CRM software for mortgage professionals.
- Streamline lead management: Organize all your leads in one place so that you never miss a high-priority opportunity.
- Improve client relationships: Build better connections with your clients by gathering data to add a personal touch to customer interactions and automating follow-ups.
- Increase productivity: Automating manual data entry and repetitive work can free up more of your time for high-value activities.
- Strengthen compliance: Built-in tools like document tracking and detailed customer histories can help you stay on top of compliance requirements and industry regulations.
- Gather real-time insights: Access dashboard overviews, comprehensive reports, and data-driven deal forecasts to make informed decisions and close deals quickly.
- Remain flexible and scalable: Adapt a CRM to your business’s needs with customizations so that it can grow as your company expands.
- Visualize your pipeline: Don’t guess where leads are in your pipeline, instead rely on your CRM to visualize progress so you can take action when deals get stuck.
Core features to look for in a mortgage broker CRM
When searching for the best mortgage CRM for your business, it’s important to make a list of the features you’ll need. Start by assessing your organization’s goals for a new CRM platform, and then list the features you’ll need to help you reach them. Some key mortgage CRM features you may want to consider include:
Lead management
The right CRM will have functionalities to make it easier to manage, track, engage, and prioritize leads and automatically distribute them to the right agents based on priority, availability, region, or experience level. Look for lead scoring capabilities that help you identify the most promising prospects based on their behavior and engagement patterns.
Mortgage pipeline management
You should be able to visualize and manage the loan process from initial inquiry to closing and get pipeline insights into potential deal roadblocks or issues that can prevent closing. Real-time status tracking and customizable drag-and-drop pipeline stages can help your team keep everything organized so that nothing gets forgotten.
AI and workflow automation
Automate repetitive tasks like follow-ups, reminders, and status updates in your CRM so you can keep deals moving without manual intervention. AI-powered functionalities can also analyze borrower data to offer forecasts and predictive analytics like loan approval likelihood while also recommending next-best actions for your team.
Mobile app
For mortgage teams that are always on the go or work remotely in the field, make sure they can update and access the CRM from anywhere through a mobile app. A mobile CRM app should offer critical functionality, like document uploads, real-time status updates, and client inquiry management.
Communication and collaboration tools
Your software should come equipped with tools to merge client communications from multiple channels as well as collaborate on accounts. Features such as email history summarization, collaborative document editing, and shared task management or internal messaging capabilities are all essential for your team to work together efficiently.
Seamless third-party integrations
The solution you opt for should easily integrate workflows and sync data from the work tools you’re already using. Look for a CRM that can integrate with platforms such as loan origination systems (LOS), credit reporting services, or digital document signing platforms.
Compliance tracking
Your CRM should help your team stay compliant with local data regulations by keeping sensitive customer data secure. When comparing software, consider solutions that offer features like centralized document storage with access to version history for a traceable paper trail, as well as role-based access controls, and audit logs that track every interaction with client data.
Residential vs. commercial mortgage broker CRM: Key differences
The type of lending you do can impact the features you need in CRM software. Commercial and residential mortgage brokers work with different types of clients, so the workflows they need to automate and visualize in a CRM will also look a little different.
While both residential and commercial mortgage brokers need to track leads, maintain compliance, and automate workflows, there are specific differences in the functionalities they each need in a CRM. Let’s take a look:
Residential mortgage brokers need to be able to:
- Track referrals from other real estate agents
- Run personalized marketing campaigns for different properties
- Manage high-volume loan pipelines with standardized application processes
- Automate pre-qualification workflows and rate quote delivery for individual borrowers
- Track and nurture leads through seasonal buying patterns and first-time homebuyer programs
On the other hand, commercial mortgage brokers need to:
- Manage and map relationships with larger organizations
- Customize workflows for different property types (e.g., multifamily units, office buildings, manufacturing plants, etc.)
- Work with longer and more complex lending cycles that include multi-stage deals
- Track multiple stakeholders and decision-makers within a single deal or organization
- Store and analyze detailed financial documents like profit and loss statements, rent rolls, and property appraisals
Many CRM systems can be set up to handle both types of mortgage lending, but the trick is understanding which features to look for and how to optimize your software with the right customizations to make managing different types of properties intuitive.
7 best mortgage CRM systems
Mortgage professionals need to use a CRM to manage their daily tasks like lead management, document handling, marketing campaigns, and more. However, selecting the right CRM for your business can be tricky and time-consuming.
In the table below, we’ll compare the best CRMs for mortgage brokers side by side. For a more detailed look at each CRM, keep reading.
| Platform | Use case | Starting price | Free trial | User rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| monday CRM | Customizable AI-powered CRM that scales with your business | 14 days | $12/seat/month | 4.6/5 (G2) |
| Salesforce | Comprehensive enterprise-level mortgage CRM solution | 30 days | $25/user/month | 4.4/5 (G2) |
| HubSpot Smart CRM | Mortgage CRM with integrated marketing and sales tools | Free plan | $45/user/month | 8.4/10 (TrustRadius) |
| Pipedrive | Simplified lead tracking and sales pipeline management | 14 days | $14/user/month | 4.3/5 (G2) |
| Surefire CRM | Mortgage-specific CRM with a focus on compliance and marketing | Free demo | Contact for pricing | 4/5 (G2) |
| Jungo | Mortgage professionals looking for a Salesforce-powered solution | Free demo | $96/user/month | 4.5/5 (G2) |
| Shape | AI-driven CRM for mortgage teams looking for a simple solution | Free demo | Contact for pricing | 4.9/5 (G2) |
1. monday CRM
Use case: Customizable AI-powered CRM that scales with your business
Mortgage brokers get an all-in-one platform with monday CRM that helps them manage client relationships, automate mortgage workflows, and organize important documentation. With monday CRM’s AI capabilities, mortgage agents can handle complex workflows without constant manual intervention while benefitting from an intuitive platform that can be tailored to specific workflows.
Key features
- No-code AI automations: Implement quick AI automations using AI blocks to uncover customer sentiment, initiate follow-ups, or extract important data from files.
- AI lead management: AI can score and prioritize new incoming leads and then route them to the right team member based on availability, department, or skill level.
- Smart dashboards: Simplify high-level decision-making by viewing real-time customer insights and resource forecasting in clear AI-powered dashboards.
Pricing
- Free 14-day trial
- Price starting from $12/seat/month
Learn more about monday CRM plans and pricing here.
What users are saying
G2 rating: 4.6/5
“I absolutely love the emails and activities feature of monday CRM, which automatically tags emails to clients and leads, making tracking incredibly efficient. This automation, combined with the AI features, helps me extract crucial information like follow-up dates and important details effortlessly. The Workflow Center is another standout feature, offering enhanced automation akin to having if-this-then-that statements that propel my work forward and prevent stagnation, ultimately saving both time and money.” — Desiree M.
2. Salesforce
Use case: Comprehensive enterprise-level mortgage CRM solution
Salesforce offers a robust set of products that can be combined to create a powerful mortgage CRM, such as Sales Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, Digital Lending, and others. Salesforce is best suited to a larger team of mortgage professionals handling multiple simultaneous complex operations. That said, the ability to combine different Salesforce products to create a CRM system makes it a comprehensive solution that’s flexible for different types of mortgage teams.
Key features
- AI lead nurturing: Salesforce’s built-in Einstein AI tool can help track and nurture leads and suggest cross-selling opportunities.
- Automation tools: Automate routine tasks like sending reminders, processing documents, or managing follow-ups.
- AI agents: Use Agentforce to integrate digital AI agents that can handle initial lead contact, lead nurturing, customer follow-ups, and suggest actions on deals.
Pricing
- Free 30-day trial
- Plans starting from $25/user/month
What users are saying
G2 rating: 4.4/5
“I love how Salesforce Sales Cloud transformed our client management with its easy client and contract handling, enhancing our service delivery. The transition to Lightning was smooth, and I prefer it much over the classic version. I appreciate having everything in one place, as it makes sales tasks more efficient. I also enjoy using it to create opportunities and follow up on leads, which is crucial for our onboarding process and managing new client contracts.” — Pamela K.
3. HubSpot Smart CRM
Use case: Mortgage CRM with integrated marketing and sales tools
HubSpot Smart CRM is ideal for mortgage professionals who want to combine marketing, sales, and service efforts in a single platform. It provides user-friendly tools to manage client relationships while enabling smoother team collaboration. The platform is well-suited for mortgage teams that want to focus on various marketing campaigns, such as email or drip campaigns.
Key features
- Email tracking: Automatically track client interactions to streamline communication and follow-ups
- Pipeline management: Visualize and manage your mortgage sales funnel easily and identify roadblocks in deals before they escalate.
- AI data agent: Integrated AI data agent allows team members to ask questions in natural language to get answers from customer history, email, and documents.
Pricing
- Free plan available with basic tools
- Plans starting from $45/seat/month
What users are saying
Trustradius rating: 8.4/10*
“I rely on HubSpot CRM to monitor leads, manage contacts, and streamline follow-ups all in one location. Previously, our team faced challenges with disorganized e-mails and over looked reminders, but HubSpot addressed this by providing a comprehensive timeline of each interaction.” — Ram Kishore
*Note: HubSpot Smart CRM does not yet have reviews on G2, so we used reviews from TrustRadius here instead.
4. Pipedrive
Use case: Simplified lead tracking and sales pipeline management
Pipedrive focuses on ease of use and simplicity, making it a great choice for small mortgage teams or independent agents looking to manage sales pipelines effectively. Its intuitive interface allows users to focus on closing deals rather than managing software, and AI capabilities are seamlessly integrated throughout the platform to enhance productivity without adding complexity.
Key features
- Visual sales pipeline: Track leads at every stage on a user-friendly pipeline to see all your deals at a glance.
- Integrations: Pipedrive has over 500 available app integrations to make it easy for mortgage brokers to continue working with the tools they already use.
- AI sales advisor: Nora, Pipedrive’s AI advisor, helps teams with instant answers, deal recommendations, and even demos of platform features.
Pricing
- 14-day free trial
- Plans starting from $14/seat/month
What users are saying
G2 rating: 4.3/5
“Very focused on the right activities, and not on burdensome forms or tick-boxes. The integrations between computer and phone access are instantaneous and really helpful. I use it every day, wherever I am. Having used a few other CRMs over many years, I firmly believe Pipedrive is the best for my needs, which are sales-focused with a lot of service follow through.” — Andrew E.
5. Surefire CRM
Use case: Mortgage-specific CRM with a focus on compliance and marketing
Surefire CRM is a platform designed for mortgage professionals that helps loan officers and mortgage lenders grow their businesses. Its specialized features cater specifically to the mortgage industry, ensuring compliance and efficiency. Surefire CRM is also a good marketing solution for teams looking to boost marketing automation and outreach.
Key features
- Pre-built marketing campaigns: Access a library of customizable marketing content tailored for mortgage professionals.
- Compliance tools: Ensure adherence to industry regulations with automated compliance checks.
- Sales and loans features: Focus on sales and loans with built-in alerts, reporting, outbound calling, referral partner management, and more
Pricing
- Free demo available
- Plans and pricing available on request
What users are saying
G2 rating: 4/5
“Surefire has a lot of great content that comes ready to begin marketing in all things purchase related and refinance related. The amount of information it is able to store and take advantage of is great. And the marketing material is great. The Loan Milestones are also well done. It comes pretty ready to go, but is also very customizable. Allowing you to create your own fields, workflows, and marketing material rather quickly.” — Nathan G.
6. Jungo
Use case: Mortgage professionals looking for a Salesforce-powered solution
Jungo is a Salesforce-based CRM tailored specifically for mortgage and lending professionals. It combines the flexibility of Salesforce with industry-specific tools, making it ideal for managing leads, automating tasks, and maintaining client relationships.
Key features
- Lead management: Capture, track, and segment leads from sources like Zillow, LendingTree, and others.
- Loan document management: Simplify the loan process with integrated tools for storing, managing, and collaborating on documents.
- Co-marketing: Create custom flyers, emails, and marketing assets to build profitable relationships with referral partners.
Pricing
- Free demo available
- Plans starting at $96/user/month
What users are saying
G2 rating: 4.5/5
“I use Jungo in my everyday work life. It helps me keep up with all my daily tasks, as well as holds all of my past clients, Realtors, prospects, and Mortgage contacts. It helps me stay organized and on top of things.” — Kelli K.
7. Shape
Use case: AI-driven CRM for mortgage teams looking for a simple solution
Shape CRM provides an AI-led solution for teams and lenders managing mortgages. The platform is simple and designed to meet the needs of smaller teams. Shape brings together lead management, marketing, and sales automation in one user-friendly solution to help agents qualify, score, and prioritize mortgage clients and leads.
Key features
- AI lead scoring: Score incoming leads in real-time using Shape’s AI so that your team can focus on the deals most likely to convert.
- AI communications: Send texts, answer inbound calls, or dial outbound to leads using AI to easily connect with potential clients at the right time.
- AI call analytics: Generate quick summaries on customer calls, notes, and next steps to understand where you stand with each lead.
Pricing
- Free demo available
- Plans and pricing available on request
What users are saying
G2 rating: 4.9/5
“What we like most about Shape Mortgage Software is its exceptional customer support, seamless integration, user-friendly interface, robust features, customization and flexibility, and reliable performance. Implementation was a breeze! We use Shape on a daily basis and couldn’t be happier.” — Steven C.
Manage mortgage workflows and scale faster with monday CRM
Selecting a CRM isn’t a decision teams should make lightly. Ideally, you want to choose a platform that can grow with your business and offers functionalities you may need in the future, even if you’re not using them now. With a powerful platform like monday CRM, your team can access all the tools they need when they need them, and scale affordably as the organization expands.
Backed by robust AI capabilities, monday CRM makes it quick and easy to get started with templates, automations, a drag-and-drop interface, and plenty of room for customization. With monday CRM, mortgage professionals from both small businesses and enterprises can keep track of their leads, clients, and marketing campaigns while maintaining complete visibility into their lending pipelines.
Aside from the great features we already covered earlier above, below are a few more features monday CRM offers that mortgage professionals will find useful.
AI-powered efficiency
- AI automations can extract critical data from PDF documents so that content from files and contracts gets auto-populated on boards, making them easily accessible without manual input.
- Use AI to analyze sentiment in customer communications, such as call logs and emails, so that you can get ahead of potential issues and maintain customer satisfaction.
- Built-in AI assistant, monday sidekick, helps team members plan next steps in complex deals, access historical data just by asking, and create automations with natural language prompts.
Smarter workflows and code-free automation
- Automate email communications to clients, partners, or leads and rely on monday CRM’s AI to personalize every interaction.
- Generate reporting and analysis workflows to constantly have an overview of real-time data so you understand which deals need close attention.
- Auto-summarize complex deals, meetings, and customer accounts using AI, so you can easily see the most important details in one glance.
Intuitive interface for a seamless work experience
- Choose from over 200 third-party app integrations to make it easy to sign and store documents, communicate with leads over different channels, and sync data to create a single source of truth.
- Build compelling marketing campaigns with monday campaigns, where you can design email campaigns in minutes to nurture leads, win back customers, and keep in touch post-sales.
- Visualize your to-do list, pipeline, deal updates, or other data with over 27 different work views, including Calendar, Map, Timeline, and more.
Mortgage industry use case: From lead intake to post-closing
There are many ways a mortgage team can use monday CRM to streamline their entire loan process from first contact to post-closing. Here’s an example of how monday CRM helps professionals break down complex deal cycles into manageable workflows powered by AI.
- When a new lead comes in through their website or referral partner, AI automatically scores and routes it to the most suitable loan officer based on availability and expertise.
- The AI assistant, monday sidekick, extracts key information from uploaded documents like pay stubs and tax returns, auto-populating data fields to eliminate manual entry.
- Throughout the application process, AI sentiment analysis monitors email and call communications to flag potential issues before they escalate.
- Automated workflows trigger personalized follow-ups and reminders to clients for signatures or outstanding documentation, keeping deals moving forward.
- Team members monitor the visual pipeline for real-time insights into each loan’s status, while AI-generated summaries help managers quickly understand complex deals at a glance.
- After a deal closes, an automated sequence nurtures the new client relationships with personalized content to help ensure borrowers are satisfied with the service.
Affordable mortgage CRM options for small businesses and independent brokers
Small mortgage businesses or independent brokers have two specific needs when it comes to selecting the right CRM: affordability and scalability. Of course, they also want to make sure the software they’re using is easy and quick to implement, but the most important considerations are that a CRM is going to fit into a small budget and scale alongside a growing team.
That’s why small teams and independent mortgage brokers should consider flexible options like monday CRM or Pipedrive. Real estate-specific platforms like Jungo or Surefire CRM may seem like the go-to choice, but when you break it down, solutions like these can feel rigid for small teams who need to move quickly and customize a platform to their specific needs.
A solution like monday CRM is not only a lot more customizable, but it also comes with a much more affordable cost per user, meaning independent brokers and small mortgage teams can get exactly the software they need without blowing their budget. As your team grows, it’s easy and affordable to scale monday CRM to fit a growing organization.
Choosing the best mortgage CRM for your team
Not every CRM will be right for every mortgage team. You need to consider your team’s needs alongside requirements that will support your workflows and scale easily as you grow. Robust CRM solutions, like monday CRM, that apply AI to daily workflows, are already at the forefront of change in the mortgage software industry.
In the future, we can expect to see mortgage CRMs rely more heavily on predictive analytics, AI forecasting, and intelligent lead generation to stay competitive. A solution like monday CRM empowers your team to work more productively, but it does a lot more than just that. As your team becomes more comfortable integrating AI into routine workflows, it’ll be easier to adopt new mortgage AI trends as they emerge, keeping your organization one step ahead of the competition.
FAQs
What makes a CRM "mortgage-specific" compared to general sales software?
Mortgage-specific CRMs are built with features tailored to the lending industry, including loan pipeline visualization, compliance tracking for regulations, integrations with loan origination systems, and automated workflows for tasks like rate quotes, pre-approvals, and document collection. That said, many general CRMs can help brokers accomplish the same thing with the added flexibility of customizable workflows that can fit a range of needs and scale as teams grow.
How does mortgage CRM automation help in reducing the loan closing cycle?
Mortgage CRM automation speeds up the loan process by eliminating manual tasks like follow-up emails, status updates, and document requests. It triggers timely reminders for missing paperwork, automatically routes applications to the right team members, and keeps all stakeholders informed. With CRM automations, mortgage brokers can prevent delays so that loans move smoothly from application to closing.
Can a mortgage CRM assist with regulatory compliance and audit trails?
Yes, mortgage CRMs help maintain compliance by centralizing document storage, tracking all client interactions, and creating detailed audit trails with timestamps and version histories. They can automate compliance checks, ensure proper disclosure delivery timing, flag potential regulatory issues, and provide documentation needed for audits or regulatory reviews.
How do AI features like predictive lead scoring improve mortgage sales?
AI-powered features like lead scoring can analyze behavior, engagement patterns, and historical data to identify which leads are most likely to convert. This helps loan officers prioritize outreach, focus on high-value opportunities, and personalize approaches and marketing campaigns based on forecasted needs, ultimately increasing conversion rates and revenue.
How secure is client financial data within a cloud-based mortgage CRM?
Cloud-based mortgage CRMs typically employ bank-level security measures, including data encryption both in transit and at rest, multi-factor authentication, role-based access controls, and regular security audits. Reputable providers comply with industry standards like SOC 2 and maintain certifications to protect sensitive financial information from unauthorized access or breaches.