MADISON, Wis.-To get members moving once they're pre-approved for a home loan, UW Credit Union is getting ready to send them house hunting on the credit union's website.
The $1.2-billion credit union believes lenders are missing a step in their mortgage process by not offering a house-shopping tool, and that's costing them business. "You want to get members moving, and you don't want them to stray from the friendly confines of the credit union," explained Mike long, UWCU chief credit officer. "We do the same thing with cars on credit union websites. Why not homes?"
Long contends that once members are preapproved, credit unions leave them "to their own devices. To go to some other Realtor's website. Members can get distracted along the way, see another bank or mortgage company ad, use one of them, and never make it back to the credit union for financing."
The credit union's new property search feature will be available in early January when the CU rebrands its mortgage section on its website. Currently members see four steps to UWCU's mortgage process-"Check rates," "Apply online," "Finish your application," and "Check your loan status." "Buy a house" will be an option added to the site in January. When members click on that link, they will go to a search tool that pulls up a map. They key in the ZIP Code of the area they want to shop in, as well as the price range of their prospective home. Small icons for homes that meet their shopping requirements pop up on the map. When members hover over an icon, a photo of the home appears with information on the listing.
Link To Popular Site
Long explained that the tool is actually an element of a local, highly popular, real estate website (
UWCU isn't paying the website owners for the right to link to the tool. Instead, it's providing monthly content for danecountymarket.com on home financing topics. "It's just costing us the time to put this information together," Long said.
The credit union also receives free advertising on danecountymarket.com that links to the CU's website and mortgage rates. "Danecountymarket.com gets 80,000 page hits a month and has lots of tools and information that consumers are using to understand the local real estate market," Long explained. "It's getting a lot of attention in our newspapers."
That's what originally prompted the credit union to reach out to the two real estate agents. "We said danecountymarket.com is making noise, we are one of largest mortgage lenders in Dane County, there ought to be a way to work together so we can drive members to your site and consumers to ours."
UWCU has high expectations for the partnership and what the new search tool can do for the credit union's business. "We want those members we pre-approve to get moving," Long said. "Once members get excited about getting a loan, the next step is to get them excited about buying a house."
