Service from Insurer Uses Caller ID to Help Lenders Connect with

A mortgage insurer is offering a service that uses caller ID to help home lenders find customers.

In a business where all products are pretty much alike, it's the latest example of a company offering a service to stand out from the pack.

Lenders who sign up for the Republic Mortgage Insurance Co. service put a toll-free phone number on real estate agents' "for sale" signs.

People who call that number can learn the asking price of the property, the square footage, and other information.

Meanwhile the system has collected their phone numbers, which it forwards to the lenders.

Lenders can use the numbers and the names that go with them to try to sign borrowers. The information can also be forwarded to the listing realty agents.

"We're bringing this to lenders to help them do more business," said Chris Nard, vice president of planning and development at Republic, Winston-Salem, N.C.

"They find it's important to set themselves beyond the competing, generic products," said Brad Kent, director of sales for Home-Tel, the Palm Harbor, Fla., company that devised the system for Republic.

Mr. Nard conceded that people who'd thought they'd called the toll-free number anonymously may be taken aback. But that's not a problem, he said.

"If you're interested enough in the property, you're probably interested enough in talking to a lender or a realtor," he said.

The system gets high marks from lenders.

"It's helped a lot," said Muna Padgett, a loan officer at World Savings and Loan, Houston. "If you go into a realtor's office and present this, they get all fired up."

Realty agents, she said, see the system as a way to sell more homes.

"In the past, we were always asking them for business," Ms. Padgett said. "This way we're giving something back."

She estimated that her company lands one loan application for every five calls the system receives.

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