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Finmo Mortgage Market Insights Mid-2020: The Effects of COVID-19

Written by Elvin Witty Cookie | Oct 19, 2020 9:35:37 PM

Finmo’s statistics

The data reflected in the following charts and graphs was collected between January 17th 2020 and June 6th 2020, unless otherwise noted visually on the graph itself.

The data was collated from more than 15,000 Finmo mortgage applications.

Male/Female

We are unsure as to why there are more male applicants than female applicants, though we have a hypothesis.

This 2016 article from Canadian Mortgage Trends states:

“Specifically, males were twice as likely as females to have received down payment money from mom and dad. The survey found that 39% of males aged 18-34 acknowledged receiving down payment money from their parents—compared to just 19% of females.”

From the we see that younger generations are utilizing DMPs (Digital Mortgage Platforms) like Finmo at a greater rate than older generations – particularly the 18-34 age range

  • which could exaggerate this effect.

We do not suspect however that this phenomenon is “risk” related, with men being more likely to purchase in a “risky” economic environment. The 45-55% ratio has changed by less than 2% over time the last few months (no change before COVID-19 or during).

We believe the imbalance is caused by cultural reasons rather than by Finmo itself being preferred by a specific sex.

Further research is required for accurate conclusions to be drawn.

Age

If we look at the age ranges of Finmo borrowers we find that there is a healthy love of the technology across all age groups, with no age groups unrepresented.

The reasons why younger borrowers (under 44) make up the majority of Finmo users could be:

  • Younger people are doing more mortgage deals in general.
  • Younger people are more open to getting a mortgage from a business that is not a chartered bank.
  • Younger people are familiar with modern technology and are actively looking for the digital mortgage experience offered by DMPs (like Finmo).
  • People refinancing may be older, and the mortgage professionals may be running through their refinances on older mortgage platforms which already contain the borrower’s data. For them to show up in our data, they would need to re-originate them within Finmo.

In this figure we can see that younger borrower’s usage of Finmo has skyrocketed lately. We suspect this is young people taking advantage of the falling house prices – a buyers market. CMHC predicts house prices will fall 9%-18% this year. The drop in prices appears to have already be creating a strong buyer’s market for younger buyers.

The upcoming CMHC insurance rule changes to borrower qualifying ratios has likely also been a boon to younger mortgage borrowers. The (largely misunderstood) legislation is likely causing younger borrowers to attempt to originate their mortgages before July 1st, 2020.

Again, this graph of percentage of deals per age demographic over time demonstrates a strong upward trend for younger mortgage borrowers – particularly for 18-24 year olds.

We can see other trends in here as well, such as people of age over 44 showing increased mortgage activity in mid-March (likely mainly refinances and renewals), due to speculation and uncertainty around the lasting effects of COVID-19.

Provinces

Province Percentage
Ontario 46.87%
British Columbia 27.02%
Alberta 13.29%
Nova Scotia 4.67%
Quebec 4.16%
Saskatchewan 3.36%
New Brunswick 1.23%
Manitoba 0.97%
Prince Edward Island 0.69%
Newfoundland and Labrador 0.34%
Northwest Territories 0.08%
Yukon 0.08%
Nunavut 0.03%

Finmo recently added a French version of the mortgage application, so we feel that Quebec numbers are likely to increase going forward.

Applications submitted from other countries

Country Percentage
United States 1.73%
United Kingdom 0.09%
Mexico 0.05%

We were surprised that there were far more mortgage applications submitted from the United States than from 7 Canadian provinces.

Web traffic channels

Events are an internal metrics we use to measure activity internally at Finmo.

An event is a borrower action we digitally track to optimize Finmo to be as smooth of a process as possible.

What does this graph’s legend mean?

  • Direct
    • This means the borrower was linked directly to the Finmo mortgage application.
  • Website referrals
    • This means the borrower was linked to the application from a website (likely a mortgage professional telling a borrower to go to their website, which then links to the Finmo mortgage application.
  • Organic search
    • This means a borrower found a Finmo mortgage application directly from a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc). This is a fairly unlikely scenario as they would likely find a website first that then links to the mortgage application.
  • Google Ads
    • This is people who entered the Finmo application directly from a Google Ad. It is very surprising that almost no one has. It is possible mortgage professionals are linking ads to their website instead of Finmo‘s lead generation calculator or application, but from other internal research we’ve performed we find the level of advertising amongst brokers on Google is just very low in general. It appears that advertising on Facebook is very limited as well, but we do not have nearly as much visibility on that.

In our opinion, this graph represents that the mortgage brokering business in Canada is still a very personal and in-person referral based. What’s most interesting from this chart is not what’s in it – it’s what is missing.

Paid advertising results make up extremely little of the total submitted mortgage applications.

We believe there is absolutely massive opportunity in paid advertising going forward, as it seems to be a wildly under-utilized asset compared to other industries.

Mortgage borrowers in Canada have an affinity for the big five banks and may be hesitant to apply for mortgages online with no personal referral. We foresee that phobia changing in the future as the United States and the United Kingdom see much higher levels of online mortgage origination. For example, large online advertising based brokerages such as Trussle and Habito have been operating for years in the United Kingdom.

Device categories

Although Finmo has the ability to operate effectively on all categories and devices, borrowers still prefer to do the data entry required for their mortgage application on a desktop computer.

This is not very surprising, as a keyboard is a much quicker tool for filling out a mortgage application than a phone for most people.

We were fairly surprised however that 36.1% of borrowers fill out the entire application entirely on their phone – more than one third of borrowers!

Mobile device brands

On this pie chart we can see that Apple’s mobile products are the most commonly used by borrowers to fill out mortgage applications on Finmo.

The number one mobile device series used to submit Finmo mortgage applications is the Apple iPhone.

Web browsers

Browser Device category % of borrowers
Chrome Desktop 43.39%
Safari Mobile 20.02%
Safari Desktop 9.30%
Chrome Mobile 8.59%
Samsung Internet Mobile 6.48%
Edge Desktop 6.08%
Firefox Desktop 3.76%
Others Various (including tablets) 3.09%

Google Chrome has the lion’s share of desktop Finmo mortgage applications with a 43.39% share. The vast majority of Finmo applications, approximately 62%, are submitted from desktop computers.

Languages

Language Percentage
English 98.73%
French 0.71%
Chinese 0.13%
Korean 0.07%
Russian 0.06%
Others 0.30%

The majority of users that submitted applications to Finmo had their web browsers set to the English language. French made a disproportionately low showing, but this could be because Finmo only recently added full French translation to the borrower application. We expect to see French language representation increase over the years.

Google demographic information

This information is provided by the Google analytics platform. It uses Google’s vast wealth of user browser activity to find commonalities and trends in user behaviours.

This information is useful to better understand more about the modern mortgage borrower and what their interests and behaviours are. With this powerful information, we can identify interesting trends to create advertising campaigns that really resonate with the target audience.

Top affinity categories

Affinity categories are “interests” that are shared between people that submitted a mortgage application. For example, 16.79% of 18-24 year olds that submitted a Finmo mortgage application share an affinity for “frequently eating breakfast out”. Who knew breakfast foods and mortgage origination had such a high correlation?

A striking trend is the very strong correlation between motorcycles, bicycles and mortgages in the 25-34 year range.

A bizarre trend is 35-44 year old rap & hip hop fans correlating to 16.43% of application submissions for that age group – the strongest correlation in the demographic!

Age range: 18-24 years

Affinity category % of borrower apps
Frequently Eats Breakfast Out 16.79%
Fashionistas 15.71%
Pet Lovers 15.67%
Beauty Mavens 15.54%
Gamers 15.28%
Coffee Shop Regulars 15.27%
Home Decor Enthusiasts 15.22%
Thrill Seekers 15.03%
Department Store Shoppers 14.98%
Nightlife Enthusiasts 14.90%
Auto Enthusiasts 14.72%
Fast Food Cravers 14.66%
Green Living Enthusiasts 14.61%
Business Travelers 14.44%
TV Lovers 14.43%
Outdoor Enthusiasts 14.36%
Light TV Viewers 14.34%
Hardcore Gamers 14.34%
Travel Buffs 14.32%
Shutterbugs (photographers) 14.30%
Home & Garden/Do-It-Yourselfers 14.26%
Frequently Visits Salons 14.24%
Sports Fans 14.21%
Movie Lovers 14.32%
Frequently Eats Dinner Out 14.14%
Comics & Animation Fans 14.11%
Rap & Hip Hop Fans 14.02%

Age range: 25-34 years

Affinity category % of borrower apps
Motorcycle Enthusiasts 18.74%
Cycling Enthusiasts 17.75%
Snowbound Travelers 15.99%
Beachbound Travelers 15.01%
Baseball Fans 14.94%
Indie & Alternative Rock Fans 14.77%
Luxury Travelers 14.69%
Family Vacationers 14.68%
Performance & Luxury Vehicle Enthusiasts 14.44%
Auto Enthusiasts 14.33%
Thrill Seekers 14.32%
Outdoor Enthusiasts 14.23%
Frequently Eats Breakfast Out 14.18%
Green Living Enthusiasts 14.17%
Family Movie Fans 14.17%
Truck & SUV Enthusiasts 14.15%

Age range: 35-44 years

Affinity category % of borrower apps
Rap & Hip Hop Fans 16.43%
Rock Music Fans 15.64%
Fast Food Cravers 15.62%
Beachbound Travelers 15.62%
Frequently Attends Live Events 15.52%
Convenience Store Shoppers 15.35%
Luxury Travelers 14.69%
Soccer Fans 15.09%
Pet Lovers 14.95%
Frequently Eats Breakfast Out 14.87%
Hockey Fans 14.85%
Green Living Enthusiasts 14.79%
Music Lovers 14.67%
Game, Reality & Talk Show Fans 14.61%
Family Movie Fans 14.17%
Performance & Luxury Vehicle Enthusiasts 14.44%
Department Store Shoppers 14.41%
Cooking Enthusiasts 14.40%
Pop Music Fans 14.39%
TV Lovers 14.38%
American Football Fans 14.35%
Basketball Fans 14.27%
Auto Enthusiasts 14.06%
Hardcore Gamers 14.02%

Age range: 45-54 years

Affinity category % of borrower apps
Truck & SUV Enthusiasts 17.78%
Luxury Travelers 17.24%
Family Vacationers 16.63%
Rock Music Fans 15.60%
Beachbound Travelers 15.45%
Performance & Luxury Vehicle Enthusiasts 15.14%
Avid Investors 14.97%
Game, Reality & Talk Show Fans 14.66%
Pop Music Fans 14.64%
Frequently Eats Lunch Out 14.53%
Auto Enthusiasts 14.47%

Age range: 55-64 years

Affinity category % of borrower apps
Shopaholics 15.13%
Frequently Attends Live Events 14.89%
Aspiring Chefs 14.07%
Foodies 14.02%

Age range: 65+ years

Affinity category % of borrower apps
Movie Lovers 15.00%
Value Shoppers 14.92%
Technophiles 14.81%
Luxury Shoppers 14.75%
Book Lovers 14.65%
Avid Political News Readers 14.45%
Business Professionals 14.18%
Entertainment News Enthusiasts 14.18%
Home & Garden/Do-It-Yourselfers 14.15%

 

Top in-market segments

In-market segments refer to what borrowers are actively researching, or what the borrower’s are “in the market” for.

A concerning trend is the number of times employment or career consulting appears across the majority of age demographics. This could indicate a problematic trend of bankruptcies from the economic affects of COVID-19. It is likely that the borrowers researching employment opportunities are people who are submitting applications to refinance, but further research on our end is required to verify that hypothesis.

Some great advertising opportunities are exposed through this information as well, such as how 18-24 year olds that are looking into tax preparation services (or software) are likely to be getting serious about soon purchasing a house. Why this is valuable is it is a “leading indicator”, which could help a mortgage professional connect with potential borrowers before the competition.

Age range: 18-24 years

In-market segment % of borrower apps
Preowned Houses (For Sale) 17.36%
Residential Properties (For Sale) 16.97%
Residential Properties 15.95%
Tax Preparation Services & Software 15.83%
Home Decor 15.23%
Residential Properties (For Rent) 14.88%
Employment 14.46%
Career Consulting Services 14.16%
Advertising & Marketing Services 14.09%

Age range: 25-34 years

In-market segment % of borrower apps
Motorcycles (Used) 18.89%
Resumes & Portfolios 17.93%
Trips to Canada 17.64%
Motorcycles 17.59%
Trips to Toronto 17.43%
Residential Properties (For Rent) 14.88%
Off-Road Vehicles (Used) 17.16%
Off-Road Vehicles 16.97%
Beauty Products & Services 16.71%
Vacation Packages 16.64%
IT & Technical Jobs 16.44%
Rugs & Carpets 16.17%
Audio 16.06%
Beauty Products & Services 16.71%
Trips to the US 15.92%
Air Travel 15.89%
Outdoor Recreational Equipment 15.57%
Auto Parts & Accessories 15.55%
Lights & Fixtures 15.53%
Executive & Management Jobs 15.48%
Televisions 15.43%
Plumbing Fixtures 15.35%
Luxury Vehicles (Used) 15.33%
Home Furnishings/Kitchen & Dining Room 15.27%
Auto Repair & Maintenance 15.14%
Motor Vehicles by Brand/Honda 15.11%
Hotels & Accommodations 15.09%
Home Furnishings/Living Room 15.05%
Internet Service Providers 15.01%
Vacation Rentals 14.98%
Pickup Trucks (Used) 14.97%
Accounting Software 14.94%
Pickup Trucks 14.78%
Car Rental 14.64%
Luxury Vehicles 14.63%
Garden & Outdoor Furniture 14.61%
Wheels & Tires 14.55%
Career Consulting Services 14.42%
Apartments (For Rent) 14.25%
Tools 14.23%
Computer Accessories & Components 14.16%
Staffing & Recruitment Services 14.13%
Home Decor/Bedding 14.11%
Home Appliances 14.05%

Age range: 35-44 years

In-market segment % of borrower apps
Auto Exterior Parts & Accessories 20.39%
Sedans (Used) 19.77%
Activewear 19.11%
Vacation Packages 18.93%
Sedans 17.44%
Auto Parts & Accessories 16.63%
Concert & Music Festival Tickets 16.19%
Shoes 15.54%
Luxury Vehicles 15.54%
Staffing & Recruitment Services 15.47%
Primary & Secondary Schools (K-12) 14.74%
Post-Secondary Education 14.65%
Air Travel 14.59%
Trips to Canada 14.40%
Pickup Trucks 14.36%
Home Furnishings 14.24%
Tools 14.18%

Age range: 45-54 years

In-market segment % of borrower apps
Vacation Rentals 18.94%
Concert & Music Festival Tickets 17.35%
Vacation Packages 17.33%
Living Room 16.88%
Business & Productivity Software 16.44%
Apartments (For Rent) 16.24%
Auto Parts & Accessories 16.11%
Shoes 15.54%
Air Travel 16.09%
Women’s Apparel 16.02%
Mobile Phones 15.96%
Motor Vehicles (New) 15.91%
Trips to Canada 15.73%
Residential Properties (For Rent) 15.27%
Staffing & Recruitment Services 15.16%
Preowned Apartments (For Sale) 15.01%
Tools 14.96%
Pickup Trucks 14.86%
Hotels & Accommodations 14.51%
Landscape Design 14.40%
Residential Properties 14.39%
Motor Vehicles (Used) 14.36%
Home & Garden Services 14.36%
Home Improvement 14.30%
Post-Secondary Education 14.29%
SUVs (Used) 14.13%
Residential Properties (For Sale) 14.09%

Age range: 55-64 years

In-market segment % of borrower apps
Apparel & Accessories 15.99%
Preowned Houses (For Sale) 15.80%
Residential Properties (For Sale) 15.60%
Air Travel 15.02%
Business & Productivity Software 14.68%
Home Improvement 14.30%
Trips to Canada 14.59%
Advertising & Marketing Services 14.22%
Hotels & Accommodations 14.19%

Age range: 65+ years

In-market segment % of borrower apps
Staffing & Recruitment Services 18.06%
Preowned Houses (For Sale) 15.80%
Residential Properties 17.51%
Employment 14.43%

 

Top life event segments

Life event segments represent correlations to specific live events. These segments are generally more logically obvious than affinity or in-market segments.

Yes, someone who is recently married is very likely to submit a mortgage application – but surprisingly, someone who is 18-24 that just graduated is even more likely to submit a mortgage application!

Age range: 18-24 years

Life event segment % of borrower apps
Recently Graduated 18.80%
Graduating Soon 15.79%
Moving/Recently Moved 14.37%

Age range: 25-34 years

Life event segment % of borrower apps
Recently Married 18.34%
Recently Graduated 15.34%
Starting a Business Soon 14.11%

Age range: 35-44 years – No strong correlations in our data Age range: 45-54 years – No strong correlations in our data Age range: 55-64 years – No strong correlations in our data Age range: 65+ years – No strong correlations in our data

Purchases, refinances and renewals

Through this chart we can see the effects of COVID-19 clearly. We see the uncertainty created by COVID-19 (on our platform) caused purchase mortgage applications to drop from 75% of total applications to 55%, and nearly a doubling in the percent of applications for renewals and refinances.

Lead generation/calculator funnels

Borrowers clicked on % of submitted applications
I’m just getting started 50.03%
I have a specific home in mind 29.80%
Want to refinance a home you own? 19.90%

For borrowers that entered the Finmo application through Finmo‘s lead generation funnel, this is the percentage of which “calculator” they clicked on.

Number of sessions

We can see in this figure that Finmo is an incredibly user friendly platform, with the majority of borrowers only needing to log in a single time to complete their application. This is even more impressive when you consider that applicants also upload their documentation in Finmo as well – the fact that they rarely have to log in again likely means they are experiencing very little friction, and completing their applications and document uploads easily.

Only around 6 percent of users have had to log in 5 times or more, and some of these borrowers may potentially be investor-types doing multiple deals for multiple properties.

Finmo mortgage professional statistics

Male/Female

Currently, there are more male mortgage professionals than female mortgage professionals using Finmo. We are unsure why this is.

Age

The age demographic of Finmo mortgage professionals demonstrates that younger mortgage professionals are quickly adopting DMPs, such as Finmo. Mortgage professionals that are 18-34 years old comprise 40.8% of all Finmo users. One of the biggest advantages for new mortgage professionals (who tend to be younger) gain by using Finmo is that they do not need to know how to originate a mortgage from memory. For example, they do not need to remember the specific information required for a purchase vs a refinance, or which documentation they need to request. In Finmo, the relevant fields are displayed in the application, and the appropriate documentation for virtually every type of deal is requested automatically.

Provinces

Province % of mortgage professionals
Ontario 50.51%
British Columbia 27.05%
Alberta 12.72%
Nova Scotia 3.68%
Quebec 3.51%
Saskatchewan 2.16%
New Brunswick 1.27%
Manitoba 0.63%
Prince Edward Island 0.51%
Newfoundland and Labrador 0.34%
Yukon 0.13%
Northwest Territories 0.00%
Nunavut 0.00%

This graph and table depict the percentage of mortgage professionals per province that are using Finmo. We expect the number of Quebec brokers to increase significantly since Finmo now features a bi-lingual mortgage application for borrowers.

Device categories

The majority of Finmo mortgage professionals originate mortgages on desktop computers. Surprisingly, approximately 11% do at least some of their mortgage origination work on their mobile phones. Finmo is fully mobile responsive, and all functionality is available cross platforms. With Finmo, theoretically you could run an entire mortgage business from a chair on the beach.

Mobile device brands

Finmo mortgage professionals have an affinity for Apple products. Finmo uses similar interface and design principles to Apple products, and perfectly compliments a modern mortgage professional seeking out the simplest, most intuitive mortgage origination solution.

Web browsers

Browser Device category % of mortgage professionals
Chrome Desktop 56.48%
Safari Desktop 14.95%
Firefox Desktop 10.98%
Safari Mobile 7.46%
Edge Desktop 6.28%
Chrome Mobile 2.71%
Samsung Internet Mobile 0.53%
Others Various (including tablets) 0.60%

Mortgage professionals prefer the Google Chrome browser on their desktop computers, and the Apple Safari browser on their mobile phones.

 

resources

 

Lendesk Youtube channel

The Lendesk YouTube Channel contains all of our video resources. It has more than 50 videos, including training videos, webinar sessions, tips and tricks, and more! It’s a great way for visual learners to get acquainted with Finmo quickly. We recommend starting with these Finmo introduction videos.

help centre

The Finmo help centre is a searchable index of over 130 articles on Finmo. The articles are grouped into easily navigable categories, and are an indispensable resource for self-learners. We understand that not being able to find an answer to a problem can impact productivity, so we strive to provide the best documentation of any Digital Mortgage Platform.

Customer success team

Our customer success team is available during regular work hours (and often after hours) through the following channels:

Finmo internal survey

On January 28th 2020, we performed an online survey of 129 of our users.

Do you believe Finmo is helping you close more deals?

How would you rate the customer support available to you?

How likely would you be to recommend Finmo to a colleague?

 

Finmo user reviews

Try Finmo

Thank you for reading our whitepaper on mortgage market insights. If you believe Finmo would be a good fit for you, feel free to sign up or schedule a demo with us.