The industry's top lenders don't let their originators waste time tinkering with technology.

"I want my loan officers focused on relationship-building, marketing, branding themselves and closing deals," said Shant Banosian, president of Rate and the industry's top producer, at Day 1 of National Mortgage News' Digital Mortgage conference. 

"Somebody spending 8-to-10 hours over the course of next week building out a CRM for themselves is like not the highest and best use. We should be doing that," he added.

Experts from the home loan space's biggest companies have different philosophies regarding building versus buying those tech solutions.

Megalenders like Rocket Mortgage and United Wholesale Mortgage are still interested in working with vendors, while other players are carving out their own novel development strategies.

Before embarking on their tech journeys however, companies must sit down with their employees and watch their workflows, a point Lyra Waggoner, chief operating officer at Movement Mortgage, emphasized. 

"That's the first thing you should do," she said. "And I promise it will probably change what you bring into the rest of your workday immediately."

On buying

Rocket Mortgage has rolled out numerous in-house tech offerings for originators, but it remains open to outside solutions. 

Chief Technology Officer Shawn Malhotra recommended that vendors looking to partner should sell a niche they excel at, rather than trying to solve an entire problem. 

"If there's a niche that isn't worth us going after it at our scale, that's a great way to get our attention because we don't have a lot of time," he said. "If you can save us time by serving a niche client need more effectively, that's something I'm interested in."

Lending executives across several panels emphasized vendor accountability, urging companies to look elsewhere once a partner doesn't stick to their word. Those experts cited fatal vendor mistakes that included failing to explain their security protocols and misalignment with lender goals.

Sumanth Kamath, chief product and technology officer at Newrez, also urged technology partners to stay in their lane. 

"If you're a true business partner, solve our business problem and don't try to sell us more stuff," he said. 

On building

United Wholesale Mortgage has also built nearly all of its own technology. Chief Technology Officer Jason Bressler said lenders opting to build should scrub and cleanse their data. He encouraged companies to place their huge data sets in Microsoft Excel, a laborious process.

"That is the easiest and safest (method)," he said. "Once you get that data clean, now you're starting from scratch. You're starting with something that you know is a good single source of truth."

The UWM executive also underscored the importance of data extraction in today's market. Lenders need to examine their workflows today, before the next low-rate origination boom becomes the bigger priority.

Building your own solutions can present unique issues. Matt VanFossen, CEO of Absolute Home Mortgage, said "siloing," in which a company may generate a solution but subsequently stops innovating that process, can be a concern. 

The AHM leader, who has an aversion to vendor contracts, also said there is a third option between building versus buying. VanFossen brought a coalition of firms together to develop The Big Point of Sale platform, which he presented as the third route.

"That's kind of the story behind why we built Big Point of Sale, to not to lock any of us in, to reduce our build cost individually and crowdfund our ideas together to actually build a unified solution," Van Fossen said.