The Challenge No longer being able to rely on a hodgepodge of bandaid software solutions When Neil started Little Guy Loans, he initially started with a very small volume of loan originations. Neil opted to use a variety of bandaid software solutions to perform individual tasks necessary to originate and service his loans, such as collecting documents, creating payment schedules, tracking payments and creating documents like payoffs. In particular, Neil leaned heavily on Google Sheets, using multiple spreadsheets to track and update the core information in his loans.
The Solution Selecting the right vendor for a scaling business After comparing Baseline and The Mortgage Office, Neil felt like Baseline was the best fit for his business for multiple reasons. One of the principal reasons was the usability and modern interface of Baseline’s software. Neil put it like so: “Baseline is like web 2.0, [whereas competitors are] dinosaurs, their systems are archaic. They’re like DOS from 20 years ago. And it’s not just the fact that it looks old, it’s that it tells me that Baseline is rolling out updates on a regular basis, and are on the cutting edge of building something pretty cool. It’s customizable and scalable for people like us who want to build and want to grow.”
Baseline’s all-in-one pricing was another aspect of Baseline that made sense to Neil. He felt that our inclusion of both origination and servicing in all of our packages showed that we understood private lending, instead of charging him for multiple separate modules for origination, servicing, and additional users in his team like other software platforms. With Baseline, he was able to sign up for a package based on his loan volume, ensuring costs wouldn’t rise unless his business grew substantially.
The Results Enhancing borrower’s perception of the Little Guy Loans Business One of the major advantages of switching to Baseline that Little Guy Loans experienced: enhancing the perception of their professionalism amongst their borrowers and potential borrowers, allowing them to compete with much larger and institutional private lending businesses. Why? Because of the Borrower Portal that using Baseline enables lenders to provide to their borrowers, allowing them to manage their loans, upload and receive documents, submit new loan applications, access payment and statement information, and even submit budgets and draw requests for their rehabs projects, all in the same usable and modern software platform as the lenders. Neil puts it like this, “At the end of the day it’s a win-win, not only fantastic for us, but fantastic for our borrowers. It’s improved our level of professionalism and shifted how we are situated in their mind.”
The magic behind a smooth transition: Baseline’s excellent service In addition to being the software platform that seemed like the best fit for the needs of the Little Guy Loans business, Baseline’s onboarding process and white-glove service were a game changer for ensuring a successful transition away from their previous processes to a new way of working with the Baseline platform. Baseline’s Onboarding & Support teams provided a customized onboarding program for Little Guy Loans, delivered over a number of weeks. Like all of Baseline’s customers, Little Guy Loans received training focused on the features and functionality that were necessary for them, and geared towards the changes in workflows that come with implementing a new Software platform. All of this resulted in a smooth transition for Neil and Little Guy Loans, with Neil describing it like so: “I can’t say enough about the onboarding and ongoing support that we have - it’s very significant. I always know that Baseline is a partner of ours, they’re an extension of us, and their success is tied to my success, they go above and beyond on a support level knowing that our futures are tied together.”
Neil’s success with Baseline is being repeated by other private lenders with as few as 1 and as many as 1,000+ loans. If you’d like to hear more about how Baseline can help you build a better lending business, get in touch via this link .
