Washington -- The soon-to-be marriage of the country's largest independent home real estate brokerage with one of the highest-volume home mortgage lenders has huge significance for consumers.
Once this and other joint ventures by competitors get under way this month, the home buying process as you've known it for decades will change fundamentally.
You won't have to shop for loan rates, terms or a pre-approval while seated in your agent's office next to a computer terminal. But there will be compelling reasons to do so, including cost and time savings.
California-based realty broker Coldwell Banker Corp. and Illinois-based PNC Mortgage have created a joint venture called the Home Mortgage Network. It features computerized loan-shopping systems in realty offices run by "financial service" representatives of the Mortgage Network. When the subject of loan qualification arises, you'll be offered the option of shopping for a mortgage electronically.
Sounds like a national lender setting up shop in hundreds of realty offices to steer billions in loan applications its own way, right?
Wrong. What's intriguing about the new company is that it's intended to be multilender and "lender-neutral."
It's positioned to pull in large volumes of mortgage business at the local realty office where you sing your home purchase contract. But -- and here's the key -- the venture's profitability to the parent firms doesn't depend on how much loan business goes to the mortgage lending parent, PNC.
It hinges instead on whether you use the network as an electronic shopping and qualification device -- scanning the competing offerings, rates and underwriting requirements of eight to 10 independent, national and local lenders. And, ultimately, it depends on whether you choose to apply to one of those lenders via the network, and go to closing.
If you do, the joint venture nets a disclosed fee as a mortgage broker from whatever lender lands the loan, whether it's PNC or a rival.
If the mortgage network and similar lender-realty broker joint ventures deliver the services they advertise -- and that's still a big if -- they could indeed be beneficial to you as a homebuyer.
For starters, they offer the potential of shopping smart: With no strings attached and at no cost, you can sit down with an in-house financial counselor to quickly explore what your financial situation qualifies you for in the marketplace.
Another novel feature: Customer service satisfaction ratings on every mortgage lender in the system.
Though the Coldwell Banker-PNC marriage is likely to be the farthest-flung home realty-financing joint venture for the immediate future, look for lots of others, soon.
Kenneth R. Harney is a syndicated columnist. Send letters care of the Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071.