Being involved early can keep customers in their homes
With hopes of lower mortgage rates on the horizon in 2026, many brokers are checking in with former customers to see if they might be in the market for a purchase or refinance.
As pillars of their local communities, brokers are always keeping an eye on past clients to make sure those customers keep their brokers at the front of their minds when they start thinking about entering the market.
Many life events can prompt someone to enter the market. Beyond the obvious rate drop that could trigger a move or refinance, sometimes changing jobs or expanding families may force someone to move.
Unfortunately, another life event that can cause a past customer to reach out is a divorce. January tends to be a big month for divorces, and while that’s an awkward conversation to have with a former client, one expert believes it can be a very important conversation.
Renee Coleman (pictured top), mortgage loan officer at CrossCountry Mortgage, is a certified divorce lending professional (CDLP). She said that having that conversation with former customers isn’t always easy for brokers.
“As a loan officer, we have our database of our clients, of our past clients, and we're always looking for reasons to reach out and touch base with them again,” Coleman told Mortgage Professional America. “And sadly, almost 50% of marriages end in divorce. So there's a good chance that a good chunk of your clients will go through that at some point. It’s just another reason to check in.”
Better to be involved early
One thing she always tells her past clients is that it will be much less expensive to reach out to her when preparing for a divorce than to pay an attorney to figure it out, since the attorney might not even understand how a mortgage works.
“We tell people it's far cheaper to talk to me, and get some numbers, than to pay your attorney to figure it out,” Coleman said. “They're not lenders, and they're not math people. They don't know the guidelines. You can spend your time spinning your wheels with your attorney, trying to figure out what the options are, while in the meantime, paying your attorney an hourly rate.”
She said it is not uncommon for divorcing former customers to bring her in as part of their divorce team to ensure that whatever agreement is reached on the house makes sense for all parties.
“There's a lot of nuance to mortgage guidelines, and the guidelines are different when a divorce is present,” she said. “So, 70% of divorces involve real estate. It's really, in most cases, the biggest or second-biggest asset that you own. Your retirement could be more than the equity in your house, but it's right up there.
“So when you're talking about a divorce, and we're dividing assets, it's not black and white. We're splitting assets, but not all assets are equal. There are tax implications for different asset classes. The equity in your house is different than your retirement account. How they get split matters, as does how the final divorce agreement is written up. What's a legal option isn't always a lending option.”
Helping during an emotional time
One of the hardest things Coleman has to deal with is when former customers come to her after a divorce, only to find that the financing for keeping their home doesn’t work out.
“I've had clients come to me post-divorce,” she said. “They say, ‘I was awarded the house in the divorce, and I have 90 days to refinance my mortgage, to remove my spouse.’ We put the numbers together for them, and they don't qualify. Most settlement agreements include language saying you have 90 days to refinance, that you owe X to the departing spouse, and that if it doesn't happen within 90 days, you have to list the house for sale, and then the proceeds are split this way.”
It can be one more emotional blow to someone who has gone through a very difficult divorce. She said it’s not just that the financing might not work out for the house that makes a broker’s early involvement important. It may also be that your former customer isn’t the one who handled the finances.
“When you're going through a divorce, there’s the emotional side of it, number one,” Coleman said. “Then there's the financial side. And for some clients, they weren't the financial person in the household. So, it's almost like they don't know what they don't know. They don't know that they need to be qualified for this mortgage. They think they already have the mortgage.
“They just call a random lender and say, ‘Can I qualify for a mortgage?’ But again, there's some nuance to it, as far as how you qualify, what income we can use, especially when we're talking about whether there's going to be any support payments. There are rules about that, when and how we can use that as income to qualify you.”
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