What happens when the estimated $800 billion (1996 U.S.) in annual mortgage loan originations are chased by 1,300 mortgage brokers on the Internet? Chaos. Perspiration. Innovation. And ultimately a whole new way to finance your home (and tap your home equity). But it won’t happen overnight. Electronic commerce is evolving much slower than many pundits predicted. The only sure-fire way to attract visitors to your Web site continues to be interesting, up-to-date, and most importantly, FREE information. That’s why existing businesses, with other off-line sources of revenue are much happier with the results from their Web operations than the Web-only business whose livelihood is tied to FY 97 net revenue.

What does this mean for your mortgage finance business? You’re likely to see a proliferation of free real estate information services desperate for advertising revenue. This could be a perfect time to enter into a long-term exclusive sponsorship of a popular real estate or personal finance Web site. American Finance and FinanCenter have entered into just such an arrangement. But remain realistic with your sales projections. Despite millions of hits per month at popular sites, it remains FAR more difficult to get users to actually BUY online. This is not an excuse to sit on the sidelines. It just limits what you should attempt to accomplish on the Net in ‘97. – Jim Bruene, jim@netbanker.com