I think it could also be cultural. In my country people are perfectly happy to have a video chat with a bank employee about mortgages but in other country's you still need to go into a branch office for that kind of thing.
I don't get the need for synchronous comms at all. I can book airplane tickets, food delivery, e-commerce generally, and most other things through a web interface. Not sure why I need to talk to somebody to get a mortgage aside from Know Your Customer but even then a short signing ceremony at the end would be best.
Because a lot of people don't understand how the products work or what they need. Trying to understand a complex product, with multiple options that come with advantages and disadvantages, and having adding on top that it's a very consequential decision is much easier if any misunderstanding can be corrected and explained real-time. The alternative is to do it async with some lead time for every back and forth.
Your pizza order needs no clarifications and if you get it wrong, it's just a pizza. If you misunderstand your mortgage you're looking at far more costly consequences.
This applies to everything, a mechanic, a lawyer, a dentist. You can't have all the prerequisite knowledge on every field where you may need to make big choices so eventually you'll need to talk to someone.
If it's not the bank, and it's not you, it has to be someone else. You can ask over email for all the information available on the products from the bank and take it to an independent advisor. Eventually you'll run into the need to have a live chat with that trusted advisor or risk moving one mail per day in each direction trying to explain what you want and what you could get.
For some people, the mortgage application process can be complicated.
Maybe I'm in graduate school and my salary is called a 'stipend' and I don't get any payslips, plus I have a part-time job in sales where my base salary is very low and about 75% of my income is commission, and also my girlfriend will be helping with the mortgage, but not the deposit, and she's a Ukrainian refugee and self-employed content creator.
An expert who's seen it all before would know how to navigate my situation properly.
That doesn't make any sense. At least in the USA, if the school is paying you then they have to issue you either a W-2 or 1099, regardless of whether they label it as a salary or stipend or whatever. Mortgage lenders are accustomed to verifying income from sources like that, it's not complicated.
Here in the UK a 'stipend' from EPSRC or similar is not classified as income for purposes of income tax or council tax. It's treated more like a scholarship.
> That doesn't make any sense.
Tell me about it. They still won't give you a mortgage, though.
I think getting a mortgage might be a tad more of an impactful decision than ordering takeout... I'm not a boomer but I still would like to speak to someone in person before I sign an O(million$) loan.
I have had video chats with my bank. The video part was not super important but nice given the magnitude of the transaction (house loan things). The more important part was the screensharing to sho the advisors calculations and other info.
Why do you need someone to show you the calculations? All of the important numbers including principal, fees, points, interest rate, and amortization schedule fit on a short PDF. You can verify the calculations yourself on a pocket calculator if you want, it's like grade school level arithmetic.
There are different sorts of loans that you can do in different ways. It certainly does not fit a short pdf (I am not in the US). So it’s nice to have someone walk you through that consequences of the different choices.
I don’t even need to have a video chat in the US for a mortgage. I have long been able to shop from any number of lenders and close the deal via email. The lender might send out an appraiser.
