Privlo soft launched in the State a couple of months ago and the team has spent that time working with local realtors, opening an office in Austin and refining their process to cater more to the state’s growing self-employed population.
Michael Slavin, Privlo CEO, commented:
"It's not that they aren't financially capable of buying a home. It's that they're up against a traditional lending system that hasn't adapted to a changing workforce. Entrepreneurial Texans are increasingly defining their own careers and we've developed a way to bring them back into the housing market."
Privlo differentiates itself from the traditional lenders by considering hundreds of extra data points, including individual career factors and a wide array of documents to assess a borrowers creditworthiness.
Saro Vasudevan, Privlo's Chief Credit & Product Officer, Saro Vasudevan explained:
"We do a lot of the heavy lifting that traditional lenders won't do. We're estimating roughly 25% of high quality borrowers are slipping through the cracks in Texas, and we can help."
According to Zillow, an online real estate database, about 1 in 4 borrowers see their traditional purchase loan applications rejected in areas like Travis and Dallas Countries, where self-employment is around 30%.
April McGowan of Team McGowan Keller Williams Realty in Dallas, who has been working with Privlo for the past few months, added:
"I see homebuyers with great income and great credit get rejected all the time just because they don't have a cookie-cutter 9 to 5 job. I'm referring more and more of my clients to Privlo, who are actually able to close on mortgage loans that banks categorically reject. It's helping bring balance to the system and helping real estate professionals bring new buyers into the market. These are residents that ruled themselves out of the buying market thinking they won't get a mortgage. Privlo is providing renewed hope for these buyers without taking any shortcuts on credit quality."
It is likely we will hear much more about Privlo's expansion over the coming months. The company is currently active in nine states and has ambitious plans to expand into over 90% of the housing market (21 states) by the end of the year.
