Better encourages repeat business with fee waiver

Better is enticing borrowers to do repeat business with it by promising that it will waive future origination fees.

The Better Forever program, described by the company as a "loyalty initiative," rewards customers for their current or past business by offering a discount on fees for future transactions.Specifically, the company will waive $995 associated with the closing of any and all future purchases or refinances of a single-family primary residence, second home or investment property, it said Wednesday. Customers who funded a loan with Better on or after Jan. 1, 2019 are automatically enrolled in the program, a press release published Wednesday said.

Vishal Garg, CEO of Better, said the company decided to launch this program to "reward customers in today's high rate environment." "The time to buy a home is when rates are high and the time to refinance a home is when rates are low," Garg said. "If you buy a home with us today, you can have a frictionless refinance process with no origination fees later."

Better's CEO believes that the origination landscape for 2025 will be far more fruitful than the prior year, noting that there are forecasts of a 20% increase in transactions this year.

"We're doing this to be early for a purchase season that we believe will be increased from last year, but one where consumers are going to have affordability challenges, and so giving them the peace of mind that any future refinance is going to be a lot cheaper for them is helpful," he added.

Waiving the fee might put a small dent in Better's wallet, but the executive pointed out that repeat customers come with no acquisition costs, meaning savings will come from spending less on marketing.

"Instead of paying Facebook or Google and buying ads there, if we get a repeat customer, then we already have their data from the prior transaction," he said. "And so our data costs and processing costs are typically going to be lower, and also we're not going to have to spend money advertising to get those customers.''

In 2024 Better scaled its marketing spend from less than $1 million a month to over $4 million per month, the CEO revealed. In recent months, however, the digital mortgage lender scaled back due to interest rate increases and a winter lull in business.

"I think you're going to see us increase our marketing spend over the coming months, just as the purchase season rolls around," Garg added.