Powell Home Mortgage

Powell Home Mortgage asked us to design its first mobile app, one that makes a mortgage feel as simple as getting a delivery update. It had to work for buyers and for the realtors who send buyers to the lender. Until then every loan ran on phone calls, email threads and PDF attachments. The brief covered the full journey on iOS and Android: sign-up, a live loan tracker, the full Form 1003 application, document uploads, a mortgage calculator, saved homes, appointment booking and a separate realtor view of every client.

Buyers could only find out where their loan stood by calling the loan officer, and every “any news?” call cost both sides time. Paystubs, W-2s and bank statements arrived as email PDFs with no format check and no confirmation, which led to frequent re-requests. Realtors couldn’t see who was pre-approved, pending or denied without picking up the phone. Research led to one insight: buyers don’t need more information, they need one answer to “what happens next?” The status mattered more than the detail, documents caused the most anxiety, and realtors turned out to be a second customer who needed the same visibility.

One app with one login and two roles, so buyers and realtors see the same status. A live six-stage loan tracker on the dashboard replaced status calls. The lender’s long Form 1003 became ten short steps, one question at a time. Each required document now has its own card with accepted formats, live upload progress and a one-tap retry. A calculator shows the monthly payment and leads straight to a pre-approval request. Realtors get their own pipeline with live statuses, downloadable pre-approval letters and an invite link for new buyers. The whole app runs on 143 screens built from 11 stateful components. Buyers now need no phone calls to know where their loan is.