AdvantageFirst Lending Closes up to 30 Days Faster and Grows Business

First priority: providing a stellar customer experience

When Kurt Cymerint and his wife, Randi, founded AdvantageFirst in 2014, their mission was to provide a better experience for homeowners looking to refinance their homes. “The values of ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘the consumer comes first’ are the core of our everyday business,” Kurt says. He and Randi saw an opportunity to stand out as a lender laser-focused on their customers and have built a company culture that is reflective of those values. They believe that having a positive culture and treating their employees well is a huge contributor to their fantastic customer experience.

Today, AdvantageFirst consistently receives five-star reviews on their service, and they take pride in that much of their business comes from repeat customers and referrals. They attribute this success to always putting their clients first and to focusing on the customer experience in all areas of their business. As Cherise MacPherson, Vice President and Controller puts it, “AdvantageFirst’s motto is once you become our customer, you are our customer for life. Every customer we work with is part of our AdvantageFirst family.” This has paved the way for huge gains: AdvantageFirst has grown an average of 135 percent year over year and has increased the size of their staff by 40 percent in 2021.

“AdvantageFirst’s motto is once you become our customer you are our customer for life. Every customer we work with is part of our AdvantageFirst family.”

– Cherise MacPherson, Vice President and Controller

Preventing small issues from becoming larger problems

Initially, AdvantageFirst was waiting up to five days for a response from their title partner. Costs were stacking up and it was negatively impacting their ability to process loans. “Whenever there are delays, it’s expensive and hurts our reputation—which is more important than anything,” Executive Vice President of Operations, Jeff Ravenstine, says. As AdvantageFirst is known for their exceptional customer experience, the lengthy response times and delays weren’t cutting it.

They knew that small issues, left unmanaged, would soon turn into bigger problems. To prevent these issues from growing, the AdvantageFirst leadership sought out a title partner that could provide insight and direction on issues, prioritize their loans, and, most importantly, be a communicative and trustworthy partner.

“Whenever there are delays, it’s expensive and hurts our reputation— which is more important than anything.”

-Jeff Ravenstine, Executive Vice President of Operations

Teaming up with Doma to provide an even better customer experience

The need for a new title partner was further amplified by the fact that the growing team at AdvantageFirst had set their sights on expanding into new states on the East Coast and had aggressive goals they wanted to achieve in doing so.

To reach these goals, they turned to Doma to provide a dedicated service model that prioritizes issue responsiveness. Since the partnership began, AdvantageFirst’s refinance process has accelerated by receiving an instant commitment for most loans— which previously took up to 10 days. “Doma’s communication is night and day compared to what we were used to with our previous partner,” Jeff says. “Between fast response times and deployment of instant title technology, we’re now closing up to 30 days faster.”

And AdvantageFirst borrowers are noticing. “The whole process was easy and quick from start to finish. I have worked with another lender before that took months to close. With AdvantageFirst it was only a matter of weeks,” says Susan, a homeowner who closed a refinance earlier this year. Doma has helped solidify trust that transactions will get completed accurately and quickly, and to top it off, AdvantageFirst has been able to save up to $600 per refinance transaction.

“The whole process was easy and quick from start to finish. I have worked with another lender before that took months to close. With AdvantageFirst it was only a matter of weeks.”

-Susan C, AdvantageFirst Lending Customer

Entering the next wave of growth with Doma’s help

Working with Doma to drastically speed up title commitments and save money on transactions has given AdvantageFirst a leg up on the competition, enabling them to better compete with bigger lenders and more aggressively expand into new regions. With direct collaboration and attentive support from their dedicated team at Doma, AdvantageFirst is providing their customers a faster, more streamlined refinance experience than ever before. And this is just the beginning. They’re excited to continue growing their partnership with Doma, already collaborating with their account team on new ideas to streamline their operations. “Together we’re able to grow with this technology,” Cherise says.

About Doma

Doma is architecting the future of real estate transactions. The company uses machine intelligence and its proprietary technology solutions to transform residential real estate, creating a vastly more simple, efficient, and affordable real estate closing experience. Doma and its family of brands – States Title, North American Title Company (NATC) and North American Title Insurance Company (NATIC) – offer solutions for current and prospective homeowners, lenders, title agents, and real estate professionals. Doma’s clients include some of the largest bank and non-bank lenders in the United States.