Movement launches bilingual lending team, in-house ITIN product

South Carolina- based Movement Mortgage has launched a national Diverse Lending Support Team and an in-house Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) mortgage product to serve more Spanish-speaking homebuyers.

The Diverse Lending Support Team (DLST) is a dedicated bilingual group that supports loan officers working with Spanish-speaking borrowers, the company said in its announcement.

“Language should never be a barrier to opportunity,” Jeremy Berrios, Movement’s vice president, multicultural markets and strategic growth, said in a statement. “This investment will help us create greater access, deliver a better experience and serve our communities with excellence.”

The team builds on Comunidad, Movement’s Spanish-language lending platform introduced in 2016, which covers the full mortgage process. The new team adds staff capacity on top of that infrastructure.

For LOs who do not speak Spanish, DLST functions as an extension of their business, enabling them to originate loans they may not have been able to do previously. Spanish-speaking LOs can use DLST for bilingual assistants and support staff, helping manage files so they can focus on relationships and production.

Movement has also brought its ITIN mortgage program in-house. The product offers financing up to 85% loan-to-value for qualified borrowers who do not have a Social Security number.

“The move replaces a traditionally complicated, fee-heavy broker process with a simpler, less expensive experience supported by Movement’s own lending professionals from start to finish,” the company said in the announcement.

The combination of a centralized bilingual support team and an in-house ITIN product could streamline how they capture and serve a growing segment of the market that has often faced language and documentation barriers in the mortgage process.

The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) projects that Latino households will drive a substantial share of U.S. homeownership growth in the coming decades, making language access and ITIN lending capabilities increasingly important for lenders that want to compete in these communities.

Movement funds more than $20 billion in residential mortgages each year and employs more than 3,000 teammates across all 50 states, the company said.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.