Dean: Paving the way for homeownership amid economic challenges

Even in harsh economic times when homeownership seems difficult to achieve, 94 percent of Americans continue to consider it The American Dream.

When building operations all but ceased across the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic, business in the mortgage industry skyrocketed. The demand for home ownership paired with the lack of new units being built, caused costs to multiply and a rapid increase in home interest rates. Since 2020 there have been eleven consecutive rate hikes. This has directly contributed to mortgage rates going from the low 3% rates to rates as high as 8%.

I am proud to say that our mortgage division at Stride Bank has adapted to these changes to help countless prospective home buyers navigate the challenging waters of the housing market in the past few years.

Supporting homebuyers amid a climate of high interest rates, limited building supply and a national housing shortage required us to face challenges head-on. We started by taking inventory of our resources and understanding the pain points our clients and partners were experiencing. We partnered with local home builders to construct incentives for homebuyers by combining lender and builder credits to help ease the financial strain that many homebuyers are experiencing. We created a construction division within Stride that is dedicated to meeting the needs of our clients in the construction business and we removed all third-party barriers between ourselves and our customers to become more cost-effective. We determined that personalizing loan packages we provide would be key to ensuring customers could still become homebuyers, even in a seemingly rigid market.

Stride currently offers conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, Native American Section 184, nonconforming, nonqualified, lot/land, bridge, fixed-rate and adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans.

In many ways, our mission of fully understanding our customers' unique needs allows us to keep our roots at the forefront. Stride is a community bank that was founded in Enid in 1913 and is in the business of building genuine relationships first, and lending resources second.

At Stride, it’s important to us not to turn people away. We either provide our customers with the lending they need, or we provide them with the resources they need to eventually attain homeownership. We take great pride in making homeownership possible for Oklahomans.

Countless studies show that homeownership benefits families and the communities, workforces and economies they belong to. Further, the generational wealth that is created through homeownership benefits our current and future communities, creating a better Oklahoma for all.

Lee Dean is the President of Stride Mortgage, a division of Stride Bank.

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