A process that began nearly two years ago is now complete.
Nationstar Mortgage is now officially Mr. Cooper.
Nationstar’s massive rebranding, which HousingWire first reported back in December 2015, became official on Monday morning, with the nonbank dropping the Nationstar name and becoming Mr. Cooper.
The Mr. Cooper brand will cover both the company’s mortgage servicing and originations operations.
Nationstar initially said that the Mr. Cooper transition would take place in the first half of 2016, but as Nationstar CEO Jay Bray told HousingWire late last year that the process is about more than simply changing a name.
According to Bray, the company is doing more than rebranding, it’s actually reimagining how it operates, which meant the transition would take longer than first thought.
Back in December, Bray told HousingWire that the company planned to officially transition to Mr. Cooper in the first half of 2017, but earlier this year, the company set the official date of August 2017.
As it turns out, Aug. 21, 2017 is D-Day, or Mr. Cooper-Day, as it were.
While Nationstar officially became Mr. Cooper on Monday, the company began the transition internally back in January 2016, when the company’s employees got “swag bags,” filled with Mr. Cooper-branded materials, including coffee mugs, stainless steel water bottles, pens, notebooks, and plastic toy eyeglasses.
Before that, the company began to lay the groundwork for the change, registering the name “Mr. Cooper” with the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System & Registry and several Secretary of State’s offices across the country.
And when HousingWire visited Nationstar’s headquarters in December 2016, Mr. Cooper signage and materials were everywhere.
Now, after a nearly two-year process, Mr. Cooper is finally here.
“We’re excited to officially become Mr. Cooper and will continue our efforts to transform the way we do business,” Bray said Monday in a statement.
“We took a look in the mirror and realized that in order to build trust with homeowners and those who wish to own a home one day, our organization and our industry needed a change,” Bray continued. “Mr. Cooper is a symbol of the transformation we’re undergoing to create an incredible customer experience.”
As Bray noted, the switch to Mr. Cooper was about more than just a name change. The company enacted a number of changes to what it calls its “customer experience,” including moving its customer service operations back to the U.S., as well as eliminating all online transaction fees for on-time payments.
Additionally, the company noted Monday that its team members took part in in more than 50,000 hours of “incremental customer experience training to ensure everyone is equipped with the tools and resources needed to deliver the Mr. Cooper promise.”
The company is also preparing to roll out a series of features designed to make the company’s loan experience stand out – even more than the name Mr. Cooper already does.
The company also said Monday that it is planning to launch new technology that will “further help current customers and prospective homeowners optimize their household finances.”
Mr. Cooper will also be offering a “unique service” to homebuyers and sellers that connects them to a panel of qualified local real estate agents in their area and may also allow them to earn cash rebates on the sale or purchase of a home.
Mr. Cooper also revealed that it is getting into the credit card business and unveiled a mortgage-linked credit card, which provides rewards that go towards a borrower's principal balance. For much more on that, click here.
As for why the company chose Mr. Cooper as its new name, a release from the company said the name was chosen to “personify the next generation of home loan servicing and lending,” and “represents a more personal relationship customers can have with their home loan company by recognizing the critical role of a customer advocate in delivering a positive home loan experience.”
Here’s how Bray described it back in December:
“It’s so simple, in some ways. If you have happy customers, you’re going to have happy employees. If you have happy customers, more than likely, you’re going to have happy shareholders,” Bray said.
“And so we started reflecting on how do we keep these 2.7 million customers,” Bray said. “How do we actually put service back into servicing and deliver a better experience?”
And the name “Mr. Cooper” embodies that spirit, Bray said.
“Driven by our purpose to keep the dream of homeownership alive, each of our 7,000 team members strives every day to emulate the core values of Mr. Cooper as we continue on our journey to put the service back in servicing,” Bray said Monday.
To celebrate the official changeover to Mr. Cooper, Bray will ring the opening bell on Monday at the New York Stock Exchange, alongside several company employees who were chosen for “their role in the successful launch of Mr. Cooper and their embodiment of Mr. Cooper core values.”
And for a full chronicle of Nationstar’s path to becoming Mr. Cooper, click here.
