Granted, the title of this blog comes across as somewhat click-baity (a practice we try to avoid at HousingWire) but we felt the nature of what we are about to disclose fully warrants it.

Yes, this is the most important piece of data mortgage lenders need to mull over today.

First of all, pretty much everyone by now should accept that smartphones are a way of life that’s here to stay.

According to research from Pew Research, more and more Americans are turning to the device for personal banking decisions. In fact, more than half of smartphone users used their smartphones for this very purpose last year.

At some point mortgages are going to be big in the smartphone space. It’s no longer a question of "if" but "when?" Are you ready? I will tell you one thing, these facts and figures are going to play into our webinar on Millennial lending going live in a few hours.

And thanks to this other handy chart posted on NowItsLive, which caught my attention on Reddit, it’s apparent that the number of smartphone users is going to grow. A lot.

In the next three years, smartphone users will increase by 20%, from 184.2 million users to 220 million.

That’s nearly 36 MILLION new mortgage customers, potentially.

So why should mortgage lenders care so much about these stats?

Well that brings us to the most important piece of data mortgage lenders need to be thinking about today.

And, that’s not just that there are more customers, but that they are using their smartphones MUCH more often.

This chart from Dell-owned Statistica, based on Gallup survey results, show the growing “addiction” of smartphone usage among Americans.

(You will find more statistics at Statista)

They’re addicted people. And that means they aren’t going to easily change behavior.

So, if a mortgage lender isn’t working hard today to get onto that screen that's right in front of their potential customers' faces hundreds of times per day, they will have no hope of survival much longer into the future.