In the world of mortgage lending, trust is the real currency. And in many underserved communities, that trust is in short supply. Yet, time and again, financial institutions launch new campaigns, products or community initiatives thinking trust can be earned with a flyer, a one-time sponsorship or a diversity committee. It cannot.

Trust in underserved communities doesn’t begin in a boardroom. It doesn’t spark from a multilingual marketing push in October or an obligatory Juneteenth post. It begins, and is sustained, through conversations, relationships and presence in the places where real life happens. Often, that’s not inside a branch or at a bank-sponsored seminar. It’s in the barbershop, in a church pew, or by the pickle jars at the local corner store. 

For decades, too many housing professionals have attempted to “market” their way into communities they barely understand. The outreach tends to be sporadic, transactional or tone-deaf. Swag gets handed out. A table gets set up at a community event. And then they wonder why the phone doesn’t ring.

The truth is simple: Diverse communities aren’t hard to reach; they’re just tired of being misread. So where should the industry look to learn what meaningful, culturally fluent outreach really looks like? 

The answer is not in a sales manual or a social media campaign. It’s in the institutions that already hold trust: barbershops, churches and corner stores. Each plays a unique role in how underserved communities share information, make decisions and build resilience. Here’s what mortgage lenders can learn from them.

Barbers know relationships

The average barber doesn’t have a customer relationship management platform or automated email drip campaign. What they have is far more powerful — real relationships. They know who’s looking for a new apartment, who just had a baby and who’s on their third job this year because rent has outpaced wages again. They don’t need a workshop on “emotional intelligence.” They just listen 

Barbershops are relationship hubs. The conversations that take place in that chair are candid, informed and often more honest than anything a borrower will say in a loan application. That makes them a source of invaluable insight if lenders are willing to pay attention.

Imagine if the housing industry treated its clients the way a barber treats his regulars, with consistency, trust and a no-nonsense razor to inflated promises. What if lenders listened like barbers do? Asked better questions and made more time to just listen?

Instead of talking about “client retention strategies,” lenders might start talking about community retention — about how to be a consistent presence in a person’s financial life, not just during the preapproval window.

Churches understand hope

In many communities, particularly rural areas as well as Black and Latino households, the church remains more than a place of worship. It’s a lifeline. People turn to it not just for prayer, but for food, advice, education and sometimes for help navigating financial decisions. 

When a trusted pastor endorses a down payment assistance program or invites a lender to speak, that’s not just a guest speaker slot. It’s an act of trust. The pastor’s endorsement isn’t marketing, it’s ministry. And for the congregation, that trust carries real weight.

Churches are generational institutions. They deal in hope. That means they are uniquely positioned to bridge the past and the future. They help families break cycles of housing insecurity or financial exclusion. Churches teach us to be transformational, not transactional. 

The question lenders should be asking isn’t, “How do we partner with churches?” It’s, “How do we honor the legacy these churches represent?” That starts by showing up not with a pitch deck, but with partnership rooted in mutual respect and long-term investment.

Showing up once for a homebuyer fair is not a partnership. Sitting in the pews week after week, learning the community’s needs before offering a solution? That’s where real trust is built.

Community anchors

Forget the focus group. The real-time pulse of a neighborhood is behind the counter of a corner store. The clerk knows who’s new, who’s hustling, who’s moving out and who’s just waiting for the right opportunity to buy the duplex on the next block.

That kind of granular, human intelligence doesn’t come from data analytics. It comes from presence.

Corner stores are community anchors, especially in immigrant, working- class and low-income neighborhoods. They are often family-owned, culturally specific and deeply embedded in the daily lives of residents.

When lenders dismiss these spaces as irrelevant to financial education or outreach, they miss an opportunity to be where people already are — and where trust already exists.

Rather than forcing communities to come to the branch, what if the branch went to the community? No branded polos or badges. Just a genuine willingness to meet people where they are, in spaces that feel safe and familiar.

Local outreach

The mortgage industry loves to talk about scale. Scale the model, scale the process, scale the messaging. But here’s the thing: You can’t scale trust. 

Trust doesn’t come from a marketing strategy. It comes from memories. It walks in with a smile, brings sweet tea, remembers your auntie’s name and doesn’t disappear when the funding cycle ends.

Barbershops don’t close when a grant expires. Churches don’t ghost their members once a service concludes. And corner stores kept their doors open even when the pandemic shuttered nearly everything else.

Meanwhile, too many lenders pull out of a community the moment the “return on investment” isn’t obvious or immediate. That short-sightedness speaks volumes, and communities hear it loud and clear.

Presence to partnership

If the goal is to expand homeownership in underserved communities, then lenders must stop showing up like guests and start acting like neighbors. That means being present before the ask, staying long after the cameras are gone and understanding that outreach is a beginning — not a checkbox.

Real partnership looks like hiring loan officers from the communities being served. It looks like listening to local leaders before launching a product. It looks like co-hosting a homeownership event not at the bank, but in the spaces where trust already lives.

Communities know the difference between performative outreach and authentic investment. And once that trust is broken, it’s a long road back.

The future of lending, especially inclusive lending, won’t be built from a boardroom. It will be built at the barbershop, in the pulpit and behind the counter of the corner store. Because the institutions that already hold trust aren’t going anywhere. The question is, will the housing industry show up and stay long enough to truly belong?