Mortgage ramblings brought to you by Beth

I'll start this off with a four letter word, one of my personal favorites. I love it, I crave it and I want someone to do it with. WORK.

I read everywhere how tough the economy is especially for those of us who make a living in the real estate related industries.  I read how many people who were working in the mortgage business are out of a job and looking for work. I was pleased to hear this since I'm hiring. I figured there would be a plethora of seasoned professionals anxious for jobs in their chosen business. I pay well, draw plus commission, full benefits, company paid marketing campaigns, an internal list of over 3,800 approved clients to solicit and I'm a heck of a nice person to work with.

I have interviewed numerous people and have come to one conclusion. No one wants to WORK! Now mind you, they all want to be paid. A salary, thank you very much. None of the commission stuff, the market is too tough for that. And 9-5 please, since they have a family to go home to. I am astonded. All I ask is that you are dedicated, work hard, and put forth initiative and you will be handsomely rewarded. I'm not kidding. I have one or two associates that are on track to make well into 6 figure income this year. Yes, this year. Not last year and certainly not the year before when the subprime gravy train was still chugging along. Now the trick is, those folks WORK. I mean they really hustle. 9-5 is their half days. They don't sit around waiting for the phone to ring. They pick it up and make their money happen.

As a sales manager, I want to scream at the people who they tell me that they want a salary because they can't count on enough closings to pay their bills. WHY WOULD I HIRE YOU??? You just told me you were going to cost me money, not make me money. Because my parents raised me with impeccable manners, I grit my teeth and say nothing of the sort. I politely remind them that there are very few jobs left in the field that they have portrayed themselves to be an expert in and none are saleried positions.  I truely feel for the administrative people, the underwriters, processors, funders and the like because I am not hiring for those positions since my team is already top notch. The so called sales people I have no sympathy for. The money is there, the jobs are available but since the money tree died around the end of 2006 you actually have to WORK to make the money. Take risk to make the money.

Well I'd better get back to it, work that is, since I am not yet one of the people on track to make $150,000 in 2008 and I need to do something about it.

I don't understand, I mean I really don't get it. The mortgage industry is in shambles. Lenders are going out of business, brokers are closing their doors, many many people are being laid off, the media and governments are in a feeding frenzy. None of this is a secret.

I speak to mortgage professionals every day. Many times a day. That's my job. Sometimes these conversations are purely about the business at hand "can this deal be done?" "should I lock?" "when is the file coming out of underwriting?" and those types of things. I am lucky that I also have conversations that are more personal. I love nothing more that telling war stories with my fellow mortgage professionals, hearing about their lives, their communities and families. Inevitably, somewhere in these conversations, someone says "well, at least all the people who don't know what they're doing are not in the biz anymore." "Only the true professionals are left" and other such self congratulatory comments. We hang up feeling smug that WE are still in the mortgage industry, which of course means WE know what we're doing and We are the true professionals.

That may well be true but I gotta tell you, there are still either really lazy or really sloppy people that are also in the biz. I guess this rant comes more from my operational background rather than my sales managing background but the two are so closely related in my mind that it's hard to tell.

The most basic document in any mortgage transaction, the bible, the basis for the whole deal is the 1003. That's right, the loan application. It's not rocket science to fill it out. It's only four letter size pages. A properly and fully completed application can make your deal and an improperly completed one can kill it. As a mortgage professional taking one of these completed applications should be something you could do in your sleep, on a bar napkin with no information missing. This is your interview with your client, this is your letter of explanation of the loan to your underwriter, this is what makes your deal close! All of the questions are there for a reason and I guarantee you that the underwriter wants the answers. Missing or inaccurate information sends up red flags. In this lending environment, flags are not good. Red ones that get your file flagged (pun intended) for audit which leads to white ones you wave after you're tired of fighting with the underwriting manager as to why your file is not fraud. I'm sure any mortgage professional reading this rant is sagely nodding their head, saying of course, everyone knows this.

I know, I know, none of you are guilty so I just want you to know that there are A LOT of people still, in-spite of popular opinion, in the mortgage business who do not know what they are doing and are not true professionals and are getting their clients deals turned down because they couldn't be bothered to do their job. GO TAKE THEIR BUSINESS FROM THEM! THEY DO NOT DESERVE IT!

I have been threatening to write a blog for about a year now. I'll think of a topic, research it, agonize over the tone of my writing, wonder if it is witty enough and eventually get distracted by daily business. I'll come back to it weeks later and find that the topic is no longer timely or in hindsight was silly to begin with.

I just read a post written by a VERY GOOD friend (wink) about living within your means. It was well written, thought provoking and coincided with something that I read a few weeks ago that quietly outraged me. I started thinking about it and realized "I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY"! It may not be well written or thought provoking, no research has been done to back up my thoughts and there is certainly no wit involved but I'm outraged and I'm going to say it!

There was an article in a local paper not too long ago featuring a man who was outraged (that seems to be going around) that he was being kept from the American Dream of home ownership by banks that would not lend to him because his credit score is a 619. It was a long and slanted article about this "poor" man and how he was being done wrong by mortgage lenders and credit scoring agencies. It talked about the lack of common sense in today's lending environment and how the current credit crisis was keeping good people from buying homes. I feel that credit scoring is a behemoth that no one can really understand (a rant for another time) and there have been some very strange and nonsensical underwriting guidelines published recently (yet another rant) so I did feel a bit badly for him although in the back of my head I was thinking (FHA, FHA) of the other reasons he might not qualify for a loan.

There was an editorial response printed the next week from a local lender who explained that the reason this "gentleman" could not obtain a a loan through the FHA is that he did not have the minimum 3% down payment that the FHA requires. When you talk about living within your means you must take into account not just a monthly figure that you can pay but also the amount of savings that you will be able to accumulate while making that payment.

I am certain if this individual had wanted the American Dream in the roaring early 2000's there would have been lenders lined up to give him a loan with no money out of his pocket and with no regard to his means. I am equally sure that if lets say his oil burner broke and the only way he could heat his house was by skipping the mortgage payment to fix it he would have done so. I feel confident that once on this slippery slope of homeownership outside of his means that his house would have eventually been foreclosed on and he would be outraged that the lender had put him in this position.

I am outraged by the sense of entitlement that is so common today. I want therefor I should get and you ( the lender, the government, the parents ) have to make sure that happens. I am outraged by the lack of accountability that is so common today. I wanted it, you gave it to me, it was bad for me so you need to fix it for me. I am outraged that journalists who don't understand the mortgage or real estate business and make little effort to educate themselves on those industries write these "human interest" fluff pieces and make it harder for the industry experts to do their jobs. Wait, that's a rant for another time.