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Hello everyone, I am a newly licensed LO and will be looking to join a mortgage company very soon. I would like to get some advice on how a newbie like me could go about getting some referrals from realtors.
Would any established realtors give me a chance or should I just try to team with new realtors?
Do realtors really care about what company or broker name you are associated with?
Also I'm in the Miami/Ft.Lauderdale are if that helps any.
Okay, seriously, yes they care. They like to work with local people, people that join their Realtor association.....those that take the time to understand why "Realtor" is always capitalized. Do a search on the forum, there's some good discussions on City-Data about getting Realtor business.
Kittens also work, but damn, cats are hard to herd.
I can speak for myself only, but no I wouldn't give you a chance. I already have established relationships with lenders. Additionally, I don't want you learning on the job with my clients.
I can speak for myself only, but no I wouldn't give you a chance. I already have established relationships with lenders. Additionally, I don't want you learning on the job with my clients.
Same here. I wouldn't give a rookie LO a chance either. The people I refer to my clients are a reflection on me and I can't risk having you give them bad service. I know out here that there are mortgage teams that work like real estate teams. New LO's can align themselves with an experienced LO. Do you have anything like that there?
And yes agents will care what company you align yourself with. There is one here that can't close on time. If they come across on offers and we are in multiple offers, it impacts their clients ability to get an offer accepted. It is well known that they miss closing dates by one to two weeks, typically.
We have 3 rookies (less than 2 years in the business) in our office. They are getting their loans from rookie Realtors and they are putting some big application numbers on the board, but their closing numbers don't match. That tells the observer (whether due to the real estate agent, or the loan officer) there's fall out. I don't go into the office that much, but one time I did, I recognized a file wasn't moving forward only because the LO wasn't keeping up with the Fannie Mae changes. You need to depend upon yourself for staying current on the new regs and the changes.
Get used to working deals everyone else has said "no" to. You will have to pull off a few miracles to earn your dues. Everything you bring in must close. I frequently get called in by either the listing or selling agent, or site agent to fix things when the borrower's (builder's) lender fell short. Sometimes it's as simple as the first lender had something in the file that never should have been there (no, we aren't talking fixing a file fraudulently, not everything needs to be in the file), or more frequently, it wasn't packaged correctly.
A perfect example of the latter is a borrower had a foreclosure 4.5 years ago. He subsequently purchased using an FHA loan. He applied for a conventional refinance. The other lender stopped immediately when they got a "refer with caution" (a DU version of no). He called his financial planner and was sent to me. The other lender missed that his principal balance was almost 20K below where it should have been with minimal payments. Nor did the other lender bother to document his savings pattern (he saved about 60K since his home purchase). His score was 745. Now, it doesn't really matter, but the other lender may not have had the ability to override a Refer w/Caution, and that is why they gave up on the loan.
We documented the principal curtailment, the savings pattern, the very low ratios and we documented that the foreclosure was when he just graduated from college and his father got ill and lost his job and there was no way a college grad just out of school able to pay over 3K a month, and support his entire family. (Which he did for 2 years). We also got a Refer (and this was after Fannie went to 7 years across the board on FC), but we kept the file moving forward until it closed. You will have to learn to keep fighting when told no. And the very second there is a hint of loan denial, you'll earn far more respect if you've already talked to the competition about the loan and can present a solution when you deliver the bad news. And then tell them what the exact problem was with the loan so they know how to shop for the next lender. Realize even though you are no longer the LO, you have the ability to still help them get what they want. Do that enough times and you will get what you want. (Zig or Napoleon).
Hello everyone, I am a newly licensed LO and will be looking to join a mortgage company very soon. I would like to get some advice on how a newbie like me could go about getting some referrals from realtors.
Would any established realtors give me a chance or should I just try to team with new realtors?
Do realtors really care about what company or broker name you are associated with?
Also I'm in the Miami/Ft.Lauderdale are if that helps any.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Look for a mortgage company that has partnership(s) with Realty companies. MSAs, by and large, are really under the microscope. See RPM's $18M fine for mis-handling relationships. So you want a company that navigates things legally, of course. An MSA, or some semblence of a partnership, will not guarantee you business, but will get you shaking hands.
Live your job. EVERYONE gets a handshake, a look in the eye, and your ten-second Elevator Pitch. You need to be doing loans for your mailman, the person who cuts your hair, people at your grocery store, everyone must know what you do for a living.
To that end, set a goal of five meetings every week (or as many as you can afford a coffee or a drink for) with Real Estate professionals. Title agents are a GREAT source of business, as they tend to know everyone. When you meet with a realtor, just get to know them at first, don't hit them over the head with folders and color printed anything. Just talk with them, ask them about themselves, and know that they are not going to hand you control of their reputation. There will come a day when something clicks, and you get a deal. Treat it like gold, because it is.
It doesn't sound like you are in position to give seminars. Not just New Home Buyer or Renovation Financing, but continuing education stuff through your Title contacts. Horse before the cart, though: Learn your job.
If you just got licensed and have yet to close a loan, there's so many thousands of things you have to learn in order to be an asset to a transaction. Find a mortgage company where you can sit in a cube, not an office, and soak up as much knowledge as you can. Be an apprentice to an experienced producer. Then, down the road, you might start buying local Purchase leads. Not Lending Tree, though, but Exclusive, expensive ones, preferably Live Transfers. Then, hopefully, you can bring that fully (FULLY) pre-approved buyer to a realtor as an ice-breaker.
You really should close as many refinances as you can while you concurrently apprentice with a purchase pro so that you are more credible to a realtor, IMO.
This has changed my entire outlook on the type of companies that I will consider working for. I was so happy to get licensed that I was thinking I should go with any company just to at least get my feet wet in the industry. Now I will definitely take my time and look for the right situation. I think the idea of joining a company that works in teams would be an ideal situation.
Having a mentor is always a plus in any situation.
"Hi Mr. Realtor, this is Big Gipp over here with ABC Lending, Inc. and I just wanted to reach out to you today to see if I could share some exciting new loan products we have going on over coffee one day this week?"
Shrug off all the no's, keep looking for the yes's, go meet them for coffee and be personable and tell them about all your special products.
This is how I would get started.
After this here would be my next tactics:
Email Marketing - twice per month (if you go more than that we're going to unsubscribe you) go with rate updates and major news breaks and special programs. Keep it short and sweet, don't write paragraphs.
Try to present at Tuesday meetings for any office that isn't hooked up with an Affiliated Business.
Attend closings, prospect the Listing agent and keep in touch with the buyer's agent whom you did the deal with.
I can't tell you how many times I've given a pre-approval to a lender just because they've been in my ear. They were top of mind, I've dealt with dozens of lenders, whoever has been in my ear and pleasant about it is likely to get some business.
If you have a little money to spend you could try offering to co-market with an agent on Zillow or postcards, etc.
- If you're going to call agents, get their actual phone numbers rather than going on Zillow or Trulia and start dialing the numbers listed on their profiles. A) That is not their real number and B) it is a tracked number and if they are like me it kind of upsets me because now your number is in my leads list to waste my time further.
- When an agent gives you internet leads you need to realize these are not the best leads, and a lot of them might be hard to reach. If you can consistently follow up with them over time and inform the agent you are trying them again and again you will earn business for your tenacity. A lot of lenders, especially once they've established themselves and become complacent will simply try once or twice letting some deals go to waste. One lender I worked with a lot dug up a deal for me out of a lead I had given him a month or two ago. I had forgotten about it and counted it as lost, and then he just hands me back a hot lead. I started sending him all my business.
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