Mortgage Monsters Who Give The Industry A Bad Rep

It's a sad fact that a lot of people think that loan officers and mortgage brokers rank even lower on the respectability totem pole than used car salesmen (no offense to the used car salesmen out there who do their jobs with honesty and integrity).

In my quest to ensure that I give my clients the best service possible, I've hung my real estate license at a few mortgage companies. While I loved hanging my hat with the last one, I felt that working with a company that was Los Angeles-based was important for several reasons. Thus, I began my search for the company with the right fit. In my mind, "right fit" meant a mortgage company that is highly regarded within the community, one that charges fair, reasonable rates and which places a high premium on honesty and integrity.

When I first started working in the mortgage industry, I came upon a website called The Mortgage Professor and in it, Jack Guttentag introduced the concept of the Upfront Mortgage Broker or UMB. Ever since then, the UMB Commitment has been my guiding principle as a mortgage professional and it was important that the company that I hung my license with believed in these same principles.

Luckily, I found that company in First Security Lending. Considering that it had been voted the best mortgage company eight years in a row by the City of Burbank, I couldn't have asked for a better new home.

In my quest for a new mortgage company to move to however, I was reminded of why so many people look down on mortgage professionals. I had responded to this one internet posting and got the following email back from Ryan Z:

thank you for your response to my posting on craigslist. I reviewed your website and do no feel that you would be a good fit with my company. I think your section on "YSPs: The Mortgage Industry's Dirtiest Little Secret" is irritating and obnoxious. not that I condone rate abuse, bate and switch or as you put it leaving the client holding the perverbial bag, but honestly I think your feeling about YSP and charging people to help getting them a loan ridiculous. I bet you are the type of person that goes to an expensive restaurant for dinner, orders her food, eats everything on the plate, goes home and the next morning complains that she was over charged and wants her money back. its people like you that actually feels sorry for the borrower that bought houses that they couldn’t afford 2 years later when their loans turned adjustable. I bet you are the type of person that blames the mortgage industry for the housing crisis! either way I would never hire someone like you to work in my office. I am looking for aggressive, intelligent and successful people not kiss asses!

I wish you the best of luck and im sure there is some lucky broker out there that would be blessed to have someone taking up his/her time not charging people! im sure that brokers enjoys giving away free loans!

get a life

I read his email with bemusement, deliberated on whether I should just hit the 'delete' key or shoot him back a response. I decided to go with the latter, and sent him this reply:

Quite the contrary. I do not blame the mortgage industry for the current housing crisis. I blame irresponsible loan officers who put borrowers in loans that they damn well know these people should never have been given in the first place.

True, there is that argument that the lenders should never have come up with these ridiculously lax loan programs in the first place, but as far as I’m concerned, the buck stops with us. If we do what we’re supposed to as mortgage consultants- which is, educate borrowers (so that they know just how much home they could afford, the pitfalls of loan programs du jour. etc.), and help them make the right choices that would not put them in financial disarray, the mortgage meltdown may not be as bad as it is now.

As for some lucky broker out there being blessed with someone like myself who takes up his/her time NOT charging people and giving away free loans, I don’t do my deals for free, I charge what’s fair, and it’s meant having clients for life. Sure, I’ve been known to do the loans for less than what I should be charging. However, what I lose in heavily discounted fees, I more than make up for in the goodwill and constant stream of referrals that I’ve gotten from my past clients. Plus, I sleep soundly at night.

Knowing what I know about you now, you’re the last person whose company name I’d want on my businesscard as well. Being aggressive, intelligent and successful are traits that are laudable in any loan officer. Being greedy is not.

I have a life- one that’s filled with borrowers who have become good friends.

Now go get yourself some integrity.