Mortgage Rates

Mortgage Rates - When I was a loan officer, account reps from various mortgage firms and banks would stop by the office to tell us what they had to offer. Some places would have a great niche, but often you would find a lot of reps pushing the option ARM because of its popularity at the time. We tended to stay away from those loans, because ultimately you’re going to build a bad reputation in exchange for fast money. There is a lot of honor in that, but it’s also a great business model. It's a shame more companies don’t adhere to it.

Here is the problem, most people think it is easy to be a loan officer. And yes it can be easy, if you want to be good at your job it isn’t. Your typical loan officer has about two to three banks that they prefer to work with. They get a loan in and they send it to their favorite and they do the rest. Boom done.

A lot of times the rate is horrible compared to someone that does their research. Why is this the case? Because account reps are taught to make the system quick and easy if you go with their bank. They take care of everything for you. So instead of shopping for the best rate for the customer we do what is quicker and easier.

That wasn’t the case with our company. We had meetings and used each other’s knowledge to find niches to get the best deal possible. Problem is that the rules change all the time and it’s hard to keep up. And when you’re busy all that goes out the window, you just go with who was best the last time.

My sister in law works for Bank of America. She does mortgages too, but in a completely different way. They have a computer that she plugs in their information and it gives their options. She’s done. I have access to that same system, yet for brokers with the discounted rate. I can’t use it because otherwise I would spend at least 4 hours to plug in the numbers into every system, and not all banks have a system. So I had to do everything by hand anyway.

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