Posted by: Brian Brady
Mortgage brokers need to stop complaining because customers think we have something to hide.
Forget how non-disclosure of yield spread premium gives direct lenders an advantage; the consumer thinks you’re trying to hide something.
Don’t complain about the Home Valuation Code of Conduct interfering with the transaction; the consumer thinks it gives her an unbiased valuation of the property she’s buying.
Definitely stop complaining about the new truth-in-lending disclosure law (enacted last month); ‘ consumers want to know what their rate and fees might be and how they change… immediately, when it happens.
NEVER complain about how lenders favor their retail sales forces over their wholesale channels; the consumer thinks the banks give better service when they read that.
Who cares if bank sales representatives don’t have to be individually licensed? Consumer might and that gives us an opportunity.
Don’t even THINK about complaining about the new good-faith-estimate (due next year). That document is one of the best sales tools I’ve ever seen. An originator who explains that disclosure document properly, wins the loan engagement. The consumer won’t even THINK about filling out the last page because he trusts YOU.
Shut up mortgage brokers…shut up…SHUT UP !!! Rather use these goofy regulations as a selling opportunity:
Mortgage brokers are the only fighting chance a borrower has at getting a fiduciary relationship. We fully disclose our COMPLETE compensation, up front, re-disclose it any time the loan terms might change, and disclose every bit of profit we make on a loan transaction. Banks and direct lenders engage in secret profiteering, like Vegas taxicab drivers headed to a strip club.
Explain how HVCC was implemented because of the unholy alliances banks had with their appraisers and that you, an independent mortgage broker, will protect the buyer by using an independent appraisal management firm rather than to let the bank use an in-house appraiser.
Beat the three day disclosure period and require signatures on the initial GFE and TIL, prior to collecting the appraisal fee. Issue pre-closing disclosures, demand that they be signed, one week prior to the expected signing date.
Consumers will LOVE the “pre-closing conference call”
Explain that banks deliberately take extra time on a brokered loan transaction because they know you are able to submit back-up files to another lender. Assure them that the direct lender’s only back-up plan is a decline letter and a referral to …(that’s right) a mortgage broker.
Use licensing as an implied endorsement, from a regulatory agency, about your expertise. Point out that banks are exempt because they can’t offer any kind of fiduciary relationship; their salespeople are beholden to the bank first and the customer second.
Really walk the customer through that new good-faith-estimate. We started using it now because we think it makes so much sense. I might even go so far as to include some pictures from the lobby signs, from each of the three big banks, so that my customers can fill out page three….IN FRONT OF ME. I know I smoke Navy Fed on VA loan rates so what do I have to hide?
Mortgage brokers have to stop all the rhetoric about being the red-headed stepchildren of the mortgage industry and start stressing the obvious benefits of our relationship with the borrower.
We are the superior choice to the banks’ salesmen. Let’s start talking about THAT.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
HVCC is all well and good only problem is they are owned and run by the same bad guys that had it while it was connected to the banks.
Now our appraisers are being beat up and abused and we are getting bad appraisals. So where is the benefit?
“So where is the benefit?”
The consumer thinks there is a benefit; that’s all that matters in my world