How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer

Starting A New Career As A Loan Officer And How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer

This mortgage blog article on How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer is geared towards those individuals thinking about starting a career as a loan officer:

• This blog is geared on educating loan officers in becoming the best of the best in the mortgage industry
• A career as a mortgage loan originator can be extremely rewarding
• But it does take some time in developing a book of business and marketing your business
• Unlike other professions, becoming a mortgage loan officer is like owning your own business
• Most mortgage loan officers are compensated on commissions and if they do not originate and close mortgage loans, they do not get paid
• Loan officers need to gain the confidence of their borrowers
• Borrowers need to trust their mortgage loan originators
• This is because they need to provide all of their financial and personal information to them

Building Referral Network For Loan Officers

Mortgage borrowers do not just submit their financial information to loan officers but they also need to provide personal letter of explanations about their past issues such as the following:

• periods of unemployment
• divorce, bankruptcy
• loss of business
• collection accounts
• sources of income
• irregular deposits
• reasons for foreclosures and/or short sale
• alimony
• child support
• other issues they may have had or are currently having

Documents Required By Borrowers And Understanding Mortgage Process

A loan officer will need the following documents by all borrowers:

• tax returns
• W-2s, paycheck stubs
• bank statements
• retirement accounts
• investment accounts
• child support paperwork
• divorce decree
• bankruptcy paperwork

Understanding Loan Officer Systems 

Loan Officers will need the borrowers credit report as well as review the borrower’s payment history.

• Mortgage loan officers will need to carefully review and analyze the borrower’s following documents:
  • bank statements
  • withdrawals
  • deposits of their bank statements
  • obtain verification of employment
  • verification of deposits
  • verification of mortgage, and verification of rent

Trust Borrowers Give Loan Officers And Lenders

Financial information is every person’s most private and confidential information but the mortgage loan officer needs access to every aspect of the borrower’s financial and personal information.

• Loan originators need to be trusted and respected by borrowers in order for them to gain their confidence and for the borrower to hire them to represent them to become their mortgage loan officer
• The bottom line on how to become a successful mortgage loan officer is to command the confidence and respect of borrowers

How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer And Servicing Clients

The key on how to become a successful mortgage loan officer is to treat your borrowers the way you want to be treated.

• Being a mortgage loan officer is unlike any other sales profession
• This holds true because you need access to all of your borrower’s financial and personal information
• I manage a team of licensed mortgage loan originators
• Under my watch, all of my mortgage loan originators are required to be available 7 days a week for all of their borrowers
• The trust mortgage borrowers give their loan officers deserves the respect back to the borrower
• I am always available to my borrowers, It does not matter whether it is after work hours, evenings, weekends, or holidays

How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer And Understanding Loan Process

The mortgage process is a stressful process and a lot of lives are at stake.

• The home buyer is counting on the mortgage loan officer to be able to close on their home loan on time
• The need to understand what home buyers will be going through is important

Loan Officers need to understand the process of the following:

• making plans on moving
• packing their belongings
• making arrangements with movers
• making arrangements with registering their children to their new school districts
• ordering new utilities on their new homes and disconnecting utilities of their old home
• terminating their lease of their rental with their landlord and the landlord may already have a new tenant to move in

On the home sellers side, the home seller may already have a new home under contract and is relying on the home buyer’s lender to make sure that their home close without any issues and close on time.

Understanding Families Is How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer

Loan Officers also need to understand what sellers go through during the home buying and selling process:

• Again, like with the home buyer, the home seller is packing their belongings
• Making arrangements with the utility companies
• Sellers are terminating the enrollment and transferring school records for their children to their new school districts
• Sellers are making arrangements with the moving companies

A wrong move by the home buyers mortgage loan originator may pyramid the whole process into disaster and affect many people’s lives.

Ability To Communicate 

Communication is key on how to become a successful mortgage loan officer.

Make sure that every phone call and/or email by not just for borrower, but the following people:

• home buyer’s realtor
• home sellers realtor
• buyers attorney
• sellers attorney

All the above folks questions do not go unanswered is the loan officers job.

Branding And Marketing Loan Officers And Lenders Name

A loan officer needs to brand their name.

• Most borrowers do not care about the mortgage company but only care about the individual mortgage loan officer
• The individual mortgage loan officer is the person who they are relying and counting on
• Do not let them down
• Many loan officers try to avoid phone calls from their borrowers when things do not go right
• That is the worst thing to do is avoid when there are issues with the mortgage process

Helping Clients Understand Complexities Of Home Loan Process

Borrowers understand the complexities with the mortgage application and approval process:

• If there are any hiccups or issues that arise during the mortgage process, that is the time for you to contact your borrower
• Let them know the situation you are facing and if you do not have any answers
• Tell them that you are looking into solutions to fix the problem on hand and you will update them shortly
• Always give your borrowers updates
• This holds especially true before a long weekend
• Be available on the weekends, evenings, and holidays to take your borrower’s phone calls
• Remember borrower has trusted you and is counting on you so do not let them down
• Be available to them at all times
• Borrowers will understand and respect you if you are totally upfront with them
• All issues can be correctable

Explaining Overall Mortgage Process

Examples of issues that can arise during the mortgage process is too much to list but all of the issues that I have run into during the mortgage process were all fixable.

• Some examples of issues that can arise during mortgage process such as the following:
  • is if the appraisal did not come in at value
  • borrower changed jobs during the mortgage process
  • borrower is short of cash to close
  • or the borrower’s homeowners insurance came out more than expected and the borrower no longer meets the minimum debt to income ratio requirements

Avoiding Stress During Mortgage Process

All of the above issues can be solved:

• Appraisal not coming in at value:
  • Normally on cases like this we can do an appraisal rebuttal
  • but appraisal rebuttals are normally hard to overturn unless the home seller can provide strong comps
  • Cases where the appraisal does not come in at value, the sellers normally reduce the purchase price to the appraised value or the home buyer and home sellers can renegotiate the purchase price and they come to a compromise
• Borrowers has changed jobs during mortgage process:
  • There are times where a borrower changes jobs during mortgage process
  • On situations like these, the closing will get delayed until the mortgage borrower can provide 30 days of paycheck stubs prior closing and a verification of employment with the new employer can be done
• Higher than expected debt to income ratios:
  • When a mortgage loan officer deals with a higher debt to income ratio borrower
  • there may be issues where the borrower’s debt to income ratios go higher during the mortgage process such as when homeowners insurance comes in higher than expected
  • This issue can get resolved by lowering the mortgage rates by paying points or by paying down certain debts such as revolving accounts or adding a non -occupant co-borrower to the mortgage loan
  • Again, this may delay the closing of the mortgage loan

How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer And The Pre-Approval Stage

The reason why most mortgage loan denials happen on the 11th hour or there are delays on mortgage closings is because the mortgage loan originator was not diligent when issuing the pre-approval.

• Mortgage loan officers need to be extremely diligent when issuing a pre-approval letter
• If the mortgage loan officer takes their time and is diligent in reviewing the following:
  • all income docs
  • thoroughly review the borrower’s credit reports
  • make sure that foreclosure
  • bankruptcies
  • short sales dates have met the mandatory waiting period requirements
  • make sure that there are no credit disputes on collections and derogatory credit items
  • make sure that they have a verification of employment on borrowers who have part time income or irregular wages
  • borrower not just meets the mandatory lending guidelines but also meets the lender’s overlays requirements

There is no reason why the mortgage loan should not close and close on time.

Avoiding Last Minute Mortgage Denials

The major reason of last minute loan denials or major delays on the mortgage process is because the pre-approval was not solid.

• Take the extra time and make sure that the pre-approval letter is solid before issuing it to your borrower
• If the mortgage file is complex, check with an underwriter on the case scenario before issuing the pre-approval letter
• Make sure you save the email correspondence that you had with the underwriter on the file so you can refer back to it if the underwriter says something different during the mortgage process

How To Become A Successful Mortgage Loan Officer And Making Contacts With Real Estate Professionals

Every time you represent a home buyer as a mortgage loan originator, you will meet not just the home buyer (mortgage loan borrower) but you will have contact with the home buyer’s realtor as well as your home buyer’s real estate attorney.

• Many times, as a mortgage loan originator, you may have contact with the sellers real estate agent as well as the home seller’s attorneys
• Although you cannot disclose your borrowers personal financial information
• There is no law or ethics violations in introducing yourself as the home buyer’s mortgage loan officer and exchange contact information

Keep Yourself Accessible At All Times

By keeping yourself available to all parties involved:

• Making contact with them and they will be appreciative and remember your name
• These real estate professionals are great future referral sources for you and after your borrower has had their closing
• Send everyone a thank you card and follow up with an email thanking them for being so cooperative
• Relay them to contact you if they have any questions on your area of expertise or have a question on a mortgage lending case scenario

Are You Looking To Start A Career As A Mortgage Loan Officer?

Gustan Cho Associates is currently hiring remote mortgage loan officers nationwide.

• If you are a licensed mortgage loan officer and are looking for a new mortgage lender to work with that will provide marketing support and have no lender overlays, you have come to the right place
• We provide hard working mortgage loan officers with borrowers who are qualified
• No cold calling is necessary and you do not have to worry about marketing
• We have a full marketing staff and more people who need our services than we have loan officers

Also, if you are a self motivated individual who is planning on starting a new career as a loan officer, please contact us and we will guide you in getting your NMLS mortgage loan originator license and getting you started.