Agents, Hear Me Out
I recently had a client who was thrilled when I responded to her request for information after her agent’s preferred lender hadn’t gotten back to her. We emailed a bit and I sent her some numbers and when I called to check in, she said she was under contract and thanked me for giving her numbers to use to negotiate with the other lender. OUCH. I get it, if you’ve never heard of me, or your last run-in with a broker was in 2007 when the landscape looked pretty different, you might be worried.
I made the change to this model because I live and die by the experience I provide to my clients and the people who refer them to me. You will never see my face on a billboard, I don’t take home builders out to the Pink Pony Club, and I don’t pay to play with massive zillow lead budgets for big teams. Anyone who refers me does so because they like me and know I’ll do a good job, and I developed this business with that in mind. If you’re not happy, I don’t just move onto the next lead on my call list for the day and shrug it off. So what are the major benefits?
Pricing: In the current market, home prices have surged and so have rates. Buyers are more price sensitive than ever, and a lower rate gives more flexibility in the purchase budget, and avoids a switch to SketchyHomeLoans.com once they are under contract and the drama associated with a call center lender who may not care if your contract closes on time. I keep lean margins and can price match to keep everything running smoothly.
Timing: A major motivator for my switch was my desire to keep files closing on time, even when we need a quicker closing date. Any lender can have a surge of business that slows down their capacity in underwriting. As a broker, if one lender can’t close in the tight timeline you need when you need it, I can just send the file to the ones that can.
Appraisals: Lenders often order appraisals through companies called AMCs that bid out the appraisal order to the lowest bidder and pocket the difference. With the market slowdown, there are a lot of low bidders picking up orders who may not be great. Ordering a second appraisal is challenging for a lender from compliance purposes, but as a broker, I can move the file to another lender and order another in the instances where I believe there is a material defect in the appraisal.
Programs and Underwriting: Every lender has their “thing” that they just don’t want to deal with. If your client or the property they are looking at isn’t so easy a trained German Shepherd could do it, I can call lenders ahead of time to make sure their loan goes to the one that says “no problem, we don’t mind 50 acres” rather than the one that says “well… typically we want to see less than 10, and if anyone has planted a carrot within the last 5 years we will call it a working farm and deny your loan after the appraisal is in”
There are some cons to the broker model- certain niche loan products are genuinely a better deal for your borrower to go straight to the source, and in those instances I will always make sure that your client ends up with the best loan for them, even if it’s one that I am not going to be able to help them with.
