Why this loan officer will take a PASS on your Leads

ken(TX) · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 184 Location: Dallas, TX

I just felt compelled to post this....

I don't want any free leads, especially any that are overflow from someone else's marketing efforts. I'll give you 3 reasons why:

1) telemarketing and internet leads have a shelf-life similar to a radioactive isotope. The reason they are free is that you can't sell an old internet lead because of its age. What's old? For me, an internet lead becomes worth no money for me to buy if it is over 1 hour old.

2) How can I fulfill the marketing "promise" when I don't know what it is? did the marketing campaign promise a free gift? lowest rates? what was the "hook"? If I don't know the "hook", and for that matter perhaps I won't even agree with it, how can I talk to the lead in the same manner in which they applied?

3) No marketing traction for me to build on. If I build a direct mail campaign and stick with it over time, I'll find out what works and doesn't work for my market, target client, etc. In effect, I can build a marketing process that rewards my efforts. If I buy leads, I'm essentially pooled with other lenders who have different target clients. The selling lead company is only looking at how many leads they sold and assuming that if someone bought leads they were good leads. That is flawed logic. If I want first-time homebuyer leads and you get a call center lender in St. Louis who starts buying 10,000 leads per day for cash out loans....how are you going to create new marketing? What search terms are you going to buy? My marketing "dollars" which I am spending with your firm get advertised for my competition.....right?

Buying leads is a flawed process for most mortgage loan officers. Yes, you can build a call-center company around it but loan officers....stick to tested methodology of marketing that work just fine for the internet age.

chow · Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:49 pm Post subject:

I knew there was some reason I liked you :wink:

DallasLoanGuy · Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 169 Location: Dallas, TX

chow wrote: I knew there was some reason I liked you :wink:

he's not a bad guy..... for a 'banker'..... :lol:

chow · Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:33 pm Post subject:

Well, Before he became a "Banker" he was a broker, and I bet he still does a few deals in that area. :wink:

Haplo · Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 2422 Location: Springfield, IL

ken(TX) · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 184 Location: Dallas, TX

Actually, I was never a broker. I either worked for a mortgage banker or when I owned my own company we were a full service mortgage bank.

chow · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 10:35 am Post subject:

Oh man, you just killed me. You've spent your whole life living in "The Institutional Enviorment"? :shock:

ken(TX) · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 184 Location: Dallas, TX

yeah, but at least I know how to do an FHA loan.

chow · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:12 am Post subject:

I bet you know how to do a VA loan too! :wink:

ken(TX) · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 184 Location: Dallas, TX

As a matter of fact.....I DO!

Kathy,

You'll get a kick out of this story. I turned a loan into underwriting that is an FHA streamline, no appraisal. The home was purchased in 2001 for $57,000 and his existing balance is $25,000. I'm reducing his interest rate and term from 30 years to 15 and still lowering his monthly payment.

I got an e-mail yesterday from the processing coordinator at the bank saying the appraiser didn't think the value was there on this home. Of course my response was, "Why are we talking to an appraiser in the first place?". After a phone call to the processing coordinator's boss, the appraisal condition was summarily removed.

30 minutes later I get an e-mail of updated loan conditions from this same processing coordinator. These conditions include a letter of explanation for credit lates, two requests for credit supplements from the credit bureaus, 2 years tax returns, and other credit and income related items. After another phone call to her boss I'm told this time that because we are doing a streamline, no appraisal we have to credit and income re-qualify.

This is where tools like Hudclips come in really handy. After doing some research I call the 1-800 # for HUD help and got additional confirmation I hadn't gone insane.

Follow the research with a phone call to the VP of government underwriting and I get the following response, "Ah, geez".

Suffice to say that at the end of the day yesterday I had an e-mail from my NEW processing coordinator who assures me he has been doing government processing for several years. I'm so happy to get promoted to the "know what I'm doing" section of operations..... I pity the poor FHA newbies who chase all that paper because they just don't know better :)

Ken

chow · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:48 pm Post subject:

Oh, so you called 1-800-call FHA. NOW I got your number! :lol:

I just love people who trust their processor to know it all! :lol:

The true sign of a person who wants some restricted income!

So far my best one is some guy that emailed me about Ameridream. He wanted to schedule a visit to go over the DPA with my office. After about 4 emails he figured out that I actually did work at a customer service company for FHA, and we didn't originate loans. (we, being the companies that hide behind a website and work on a contract basis)

He kept asking me for my business address, and all I could tell him was that it was: http.answers.hud.gov.

I hope he didn't spend too much time on map quest trying to get driving directions!
:shock:

DallasLoanGuy · Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 169 Location: Dallas, TX

my biggest pet peeve.... underwriters who cant read.

i wonder where they get their conditions sometimes.

however, i DID learn a lot about this business chasing non-existant forms for my old lazy processor

chow · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:38 am Post subject:

I love emailing people the links to ML's that announce the retirement of a form that is 3 yrs old. :wink:

Well, no one can ever can beat Interfirst and their govie file scanning crew. They called several times, over several months for the same files that I would fax copies of documents that their scanner ate. After the same request for the same doc's, I figured out they had a fax black hole.

Finally I faxed them all of the fax pages that confirmed I sent the previous pages, with a letter stating I refused to send them another fax until I spoke with someone in management. It was something like 5 legal pages of all the fax confirmation headers taped on it.....

MY AE called and asked what the problem was. :evil:

When I told him what my last fax contained-I heard the cell phone hit the floor.