Should I work for Chase or CFIC (Direct vs. Broker)?

[JYGuy]

I recently just ended my tenure working for a sub-prime direct lender. I feel like I got into the sub-prime arena a tad bit late, considering the hardship the industry is facing. My time with Nationstar was spent making 200+ outbound calls per day and rarely, if ever, recieved fresh leads. Our product base wasn't that versatile or strong and the loans were high cost loans (lots of discount points). It's one thing to get to work with motivating borrowers who woke up today knowing they need to get a refinance working and another to constantly trying to solicit people who aren't even remotely thinking about a refinance. It was a such a hard sell and I felt like I had my nose to the grindstone all the time and was treated like a child while being told the reason I wasn't successful was because I "didn't believe in the loan."

I understand sales. That's all I've done in my professional life. It can be a transfer of emotion and you definately have to buy into your own product in order to sell it. But it was like they pretended they weren't exposing me to motivated borrowers and placed the entire blame on some metaphysical belief thing.

Anyways. I'm interviewing with JP Morgan Chase tomorrow to work in their direct sales division. It's a call center similar to what I was working in before, but with a 20-times more reputable company, a name brand. I know two people who work their, they told me they do alot of volume, they offer a small base, but admittingly are a little backed up in processing right now. If I get the job, I will be working with a team that gets leads from e-commerce and unions that have arranged to do business with Chase.

I'm also interviewing with CFIC Home Mortgage. I would be working out of a much smaller office, only 5 people work in it. While CFIC can lend the money directly, they do most of their business brokering out to most of your mainstream lending institutions and banks.

I'm trying to decide which would be better for me. On one hand I wasn't exactly impressed with the call center environment. Sometimes I got really annoyed having to hear everybody's conversations all the time - although you do pick up some tips here and there. Yet, Chase is a name brand. I got the feeling that right now, borrowers are a little more apprehensive to go with a company they know nothing about or have never heard of. Working for my last company, I saw how hard it was when the people had never heard of you, on top of trying to sell them a high-cost loan.

Over at CFIC, you get your own personal space. You don't have managers, VP's, and SVP's breathing down your neck all day every day. However, I have reservations about working with a smaller shop because I have no experience with them and I wonder how much the name brand has to do with getting a borrower committed.

[Erik]

I've done both and prefer the smaller route, personally. Some customers want the brand but what you're really selling is you, which can be done with or without a big brand behind you.

[JYGuy]

Originally Posted by Erik

I've done both and prefer the smaller route, personally. Some customers want the brand but what you're really selling is you, which can be done with or without a big brand behind you.

If you were to list the benefits of going with the smaller shop, what would they be?

I thought about what you were saying. It is about building a relationship with the customer to a certain degree. I guess part of me is kind of looking at it from "Hey this is so and so from Chase, I saw you had expressed some interest in a refinance....." or "Hey this is so and so from CFIC....." and that's really only because of how many times I dealt with borrowers who had absolutely no idea who my previous company was.

I'm trying not to make this too difficult of a decision, I guess it's the fact that my prior experience was so bad.

[Erik]

Smaller shops offer more flexibility and autonomy. You usually will get a larger cut and you can still have things like in-house underwriting (which is more mid-size, I suppose).

One of the downsides is benefits.

[Greg]

You will get more loans done and make more while offering lower rates if you are a broker.