How Much More and Why?

[KevM]

I'm new to the business (4 months) and I'm trying to pick up tips and stay motivated.
One thing that keeps me motivated is hearing what others are making. I know it sounds stupid but it keeps me going.

So I want to ask how much did you make last year and what is your goal for this year and what are you going to do different to get there?

[carlo@CreditReportAtlas]

The idea is leverage. Getting 50 people to give 1% of their effort - but you have to do the work first before you deligate. Hope you figure out what that means.

[Secret!]

Originally Posted by KevM

I'm new to the business (4 months) and I'm trying to pick up tips and stay motivated.
One thing that keeps me motivated is hearing what others are making. I know it sounds stupid but it keeps me going.

So I want to ask how much did you make last year and what is your goal for this year and what are you going to do different to get there?

That's the kind of question someone in high school would ask, this must be a joke, right? Please tell me it is .... please.

[florida man]

hi kev

I started twards the end of the refi boom in 2005. The first job i got was 'cold calling' off some nameless list. I lasted 3 days. I got 2 apps, but left them there.

The next guy promised me 'leads' . So i joined up. Except the commission split was like 35% . The 'leads' turned out to be telemarketed NON leads where there was no real pressing need to refi. On top of that, the manager would cherry pick the good leads and give em to his fav loan officers.

I did manage to get 5 leads into a pipeline. However, they were all dubious - double wides at the ohio /west virginia border etc......

I even was trying to refi a guy in CLEVELAND -thats right -the dreaded clevland. He wanted a streamline FHA -but even with inflated home prices he couldnt squeeze thru the door.

So finally in June 2005 - i contacted a guy who laughed at my dismal experiences. He indicated he sent 'direct mailers' -which was a GODSEND to me. now only people ACTUALLY interested called.

I have done business this way ever since.

The first thing i noticed in my 'broker office' is everyone had 'golf clubs' . We had a huge central area and all the offices for the brokers surrounded it. They would all sit there all day, hangin out at the fax machine, playing golf in the main area . We even set up a hole .

It became apparent to me that all these guys were used to literally sitting there waiting for the truck to arrive to dump mountains of currency on their heads. So, I decided that i had nothing going for me and i had better out work them.

I met every single client in person. Drove from Columbus up to akron, canton, clevland, Dayton, cincy, u name it. The other brokers thought i was NUTS.

I was given mailers, an office, access to the fax machine, and thats it. I supplied my own computer. It was a broken down P3 with windows 98 on it.

Even though my manager promised me 'advise and training' -it soon became apparent he was busy running around so much i couldnt get a word in edgewise. I was really on my own.

So there i was, July 1st 2005. Sitting in this old guys living room. Paper and pen in hand. Selling him a mortgage. I had no idea what i was doing, nor had i ever done 'door to door' sales before. Little did the old boy know that he was negotiating his mortgage with a dumb sucker who didnt have a clue what he was talking about. (i know secret is going to have a field day with this one)

-took me 3 deals to finally be told what a 'good faith estimate' was. Another 6 deals before i had a clue what a 'truth in lending form' was. We had to go 'backdate' all the forms i was missing before the owners would pay me.

-it took 3 months before i took my ohio 'loan officers' test. In Ohio, once you apply to become a LO , you can start work right away, but must take and pass the 'test' within 90 days.

By the time I took the test -i had learned all i needed to know by doing deals . Certainly nobody told me anything at all. I was even typing up 'thankyou letters' to my clients -offering them $150 bucks if they referred someone to me -until by lucky chance my manager came into my office to shoot the breeze and i showed him the letter.

I asked him if was enough $$ to offer them.......................
needless to say , he tore up the letter and explained to me some aspects of the 'RESPA ACT'

Since nobody would tell me dry chit, i searched online, until i ran into this place called 'broker outpost' ............................

My hard work paid off though. In the 5 months i worked at Gateway, i nailed down 110k in fees . I made 55k in 5 months. All these guys 'putting' in the common area soon were sucking up to me asking what i was doing.

So, then i decided since my manager and company didnt do anything to help me at all, i would get a 'net branch' instead of carry on working for them.

My wife and i had already decided to move from Ohio to Florida -even before i left collections and started in the industry.

So , i used my contacts in the industry to get us a 100% no doc loan to purchase our house. I paid closing costs out of my pocket. New century gave us the exception on that deal due to my credit score and reserves.

So i came down to florida, with the same dumbfounded look as i did when i walked into the industry in the first place. Little did i know, working in a netbranch basically means running your own company. Running your own company in a brand new town in a brand new state is lets say 'challenging' .

Now i was responsible for making and printing , and delivering the mailer. Setting up my own corporation, getting all the licences and permit to operate out of my house. To build up some kind of credibility. To make some money before we went broke. We had to buy all the equipment, software. Set up our own corporation, get all the county permits, and adverstise somehow.

We started working 18hour days 7 days a week. We sweated our asses off. We went thru many many failures with one title company -then the newspaper, then another title company. We went thru 2 differnt printers.

We stayed up to 5 am printing mailers out of our 3 in one fax scanner copier more times than i care to remember. 20 sheets per minuite.

We HAND folded them . We got a mickey mouse folder and folded them. We hired someone to fold em. Etc.......

Then our 'netbranch' company started losing lenders. Getting more, losing more. Our pay then became stalled.

We have a 50 point 'compliance' checklist to go thru to make sure everything is in order after the loan funds. That tooks months to get down properly. Then they add more stips. We soon were sending in 'perfect' files, but now the 'payroll' is backed up.

Turns out, it takes roughly 2 months from the time u sign the guy up until you finally get your fees from corporate. You need a huge 'reserve' to keep your business afloat.

We then started getting stalled in payment, which stalled our advertising, which starves us. We would go thru periods of weeks at a time with no cash -then 10k in fees would show up.

We then finally got a title company that is excellent. We do so much biz they have a title agent assigned to our files alone. our appraisers allow us monthly billing -so we dont have to keep paying them at the door -we DONT ask our clients to pay for it upfront.

we finally found our local rag will sell us 300,000 double sided mailers printed and 1/2 trifolded for $10,500. We just finished paying off another order today. They insert 1/2 of them in the paper, and we take the tri folded ones to our mailer guys who stuff seal print and deliver them for 2.2 cents each.

In the end, i FINALLY passed my full broker licence 1 month ago, so now i can set up the brokerage and go on my own. I dont do stated or subprime loans so risks are minimal.

Now, i dont have to spend $600 of my fees to corporate for the priviledge of not getting paid for weeks on end. I will now get paid when the loan FUNDS.

We made 110k last year. Exactly what i made in 5 months the year before. However, i got to keep all of it (the 110k is after the $600 per file fee to apex) .The bad news is if you deduct all our first year expenses, we probably netted 70k -but after our accountant writes off everything and our dog -the net capital gain should be around $4.86 (one of the great things about being self employed)

The worse news if you take the 70k and divide all the hours my wife have literally slaved building up the business, we would probably have made $4.23 per hour. Arent they paying CITI outsources in India more than that?

if i was to know what i was getting myself into back then, would i have done it? I dunno man, its a LOT of hard work.

The great news is that this year, we already have 7 referral loans funded. We did 3 referral loans all of last year.

In total, we have 14 loans funded for $40,000. We have another $18,000 waiting to be paid out, and another $35,000 sitting in our pipeline, signed up.

If you are ethical, prepared to sacrifice like a dog, and meet your clients in person, you can eventually make a living.

I suggest you work for someone who will TRAIN you . Dont do it the way i did.

hope this helps.

[Greg]

Enough to have a nice home, a car, save for my retirement, and save for college.

Keep doing the right things and keep yourself educated as much as possible and you will do the same if not more.

[KevM]

Secret- It is not a high school type question. Sales is about setting goals, staying motivated and working hard to succeed. I work out of a "net branch" aka home office. I lack the boiler room atmosphere and I was looking for some motivation.

Thank you FloridaMan, stories like that keep me going. I really appreicate it.

I share those goals too Greg!

[Secret!]

I'm sorry you don't understand me Kev. It's THAT sort of an attitude that just doesn't belong in this profession. I posted a long article in this board today "How We Got Here - PART2" that you should read.

[mknight]

Kev, if money is what motivates you, so be it. Just don't let that motivation turn to greed and cut corners. There is some negative sentiment out there for some people who jumped in this business that were money motivated. The reason is that a lot of them were doing fraudulent loans and/or ripping people off. It gives the whole mortgage industry a bad name. You certainly don't want a customer to start telling his or her friends to not use a mortgage broker because of a bad experience.

[Gordon Lending]

If you do things legally, honestly, and morally correct the rewards will be great. Work smart, not hard. Stay focused and dont give up. Go back to the basics. These sayings and many more are what we know to be effective and true, so why is it that we always get blinded by the greed? I'm not saying that money is the root of all evil, it's the greed of it that is. I like my toys too. But what happens in this industry is we all get a taste of that 10-15K in fees loan and we get the fever. Soon we are doing things to our clients, lenders, title co's, appraisers ect. to get it on every deal. Come on you all know what I am talking about, "Please Mr. appraiser all I need is another 10K on that house to put it together", "Well Mr. customer we have to take your loan stated so we can go to 90% LTV because you cant afford it as it is (and this way I get more YSP and can still make my points on the front).
What happens next is unbelievable. 2-3 years ago when the rates were low we refi'd everyone into a 2 yr arm at the highewst LTV possible on stretched appraisals with 2-3 year pre-pays. Now the economy has gone to the birds, the housing market is drying up lowering the values of homes accross america. The stretched appraisal of 250,000 two years ago is now a home worth 190-200K and the client owes 230K. His rate is adjusting in 2 months and his payment is going up $300. He needs to refi but he cant because he is upside down in his value (sounds like a used car deal). This forces him to fall behind and lose his home in a foreclosure, an investor buys it for pennies on the dollar further bringing down the values in the neighborhood and the cycle continues. Now we have lenders with all these foreclosures on their books that they are losing money and are forced to either sell or go out of business as well (see The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter - tracking the housing finance breakdown, related to Alt-A and subprime mortgages, lending fraud, predatory lending, housing bubble, mortgage banking, foreclosures, debt, consolidation, lawyers, class-action lawsui ). The rest of the lenders now have to be careful in the paper they are buying and restructure their buying habits like dropping the 580/100%. Bank statement programs are soon of the past because creative mortgage brokers found a way to manipulate what should be a stated borrower to qualify with bank statements and get full doc rates. This list could go on for hours as I am sure you all know but I won't.
So the bottom line again is this:
If you do things legally, honestly, and morally correct the rewards will be great. Work smart, not hard. Stay focused and dont give up. Go back to the basics.

Your humble lender who is still in business.
Jim

[carlo@CreditReportAtlas]

Originally Posted by Gordon Lending

If you do things legally, honestly, and morally correct the rewards will be great. Work smart, not hard. Stay focused and dont give up. Go back to the basics. These sayings and many more are what we know to be effective and true, so why is it that we always get blinded by the greed? I'm not saying that money is the root of all evil, it's the greed of it that is. I like my toys too. But what happens in this industry is we all get a taste of that 10-15K in fees loan and we get the fever. Soon we are doing things to our clients, lenders, title co's, appraisers ect. to get it on every deal. Come on you all know what I am talking about, "Please Mr. appraiser all I need is another 10K on that house to put it together", "Well Mr. customer we have to take your loan stated so we can go to 90% LTV because you cant afford it as it is (and this way I get more YSP and can still make my points on the front).
What happens next is unbelievable. 2-3 years ago when the rates were low we refi'd everyone into a 2 yr arm at the highewst LTV possible on stretched appraisals with 2-3 year pre-pays. Now the economy has gone to the birds, the housing market is drying up lowering the values of homes accross america. The stretched appraisal of 250,000 two years ago is now a home worth 190-200K and the client owes 230K. His rate is adjusting in 2 months and his payment is going up $300. He needs to refi but he cant because he is upside down in his value (sounds like a used car deal). This forces him to fall behind and lose his home in a foreclosure, an investor buys it for pennies on the dollar further bringing down the values in the neighborhood and the cycle continues. Now we have lenders with all these foreclosures on their books that they are losing money and are forced to either sell or go out of business as well (see The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter - tracking the housing finance breakdown, related to Alt-A and subprime mortgages, lending fraud, predatory lending, housing bubble, mortgage banking, foreclosures, debt, consolidation, lawyers, class-action lawsui ). The rest of the lenders now have to be careful in the paper they are buying and restructure their buying habits like dropping the 580/100%. Bank statement programs are soon of the past because creative mortgage brokers found a way to manipulate what should be a stated borrower to qualify with bank statements and get full doc rates. This list could go on for hours as I am sure you all know but I won't.
So the bottom line again is this:
If you do things legally, honestly, and morally correct the rewards will be great. Work smart, not hard. Stay focused and dont give up. Go back to the basics.

Your humble lender who is still in business.
Jim

Amen to this! You deserve a rep point so here you go!