I remember well an event that changed my perspective of the mortgage industry. It happened eight years ago in 2002.
I had just obtained my mortgage brokers license and I had two loan officers that worked for my fledgling company. I was running the operations of my company while working full time as an auditor for Ernst & Young. Although we were small, I had some ties to a few local home builders so I was confident that we could eventually capture their business if we could first prove that we were good at what we do.
One afternoon, I got a call from a customer of one of my two loan officers. He was very upset. The loan officer had stopped answering his calls and he could not get a status update on his loan and his close of escrow date was coming up shortly. While talking to him, I found out that he was a land purchasing agent for one of the larger local builders and personally new one of the other builders whose business I was trying to capture.
I made it my personal mission to make sure that he had a great experience with my company. After finding out the loan officer was having some personal issues, I took over the loan for him. I called our customer and met him at his house in the evening in an attempt to regain his trust and tie up any loose ends. I got all of his supporting documents and tried to proactively resolve any potential concerns that an underwriter might have. I promised him that because of the fact that I was the broker and owned the company that I could use my position to expedite his file. I was confident that we close his loan fast … like within three weeks fast! We agreed that it would be best for him to obtain an extension for his close of escrow date, but it wouldn’t be by much.
Prior to owning my own company I had worked for one of the largest lenders in America. Initially, when I started working there all of our loans were processed out of Fairborn, Ohio or Minneapolis, Minnesota. Because of this, it would normally take two months to close a loan. We weren’t even allowed to lock a loan for less than 60 days. Later, the company opened a processing and underwriting center in Phoenix for us. This sped things up a bit, but we still routinely needed 30 and 45 days to close our loans.
After a few days of working on my new top-priority customer’s file, I called him to give him a status update. At that time he informed me that the loan was closed and he had bought the house. My jaw dropped!
“That’s impossible, there’s no way that he closed his loan in two days. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
He went on to explain to me that he had taken his loan to a loan officer at a local mortgage banker, Sun American Mortgage. The loan officer had walked his file to the underwriter and then, once approved, to the closing department. He signed the next day.
As I said, this event changed my perspective of the mortgage industry. I found out that there are companies that exist that are logistically capable of closing a loan much faster than the industry standard.
For the next five years I grew my brokerage to multiple offices with dozens of loan officers. I guided and maintained my origination staff and resolved concerns by telling them things like “that’s the exception, not the rule” or “sell the products we have … Ford’s salesmen don’t sell Chevy’s”.
In 2007, the mortgage industry was starting a time of major changes. I made the decision to wind down my brokerage and merge in with a mortgage banker. I was tired of the entire compliance burden lying directly on my shoulders and I knew that without a competitive advantage (FHA and banking) we probably wouldn’t survive.
In searching for a company to land my staff, I made sure that I found one with the following criteria:
- They must be a FHA Full Eagle Lender with Direct Endorsement Approval
- They must have in-house processing.
- They must have in-house underwriting.
- They must have in-house doc drawing.
- They must have in-house closing.
- They must have in-house funding.
The good news is that 30 months later, I’ve found the right home where we can close loans fast. Further, after a long enough period of time testing that this is the “rule, not the exception”, we’ve confidently launched our Ten Day Close service.
What is Ten Day Close?
Is it a marketing gimmick?
Is it a special circumstance?
Ten Day Close is a theme that is central to our office culture and our operational logistics. Everybody in our office believes and supports our goal to establish the bar and always provide exceptional service.
… exceptional because it is the rule, not the exception.
