Today I received the official offer letter from a very exclusive (almost boutique) direct lender that I’ve been trying to get with for almost a year now. I had five interviews over the last month and met with the president of the company yesterday and knocked the interview out of the park!
This is a HUGE step in my mortgage career. I’ve been a mortgage broker for the past five years, which has gotten a lot of bad press and has faced crippling regulation by a well meaning, but uninformed congress. Frankly, it has cost me tens of thousands of dollars a year in lost business and deals that fell through due to lack of control.
Now as a lender, I will have direct access to my underwriters, interest rates that are almost 100 basis points better than anything I had access to on the wholesale side, and be part of a company that was founded by a loan officer, not an investor, so he structured the whole company as a system designed for customer service and ease of operation. Imagine a well known retail bank, but with great interest rates and no red tape! They also gave me an office, with a great view, that’s twice the size of my current office, and is very well appointed. I even have a marketing budget and an assistant that THEY pay for! All this AND a performance based split, which is more than fair.
Within a year I will be given the opportunity to open up a net branch in DC, which will put me on the map with the circles I’ve been scoping out and gathering data on - the circles that will seal a multi-million dollar development deal with a handshake and let the lawyers work out the details, kind of circles… What can I say? I’m stoked!!
Earlier this month, I acquired a title company, got a 90% grade on my mid-term exam for a real estate class I am taking, bought the domain buyingindc.com (still working on the site so nothing is up yet), got three other websites up that will be boosting my search engine rankings - It’s been a good fucking month.
I think the best thing was that after a particularly rough roller coaster of a transaction, we closed it in the nick of time. After we were walking away from the settlement, my client actually offered me her KIDNEY! LOL I told her it would probably be a RESPA violation, but I was still very touched by the gesture. Helping people fulfill their dreams feels great.
