Kim: A mortgage banker generally works within an FDIC-insured bank. I work for a national, FDIC-insured bank, the Bank of England.
A mortgage broker will generally be someone that has both an individual broker’s license per state and can only originate in the states that they hold the individual licenses. Once a loan is processed, they send the loan file to the bank or the investor to be underwritten.
For me, the difference between being a banker and brokering is the relationship. If I work within my bank and don’t have to take a file out to broker, I have much more control over it; I can get it closed faster, and I have a direct line to the underwriters. If I have to broker a deal, I have to just wait in line, I don’t get priority underwrites, I don’t generally get an audience with the underwriter if I need to speak to them.
Ken: There’s a big advantage to using someone like you, where you’ve got all of the experience and all of the relationships of both a mortgage broker and a banker. You almost cut out one of the middlemen by using your services.
Kim: Exactly. The only time that I will generally broker a file is if it falls under our minimum credit score requirements to keep it in the bank. That’s just another advantage that I have that I can help pretty much everyone, because I can place their loan where it needs to be placed, based on the certain scenario of their file.
Ken: It sounds like you have a lot of experience in the industry. How did you get started in the finance business?
Kim: I took a job in ’99 as a finance manager for a home-improvement company. That put me into the secondary market, where I underwrote small home-improvement loans, and then we bundled them and sold them on the secondary market.
In 2001, unfortunately, I had a life-changing event. My husband passed away, so I came over to the retail side of lending, which is the loan officer side. It allowed me to have a much more flexible schedule, still provide for my two children, and be able to work from home, which was really important at that time.
Ken: And how did you move into the mortgage banking field?
Kim: Actually, the very first job that I took was with an FDIC-insured bank. I cut my teeth in the industry as a mortgage banker. I’ve always been a mortgage banker/broker since that time, and it was just a perfect fit. It was at the time that the internet application was really becoming prevalent, so I also had the luxury of having the fifty-state licensing. We were doing internet leads, and I learned very quickly how to still stay on the same page and help everyone, even if I never saw the cleint face to face.
Ken: Most successful people I talk with didn’t get there alone. Were there people that were mentors and people that helped guide you along the way to be successful?
Kim: Absolutely. I was very lucky with the first job that I took. The owner of the net branch of the FDIC bank that I was working for had been in the industry for quite some time. He had really great advice on how to proceed and how to look at things.
I also had a loan officer that was a friend of mine that got me the interview for the job. He had been in the industry for quite some time, so I had a great source of information that I could rely on and I was able to learn very quickly.
Ken: That’s great. Your business has seen a lot of success over the years. What were some of the road blocks that you experienced in growing your business? We had the financial crisis happen in ’07, and we’re making our way out of that. What were some obstacles you had, and how did you overcome them?
Kim: The first obstacle was just learning everything. In our business, guidelines, loan programs, everything constantly changes. So, you had to have the ability to understand that you can’t know everything all the time. I credit my success to never being afraid to ask questions and never being afraid to say, “I don’t know, but let me go find out,” and I’m very tenacious about getting answers.
Ken: Let’s talk about some of your clients. What are some of the challenges people looking for a mortgage might experience these days? I know things change so quickly, even daily. What might someone have trouble with when they’re shopping for a mortgage?
Kim: The number one thing is credit. The credit score is a very driving piece of whether or not you can qualify for a home. You could have the best income, the best job, money in the bank, but if you don’t have a qualifying credit score, none of that matters.
The other thing, of course, is what happened in economy. That’s why we’re seeing what we’re calling the boomerang buyer coming back, with the short sales, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and all the rules and guidelines that go along with each different type of loan.
For example, conventional has a longer waiting period to re-enter after a foreclosure than VA, FHA, USDA loans do, and they constantly change their guidelines. It’s really a plus, when you call to apply for a loan that you make sure that you’re working with someone that knows all those guidelines and knows what they can or cannot do, based on what’s in your credit profile.
