Beware...

After being in the loan business for almost five years now, I've decided to start this blog because of something that really rattle my cages (as they say). Let me start out by saying that I didn't wake up one day and say, I want to be a loan officer. Nor did I say I want to be a loan officer because of the notoriety. No, I said I want to be a loan officer because I needed a job at the time. Since then I've really come to enjoy helping people not only obtain their dreams in homeownership but to also be a lender who will care about your needs.

Recently, I found out a relative had her home for sale. When other family members asked why she didn't come to me for assistance my only response was, "she probably didn't know I was in the business." So not only did she not know I was a loan officer but she didn't know that I work closely with Realtors. Realtors whom I trust and work hand in hand with in helping them build their business.

Here's the story, she was referred to one of those realtor/loan guys. He took over as the second agent to list her home for sale. The plan was to sell her home in time to move into her newly built home in another state. Problem was that her agent wasn't doing anything to sell her home so that she could have money to purchase the new home. As to no lose the purchase of her new home, the agent helped refinance the home she was selling. He refinanced the loan and she was able to move to her new home out of state. Meanwhile, the same agent was not doing much to sell her home. Not only did he live out of the area, but he just didn't know how to market the home. There were no ads, open house or door knocking to let people know about the home. That's when I eventually informed her that I was in the business and recommended that she use someone who knew the market and would actually lift a finger to market her home to get it sold.

I referred a business partner/friend of mine he had her home in escrow in a month. At that time, we found out the horrible news her loan that was to be paid off had a $13,000 pre-payment penalty even after the realtor/loan guy told her there was no pre-payment. His words to her were, "this loan doesn't have a pre-payment penalty." When the realtor/loan guy was confronted, of course he basically said, "Too bad, she knew what she was signing." Then he claimed that he did tell her.

You don't have to be in this business long to know what it takes to get this type of loan and how to make the pre-payment penalty go away. Her settlement statement showed that this guy made approximately $18,000 in commissions for her refinance. That's 4.5% of the loan amount. Real estate agents typically make 2.5 to 3% on the sale of the home. He made $18k just from the refinance and was due to make at least another 3% from the sale. Fortunately, he wasn't as good at selling home as he was at selling bad loans. His idea of selling her home was to put a sign in front of the house and hope that someone sees it and makes an offer. His other idea was to just keep lowering the price.

So basically, he took my relative to the cleaners with the loan refinance he got her into. He made $18k and she has to pay $13k to get out of the loan. Believe me, it just doesn't make sense and it sickens me to no end that this guy didn't care who he was hurting.

I'm now on a quest to be sure that everyone I know knows what I do for a living. I may not have years and years of experience in the mortgage industry but I have a lifetime of integrity experience. I will always say, even if you don't want to use my services for your home loan needs, at least ask my opinion so that this doesn't happen to you.

I plan on publishing tips and advice on home loans once a week to help you better understands. You may not be financing your home today but it's always a good idea to stay informed so that when you do, you have a little more armor.