Ins and Outs of the Mortgage Industry

Christy, a mortgage broker with over 25 years of experience, shares insights into the industry. She initially wanted to be a realtor but stumbled into mortgage brokerage and stayed. Her role involves finding the best financial options for clients, such as pre-qualification for home purchases or refinancing to reduce payments. Building and maintaining relationships is crucial, ensuring clients see her as their go-to mortgage broker. To stay competitive, she works closely with realtors and offers incentives like free appraisals. She recounts a challenging moment during the COVID pandemic, but handled it well and got the clients into a home later. She emphasizes the need for budgeting in a fluctuating market. Overall, her advice is valuable for those considering a career in the mortgage industry or independent contracting in general. Welcome everybody! Today we will be discussing the ins and outs of the mortgage industry. Let me introduce you to Christy, who not only happens to be my mother, but she's been a mortgage broker for over 25 years serving the Denver metro area. Well, hello Myra, thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I'm so happy to have you here. Now let's jump right in. So what led you to pursue a career as a mortgage broker? Well, that's a very interesting question. I originally wanted to get into the real estate end of it and become a realtor, but my college friend had an interview with this mortgage brokerage and I basically took her interview and I got the job. I never left. I've been in the industry for over 25 years. That's awesome. Can you describe your role as a mortgage broker and the responsibilities that you have in your position? Yes, of course. The role as a mortgage broker is to find the best financial option for your clients. Whether that's helping them get pre-qualified to purchase a home, which involves calculating their debt to income ratio so they can afford it, or if it's a refinance, this is helping homeowners save money by reducing their current payments. Nice. So can you describe your approach to building and maintaining relationships with your clients? And how do you make sure that each client has a positive experience with your services? Well, I basically make sure to stand out as the person that they're going to call for their mortgage needs. So for example, if you have a good insurance person, they do a good job for you, you know you're always going to call that same person back. Or your dentist, you're always going to call that same person. So I make sure they leave their closing confident that I am their mortgage broker for current and future needs. Part of that is just by building a good relationship from start to finish. Well, that is a great example. So in this industry, how do you adapt to stay competitive and keep the best services for your clients? Well, I believe working closely with realtors more as a team instead of individuals, I believe that that just builds trust with buyers. I also try and offer incentives like a free appraisal or a free credit report, anything that I can do to stay competitive with other mortgage brokers. And can you share a challenging moment you went through as a mortgage broker and how you handled it? What did you learn from this? So that is very interesting. I did have a very challenging time about two years ago on a transaction when COVID hit. This young couple, they were first-time homebuyers and they were going to buy their first home. And the gentleman had lost his job one day before his closing. He failed to tell us that. Of course, he wanted to get into the home. But underwriters always verbally make a phone call to your employer and verify employment. So basically that was a very challenging moment because it was, you know, something that we all didn't want to face. But the clients ultimately knew that it was no fault of ours. And they actually ended up coming back to me in about six months and we started the process all over again. And I was able to get them into a home. Wow, that does sound like a very challenging experience. But it seems like you do very well with ensuring your clients with a positive experience since they continue to come back for your services. What strategies do you handle, do you use to handle a complex transaction and ensure you will close a deal? So basically I just try and do my due diligence behind the scenes. There's a lot of things that buyers just don't even realize what we do on our end of things. So I try and make sure and handle those things so that the clients have a stress-free transaction. And what advice do you give to inspiring individuals that want to become a mortgage broker based on your experience? Well, my advice would be that before you enter into this industry, you need to know that it has fluctuating markets. With that, what I mean is you can have a good month financially making $30,000 to $40,000. However, the next month you could literally make nothing. Know how to budget. So when the market turns and the interest rates or the housing economy just isn't as in demand, you will definitely need to be good at budgeting your income. Well, that is amazing advice. I am looking to get into the real estate industry actually. And I believe this advice will help me in this career as well. Not only that, but all independent contractors can relate to this. It has been such a pleasure to have you here. I think not only myself, but the audience received a lot of valuable information from this podcast today, particularly those looking into getting into the real estate mortgage industry. I appreciate your time and thank you to those who listened in today. Thank you. Thank you.