Mortgage and Banking - Where Have All the Loan Officers Gone?

Yes, many of our fellow mortgage brokers and loan officers have changed careers in the recent down-turn of the real estate market. Let's face it, when homes do not sell the number of new loans needed goes down dramatically. The last up cycle has gone as far up as it will go and is going down for who knows how long.

When homes are not selling, we really only have two options if we want to keep our current lifestyle.

1 - Refinances, Short Sales, and Reverse Mortgages

2 - Find a different career until the real estate market comes back

Now, if you are more of a veteran and have a very established clientele base with like 20 years in the industry, you will probably make it through this slow time for the next several years by cutting down your expenses and working your clients for referrals, etc. Then once the real estate market comes back, the loan market will come back in full swing with it. That's how the cycle works. There will be ups and downs and it will repeat over and over again.

Okay, the two choices for the vast majority and novices involve creating business without a solid real estate market. Interest rates are actually very low right now and there seems to be a mad dash for many people to refinance into a better rate. The problem arises when these borrowers get their property appraised and it ends up not being valued high enough for the loan to really make sense.

They either have to come up with some cash or tweak the numbers until they really are not improving their situation by that much. Do you really want to make a loan so bad that you are willing to put someone into a worse position financially than they were in before they signed the papers with you? We know that having a lower interest rate does not always mean it's a better deal. There are several other factors that uneducated borrowers neglect to pay attention to. They just want the lower rate.

Short sales and reverse mortgages will give you business right now. But again, certain loans products are really not always in the clients best interest even if they think they want it really bad. We have a responsibility to educate our borrowers on the positive and negative aspects of any given loan product and do the right thing (even if it means refusing to make the loan for a borrower when you know that it is not good for them).

The other choice you have right now is to find a different career until the real estate market makes a come back.

I might suggest that you choose the latter of the two. Get out now and put yourself back in front of the trends that will put money (and a lot of it) into your pocket. I'm not saying that you should let your license lapse. I'm just saying that you should not waste another minute of your time using your valuable skill set on activities that will provide you with less and less results until the market comes back.

In the meantime, put yourself in front of the economic trends. What are those trends right now?

The internet!

Many others have already hopped on this bandwagon and have matched and even exceeded their income from the mortgage industry hay day. Sound too phony? Too good to be true? Ask yourself this...What've ya got to lose?

Something needs to change. You might as well control that change. See for yourself. You might just find that you are really good at internet marketing and are able to make a substantial income. This could possibly be the temporary solution you have been looking for until the mortgage industry gets back into the swing of things.