Do What You Say Your Going To Do
I was listening to a podcast with “Ryan Serhant”- they asked him what a mortgage professional could do to win his business. The answer was simple, “Do what you say you’re going to do. This sounds simple enough right?? I want to add to the this statement, honesty and integrity have to supersede false promises based on no research.
The mortgage industry has become very “popular”, again. But there is a glaring statistic that I would like to state, the top earners in the mortgage industry fall within the 40-50 year old range. That’s my bracket!!! ( shout out to my guys like Johnny V at Citizens bank and Brian Leibowitz at Affordable financial services, as friends in this industry that are in the top bracket) This statistic impresses on me, when I started my career in mortgages, it was 2008 (the height of the mortgage meltdown.) People told me, Wow that’s a tough industry to be in right now. I nodded and said yes it is, but this is all cyclical and if I master it now at it’s most challenging, when it stabilizes I will easily adapt. ( that was my mindset then, and it remains the same now) “Chaos creates opportunity” is a quote that someone told me when I was very young, and it stuck with me.
When I meet with clients, I tell them all the options that are available, I tell them what options they qualify for and which one I think is best for them. I also talk about the programs that are out there, that they don’t qualify for and why they don’t. I give them the information for free and give them a rough estimate as to what their timeline is and what obstacles we may see in the road to closing.
But I always set expectations, I work relentlessly for them and always keep them informed. Let me illustrate –
I have a very successful client who owns a coffee chain, Jack’s Stir Brew Coffee, in NYC, he was looking to restructure some mortgage debt. He went to his banker at Wells Fargo, the banker told him that it was no problem, that he can do it and then Jack proceeded to wait. Jack waited for 3 months before the banker came back and told him he can’s do it.
Jack told the story to his CFO, who happens to know me, they set a meeting with me and I went down to Jacks Stir Brew located at the Roxy Hotel in Tribeca.
They explained the goal of the transaction and showed me his portfolio of real estate holdings. They asked me which is the lowest rate and easiest loan for him to close on. I reviewed and identified the property which would be the smoothest and easiest transaction. I told him we needed to appraise the property, show lease from his tenant and prove that he was getting rental payments. No tax returns, no DNA – just cashflow and asset valuation.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of going down to his Café in the Roxy Hotel in Tribeca, 21 days after the first meeting. We met there to close his transaction.