Commercial PropertyHybrid Realtor/Lenders Resurface
Just like sellers have to do more updates, repairs and staging to get their homes sold in a buyer"s market, real estate agents are finding that they may have to upgrade their skills as well. One way to do that is to become both a real estate agent and a loan originator.
That"s not something that worked especially well in the past, largely because agents had to spend additional time and money learning to become loan originators as well as real estate agents, and they had to know how to take a loan from start to finish. Other restrictions applied in states that don"t require loan officers to be licensed -- they have to work for the mortgage company as a W-2 employee.
One company is undaunted. Pushing the notion of agents doubling as loan officers is First American Real Estate And Finance Corporation.
"There are three main reasons why this program will be successful," says Herb Reinders, president of First American. "The Realtor/loan officer has very little work to do, and it only requires about an hour of training. He/she earns 50 percent of the fees, and they don"t have to get a loan originator license because we are only making this program available in the 15 states that don"t have loan officer licensing requirements."
According to Reinders, agent/loan officers complete about 6 steps of the loan process which he says makes up about 5 percent of the workload. The rest is completed by First American.
To do loans the First American way, agents must be trained to:
Help applicants with online loan applications
Pull the borrower"s credit report (CR)
Review the CR with the client/borrower; collect pay stubs, bank statements
Review three loan options with client; select option
Review final figures with client
Attend the closing with the client
The total time for this work should be about one to two hours, says Reinders.
Hybrid agents are starting a trend says Jeffrey Smith, president of JSSmith Mortgage, that streamlines the sales process and ensures continuity for the home buyer.
"With more than 90,000 licensed real estate agents and brokers in the state of Arizona and a cooling market well entrenched, some of those professionals are considering new career options," he says.
Smith"s company has a training and mentoring program for real estate agents who want to explore the lending side of the industry while remaining an agent. Agents benefit by leveraging their industry contacts and client base to take advantage of a new revenue channel, says Smith. “We are on the cutting edge of offering the training and mentoring for this new combination professional.”
He says that the hybrid professional will be hard to top. "Our business is a competitive one and the best way to service the customer is to create an environment where they can save money and enjoy a transaction that is professionally executed resulting in a smooth experience. That’s the way to build that coveted customer loyalty,” says Smith.
It"s also a way for mortgage companies to increase the number of loans they can get. With real estate agents steering as much as 70 percent of the mortgage loans to favorite mortgage brokers and banks, mortgage loan companies are smart to try to instill loyalty by allowing agents a means to make extra income.