Loan Officer Success – Making Mega Bucks With Mortgage Leads

+In your marketing efforts, you want to be getting new business from multiple avenues. One efficient method is purchasing mortgage leads from reputable leads companies.

Loan officers working in the real estate business whether they are with a mortgage company or working independently can benefit equally for the following reasons:

- Leads provide the right clients – Useful clients maximize the commission and sales. – Mortgage company is highly benefited – Income increases profits and competitive edge

A lead service gets a loan officer started by pre-qualifying prospects and delivering those prospects to the agent. These prospects are ideal because their service, while being a numbers game, does require interested parties. Instead of cold calling or carpet-bombing an area with direct mailers, the agents are put into contact with people who are already looking for what they have to offer.

Leads can play a huge role in paving the way to success by generating a quantity of prospects that are already quality. Loan officers who understand their business know that the more people they see, the greater their chances are of making sales. The chance for making sales is increased even further when the prospects are actually interested in the mortgage deals and loan options.

By diversifying the mortgage investment to include a lead service; loan officers can dramatically increase their opportunities to close a sale. While the odds favor sales when using a lead service, the loan officer still needs to speak to the prospect and close the deal. By recognizing that buyers may be shopping their loan needs for a number of reasons, the loan officer must demonstrate knowledge of the mortgage property as well as generous people skills.

Focusing their target market to clients that are already deeply interested in buying properties will limit the amount of time that might otherwise be wasted spent chasing the wrong prospects. When a loan officer goes after the wrong group of clients, they not only face discouragement, but also frustration and a loss of time they can never afford to waste. While there are no magic cures to finding the perfect sale, a mortgage lead service maximizes the opportunity.

Higher income gives the loan officer a competitive edge. A mortgage company loan officer can improve their leverage and position within a corporation. This gives them the opportunity to gain promotion within their corporation. No matter which mortgage firm a loan officer is working for, a lead service will provide him with the best business opportunity to maximize not only his commissions but also his time.

5 Mortgage Marketing Tools Every Loan Officer Should Be Using

As a loan officer, you are always looking for an edge. Tools and techniques to find new business as easy and as quickly as possible, as well as strategies to increase your time to more effectively process the loans that are already in your pipeline. However, with all the choices and technologies now available to mortgage professionals, it can be somewhat overwhelming to find the best options to use.

Through interviews and personal experience, I have come up with 5 mortgage marketing tools that will increase your commission checks and reduce your stress while spending less time working on your business. Some of these tools will be obvious but under utilized, while others will be a complete surprise. I hope that this article opens up your mind to new possibilities for marketing and running your mortgage business.

Tool #1: Business cards. Every loan officer I know has more than enough business cards, but I have yet to find a mortgage professional who is really working this tool to its full potential. Your business card is your own little advertisement, and should be given out at EVERY possible opportunity on a daily basis. Give out more than one. Ask the individual to give them to friends and family. Beyond giving them out, you need to make them more unique and valuable. How do you do this? You can make them unique by making it a different color or shape, making it magnetic, glow-in-the-dark, etc. You can add value to them by making it a phone card or CD-Rom, or by writing down a personal message on the back.

Tool #2: Toll-free 1-800 hotlines. Back in the late 1990s, very savvy loan officers were using this tool to the max. Here is how it worked. The loan officer would place a classified ad in the paper offering a free report. All the prospect had to do was call the hotline and leave their name and address. However, the hotline captured the caller’s phone number as well. So the loan officer would call back the prospect to verify the mailing address and build rapport. It was effective then, and is effective now although it seems that fewer loan officers are using this tool.

Tool #3: Autoresponders. Autoresponders have been around for about ten years, but are just now starting to become mainstream. An autoresponder is simply an email program that responds automatically to any email that is sent to it. They now also have the ability of sending an unlimited number of follow-up messages plus managing your database of email addresses. All automatically. The most popular autoresponder service being used is Get-Response (http://www.Get-Response.com). (Alexa) Using the marketing technique for the 1-800 hotline, loan officers are now directing prospects to send an email to their autoresponder service to get the free report. Once the prospect does that, the free report is automatically sent, as well as the follow-up messages. These messages are not only sent automatically, but you can also decide on the delivery times (ex. one day after report sent, 3 days after, 7 days after, 21 days after, 6 months after, a year after, etc).

Tool #4: Loan Officer Websites. It seems like everyone has a website these days. But 99% of loan officer websites are useless. Why? It’s not because they aren’t professional-looking or lack valuable information about you, your company and your products. It’s because setting up a website is just the beginning of the process. If you don’t know how to market that website and get people to it, it serves no purpose. First, you are going to need to place your web address on all of your promotional and marketing materials. Next, you are going to incorporate your autoresponder with your website. So you place a classified ad offering a free report. The prospect emails your autoresponder, and you start your follow-up series to them. Now in those follow-ups, you need to stress the value of visiting your website. Maybe it’s the helpful mortgage calculator. Maybe it’s the additional 3 reports they can download by visiting. You need to really promote your website through your autoresponder series.

Tool #5: Ebay. Everyone knows that you can sell Beanie Babies and antique clocks on Ebay, but some smart loan officers are promoting their businesses their too. Here’s how they do it. They take that same report used in your other marketing campaigns and put it up for sale on Ebay for $.99, or even a penny. The goal here is not to make a profit selling these reports (you will be lucky if you even break even). The goal is to find people who are interested in doing a mortgage loan. Once they purchase the report from you, you then email them the report and offer to do a free evaluation of their mortgage needs. Or, you can send them to your autoresponder and hit them with a series of follow-up messages. This technique works only if you can originate loans outside of your state (which most originators are allowed to do – if you are not one of these, you can still sell these leads to the numerous mortgage lead companies on the Web).

These are certainly not the only tools available to mortgage professionals, but used effectively, these tools can get you more mortgage leads with much less effort. A few of these techniques really use automation to your advantage. The hardest part is setting up the process up initially. After that, they pretty much runs on their own.

Re-financing With An Interest Only Mortgage

Interest only mortgages are a relatively new phenomenon in the re-financing industry as well as the home buying industry. While the appeal of an interest only mortgage is typically a greater monthly cash flow, this increased cash flow can come with a hefty price tag. In exchange for more cash flow each month, the homeowner may be sacrificing the ability to obtain a fixed rate mortgage as well as the ability to build equity. This article will further examine these features to provide the reader with more information on the subject of interest only mortgages.

Greater Monthly Cash Flow

The one main advantage for many homeowners in an interest only mortgage is the ability to increase monthly cash flow. Homeowners who re-finance by utilizing an interest only mortgage will likely have more money available each month because they will only be paying interest on their mortgage initially. The reduction of the principal payment can make it easier for the homeowner to either afford a larger house or have the ability to live more extravagantly on their budget. However, there is often a significant price to pay for these types of re-financing options.

While interest only loans may not be ideal, they can be beneficial in the situation where the homeowner is having a great deal fulfilling his monthly obligations. In this case, the homeowner may be willing to sacrifice an overall financial loss for the ability to continue to pay monthly bills in a timely fashion.

Unknown Risks of an ARM

Interest only re-finance loans are typically offered with an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) this means the interest rate is not fixed and may fluctuate with the rise and fall of the prime index. This risk can be quite costly for the homeowner if the interest rate rises significantly. There is usually a cap placed on the amount, in terms of percentage, the interest rate can rise in a certain period but this can still be a very costly mistake for the homeowners.

An ARM re-finance option with an interest only component may be worthwhile in some situations. For example if the homeowner has a hybrid mortgage which features a fixed interest rate during the interest only portion and an ARM during the principal and interest portion of the loan they might benefit from this situation if they do not plan to stay in the home for longer than the interest only period. This period may vary depending on the lender and the circumstances. Homeowners who plan to sell the house before the interest only period ends and the ARM period begins enjoy the benefits of lower monthly payments and the security of fixed interest rates before they ever have to worry about repaying the principal or dealing with the varying interest rates.

No Equity in the Home

Another disadvantage to the interest only re-finance loans is they do not allow the homeowner to build equity in the home during the initial period where only the interest on the loan is repaid. This can be a problem for homeowners who are looking to profit through the sale of their home. These homeowners may find the participation in an interest only re-finance has had a damaging effect on the profit they are able to generate from the resale of their home.

Mortgage Payment

If there is one thing that may strike fear in the heart of any adult, it might just be a mortgage payment. Most people dream of owning in their own home, but they may not be able to afford it for many reasons. Even if you can afford it, you may not have the credit to get what you want. You may think that if you can afford to pay what you now pay in rent, you may have to rethink that. There are many costs involved with owning a home that you may not have considered.

You mortgage payment should ideally be one fourth of your income. Anything more than that, you may soon fall behind in your payments, which will of course mean that you may lose your house. That’s the last thing you want to happen. You also have to factor in everything that your current landlord takes care of for you. If something breaks, all you have to do is call and your landlord has to get it fixed. This means if the water pipes burst, they have to get someone right away. If the heat goes on the blink, it is no money out of your pocket. When you have your own mortgage payment however, you also have to pay for all of these things on your own. Can you afford that?

You also have to factor in property taxes when thinking about how much you can afford for a mortgage payment. You will have to pay these once a year, though it may be due twice or four times a year depending on where you live. This money is above and beyond what you pay for in your mortgage payment, and this can quickly put you in debt. If you are barely making it with your mortgage, your taxes are going to do you in for sure.

If you really don’t know what to do, or if you can afford to have a mortgage payment, you may want to talk to someone at your bank. They can help you decide what you can afford, and they may have ideas about how you can fix your credit, or perhaps help you set up a savings plan to help defer some of the costs of homeownership at a later date. If you have some put aside in savings, emergencies won’t make you dip into your budget, and you will still be able to make your mortgage payments on time.

Private Mortgage Insurance

When you first buy a home, it can be very frustrating and complicated but it can also be extremely exciting. There is no feeling like being able to call a home your own and have the freedom to decorate it and change it any way you want.

Do you want old wrecked cars on your lawn Go for it. Finally build a duck pond of your own Sure, it’s YOUR house and you can do what you want.

Unfortunately, life happens and sometimes you won’t quite be able to make your loan payments all the time. This is where private mortgage insurance comes in.

When you first buy your home, most lenders expect you to pay a large down payment of at least 20 percent or get some kind of insurance loan protection program that’s called private mortgage insurance.

This insurance coverage will protect the lender just in case you are ever unable to make your monthly payments. This insurance doesn’t cover anything else though.

If your home catches fire or something, you better hope you have some other types of insurance. This is only to cover you if you fail to make your payments.

Even if you don’t need it, it doesn’t hurt to get private mortgage insurance just in case. No job is 100 percent reliable and if you have to relocate or change jobs, you won’t have to worry about your house payment if you happen to go a week or two without pay. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Second Mortgage

An individual’s home is the biggest asset that one has at his disposal. A home to back you up when you need a loan is one of the greatest advantages of home ownership. In recent years, there has been a major boom in the amount of people looking to use their homes as a way to get access to extra money when they need it most. One of the best ways to do this is through a second mortgage. Second mortgage loans are loans that are made in addition to the first mortgage, and it is usually based on the amount of equity that the borrower uses to build into his home. Usually it’s required to fund home renovations. Since the borrower has already been through the process once, the underwriting that is required to get a second mortgage is much simpler than it was the first time around when the borrower had taken the first loan. The cost of the transactions involved will be lower when the borrower applies for the loan second time. This usually happens for the fact that interest rates on the second mortgage are a bit higher than they were on the first one. But then, there are some positive points too. For example, the fact that the interest paid on the loan may be tax deductible. In most cases the interest is 100% fully deductible as long as the combined loan to value of the 1st and 2nd mortgage does not exceed the value of the home. On a second mortgage, one borrows a fixed sum of money against the home equity, and pays it back after a specific time. The amount borrowed will be combined with the amount the borrower still owes on his first mortgage. But there are a few things that one should keep in mind. First of all, one should not take a second mortgage on his home unless one has made payments on the original mortgage balance for a good amount of time. One may be able to get a second mortgage if one does not have much equity, but then the loan rates will be much higher, and the amount that one can borrow much lower. It will essentially be a waste of time and money. A second mortgage is a loan that is secured by the equity in ones home. While obtaining a second mortgage loan the lender places a lien on the borrowers’ house. This lien will be recorded in 2nd position after the primary or 1st mortgage lender’s lien, hence the term second mortgage. Second mortgages aren’t for everyone. Borrowing more than 80% of the home’s value will subject the borrower to private mortgage insurance. The monthly payments should also be a factor. If one refinances in the future, he will have to pay off the 2nd mortgage. Loan proceeds from a second mortgage loan can be used for just about anything. Many consumers take out 2nd mortgage loans to consolidate debt, do home improvements or pay for their children’s college education. Whatever one decides to do with the loan proceeds it is important to remember that if one defaults on then payment then he can lose his home. So one would want to make sure that he is taking the loan out for a worthwhile purpose Thus we see that a second home loan can be of great help to the borrowers, although the borrower must take steps to ensure that he does not squander away the advantages of second mortgage.

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