Working in the mortgage industry is often rewarding because you have the privilege of helping people pay for homes they may live in for years or even decades. For many consumers, their home is the most valuable asset they own, followed by their automobile. This means when you help prospective homeowners secure financing, you’re literally working with life-changing sums of money in many cases.

Becoming a Helpful Loan Originator

While you may be eager to start helping people arrange financing for their dream homes, you’ll need to evolve into a helpful and successful mortgage loan originator before you can truly be effective at your job. You won’t want to close a minimum number of deals every month, after all. Instead, you’ll want to help as many people as possible, which is something you’ll only be able to do by becoming an expert at everything involved with being a successful loan originator.

Here are some of the areas you’ll need to focus on to succeed as a mortgage loan originator:

• Communicating: Successful loan originators communicate with their clients regularly. They reach out to their clients to update them on the status of their loan application and they respond to inquiries in a timely manner. Thriving mortgage loan originators don’t just welcome questions from their clients. They take the time to ask questions about their clients. The only way you can determine which loan option is best for your clients is by soliciting information from them and communicating with them often.

If you’re working with inexperienced with home buyers, you should invest time in explaining the mortgage process upfront. Even if someone has purchased a home in the past, you may still have to refresh their memory about the process, so be prepared to explain things thoroughly.

• Being Honest: Trust is the key to the relationships mortgage loan originators have with their clients. Even when the news isn’t as good as you and your clients would like, you still have to be honest every time you communicate with your clients. By being honest, you’ll build trust, which may lead to referrals in the immediate term and repeat business with your current clients down the line.
• Organizing: As a mortgage loan originator, you’re going to collect vital documents from your clients that underwriters will use to determine whether your clients qualify for a home loan. These documents often contain confidential information that must be at your disposal whenever you’re talking to an underwriter. You must implement a system for keeping paperwork organized even if you only have a handful of clients at the start of your career.
• Following Up: While the hard part may be over from your perspective when you submit your client’s mortgage application and related paperwork to an underwriter, you still have plenty of work to do to close a deal in most cases. You’ll need to follow up with the underwriter who’s reviewing your client’s application and respond to any requests for additional documentation as quickly as possible. You’ll also need to follow up with your clients and let them know how things are going.

After you schedule an appraisal of the property your client wants to buy, you’ll need to let them know when the appraisal will occur. Once it’s done, you’ll need to follow up with your client and discuss whether there’s anything in the report that may affect the final purchase price of the residence.

Being a mortgage loan originator, it’s your responsibility to provide reliable advice to your clients and tell them which mortgage package is best suited to their unique financial situation. Remember, a home is the biggest investment many consumers will make, and your clients will rely on you for advice about a contract they’ll be bound by for up to three decades.