Fha Training: 5 Simple Tactics to Help Loan Originators Thrive in Tough Times

FHA training for loan officers is more important than it has ever been. Times are tough in the mortgage business. Loan officers are dropping out like flies. Heck, even lenders are dropping like flies! The loan officers disappearing the quickest are those who aren’t experts in originating FHA loans.

Yet mortgage loans are still being made every day everywhere and in high volume. Borrowers are out in force searching for loan officers who can help them.

Many loan officers trying to survive are concentrating on using the latest FHA loan innovations to try and save the homes of people losing them to foreclosure in these bleak times. A laudable goal, but not a great business plan. Here’s why.

Two primary building blocks of a successful mortgage career are repeat customers and client referrals. These two items are the boost that elevates a mortgage career above the daily grind of prospecting. Unfortunately, building a business around rescuing borrowers in foreclosure does not lend itself to either of these. Experience shows that once a borrower is in foreclosure, even if rescued the first time, they usually end up back there with worse credit and a more difficult situation. In addition, due to endless guideline changes and processing hassles for this type loan from both HUD and lenders, the process is usually intensely stressful and not conducive to creating referral business except by luck. And who wants to bet their future in the mortgage industry on luck at this point?

Here are 5 simple tactics loan officers can use to survive in today’s tough mortgage market.

1 – Master FHA guidelines and best practices

Get education on the basic FHA programs. Reading the HUD manuals won’t get the job done. They are horribly organized and very confusing. Find a good, well organized reference manual and study it in your spare time. This alone will put you head and shoulders above most of the mortgage originator crowd which is fumbling around and irritating their underwriters with their lack of knowledge and common sense. Learn the rules of the Streamline 203(K) Program. This allows your customers who want to buy a foreclosure home in need of repair without worrying about breaking the bank trying to fix the house up, or worse simply not being able to buy that home. Get your hands on an organized, well thought out system for rapidly and accurately qualifying borrowers, verifying information, and getting preapprovals for your potential borrowers and their real estate agents. The loan officer with the best system gets the deal done quickly and with fewer mistakes or problems. This creates a referral machine that can’t be stopped.

2 – Affiliate yourself with a well known, well established local FHA lender if possible. Unless you have substantial experience originating FHA loans and maintaining your office in compliance with all the guidelines, give up on trying to be a one man shop keeping 100% of the commissions generated. You will end up keeping more money in your pocket with a strong organization behind you.

“Net Branches” with 100% commission splits for loan officers and no local supervision are going to increasingly find themselves on the regulatory radar. With all the horrible things people have been reading and hearing in the news over the past couple of years, people are very wary of mortgage brokers right now. As a matter of fact, many people believe all mortgage brokers are crooks. A mortgage office with one or two loan officers working out of someone’s basement, a hole in the wall in a strip shopping center, or even an executive office suite with a shared receptionist is no longer going to be able to inspire confidence in borrowers. The time has come to decide whether you are fly by night con man, or a professional who truly wants to put your clients in a better position and be paid well for doing it. Make sure that wherever you work, you have a very good processor who is extremely well rewarded for doing a good job

3 – Study and master the foreclosure market from both the lender and real estate agent sides of the business. Be the lender with all the answer when agents with no foreclosure experience send you their buyers.

Learn all about HUD and bank REO bidding processes and the insider tips for effective bidding. Give your borrower the advantage over all the others who are just learning the process. Make solid contacts with REO handlers for various lenders so that they trust your prequalifications and possibly even make you aware of properties before they hit the market. Learn about every down payment grant program still available in your area. Borrowers will do business with the loan officer who is most knowledgeable about getting them the best terms.

4 – Find out everything you can about effective emotional direct response marketing techniques and learn how to adapt it to your mortgage business. This will help you avoid falling victim to every marketing guru that comes around with the latest greatest bag of tricks. The techniques you need have all been around for ages.

Study direct marketing techniques and systems until you have above average skills in this respect. Once you truly understand how emotional direct response marketing techniques can be applied to building a mortgage business, find a good source for ready made marketing materials you can customize for yourself. Without understanding the correct concepts, picking the best source for marketing materials is nearly impossible.

5 – Build a referral network and work hard at maintaining it.

Learn the methods that really work to get appointments with and build a network of real estate agents. Hint: Telling them you have the best rates and quickest closings isn’t the way to do it. Develop a system to help For Sale By Owners market their properties. You can get many buyer leads for your real estate agent referral partners with this method. Don’t use your fancy corporate website for finding new borrowers. It won’t work. You need it for those customers that want to apply online on a professionally set up website, but you need an entirely different type of website to attract customers. They aren’t on the internet to see your list of every type mortgage on earth that you “specialize” in and read your description of how great your company is. They want information about mortgages so they can determine who to trust. Set your website up so that it entices customers to trust you and becomes a part of your “referral” network. Use cheap real estate book and classified ads to draw buyers to your website or call capture line in a non-threatening manner. Use the same tactics that work for a website to slowly train them to trust you and build your pipeline of potential prospects.

FHA training is the foundation of a successful mortgage career during the tough times loan officers must still face ahead. These 5 tactics can help build that foundation and set you up for success for years to come.

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Tags: Help, Loan, Originators, Simple, Tactics, Thrive, Times, Tough, Training