I Am Still Here

I began my mortgage business back in January of 1998. I met two gentlemen that had an office in Katy with plenty of spare space and a desk for me to sit with a phone. They simply told me to bring my stuff and use their office and go out and get some business. I had just finished an adventure marketing and selling health insurance that later became unreliable for any form of a paycheck. So I tried my hand at selling mortgages. I had always had a background with accounting and real estate, so I seemed to fit right in.

My coworkers then were doing a lot of subprime and FHA loans. Both gentlemen charged a fortune to whom ever they would sign up to do their mortgage. Although I was impressed, I soon realized I wasn’t looking for suckers. I was looking for people I could help. At the time I had one big real estate investor as a customer along with a variety of other cases. One of them was a young guy that bought an abandoned Heights property and refurbished it. He started from scratch and didn’t have any cash to work with. He got a loan through me for the acquisition and did all the work himself.

Another was a church school teacher that simply wanted to buy a home for herself and her two kids. I was able to get her an FHA loan at a time when those loans required a multitude of documents along with originals. Faxed copies weren’t allowed at all. It was amazing I even got any of them funded. But I had no experience and allot of time to drive all over the place and pick up signatures and documents.

My other customers were a mix of credit issues and other challenges. I didn’t mind at all. I had perhaps 13 customers that first year. I didn’t score the grand prize for my efforts, but I got paid and learned a great deal about the business, people and their issues. Every single customer of mine had some form of a past problem be it past due child support, late payments, bankruptcies, collections and what have you. I didn’t care. I wanted business and I was used to solving problems. These were easy compared to my own!

I took a personal approach to my few customers. I really wasn’t that experienced in business and I didn’t know any better. While my mentors were practicing a variety of forms of hard selling, high pricing and generally confusing their customers into ultimate surrender, I confided in mine to the extent that I wasn’t sure of what I was doing and I had to do allot of on the spot research. My biggest allies were underwriters. Their entire credo was document everything and don’t allow dishonest practices persuade you to sacrifice your integrity. No one said that. Those are my words but that’s accurate of how they operated. But the folks I knew then are still in the business today and always will be at their discretion as they are unwilling to compromise their tradition of accountability to guidelines. In other words they weren’t the type you hear about that could or would be bribed if that were the case. I was never sharp enough to play that game anyway. So I had to be honest.

My two mentors were night and day and they were brothers. One would practice integrity in NOT fudging and forging documents while the other brother practiced all sorts of unscrupulous things LIKE forging a signature here and there, paying kickbacks to realtors and who knows what else. I guess one might characterize the two as Cain and Able. However, both gentlemen charged in fees their weight in gold at all times. The more honest of the two is still in business while the other brother lost his license, faced charges and addressed a judge some time ago.

I faced situations where a new wholesale lender would emerge offering lower pricing and rates to where I can still offer lower rates and still get my dog a hair cut and drive around in my Honda keeping all my customers happy until that lender went off the cliff leaving yours truly holding the bag. That has happened more than not. I have also faced builders corrupting the picture giving my customers a lump sum credit towards the end of a transaction that was already built into an inflated priced home IF my customer were to use their mortgage company and also their title company. This has happened more than I care to go into except that for the last few years each event has crippled me financially. Some how these builders were able to convince an unknowing borrower that it’s a good deal and the 5K we give you will cover your taxes and closing costs even though the rate might be similar at best to the rate I offered. Good for them. They are also in the news as we speak.

I have never forged a signature. I have never paid a kick back and I loath giving some go between like a realtor so much as a pizza for doing a job they benefit from anyway. Why should I? I am much like the teacher at the church trying to make ends meet and own a home and the guy that bought the rehab in the Heights for his first home. But I am also like the career underwriter that refuses to look the other way.

The teacher that got her FHA loan still lives in the home today and she is making her payments. The investor has evolved beyond needing me for any reason. The Heights guy is in his second home and is raising his family somewhere in Cypress.

I took on a good number of subprime candidates. The ones that got loans through me also had to sit there and accept my lectures regarding responsible credit choices, paying on time, morality and so on. The subprime customers I worked for I handpicked. I didn’t want to be a “shop” that simply wrote low grade paper for a buck. I wanted to have a good business with a reputation. And I wanted to stay in the business.

Why am I telling you all this?

Customers have to have low rates and low fees or at least as low as possible. There are too many third parties with their mitts in the pockets of my customers to the unbearable. In my opinion the entire industry is fool hardy with too many hurdles for customers. I ordinarily wouldn’t charge an origination fee if I could help it and I only charged 1% to those that had some difficult problems to where my time would be kidnapped entirely by their difficulties. But I was fair and I still am to date.

As a result my customers have sent me their grown children, aunts and uncles, coworkers and acquaintances. I am truly grateful and then some.

My customers have faced delays and reversals against their will and not by my hands. The unknowing public has yet to see behind the scenes of all the chaos involved in the practice of mortgage lending and very seldom is a deal an easy one regardless of perfect credit, vast amounts of reserves in the bank or any number of positives on the borrower’s side. Things happen. Properties get designated wrongly in flood zones. Some properties look like a deal until an appraisal is reviewed and the price turns out to be wrong. I won’t even mention how so many thousands of self employed people get the shaft for whatever reason without an explanation or for just being what they are, self employed. I mean that in earnest and I am on their side as well. The latest debacle is getting condos approved as “warrantable”.

Aside from the stress and the numerous disappointments over the last 12 months, I still enjoy what I do. I sit here at my computer with my dog lying on the floor as I watch rates and watch the unfolding mortgage crisis hoping for a turnaround in the market leading back to a moment when my phone would ring on a regular basis.

What’s my point? I am not going to quit and I am still here……..

Vince Gutierrez | July 2008