This Year So Far

Allot has happened this year so far. There have been some extraordinary events. For example, my oldest daughter got married and the wedding was spectacular. Also, and equally as important, my youngest daughter graduated high school, got accepted to a major culinary school in New York and now owns her own car. Unfortunately her grandma passed away a couple of months ago.

The mortgage business is mostly non-existant which leaves me to figure out what to do instead. I am planning some websites to sell stuff like home decor, mannequins, dress forms and store fixtures. I have eclectic tastes and hopefully I'll aquire customers of the like.

After hurricain Ike, my brother moved lock stock and barrel everything from his office to his house along with about 7 employees to continue working and stay afloat. His office didnt have power for more than two weeks and things looked bleak. But he and my sisterinlaw pulled it off famously. I am truly proud of them both. Oh yeah. And my oldest daughter works for them and she stayed on board the ship and helped too.

What's ahead? Well.......Hillary won't be our first woman president. I was actually hoping she would have got the nomination but it's my opinion her campagne against Barack Obama got out of hand with smears and inuendos.

Just when you think things are either OK or couldn't be worse, Sara Palin hops your fence and poops in your pool. McCain is too fuckin old and Palin is an outrageous plymbletwit. Now what? You'd better go vote! McCain could get sick and croke and we get stuck with that..........that voice! Politics is so hideous. I'm glad I'm just a bumb.

Back To Marilyn

Suddenly as if out of no where, Marilyn appeared and Amy had an instant grandmother. About 10 years ago Marilyn succeeded in her search for her daughter she was forced to put up for adoption at the infant’s birth. That would be Amy's mother Cynthia. The reunion (or union) took place not far from here. Marilyn brought en tow her siblings Jan and Joyce who immediately became Aunt Jan and Aunt Joyce. Joining the entourage were Jennifer and Natalie, daughters of the aunts. Cynthia ever thoughtfully called yours truly to deliver her daughter Amy (then about 8) in order to show her off. Can't say that I blame her. Amy was a jewel back then and the ladies found her to be an utmost delight. Marilyn was overjoyed and so was Amy. After all, Amy really never had a mom figure with the exception of her aunt Chris, my sister in law who could only fill the void as well as anyone could much less aunts and cousins. And of course Amy lived with her dad. I leave that up to interpretation.

Biological mothers across the western hemisphere experience buyer's/seller's remorse (or adoptor's remorse?) after the fact. One might put labels on such women. One might consider the conscience of such a choice whatever the circumstances. Certainly thoughts pass to and fro with regard to a better home for the infant or a better life. Or maybe there is an insurmountable realm of guilt no one else could possibly fathom. Financial reasons could come into play or personal problems or criminal and legal issues. Or maybe it's because of plain old fear. Dodge the question. Leave the answer. Forget the reason. Buy some time and clean up your act. Bedevil your own soul with thoughts that transform into destruction (or destructive behavior or worse). Do you wonder of how it might have been? Do you fantasize any number of scenarios? Judge and ye shall be judged. Can you do the unthinkable? The impossible? What should I do? What have I done? These calamitous thoughts travel through the mind. I can’t imagine. Can you?

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of non judgmental organizations across the country facilitating a mother's quest to find their already adopted child. Some of these women have waited until the child had turned 18 or of legal age before records could be unsealed or discovered. Thus the hunt begins and so it shall. Endless letters (now e-mails) as well, phone calls, paperwork and prayers. Allow me to plagiarize a bit from a forum I found with great ease through Google:

"Parents who have given up their children for adoption are welcome on our adoption registry. If you are a birth mother, trying to find adopted children you gave up, we are here to help. We understand that circumstances in a person's life can be difficult, and that as a child's natural mother you may have known the best choice for your child was an adoption. Often a father was not given an opportunity to be involved in the adoption decision, so an adoption registry can be your only option to find adopted children. At iwasadopted.com we help adopted children with finding biological parents and we help biological parents find adopted children. Everyone is welcome!"

But there's more! And behold wishes can still come true. Be careful what you wish for. In the end it could be something a person may have as fuel for more guilt and further self loathing. You may not get my point, but I do for what it’s worth.

Cynthia was in fact Marilyn's long lost daughter. Or at least the daughter she gave birth to. It was just a matter of time before the relationship found its unsuitable closure. If not in one way, in another less caustic and not so surreal, but a sad way nonetheless. At least it was sad for Marilyn's new granddaughter.

Amy's grandmother would come to Houston to visit and see Amy several times and go to her soccer games. Marilyn was having the time of her life. Amy would go to Kansas City and stay with Marilyn and her husband Larry during any given summer. Or she would go stay with them at Thanksgiving in Shreveport where her aunts lived. Amy loved her grandmother and Marilyn adored Amy. My oldest daughter graduated from college in Kansas City one year. As it happened, Larry and Marilyn lived near Kansas City. We all celebrated including Marilyn, Larry and all of us. It seemed for a brief moment as if our family's dysfunctions were alleviated and we were a family in full force with pride and unity.

I couldn't give up either of my daughters and apparently neither could Marilyn. Out of all of those thousands of mothers still looking, hoping and searching, some will find their child and some won't.

Back to Marilyn. Maybe Marilyn wanted to finish school uninterrupted. Perhaps she didn’t have a family as forgiving that would allow a pregnancy outside of a marriage. Maybe she didn't have the acceptance of the father (not Larry. He came later). Or maybe she was young. I'd like to think she was merely human. But she redeemed herself a thousand fold and her endeavor was true to herself. She may not have found the daughter she lost although they laid eyes on each other. But her redemption and strife brought her a granddaughter. As she once put it, “we found Amy”.

I never asked Marilyn what happened or why. I couldn’t just trespass on that softer ground unless invited and I wasn’t. I’m just thankful that Marilyn arrived at some point in our future.

A few years ago Marilyn was diagnosed with cancer. Larry and family members put Marilyn to rest at the age of 60 on Friday August 9th. Amy made the trip at random notice to the funeral and was in attendance amongst her family.

I admire Marilyn not only for what she accomplished, but more so for what she gave. Love.

Vince Gutierrez * August 2008

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