If you are a mortgage broker or loan officer, how much time do you spend on average on a client's loan that closes (from initial intake to closing)? How much of your time does a typical refinance take versus a purchase loan? One loan officer told me that tasks and paperwork add up to about 3 hours on a typical refinance and 7 on a purchase (excluding time spent by the loan processor). Does that sound about right in your experience?

It all depends on the complexity of the file and how many stips you need to run after AND whether the borrowers cooperate or not. No two loans are EVER alike.

yes. . . every borrower/loan is unique. But there is some mathematical average that surfaces over time.

To simplify, what would the average be if you are not dealing with problem loans (low FICO, lousy credit, documentation problems) and are not dealing with pristine credit (high FICO, full doc, fantastic credit, cooperative) just run-of-the-mill loans.

If an average doesn't come to mind, may I ask, what was the most amount of time you had to work on a loan that finally closed, and what was the least amount of time you had to spend on a loan that closed?

How about this: How much time is spent on loans that DONT close?

Oh Aaron that was a good one! Yes, let's talk about those, shall we? Those loans always make your overall average time spent increase and significantly decrease your ROI!

If you really want us to give you a range, I'd say anywhere between 3 hours and 3 months.

Also someone less experienced may spend more time on the same deal as someone who's been doing this for years. It's all relative really.

Aaron, perfect answer. I cant tell you how many favor deals I get trying to clean up someone elses mess. Those are the worst, and usually end up ticking everybody off. I am actually closing a loan tomorrow that will pay me $46.00. No joke! It has been an absolute nightmare, and the only reason I did it was to do a realtor a favor. Everytime I get done with one of these messes I sware never again, but always end up felling bad for someone.

I litterely had 19 voicemails between 8PM last nigh and 9:15 this morning pertaining to this deal alone.

Its funny how when it comes down to it, the broker ends up eating all the costs when there is a problem. Ever try to get title or escrow to lower their fees in order to make a deal happen?

Nah! I just get to the point where I just want the deal off of my desk so I will do it for free if that is what it takes. Funny thing is you never seem to get to many refferals from these please do us a favor loans.

The top producing loan officers I know just have set rules for deals they will work and deals they wont. These people are always closing loans and rarely put up with BS. I am eventually going to have to cut my heart out of it, and get down to business.

TN, you are such a nice person and sometimes in this business it's a real curse. It takes one to know one I guess There has been plenty of times when I wished I didn't have a conscience just because some people just use you and abuse you and no matter how good of a deal you give them it's just never good enough and they still think that you are out to **** them over. These people, I either a) want to strangle them for questioning my integrity coz God knows I could O.d on it or b) send them to a real shady broker and tell them to come back to me later with flowers and a letter of apologies. Sometimes, you're just left wondering if indeed the good guy always finishes last, for real. So yeah, there has been many times when I wished I wasn't so caring but NOOOOOOOOOO that never happens. I'd like to thank my mom and dad for raising me well and for placing a limit on my greed and income potential!!!! :p Oh I'm mad, can't you tell?

Ok seriously now, I don't deal with BS anymore. It's just not worth the aggravation and that time would be better spent on other borrowers who actually respects and appreciates the value we bring to the table plus the fact that what we promise is what they get. When I get a rate shopper, I tell them about all the factors that go into determining their "true" interest rate, if after that they still ask me to throw a rate at them without letting me take an app, I just tell them I'm not the right loan officer for them and that only deal with educated or wannabe educated people who value expertise, professionalism, and being treated fairly from begining to end.

And that's all I gotta say 'bout that.

alea,

how long have you been in the business?

Going on 5 years. Started on the wholesale side as an assistant for a top producing AE, then learned processing, and underwriting, and then moved to the retail side. Hey Alvin, you''re my neighbor

yea i just started in encino with first magnus/charter/great southwest mortgage

First Magnus has some good investment products. Alvin take a note from the above conversation, and set strict rules of what you limits will be on loans you accept to do. For starters if it doesn't have sticks and Brikcs it's a turn down. In Cali you wil obviously have better loan amounts, but if it was a turned down elsewhere deal beware. Sometimes the best answer for everyone is No sorry I cant do your loan.

thanks. i havent learned the products yet but i was told to start focusing on selling and presentation, then onto essential knowledge.

my main niche is targeting investors so i know theyre already ready, willing, and able to buy. if they have the money and cant qualify for the loan, im willing to put up my corporate credit for a 50/50 equity partnership.

Interesting topic.

As a new loan officer you pretty much try (more like optimistically hope) to close anything!

As already mentioned by some of the guys, every loan is different and has it's own uniqueness. I think what plays a very big part on the time spent on a loan, is what your knowledge of the industry is and most importantly your past experience.

You will probably know how to deal with a specific lender, stipulation or client if you've had experience with it before. So as time goes, the amount you spend on a file is less.

Unfortunately the clients see this as "charging me for 3 hours of work". What they don't realize is that we've spent hours, days, years and a lot of time on files that never went through to be able to do a loan "quickly" so to speak.

Back to numbers now. I probably spend 3-4 hours on a purchase loan not including the time my processor spends on it. Like right now, I have a huge loan with only one lender that can do what I want. So I'm basically triple checking everything to make sure it goes through just fine the first time. The pay out is much higher, so the extra time spent is well worth it.

What most loan officers forget is that our jobs aren't to sit in the office and process loans all day (I'm one of them). Our job is to find clients, qualify them then pass everything on to the processors. Unfortunately in this new era, lots of processors have no idea what they're doing so we do everything anyways :rolleyes: