Late last week as I sat at my desk working through my day I received an interesting phone call from a client (single mom) who is needing to refinance her mortgage before her rate adjusts. She wasn’t always a client of mine. She had actually called in off the internet last year, but after a long conversation, at that time, we uncovered that she had a prepayment penalty on her mortgage, and shouldn’t refinance her home until this fall. That meant that if we had paid off her mortgage last September she would have had 6 months of interest added to her loan. So we linked back up this month as her prepayment penalty is set to expire.

We have been working together for a week or so to get her loan approval finalized so she can have a nice secure fixed rate mortgage. But late last week she called and I could tell she was upset. She preceded to tell me that she was told by a Countrywide loan officer (who called her after we ordered her payoff), that she wouldn’t be able to get her loan approved. That when her loan got to underwriting it would be denied because of her debt ratios. That the broker she was working with would mislead her.

This was hard to hear coming from a single mom who has placed so much trust in my ability to help her out. As the conversation progressed I reinforced to her about how in my office we actually pre-underwrite the mortgages. Meaning that the mortgage files are ran through the underwriting engines that are used to approve mortgages. Underwriters are actually in place to sign off on compliance conditions to make sure the mortgage will be purchased on the secondary market.

So at the point that the Countrywide loan officer had tried to scare my client, was solely because he didn’t know what he was talking about. First if you read anything on here, you know I am a mortgage banker not a broker. Maybe he isn’t empowered at Countrywide to underwrite files before they are sent to underwriters, maybe he doesn’t know how to calculate debt ratios. Or maybe he wouldn’t take the time to investigate the potential value of her home to make sure the house will appraise for enough to allow her to refinance. Whatever the case, after the client and I talked she felt better knowing that we had an approval for her loan even before the underwriter had the file. At the point underwriter’s review your loan documents, they don’t deny your loans unless you can’t supply the items (referred to as conditions) needed for compliance aspects of mortgages.

Flashing back to my single mom (client) we are only waiting on a supporting document from her, which will be here in the next day or so, and her loan will be scheduled for her to close on the new mortgage.

The moral of the story is to make sure you ask the right questions when interviewing your potential mortgage consultant. Make sure to check out my page The Truth to learn more about what to think and most importantly, what questions to ask when looking for your next mortgage consultant.

Ray Williams

Branch Manager , Summit Denver 2

[email protected] , 303-779-0591 x101