Jay Thompson, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy, recently posted a very profound concept on his blog. He gave away the secret to increasing your business if you’re a Realtor. It’s a must read. Of course I say this with a slight smirk – because what he says also applies to mortgage folks as well.
When I speak with Realtors, borrowers, insurance agents and other professionals about what they look for in a mortgage broker one of the first things they say is “someone who responds to phone calls, e-mails and other forms of communicationâ€. Jay has a pretty neat story about how he just got a client because he responded to an e-mail. This profound concept is #2 on Jay’s list of Blog Karma as well.
Aimee and I have actually landed several deals because we were the first lender to call them up when they had been given two or three referrals by their Realtor. And it’s not like we dropped everything we were doing to call these referrals back either. We finished what we were doing, made preparations for taking the application and called them. Sometimes this is within the hour, and I admit there have been times where we go several hours before we call.
During the loan process we call borrowers and realtors anytime a “major†milestone has been cleared. We have this all written down. For example once we receive the appraisal we call all interested parties. Once the loan has received full approval we call all interested parties. You get the point.
You can’t believe how much Realtors appreciate this. Many times Realtors we’ve never worked with before will say that they’ve never received this kind of service before! Wow! And I didn’t invent the fax machine or the Internet (sorry Al Gore, you’re still the man!)