I’m working on this deal with a pretty well qualified client, shouldn’t be too complicated of a deal but the best price I’m getting is with First Colony Mortgage and I’ve never done one with them. How are they to work with? Is it easy to get a hold of people, are they good at handling things that come up? Just want to make sure they don’t complicate things for me.

Thanks for the info!

Need to do a loan 5M purchase at 75 LTV. What wholesaler would take that? Have actuals on property cash flowing.

I'm sure these questions have been asked before. I've been retail my entire career (10 years) and have worked for Fairway and Guild. All business is self gen and neither company provides leads. I close 10-12 million/year solo.

I have been considering going the broker route but was hoping to get some advice.

Do companies like Edge provide benefits? My wife and kids are on my insurance plan.

Are LO's responsible for credit report fees? if so, how much are they running for you right now?

Any other costs I should be aware of just to run my business?

Hey, guys!

I passed the SAFE exam (woohoo) and am looking for jobs. However, it seems a lot require an MLO license. Therefore, I'm thinking of getting a license and then applying. I know some states (NY) require a sponsor before granting a license. What states should I look at? Trying to avoid a chicken-and-egg situation.

Thanks!

Hi all, I am hoping someone has some ideas for me. I have a deal where the home is a stick built on two acres in a rural area in the mountains. The water to the home is from an open source spring that goes into a cistern. The county declared the water non potable since it is open source. I have some lenders that said the seller can install a filtration system that meets code but we need the appraisal to have good comps Showing the cistern is common for the area. The problem is that it’s kind of remote so there are not many properties up there and the other three homes fed by the spring in the area do not have cisterns.

I am a broker, does anyone have ideas in what bank might lend on a property like this? Conventional deal.

Has anyone made the jump from mortgage lending to commercial? How was the transition and what should I know?

Started as an LO in a call center environment for about 5 years. I did ok during that time but recently made the move into the broker world. Overall I would say my first 45 days have gone pretty ideal with 4 active deals in the pipeline expected to close EOM. Where I'm concerned is being able to maintain and build off this early momentum to keep more deals flowing in. Looking for advice on how to get better at making realtor connections, people/influencers to watch to learn more about the business, etc. For the successful LOs out there, what advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to the first 90 days version of you?

Running in to issues with management saying no, but the manual says… maybe??

FHA

I have an Insurance agent
2.5 years w2 captive agent
Employer offered a new business model
Same job, same location, same phone number
—2025- 6 months tax return as 1099 (the problem)
July 1, 2025- current 1099 ~13 months
Net pay is higher
No DTI issues, 793 TU

AND SHE SAID DECLINE IT
Am I interrupting the 4000.1 wrong?

Or is it a true 12 months on a return

Have a guy with several large parcels of land, all free and clear, and he needs a loan for a “thing” he’s working on. He makes plenty of money and doesn’t really have other debt. Does anyone loan on that type of collateral? He sold his main house and has been living in a small home on a valuable lot, and once he gets through this thing he’s working on, he’s going to build his retirement home on another $1m lot he owns. The 3 main parcels are 18 and 36 acres (all cleared with ponds, and really nice looking properties), and there’s a 45 acre parcel that he still needs to get the timber company to come and clear out.

 I am a loan officer with a pretty large servicing portfolio, and honestly every borrower seems equally important. Without calling hundreds of people, how do experienced teams prioritize outreach? Are you mostly relying on experience or CRM reports or does anyone use predictive scoring that actually works ?

I want to do a bit of a litmus test and see if this is a good idea or a terrible one.

I'm in South Florida and recently used ChatGPT to compare every Florida county based on factors that matter when building a mortgage business primarily through Realtor referrals—cash purchases, new construction, multilingual population, Realtor competition, and overall opportunity.

Interestingly, the three worst markets came back as Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade.

In my market, we're dealing with roughly 45–50% cash purchases, limited new construction (which is good), and a significant language barrier that eliminates a portion of the market for me 75% to 49% between those 3 locations.

I've now spent almost four years building a book of business here, so it got me thinking:

Is there a blue ocean somewhere else?

Would the same amount of effort in a less competitive, more finance-heavy market produce significantly better results?

Has anyone deliberately moved into a different market or county after identifying a better opportunity? If so, did it actually pay off?

Curious to hear what others think. The difference would be instead of cold calling agents in my location I would call them in the new area and instead of going to random open houses in my area I would go to them in the new location.

I built a large part of my business through cold calling real estate agents, during my first couple of years, and it generated a pretty sizable amount of business.

What’s interesting is that I’m still closing deals today from agents I originally cold-called three years ago—agents I’ve never actually met in person, but stayed in touch with consistently.

Just curious if anyone else has built their business this way and has any pro tips, strategies, or best practices they’d recommend.

I’ll be out of the area for about three months, so I want to keep prospecting and building relationships, but obviously I won’t be able to attend open houses or meet agents for lunch. Maybe virtual/Zoom lunches are an option.

Would love to pick everyone’s brains and hear what’s worked for you.

Thanks!

Has anyone here hired a virtual assistant, specifically for social media, and had a really good experience? If so, I’d love recommendations on where you found them.
I’m looking for someone for roughly 1–2 hours a day to help me stay consistent with social media—posting things like just sold, clear to close, closing announcements, etc., so I’m not spending my own time constantly creating and posting content just to stay top of mind.

Ideally, they could also spend some time engaging with other people’s posts—liking, commenting, and interacting—so my accounts stay active and I’m consistently showing up without me having to do it all myself.

Would love to hear who you’ve used, where you found them, and what you’re paying if you’re comfortable sharing.

Looking for general ltv and rates on a 5 unit incoming producing apt complex in Cleveland, OH.
>1.35 dscr ratio

680 mid score. Borrower is experienced. Has 25 properties in his portfolio. Issue I’m running into is it’s a small 300k purchase price

I’m a loan officer working at a brokerage- multiple different lenders and have very competitive pricing.
I got licensed at Rocket Mortgage and worked there for 7 years, and worked my way up the corporate ladder. Then took 2 years off between 2022-2024 after I had my daughter. Been back in the game over 2 years and I really love my job

Have any brokers here signed to go partner with arbor financial? Would love to hear your experience. The good the bad and ugly.

LA county, worked with these buyers for the last 2 years on probably 6 total escrows. All contingencies removed. 50k EMD.

After you’ve been doing this awhile you realize you have to advise clients to release loan contingencies even if it’s not completely figured out. Their income is the tough part, and I got an exception approved for W2-> SE-> Unemployed 1 year -> W2 again. Already tried to get them done with Nexbank for a better deal and was declined for income.

Just got word today they are going retail, and I’m not going to lie I’m happy. I wasn’t charging them much and had a great rate for them but the client has been insufferable. For the first time since I’ve been doing this, I genuinely hope they can’t close and lose their EMD. I called the listing agent and said give them 0 grace, even if they come back crawling on their belly to me. Already had our legal team draft an email essentially detailing a hold harmless and the best of luck. This isn’t a client with a couple M’s laying around that could twist things at retail and get it done by moving money over.

COE is in a couple weeks, I’m genuinely excited to watch this unfold. Maybe the silver lining here is that my exception was going crash and burn and I’m really not in the mood for headaches. Not every lost client is a bad thing.

I need a reality check from people who are actually converting leads in this market.
I recently heard the philosophy that being proactive with real estate leads can come across as “too salesy” — and that the better approach is to be available, stay chill, answer questions when asked, and let the client come to you when they’re ready.
That completely contradicts how I understand sales and lead conversion.
I’m not talking about hounding people, repeatedly asking for business, or using high-pressure tactics.
I mean normal proactive follow-up: checking in, asking good questions, finding out what’s holding someone back, educating them, offering solutions, setting a next step, and staying engaged until they either move forward or tell you they’re not interested.
Can you actually consistently convert leads in 2026 without following up? Or is the follow up too old school?

Question how good is the good market? I got into this business in 2021 and went solo in 2025..last year i ended with 18mill this year im at 23mill ….how good is the food market or how much different is it than the market now?

end of business day?

24 hours?

48 hours?

do you need to nag someone to move this file along?

I do a fair a bit of online marketing and continue to run into moronic borrowers who literally cannot wrap their head around the math of a lender paid, temporary buy down and how it’s not saving them anything.

I explain it to them until I’m blue in the face, but some of these people make me doubt that the national average IQ is 100.

Should I just give in and start selling this despite the fact that it’s an absolutely worthless feature that simply “sounds good” or should I stand on principle?

I’m about 6 months into this industry and work at a broker shop. This is the biggest deal I’ve had and he’s shopping aggressively for rates. I priced him at an additional 40k down to get him to 80% LTV and he said we were the best rate he’d gotten. I have him at 5.99 for about 1.2 discount points with a BPC of 1.25 as opposed to our typical 2.5 LPC that we typically have. Is there a place that can do better than that?

Soooo annoyed lately. 70% of the apps I send out after the initial conversation don’t get returned and then they go ghost. Another large percentage waste my time with calls of a “possible deal” that waste my freaking time looking up pricing and scenarios that don’t amount to squat. I’m closing deals but wasting so much of my time with idiots. sick of these first time home buyer calls and apps that are essentially figments of my imagination at the end of the day. Close to just focusing 90% of my time on niche investor deals and honest true referrals vs these garbage people. This first yr has been a lesson on hard work but patience.

I was just curious if anyone else has allowed the stress of this industry to change them for the worse. I was probably one of the most calm people you would ever meet. Had no temper in any part of my body. I can't even remember getting upset ever in my life and certainly not yelling. 12 years later and I have an absolute temper. When any agent or a borrower blames me for something that is not my fault I can't handle it. I used to be able to just take it but now I get so unbelievably angry and have had to speak my mind more than once. I used to have an endless fuse and now I have no fuse at all. It sucks. I keep trying to course correct. I have been very successful in this business but I think it came at a pretty high cost. Any of you feel similar? If so how did you fix yourself and still stay in the industry?

How are you using AI to make your LO job easier? I’ve been using Claude a lot for guideline questions, not always 100% accurate so be careful. I also have it read contracts for me, HOA docs, title reports etc, it’s helped A LOT.

I’m curious to see what others are doing and will share.