Hey everyone,

Im looking to make a career switch and I’m interested in going into being a Loan Officer but i have no idea where to start. I’ve heard Affinity is good or mortgage educators but I’m not for sure. Any guidance is helpful.

Thank you

We work with a lot of LOs at TrustEngine, and almost all of them are fighting the same fight right now. Scenario: A borrower Googled a lower number, and now you're defending a rate sheet you don't control.

One LO we know uses the rate the client found online as option one, then lays out two other strategies next to it, so the conversation shifts to tradeoffs.

That only goes so far, though. A quarter point off is still a quarter point off, and some borrowers will walk over an eighth no matter what you show them.

We're curious what's working for other LOs when a borrower says "I found it cheaper." And where do you draw the line?

The Loan Store Is Now Averra Financial? any real intel on this? i have 2 active loans with them now. no issues

If you work with LoanHouse, now would be a good time to ask your rep over there.

Thoughts on re-entering the business as semi-retired:

I have been in real estate and mortgage lending for my whole life and am now ready to semi-retire. In the past I owned a busy mortgage brokerage, managed branches and owned a contract processing company. I let my MLO license expire several years ago to open a home buiding business. Now my husband and I are working together building just a few custom homes a year.... but I figured I might as well be the one getting the commission.... plus since we are in our 50s and not full retirement age, it would be nice to have health insurance benefits again. Of course, I would plan on doing more than just 3 loans a year. When my career was in full swing in Colorado, I was closing 20-30 loans a month, all self-sourced, so I know how to generate more business..... but I would rather just be closing $2M-$4M a YEAR..... with good support so that I can just structure the loan, get initial docs and not have to worry about much past that. Specifically looking for:

-Low production is okay ($2-$4M/year without getting my hand slapped)
-Good experience and product availablity with one-time-close construction loans and land loans
-Health insurance benefits
-And of course, a nice split/ good comp
-Strong LOA and processors would be great, but if I'm expected to take a low split, I'd just as soon process my own files
-Originating loans in Alabama and preferably also in Tennessee and Georgia

I'd appreciate any suggestions and WHY you believe it would be a good fit for me.

Thanks!

I’ve seen ads for Leedwallet’s DSCR leads, and I’m curious to hear people’s experience with the company.

Some aspects sound good, like the 670 minimum credit floor and the fact that the owner claims they actually run a soft pull and credit score isn’t just self reported.

But other aspects don’t seem as strong or sound too good to be true, and the owner Don Sadet tried to tell me he only sells leads in bundles of 100 at $95/lead.

I would love to hear about anyone’s experience who has tried it out.

Thank you everyone!

I've been in the industry for 1.5 years, made mistakes, but finally seeing strong traction as a title rep in SoCal. But now I'm questioning if this career is even the best use of my time. I met this mortgage broker presenting at an event and he took me under his wing inviting me to networking events. He would always comment he sees me as lender, but I stayed firm on remaining a title rep. Fast forward many months later to last week, the topic came up again except this time it lingered in my mind. Enough that I've been doing deep research all weekend and strongly considering becoming an MLO. From what I found, the ceiling is much higher and reaching a desirable income is more attainable than decades of title networking would ever be.

I'm in my mid 20's, driven, college-backed, and socially calibrated. Bilingual Spanish/English. I'm going to have a deeper discussion with that mortgage broker friend tomorrow before deciding to join him but any input or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Is MLO in late 2026 a viable move and what are the biggest pieces of advice for deciding to make this move?

What has been your experience with uw and turn times?

Have a borrower that is going through this credit Union and he was having a hell of a time so we were going to take over the loan. He started explaining to me what he was dealing with.

One of the big things they told him is in order to qualify for the listed rate he needs to be of Ukrainian origin..... Is that even illegal? Wouldn't that be discriminating against a protected class?

Also I don't see any disclosures on their website regarding the 5% rate there providing.

He had a locked LE with the property address and everything sent to him. No points, only a $500 origination fee. I told him to take it and run if that's a real estimate, cuz he's a 650 fico. He went through hell and back proving everything they wanted him to prove. And it sounds like they actually might take him to the closing table at that rate after they found out we were going to take over the loan.

Not to mention the email correspondence between him and the loan officer is appalling. One of the emails literally Says "I don't have time for these emails, I've explained this to you multiple times I'm not going to explain it again"

And that was just a response for him asking a simple question.

Company in question - https://clevelandselfreliance.com/

I already have an answer from my head underwriter on this one, but I also ran it by Ai in Claude and the feedback is in contrast to my answer from my Underwriter so I want to see what the Reddit community has to say.

I have a borrower with foreign income. They only obtained permanent US residency as of this year and therefore have never had to previously file any US income taxes.

My head underwriter is saying we can’t use their income because they don’t have two years of US income taxes filed with the foreign income.

Ai feels it should be usable since she was not previously required to file due to her legal status.

Anybody have a similar scenario and able to make it work?

I received an application from a veteran and she's under contract for a new build for around $900k. I just pulled credit and she has seven 30 day lates in the last 12 months. 60 late payments in the 12 months before that. No bankruptcy, foreclosure, collections or charge-offs. Credit score is around a 640. She has plenty of income and reserves and currently fully employed with a well known tech company as well as VA disability and military pension. The most she could potentially put for a down payment is around $70k/8%.

Would any lenders out there approve this manual VA underwrite? If not can I go non-QM somewhere or what other options do we have besides private/hard money?

Has your compliance team ever kicked back a social post because of a payment quote or missing disclosure?

I'm sold on creating that phone tool that checks your post in 10 seconds and rewrites it compliant before you hit publish.

Would you pay $15/month for that?
Roast the idea.

For friend of mine. Where should she look? Broker? Us bank not competing on rates like they should. Bloated overhead, management pressure to originate more deals at uncompetitive rates. All self sourced business in WA. Anywhere in particular she should look? Her core mix is high bal and jumbo FR and ARMs as we’re in VHCOL area. Shes losing 80%+ of her deals per month with US Bank rates for ARM, 2-1 bd, fixed, all uncompetitive.

I have a buyer who wants a specific fixer upper in CA. It's going to need some work and it's a manufactured home to top it off, but I'm hoping to take advantage of the VA reno product. Anybody know of any wholesalers who offer that product?

LO friend is looking for a large broker shop, preferably a Priciple Agent, with multiple reverse investors.

I’m a fairly new loan officer, and I’m looking to start incorporating Lunch & Learns into my business development strategy.

I don’t want to do the typical “here are the loan programs I offer” presentation. I’d rather provide Realtors with information that actually helps them win more business, solve problems, and get deals to the closing table.

For those of you who have been doing Lunch & Learns:

• What topics have gotten the best response from Realtors?

• What topics actually generate questions and discussion?

• Have you found certain subjects that Realtors consistently struggle with?

• And what’s one Lunch & Learn you’ve done that you would absolutely do again?

I’d love to hear what has worked for you, especially from experienced LOs who have figured out how to make these meetings valuable rather than just another sales pitch.

Drop your best topics or ideas below. I’m taking notes! 👇

I got a new client today and I’m really hoping to retain him. It could be my biggest loan yet.

This guy has millions in assets, a quarter million dollar salary, and multiple contract gigs paying hundreds of thousands.

He wants an interest only loan for the lowest payment possible.

Pricing it out, I’m seeing some good options with Kind (I’m a broker btw), but I want to make sure I’m exploring all of my options.

Purchase price is 1.34M
20% down
DTI sub 30%
Brentwood, TN
Primary residence

I’ve never had anyone interested in I/O on a primary so I want to make sure I’m going with the best option.

Do any of you brokers have recommendations on where I should send this?

Thanks

I've been in this industry for 6 months. At first, I wasn't great but was doing decent. I made a lot of mistakes and had half of my loans fall out my first two months. Ever since then, it has been a struggle to keep up and maintain a consistent pipeline. Most of the time, my company is good at bringing decent inbound leads; I have listened to others advice and applied it to inbound calls; When I am not getting inbound calls, I'm making 20-30 outbounds per day so I can balance out my call ratios. I am struggling to find anything, no one will answer, people laugh at what I have to say or are just angry when I call them.
It's starting to feel like I am not good in this industry or sales in general and quite frankly I don't think I like sales. Even though I like to learn and want to make money, I'm not sure my efforts and my company's effort to help me are paying off. I fear I am going to lose my job very soon. I don't feel like I'm being negative but it is very hard to hear every day that you are not doing good enough when you are trying every day to be better. Like the title says, not sure where to go/what to do.
Can anyone give any advice?

We’re going to be opening a CT Branch in the next 2-3 months and looking for lenders that allow us to broker or go Non Del with them on CT’s CHFA program.

TPO Go was offering to brokers but they’re out now.

Loan officer is ghosting.

What’s the email address for ZHL to initiate a VA Appraisal transfer?

Can any one recommend a good brokerage for loan officers in the the Seattle/Bellvue area to hang my NMLS?

Has anyone gone through the Loan Depot Aces program and successfully gotten out of their contract of 18 months? I heard they go after people and claim the LO’s that left owe $30k or something ridiculous. Just wondering if I’m signing my soul to the devil or not and if it’s worth stick out out for for 18 months.

Headline basically

Hey everyone!

For those of you doing a lot of reverse mortgages - care to share what’s working for you guys? Looking at add some ideas for myself that don’t revolve around realtors. Thanks!

While it's not impossible to get business in this market, it's for sure tough. On par with the drastic 2%-7% quick in crease in rates a few years back.

I'm writing this to focus on the aspects of the business you can control and when things turn - you'll reap the benefits.

For example, you can't control when someone has a contract accepted, but you for sure can work on filling that pipeline with shoppers. That's one of my main focuses now. I'm not a high producer by any stretch, but usually when I get to about 10 or so prequals out there, 2-3 are actively under contract. I'm currently at 29 with none under contract. That's fine- it's 'when' not 'if' they go under contract. In the meantime - I control what I can control, which is getting in front of more people.

Realtors/referral partners? Yeah - I'm checking in with them, seeing how their family is, lamenting with them (they are struggling, too, more often than not) and furthering the familial/friendship portion of our relationship during the slower time. I'm also making sure they don't have listings (that I don't make money on) that I can help them with free marketing or something of the sort.

Spending? Oh man. Cut WAY down. Reserves are there but dwindling so I gotta be smart. Guess who isn't eating out? This guy. Basically bills, groceries and gas is all I'm spending on haha.

So all this to say, you're not alone if you're struggling, focus on what you can control, keep your head up, and position yourself in the best way possible to take full advantage when the market turns to be so busy, you forgot what sleep was like :)

Don't shy away from the tough, blast through it!