“Mortgage Coach makes me think.” That’s what Tom Griffith of Eugene, Oregon said at the very beginning of this recorded conversation. When he first sat down with the couple he speaks of here, he wasn’t sure how he was going to help them. But he opened up a Total Cost Analysis report and began filling in the fields. He knew that by sticking with the process he had honed over time, the best solution would appear obvious. And it did.
PROBLEM/SOLUTION:
This client was two years post bankruptcy. The husband had been self-employed for 12 months and had not yet earned any income. Then the unthinkable happened — the wife got laid off. Prior to that fateful day, they had received a large inheritance and decided to send $100,000 to their mortgage lender to pay down their principle, expecting their payments to go down automatically. They did not. They called the bank and requested lower payments. The bank refused. Here they were, highly illiquid, no income, no savings and a mortgage payment they couldn’t afford. They had heard Tom’s radio outreach program and decided to call. They didn’t know it then, but their luck was about to turn.
Due to their current credit situation, they had to do a no doc at 9-1/2% with less than 50% LTV to get the deal done. A 9-1/2% percent interest rate sounds illogical today. But in a side by side comparison with a 6-1/2% loan for someone with good credit, the difference over a three year period — at the time when they would be in a better financial position and could refinance again — was only $9,000, or $3,000 a year, and the lower rate would have only gotten them to their freedom point three quarters of a year earlier. Just 9 months! This information was a revelation. At this point, the conversation was no longer about the rate, but focused on what the loan could help them achieve.
In the end, they were able to take some money out of the house, pay off two car loans and a credit card, and put some of the money they gave away back into their own hands. It was the right transaction for them at the current time.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CALL:
- Tom shows you how to uncover a hidden opportunity that most loan officers would have missed;
- He explains the right time to fill out a Total Cost Analysis report;
- He shows how he easily takes the conversation away from rate and toward the freedom point;
- He dollarizes the cost over 36 months to show the benefits; and
- He details his best practices for sending out RateWatch.
Tom is doing well in today’s marketplace because of ideas like this. Other loan officers would have said let’s raise the loan amount and increase their liquidity and would have ended up with an unhappy disgruntled client that really didn’t feel good about their loan amount. Tom came up with a program that worked best for his client and then presented it in a way that they could digest it. Thanks to his creativity, Tom now has a new client and a new strategy in his arsenal of successful best practices.
Click on the player below to listen to the conversation with Tom.
or you can download it here grab the 20Mb file here
Click here to download the accompanying TCA report.
Click here to email Tom with any questions.
I cannot download this conversation or hear it. It goes to the cannot find website.
Posted by: Joan Ogle | September 15, 2008 at 03:57 PM