Linda Fleischmann - How to Have a Stress Free Mortgage: Insider Tips From a Certified Mortgage Broker to Help Save You Time, Money, and Frustration

I am passionate about writing a book about mortgages, because I love what I do. I have been in the financial industry for nearly twenty-five years, but I was not always involved in just the mortgage business. Although I thought loans were fascinating, I was on the sidelines for the first half of my career. You may be asking, why am I qualified to give advice, and why did I write this book? Here is my story.

I began my thirteen year career at a bank, as a part-time teller while going to college. Starting at the bottom, I kept moving up the ladder, and seven years later I became a branch manager. Throughout this time, one of the bank's main goals was to expand its lending operations. As the branch manager, I was responsible for both consumer lending, such as car loans, home equity loans, and residential lending or mortgages, and I learned a lot about this area. I was personally responsible for home equity loans and lines of credit. By doing this, I had to master the bank policy concerning lending guidelines, which included calculating debt ratios. The corporate office, however, was responsible for approving and finalizing the loan.

Eventually, the bank where I worked went through a merger. It was brutal, but I stayed with it and held my position at the top of the company. However, a few years later when the bank began another merger, I decided it was time to start looking for another job.

At that point, I had been in banking since college and was in the thirteenth year of my career in the field. But, I still wasn't sure about what I wanted to do. I had an opportunity to get into mortgage loans by starting a retail branch for a mortgage company. My job was to get the loans that other banks might decline, because the mortgage company I joined was in the subprime business. That was the first time I ever heard the word subprime. Subprime means, that the company closed loans for people who had poor credit or couldn't prove their income. While I was certainly up for the challenge, I really did not have the extensive knowledge I needed about the mortgage industry. My early days in this field represented a trial by fire. I still refer to this part of my training as figure it out as you go!

I started my job with the mortgage company at a time when the subprime industry was going through its first set of trials and tribulations. Indeed, right when I started in August, 1998, the company started closing down departments right and left. When the call center closed along with other departments, the floor of the building where I worked kept getting less and less crowded.

Finally, after only three and a half months of learning the subprime mortgage lending business, I had a terrible shock.

Imagine this scenario: During Thanksgiving week, the company had been closed on Thursday and Friday. However, as I drove into the garage on my way to work on Monday morning, my parking pass wouldn't let me enter. At first I was not overly concerned about this as I could get in by using the manual override button. From there, I proceeded into the parking garage office to ask why my card was not working. The attendant couldn't find my information on the computer, so he walked over to a wire rack and began looking through a bunch of papers. As he continued rifling through the stack, I began to get more and more nervous. I remembered seeing so many people laid off in the past months. I began to hope this was just a misunderstanding about parking arrangements. But, sure enough, the man came back with a piece of a paper and said, Linda Fleischmann? After I responded, he said flatly, This says you've been terminated.

WHAT? Seriously? This is how I find out that I've been laid off?

Wow, I thought that sort of thing only happened in the movies. I went straight in to talk to my boss. He also told me flatly that, yes, the company had laid off my entire department, and quite frankly, he was not very nice about it. Apparently, this sort of incident was par for the course in the mortgage industry at the time. When I went to deliver the news in person to my staff members, who were all still working, they had no idea what had just happened. After that, we all packed up and left for good.

Well, what can I say? I wasn't completely surprised, except for the ridiculous way I found out about the layoff.

So, there I was, completely out of a job for the first time since I was sixteen years old. After spending some time trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I came to the realization that I really do love arranging loans! More importantly, I figured out that I could do this business on my own by opening my own mortgage company. So, I talked with my assistant who had come with me from the bank to the mortgage company and who was also out of work, and we started a brand new mortgage company.

Although we began working in a small office in my home, we moved into a 700 square-foot office space after only one month. About a year later, we moved into another office with double the space. When I started my company, I focused on a few philosophies that I felt were critical for any business. The most important being, we take care of the customers, just as I had always done as a branch manager, making sure they always got the best deal. I also made sure clients understood the loans they were getting and that when they went into escrow, they would never be surprised by the closing statements. In particular, we ensured that our clients would always know in advance their loan terms, costs and fees, and I would communicate with them throughout the loan process. Quite honestly, I didn't know any other way to do business. Our slogan was Loans Made Simple, because these were, and still are, the main goals of our company. We focus on making even the most complicated financial transaction as simple for the client as possible.

Like any other business, there was a lot to learn. Indeed, each loan is a learning experience in itself! Believe me when I tell you that I have learned a lot in the eleven years that I have been closing loans. One thing about the mortgage industry that is different from any other profession is that no two loans are ever completely the same. Each client has his or her unique experiences and stories. Also, each lender has its own individual guidelines. Finally, every mortgage loan I handle is very different from the previous one. There is no template, just experience. Even today, I still come upon unique scenarios. For me, that has been the interesting part about this business. I like the challenge that this industry brings in solving the problems that invariably arise in the course of working on every loan. Problem solving is an integral part of the process. If I do my job correctly, most of the time a client will not even know that there was a problem, unless of course, it stops the loan from closing. But, I figure out how to work out most of the problems that arise along the way, and that's what I love most about my work.