A Faulty Court Decision

Did you see this in today's industry news?

"Standard & Poor's, Moody's Corp. and Fitch Inc. won dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that their ratings of nonprime MBS were faulty and caused five Ohio public employee pension funds to buy into these money-losing investments."

What BULL -  Of course this Judge Should have known Better, those guys were surely at fault for their place in this mess. I hope this gets appealed!

Getting Uglier by the Day

The almost daily revelations in industry news about how sloppy, or non-existent many regulators, and government agencies have been and the degree of 'insider deals' so many of them have been engaged in, shows me the depth of corruption that’s been in our industry at the highest levels for some time. Watching how they blunder around lately only screams out that they’re still doing it! The old-boys network has been that way for far too long, looks like it gonna continue too!

Whatdoyouthink?

Name's Have Been Changed to Protect Privacy

At this point Tom’s one of the survivors, still here even after all this train-wreck the past few years. He worked out of his home/office, did his own processing and had a couple of LO’s that he paid (too much) commissions to (and went in debt big-time - living off his credit cards). He decided to take the ‘affiliate’ road, where he signed up with a large multi-State mortgage banker.  With the back office of their larger organization to help support him, since 99.9999% of what he knew about this industry is/was “selling” borrowers - a typical  Promise Maker. They filed a dba (in both his company and their own name), then they got lender license at Tom’s new commercial office space location. He basically became their branch manager. His ‘house’ overrides which he got, they deposited and bills were paid out of that one. Nearly independent (he kept a separate checking account from the one they had him use to pay overhead), quite a bit of this individual and personal commissions went in that one. That local secret slush fund one he used to continue to pay his LO’s the big gagging commissions they felt they earned (let’s say what they wanted, not necessarily ‘earned’), plus incidentals like copier repair, my small cash weekly fee, etc. He figured they were helping him, cost him nothing, so how could he make them play by the new compensation rules?

For 1 1/2 years, Tom’s had a processor (Muffy) he significantly overpays.  She’s quite detail oriented, knows how to run the office - in fact she does – since he has long lunch hours where they serve adult beverages. She could pound out up to a dozen loans monthly if needed, a real wiz! (I know it's hard to read sarcasm from text, but if you know me, than you know I was LOL as I typed that). 

Tom also has two 25+years on the job LO’s, both of them insist filling out a 1003 from an applicant, and collecting a full credit package is easily worth $10,000 a pop! All due to their Mellifluous Splendor!

So, I come across Tom's ad in the Pennysaver online looking for LO’s, I visit his office and explain (before I know this story) I’ll be happy to come to work for him, interview, hire and train the new LO’s he wants, (re)train his Processor, and do my best to enhance his knowledge in how to operate a going business (how to be a Promise Keeper) … because if all you know is LO stuff (how to be a Promise Maker), you’ll stumble badly when you need to spot problems developing, supervise and train personnel, and basically how to sidestep issues all owners face.

Tom took me on board @ 5 hours a day for three months (the assignment was an easy drive not too far from my home).  After almost month or so, he suggested I could do some of the work at the home computer

Are you in similar shoes yourself And could use a hand? E-mail or call me.

Link to Published Articles

Now that I've closed down my former Company, along with both its' chat board and blog, etc. the general sense of my unique perspective isn't as easy to find on Google. This site: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Peter_Cugno has a list of almost 3 dozen articles I wrote exclusively for them, and have been published across the net the last several years. They reveal my thoughts on a variety of industry subjects. If you had received any one of our 90+ monthly newsletters (The Mortgageland Journal), then you've seen much of them already.

Exactly What a Good Consultant Can do for You!

So You Can Sell - How You Doing Running a Company with Personnel?

After being extensively trained by The Mother Company (my first 13 years in the business), nearly 30 years running my own firm, about 10 years as a mortgage banker/broker consultant, and another seven or 8 operating a mortgage training center – I have come to feel this as being the norm out there. Let’s pretend of a moment, this is me talking to you (and that it applies):

OK, so you were the top notch number one LO everyplace you worked.  You could bob & weave, work out of the trunk of your car, no office, no staff, no commitment other than the one of earning a gagging commission of every loan you touched (you would demand and get commission splits that made others jealous). You were absolutely certain you were the best salesperson that ever worked in the residential real estate mortgage loan industry.

So, just like many promise ‘makers’ before you, your sales brain figured “if I open my own shop, I can earn 10 times the money!” You did that then suddenly you realized nobody taught you any promise ‘keeper’ skills, you picked up a few here and there though. You stumbled time and time again trying to run your own - company, not really knowing where to focus – since your instincts say sell – sell – sell – sell!

I suggest you bring on board to your company, someone with credentials like mine (you can probably find more on Google), that way you won’t get blind-sided like you just might now. With just a short engagement, you could easily save yourself a bundle $$$ and/or totally snatch your firm from the jaws of defeat (if things are that bad). A long time entrepreneur experienced in our industry can spot a lot of things the sales-type brain normally misses. Sorta like how well elected officials do on economic matters when they have little or no practical experience of running a business.