Are you ready to make the life-changing switch to a career as an independent mortgage broker or loan officer? Our team at BeAMortgageBroker.com is here to help you every step of the way.

LEAVING RETAIL AND LEAVING NOTHING ON THE TABLE

Many retail mortgage loan officers don’t realize the benefits of wholesale mortgage lending until they take the time to find out what being an independent mortgage broker really means. Once they do their homework, they soon realize how much better it can be. For Justin, leaving retail lending proved to be a financial gain not only for his business, but also for his borrowers.

CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS

After almost 2 years of success on the retail side of the mortgage industry, Justin caught wind of the advantages in wholesale lending for professionals and borrowers and started looking into a potential move.

“Only at that point was I able to see, OK, my retail company has been kind of feeding me some lies about what exactly the wholesale channel is like,” said Justin.

 Justin also discovered that he could serve more borrowers and offer them more product options with much lower interest rates if he worked as an independent mortgage broker.

 “I was making 120 basis points as a retail LO, which is fine, but I didn't realize that there was 400 basis points packed in on the other side of it.”

 AN EYE-OPENING MOVE

 It was right around Christmas of 2020 that Justin decided he was going to switch from retail to wholesale. A few months later, he got his own mortgage brokerage up and running. Although he was sustaining from refinance loans because of low interest rates at the time, Justin knew that his focus would be purchases.

 “We are a very heavy referral-based team, so we were getting all of our loans from real estate partners, financial planners and certified public accountants,” he said.

 It helped that as a broker Justin now had complete control not just of the vision for his business, but how he put loans together.

“It was really eye-opening when I made that transition. Not having to charge processing fees and I'm able to buy out the underwriting fees, so I could say I have no lender fees,”. “I'm able to be the own architect of my loan and structure my business the way that I want as opposed to being constrained by the box that I was in. It was very liberating.”

 STICKING TO HIS STRENGTHS

 When he first joined the wholesale channel, Justin had a lot of help setting up his mortgage brokerage from the various resources that were readily available to him as an independent mortgage professional. However, he still faced a steep learning curve in terms of originating.

 “I was just in sales (in retail lending) and I was doing a fair amount of loans,” he said. “So, coming over, I had to learn quickly how to process. And I came in with a very big pipeline.”

 His pipeline would eventually triple, so Justin quickly hired a processor. But he didn’t stop there. He hired more processors, loan officer assistants and a marketing team to allow him to stick to his strengths and delegate the other parts of the business.

 “One of my best characteristics is I know what I'm terrible at. So, I have brought in a lot of people that could fill in my weaknesses because I'm good at one thing and that's usually getting loans done”.

  The freedom he’s found as an independent mortgage broker has opened all kinds of doors for Justin, his clients and referral partners. He’s now able to maximize his earnings while helping more people. For a mortgage loan originator, it doesn’t get any better than that.

 “Looking back, it was obviously the best decision I ever made.”