Do you have the tools necessary to be a loan officer? Maybe. Maybe not. The fact is there are not any ‘‘core’’ requirements to be a loan officer. There are, however, certain characteristics that will certainly help you succeed in this career.
You Are Responsible Enough To Be Your Own Boss
This is probably the hardest component for a lot of people. Some need to have an eight-to-five job—they simply need to have structure that is sometimes attained only through a time clock.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but some people in their work lives need to be told what to do. They perform better when someone else sets the objectives and goals for the day.
As a loan officer who gets paid primarily on commission, you will determine your own success or failure. You have to be a self-starter and be able to stay on top of all aspects of your job.
Many loan officers starting out are fortunate enough to have bosses who help steer their career paths in the right direction. Still other lenders simply say to the loan officer newbie, ‘‘Okay, we’re going to pay you a big commission to bring in these deals, but you have to bring them in!’’
Being your own boss means that, whether you’re self-employed or not, you must have the ability to establish and follow a marketing plan as well as adapt easily to the constant changes in business climates that directly affect your plan. Knowing these changes will occur will make them easier to accept.
You Are Comfortable Crunching Numbers
You don’t need to be able to do calculus, but you do need to understand numbers. Mortgage loans don’t involve quantum theory, but you must be able to comfortably add up numbers, divide that number by another number or two, and be able to use a financial calculator.
When I was in school, math was never my best subject. I was definitely a ‘‘right brain’’ guy who could handle the abstract and present it in a coherent way, but often certain calculations would leave me dry. I didn’t necessarily struggle with math, but it was definitely harder to execute than, say, writing or giving speeches.
Before I entered the mortgage field, I had a good friend who owned a mortgage company. I would go over to his house and see him work off a funny calculator that had a bunch of odd, numbered keys on it. This funny calculator was the famed Hewlett-Packard 12C, or HP12C, as it’s known in the financial world.
A regular hand-held calculator would let you type in ‘‘12 _ 10 _ 22’’ or some simple process. A 12C financial calculator would give you an unintelligible answer when you tried to enter in the very same 12 _ 10 sequence. It was weird.
After I became a loan officer, I used the 12C every day, all day. And now, I honestly find it difficult to use any ‘‘normal’’ calculator. It frustrates me. My 10-year-old son can use one with ease, but I can’t seem to make it work and I usually throw it aside.
Although I talk about the 12C, it is certainly not the only financial calculator on the market. The point here is you need to be able to comfortably work with a handheld financial calculator. There are a variety of online calculators and even some you can run on your computer, but be wary. You will need to be able to figure payments by yourself, without the aid of a computer.
Whether you need to accomplish that feat often is not as important as knowing how to do it. You will, someday, need to calculate payments. You will, some day, impress your potential client when he or she sees that you know how to figure payments with a calculator and not rely on a computer or website. It makes them think you’re a financial genius. And like me, who was math-challenged, that’s a big plus.
You Are Capable of Explaining Things
The mortgage business has so many foreign terms that most consumers never run across them until they buy a house. And even if someone buys three or four houses in his lifetime, he still might not get the lingo down.
It’s your responsibility as a loan officer to explain the entire mortgage process in language borrowers understand. Mortgages aren’t nec- essarily complex, it’s just that the language inherent in the process can make them so.
If you’re able to explain things, you won’t get your feathers ruffled when someone asks a question or gets frustrated with you when she’s hit with a bunch of numbers that don’t quite mean much. Your customers will be happy and will refer you to their friends.
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