Sorry if this is really long - I am just learning about blogging.

It means that I am trying to do more than save homes.  And with the advent of the FHASecure program, something I have been praying for since I first heard about the gist of the program about 6 months ago, I can actually help people that were beyond my scope a few months ago. And best of all it gives me a chance to tell people how God led me here. 

I am one of those loan officers we all revile now - I worked for an Ameriquest office.  I hounded people into placing their most important asset into adjustable rate mortgages and made amazing money doing it.  I justified it by telling myself that it made sense, I was getting them good rates, the market was sound, there was virtually no risk.  Whatever!  One day, I made a choice and that led to my leaving there, I was really upset at the time, but now I know that it was meant to be.

The reality was that I had been a glorified telemarketer and I had a lot to learn.  I learned, boy did I. I slowly built a small following of clients who referred business to me.  But you can only do so much for people who don't want to improve their situation. So that pool was rapidly drying up, so I struggled to create a client base.  Then the brokers I was working for switched pay scales, quit paying, added charges and I finally got fed up with trying to close loans with people who were more concerned with how many points I could stack than whether I was doing the right thing.  I learned to be cynical and became unconcerned with my clients welfare.  I am not proud of that, but truth is truth. and I really thought about walking away from mortgage altogether.

Then I had an opportunity to come back to a church family and I discovered that I no longer cared about how much money I could make, but how much of a difference I could make in someone's life.  I wanted to offer something to God, but what? I am not the type of person who sings in a choir - I spare the world that pain.  I am not the type of person who can teach about religion, nor do I really want to.  But after much praying I came to realize that I did have something to offer the world (or at least my corner of it), the ability to teach people how to understand the mortgage process. 

I am preaching to the choir when I say that unregulated states provide a place for LO's to play havoc with our industry.  In Michigan as an LO, I don't have to be licensed or educated about mortgage, I just need a pulse.  I talk to people every day who tell me about the nasty mortgage deal they got, that they didn't understand what they signed; the notary from the title company skimmed through everything, the LO told them one thing and they got another. You know the list.  Now the federal government is going to step in and force us to do what we should have done all along, teach and explain to people so that they understand, really understand, what they are getting.

I decided to get ahead of the curve and started the Ministry.  We offer workshops at churches (or wherever), we will teach anyone who wants to know the ins and outs of understanding their cash flow and what they can really afford in terms of net capacity and how to calculate gross capacity.  We teach people how to read their credit reports so they can understand that they really may not be a sub prime borrower. We teach people about the different programs that are available to them like FHA and My Community. And we teach them how to understand why that appraisal last year said their house was worth 150K when today it is worth only 100k! 

I will do this for realtors, mortgage offices who want a really solid system to train their LO's with or anyone who wants to understand.

And with every client, I hope to testify as to how God changed my life and how I do business today.  It is a good thing to be able to sleep each night knowing I am doing business the way I was meant to.  I may not make as much money, but I sure do see things differently!

God Bless You, check out our other Blog at www.faithsavesus.blog.com