I recently had to do what so many of us hate doing, maybe more than anything else, in our profession.  I had to tell a friend that I could not help him buy his first home and secure financing for his California home loans.  I've been told a thousand times by a thousand people that you should not help your friends professionally to begin with.  That it's safer to simply refer them to someone you know or work with, rather than deal with the pressures of taking on a friend as a client.  Well, up until today, I thought that way of thinking was just silly.  I've helped several friends buy their first California real estate and/or secure their California refinance.  Most of the transactions, like all of my other clients, went smoothly.  But this friend tested the very limits of my patience and professionalism.

As you continue on in your career, you learn lessons along the way.  How to spot a borrower that you should stay away from, and how to cut your losses when you're fighting an uphill battle.  The challenge for me came when it was a friend that wanted me to fight his fight.  He asked me to please help him through his challenges, and so I did.  As we continued though the process, the rubber finally met the road, and the documentation he was submitting to me, did not support what was coming out of his mouth.  As his documentation revealed different aspects of his situation that he did not disclose to me, he began to have explanations for everything.  The red flags were there, and my experience told me to cut him off.  Whenever you realize a client is lieing to you, you should always walk away.  But I attempted to deliver his explanations to my team and insisted they push forward.  In about a seven day period, I had several people in my office questioning me, and what I was doing.  By continuing to get my friend approved, I was alienating my broker, and my processor, and losing their confidence.  At the end of the day, I did what I knew I would have to do.  But not after I damaged some of the relationships and respect I had built up in my company, all these years.  It simply wasn't worth it.

Friends are a wonderful group of people to help.  But that help must come with a set of standards that have to be adhered to.  Just because someone is a friend, does not mean you should look the other way when they lie, once, or twice.  The feeling in my gut is relief, that it's over.  But the sense of loss and failure, for a person I wanted to help so much, will linger on and will remind me the next time a friend wants help, and starts to lie, that you just have to say "NO."