When is your competitor your friend? This is an age old topic that many have pondered, and discovered the value of, from "Michael Corleone" in The Godfather Part II (1974), "My father taught me many things here - he taught me in this room. He taught me - keep your friends close but your enemies closer.", to  the BMW and Mercedes-Benz Alliance of 2009.

As a Loan Officer I understood early on that my job is to close profitable loans and to take business from my competitors.  Those who were naturally aggressive and greedy took this to extremes...perhaps it added to the "sub-prime mortgage melt down".Close loans at any cost any way possible! That was the cry in the wind. We've all seen the YouTube videos and heard the horror stories. Many of the ring leaders are serving time...many more should be.    

To day we live in a new world...most of us (Loan officers) that are still standing are doing what professional lenders have always done. We show up to work in the morning and then we work all day. We return calls and muddle through the problems that come up (problems always come up) until we get it fixed. We care about our clients and try to do the best we can to offer fair terms, fees and rates based on risk and qualifications. Not very glamorous and we probably won't become filthy rich.

That being said...we rarely collaborate with our competition - especially our local competitors. We don't socialize or chat-up each other on social networking sites....much. We mark our territories and growl when approached by those that might take money out of our pockets. Survival of the fittest!

This thought process may be coming to an end for more and more of us. I think our chosen profession is feeling the call to bond together more now than ever before. We need each other. There are some great groups that work to foster alliances, provide continuing education and work to improve our public persona. Here are just a few.

•·     The National Association of Professional Mortgage Women(NAPMW) is a community of professionals who engage in the mortgage/banking industry.

•·     The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is the national association representing the real estate finance industry, an industry that employs more than 280,000 people in virtually every community in the country.

•·     The Real Estate Services Providers Council, Inc. (RESPRO^®) is a national non-profit trade association that unites providers from across the home buying and financing industry towards one common goal: A business and regulatory environment that better enables all of our members to efficiently offer affiliated services through subsidiaries, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships.

So, to sum this up...yes, I think our competitors can be our friends and most of all I think clients (the home buyer) will benefit. I'm actually having lunch with another Loan Officer on Friday who works at a near by bank (Which shall remain nameless..lest I accidental give them some extra publicity). We are going to chat about how we might be able to help each other by sharing program information, passing on referrals for folks who might need a loan program unique to our respective companies, and will be giving each other a "heads up" about local schemes (those participating in short sale fraud) and other unsavory characters in our market. Perhaps being a part of the lending community will help us all. I'll let you know how it goes.  

At your service,

Melissa "The Mortgage Maven" Breeland