My buyer and I just got off the "pass the buck" meri-go-round with his prospective lender, USAA. Unfortunately, his closing date was Wednesday and after multiple extensions of his financing contingency, the bank came back the day after the initial closing and said "SORRY, NO GO!" So all the time we wasted trying to get a loan with USAA was just a waste of time.
In traditional financing, a loan officer is the person that essentially works or at least oversees your process of getting a loan. They are with you from start to finish and they TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for your process. In more recent years, with call centers and internet, a new business model seems to have evolved that I will outline below. If everything works out, it is a decent system, but it lacks the overall oversight and seems to place people that don't have adequate training or experience handling loans.
From my observation over the past few years, here is the "NEW MODEL" for large scale lending operations.
1. Fast Talker--this is the replacement for the traditional loan officer. They discuss rates and services and then are never again included in the discussion. They make it very clear after a buyer makes the commitment that the person they are working with is the #2 person on the list.
2. The Processor. This is the person that splits the duty with the fast talker. In traditional lending, the processor has always been involved, and is a big part of the lending team, but in the new model, they are responsible for the whole process with little or no oversight. At our experience at USAA, the processor didn't read the contract to determine any timelines and never had a sense of urgency about anything.
3. The Hand Holder. The compassionate one; this role only gets involved if there is a problem and the buyer or agent asks for a supervisor. Of course, you don't talk to the manager, but you get the hand holder. The hand holder really cares but like the processor, can not change the process or do anything. They normally may do better in explaining details so you understand why you aren't getting your needs met.
4. The Manager. The manager is too busy managing to get involved with transaction. At USAA, we speculated that this is an intellectual mastermind of the system that spent the day playing video solitaire, although this was never confirmed. Messages were never returned by the Manager for days, but the hand holder was summoned. The ONLY way to communicate with the Manager we found was to fax and email an aggressively worded letter directly to the President or Vice-President.
My experience at USAA over the past two weeks was similar to dealing with Quicken Loans (aka Rock Financial) and Bank of America. The problem we experienced at all lenders was that items that should have been resolved in the very beginning were allowed to be pushed off until a few days before closing. leaving my client in the lurch when the finally figured out that they could not lend on that building.
The traditional banking model where a loan officer is utilized is where I still think all buyer's should focus. Big banks may be able to compete in the interest rate arena, but in service, both before and after the deal closes, they are embarrased by the banks that allow true professionals to work with the buyer.
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