Ready or not, it's here.  The New Year, the New Millennium (not so new now) and the newest waves of change in the Mortgage Industry are here today with even more changes right around the corner.

As I look around my office day after day, I see experienced mortgage professionals struggling to adapt to the almost overwhelming number of changes that have occured in the last two years. Trapped in the rut of "the old days", many loan professionals waited for things to "come back" while filling their hours complaining around the water cooler about how tough things have gotten, or regaling younger loan originators with now-outdated pearls of wisdom about how to be successful in our industry.

And day after day I watch the anxiety level rise in this same group of professionals as their well-ordered ideas about how things should be continues to erode. Because our industry will never be the same again! Thank goodness for that. Changes were badly needed and the time for them is upon us. Yes, it's tough to keep a level head when every loan program seems to have changed (or so it seems), yes, it's unnerving to watch the number of transactions dwindle as consumers withdraw from a market they don't understand, and yes it's infuriating to lose a transaction to a competing lender, suddenly aggressive with marketing, who prospected your client right out from under your nose!

Yet nothing has changed at all. There are still many consumers who wish to sell their properties right now, regardless of market conditions. There are many more consumers who have very good reasons to refinance. Their family finances took no notice at all of the crazy mortgage market. They still need to consolidate debt, add on to their house or adjust for the expense of a looming college tuition bill. More than ever, clients need us to walk them through the confusing process of mortgage financing. They want, more now than ever before, to be able to trust us. They need, even more than in the past, educated reassurance that they are not making a financial misstep. They demand (and have every right to) that we diligently stay on top of all the changes that are happening in this market that may pose financial danger to their families. Will you be there for them? Or will you be distracted by "the good old days"? Your clients are hoping for the former, not the latter.

During this same tumultuous time, I have had the pleasure of coaching/mentoring two young loan officers, fresh in our industry. Both 24 years old with no real previous experience. They came into the game with boundless enthusiasm, barrels full of energy, an endless supply of "old guy" jokes (since when was I old?) and a foam football. They were treated with courtesy but not taken with any seriousness by our more experienced staff. Comments like "What will they do when they run out of family members to refinance?", were common. But these two young men brought three things to the game that have proven the nay-sayers wrong so far. They brought enthusiasm, they brought energy and they brought NO visions of the "good old days". They are doing quite well in a market that the pros still lament daily as "tougher than I've ever seen it". The foam football enjoys plenty of air time in their office, much to the annoyance of several older loan officers.

Our two newest loan professionals happily and naturally do what many of us have forgotten to do. The talk to their friends, they talk to their families, the talk all the time about their exciting new career! They send letters and email. They take people to lunch. They meet people in their living rooms at 7:00 PM, when it's convenient for the client! They simply have no time to hover around the coffee pot trading horror stories, they are too busy. Their supply of family members was exhausted in the first 45 days. Yet yesterday, when I counted, there were 17 working files between them! Hmmmm...makes you think doesn't it?

I'm enjoying the contrast between the old and the new. The difference is nothing more complicated than attitude. When you are new in the industry, there is nothing to look backwards at. You have no history (or should I say baggage) to distract you. Everything is fascinating. Challenges are not annoying, they are exciting! Market changes don't freak you out when you are new, they are interesting curiousities. Two floor calls for the day is not a bad day, it's two fresh prospects! And rather than hearing "I got killed on this deal at the last moment", I hear "Hey Mark, I closed another one today! And I am meeting with my client's mother (or sister or uncle or friend) tonight to talk about a refinance". Who do you suppose the clients find more enjoyable to work with? The anxious, gray-haired fellow irritated about the last-minute underwriting condition, or the smiling, energetic newbie who calls to say "I need just one more thing for the lender, we're almost ready to close your deal".  

Don't get me wrong, it's not all rosy in the "Juniors'" office. They are dealing with the same upsetting issues as the old pro down the hall. They have Account Execs who don't know their own program guidelines, unreasonable underwriting conditions in the eleventh hour and documentation the AE said would be fine, but the underwriter decided was not acceptable after 6 days in underwriting. They have had the $150,000 surprise on a title report. They have their fair share of low appraisal values. Sounds like a normal loan originator's office doesn't it? It is a normal office, the Juniors just don't "get it". Or do they?

Business is out there. Clients are looking for mortgages. Everything is new, yet nothing has changed. Is it exciting, or is it unnerving? You get to decide! For me, I prefer the enthusiasm I find in the "Juniors" office.

Would someone send me a foam football for my office?