Getting deals closed is increasingly frustrating. The current dynamic nature of loan programs and guidelines is making everything more difficult. The lightening rod for all of this is often the loan underwriter. I'll admit that more than once I've wondered why something is a problem on a deal where the buyer is putting 30 or 40 percent down.
I've tried to imagine what it must be like to be a loan underwriter now. Rather than incur my wrath, loan underwriters now engender my sympathy and understanding.
Many go to work in a large office with few people. Cubical ghost towns. Friends and coworkers fired in the past year. Are they next? Is their employer is going to make through the next quarter?
They may feel as if they don't know anything anymore. Most of the old loan programs are gone. The new programs change daily. Many of the people they have to deal with think they know everything, but they don't. Keeping up with it all must surely be stressful.
Managers are demanding that they be more productive. Yet, there are more checks and double checks in the process. New audit controls and reviews. Every decision they make is subject to after the fact second guessing. Most are prohibited from exercising any independent judgment.
I'm guessing that lawyers have rewritten some of their process guidelines. Lawyers are hired to save money, not make money. If something doesn't fit in the template we get bizarre instructions such as "You can't show the earnest money on the closing statement." True story.
I expect that whatever little appreciation is expressed for a job well done is lost in the tsunami of protests and complaints about other transactions. "What have you done for me lately?" times ten.
I'm coaching my employees to not get excited about constantly changing instructions and delays. We try to keep the communication lines open. We try to help everyone involved, realtors®, buyers and sellers to understand its part of the process right now.
If your next deal gets delayed in underwriting, don't be mad at the underwriter. They're just trying to live through this mess like the rest of us.
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