Lenders Want Referrals From Agents
Real estate professionals get a steady stream of various kinds of communication from lenders who would like to have buyers referred to them. Lenders, here is how you can get referrals from me.
I Refer The Best Lenders I Know
I know a few outstanding lenders, and I refer buyers to them. Different buyers have different needs, and I refer each of them to the lender(s) that I believe will best serve each buyer's unique needs and interests. I base my referrals on what I know from actually working with specific lenders on my clients' transactions, and the feedback I request and get from my clients regarding their satisfaction with the lenders they work with. I refer to the best lenders I know.
How To Earn My Referrals
The lenders I already refer earned their way into my select referral list, and they continue to earn their inclusion every time they serve my clients' interests well. Here are the things that a lender can do to earn a spot in my referral list:
1. Work with a buyer in a transaction where I represent either the buyer or the seller. I learn more if the lender and I are both working with the same client, but I still learn a lot about the lender that works with a buyer in a transaction where I represent the seller.
2. Be available within reasonable response time when I need to talk to you. This is sometimes after hours or on weekends, especially at the beginning of my relationship with a buyer and/or when they decide to make an offer.
3. Be thorough in qualifying the buyer, and honest with your advice and promotion of your loan products. This includes being able to communicate in depth about what is driving interest rates in the current economy, and what the potential current an future risks are with respect to mortgages, to buyers with varying degrees of interest in details and depth.
4. Communicate frequently, both proactively and responsively, throughout the duration of our mutual involvement with the buyer and/or the buyer's transaction.
5. Work proactively, promptly and diligently through all steps of the process up to and including an on-time closing with no surprises.
These steps, done exceptionally well, will put a lender on my radar. It is surprising to me how many lenders do not make this cut, or even come close. That tells me that there are likely many, many real estate professionals with room in their lender referral lists for the lender that makes a great impression throughout an actual transaction. If you are a lender, and you do these things with the borrowers and transactions you do have, you will likely begin earning more referrals from real estate professionals from this basic approach than from any other.
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