There is more than one way to skin a cat....

I am working on a tough deal, this afternoon; I knew it was going to be a tough one when I took the loan application, so no surprise there. While reviewing the loan with my processor, she said to me, “there is more than one way to skin a cat”, followed by, “You are really good at working your way through the tough deal”.  I thought to myself, ‘No pressure here’.

We have a loan product for Jumbo loans that allows a borrower to put as little as 5% down. So they can put as little as $35,000 down on a $750,000 purchase - pretty cool program, right? Oh and no dreaded mortgage insurance. A lot of borrowers seek me out for this loan program - we do tons of them.

Those two phrases took me off my game, and I started to think about skinning cats and who would ever do that, and why would anyone ever think to skin a cat, and on and on. So I looked it up http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/there-is-more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat.html and I am still baffled by the idea that “there is more than one way to skin a cat”

So this tough deal, that was tough to begin with, called this morning and said that they decided to sell their existing home rather than keep it and rent it out – ‘Great’, I say to myself. The conversation goes on that she still wants to purchase the home she is under contract to buy – ‘OK, that’s good’, I think. Then she drops the bomb “So, when I sell this house, I can put the proceeds down on the new home and that will reduce my monthly payment, right?” NO, I want to scream into the phone. No it won’t.

I love self-employed people, they think out of the box. So here I am reviewing this with my processor, who is trying to be nice and give me a compliment…I do love her. But she basically put the pressure on me as my borrower did 30 minutes prior.

So it all works out in the end, and there is more than one way to help a client; we are going to do an 80/15/5 - 0% on a first lien and 15% home equity line, that they can pay off with the proceeds from the sale of their existing home and 5% down - same result, totally new structure.