This month Patricia Feager and Kathleen Daniels are hosting the March challenge titled "March to a Solution | ActiveRain March 2023 Challenge" Patricia and Kathleen are asking us to share issues we have encountered during our professional career in Real Estate, which may help others to avoid and hopefully resolve.
My first submission into this challenge was "Easy-Peasy, Wrong!!! which was about a Borrower who made what should have been an easy loan very difficult. The second entry was about "Stupid Things Sellers Do That Cause Mortgage Loans To Fall Apart". This third and final submission is about a Borrower who almost left me speechless.
It Is Amazing The Questions We Are Asked. The other day a Borrower I had given a pre-approval letter to about 6 months ago called me. I had worked with this Borrower for over a year to help him fix the credit mess he had gotten himself into. It took that long to be able to provide a pre-approved for a home in the price range he was looking to purchase in. The reason for his call was to asked me if he could use the same pre-approval letter I had given him, for another Lender he now wanted to use to do his mortgage instead of me.
Very few things leave me speechless, but this one almost did. I believe the term for this Borrower is that he has "Big Ones" for asking a question like this.
- First what would make him think a pre-approval letter would still be good 6 months later?
- Second, why would he think I would feel it was OK for him to go to another lender after all the time I spent to help him fix the credit mess he had gotten himself into?
- Third a lender who would accept another lenders pre-approval letter, and not pre-approve the Borrower themselves, is a lender you need to runaway from very quickly.
I could not imagine calling a competitor, and asking them anything similar to this question. I wanted to tell him to go pound sand, but I took a deep breath and said no. After 6 months we would need to look at everything again to make sure nothing had changed. I wished him well with the new lender, and hoped he was successful in purchasing a home.
After the call I just shook my head. This guy not only asked this question, he did not see anything wrong asking it. It Is Amazing The Questions We Are Asked in this business.
The lesson to be learned here, is expect the unexpected. You may have heard "there is no such thing as a stupid question", but my experience has been when it comes to this business there are lots of stupid questions. Don't be caught off guard when the stupid question is asked. Be a professional and do not over react. No deal is worth losing you your reputation by over reacting and giving a knee jerk response.
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