The Mortgage Business and Stanley Bing

I regularly read Fortune magazine just to see whats going on in the financial world since since mortgage rates are driven so much by oil prices as of late and the bond markets. The last page of Fortune Magazine always has cool stories and this months editorial by Stanley Bing caught my eye. His column this month is about his experience with refinancing his coop in New York City and the hoops he had to jump through to get it done. Stanley Bing is the alter ego of Gil Schwartz a high ranking Exec at CBS. Since he is a pretty well off fellow you would think he would have no problem refinancing or doing anything to do with money. But his story really hit home because of what documentation he was required to provide to satisfy the underwriters.

As with most large companies the bank he was refinancing through had outsourced their underwriting to a foreign country. His particular underwriter only knows what the computer tells her is required and if she doesn't get these documents she will not approve Stanley's loan for his apartment. Things went from bad to worse. Every document needed at least two pieces of paper for backup, which then required additional documentation. Sometimes things got "lost." He began to have trouble sleeping. Then one morning He got an e-mail from the Speedy Approval Department. This situation is what we deal with everyday all day with underwriters and setup clerks everywhere. I tell all my loan officers to document, document and then document some more just for things like this.

Last week, when all seemed perched on the verge of success, Mr Bing got an e-mail from the Speedy Approval Department requesting my appearance at a certain time and a certain date at Room 101 of the corporate headquarters. "For final adjudication of this matter," the note said. It was not signed. That was a week ago. I'm happy to tell you that I did get my refinancing package through at last. And in the end, I don't think I had to sacrifice too much.If more borrowers were like Stanley it would be a lot easier for us to get loans through in a timely fashion. But the same can be said about Loan Officers that turn in packages to processing with an incomplete 1003 and the loan has to close yesterday.

The point of this new blog is to relay stories like these and many others to more people within our company. We need to all roll upour sleeves and get back to doing business like we used to before we got in this mess. If you want to read more of Stanley Bings editorials you can go to http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/stanleybing/ or http://www.stanleybing.com .

If you have a funny story or an informative blog posting you want to share feel free to email me at nick@ahkloan.com.