Green Acres was the pinnacle of 1960s television. Running from 1965 to 1971, it starred Eddie Albert as a successful New York City attorney who so longed for farm living that he gave up his lucrative NYC practice to move to a run-down farm in the middle of nowhere amongst a very oddball group of hicks.
There were numerous absurd characters, including Lisa (his Hungarian wife), Ed the hired hand, and Arnold the pig. The best character, though, was Mr. Haney, a peddler who just happened to have whatever Mr. Douglas needed at any given time.
He sold anything and everything, but what he pedaled didn’t always work – reminding us that selling everything is not always effective.
I thought of Mr. Haney when I read that Rocket Mortgage recently bought Mr. Cooper (the huge loan servicing company) after buying Redfin (the real estate brokerage, website, and lead gen company).
Rocket’s very smart plan is to cover every aspect of the real estate process, including lead gen, real estate brokering, lending, title, escrow, and loan servicing.
The model will foster efficiencies and create experiences that many consumers will appreciate. Rocket will likely increase its market share and thrive … with cookie-cutter transactions.
And fortunately for Rocket, most transactions across the country are “cookie-cutter.”
But, as I mentioned in my previous blog about Rocket buying Redfin – Rocket Bought A Website And A Sh*tload Of Exposure And Data (AKA Redfin) – Rocket can’t be all things to all people.
And as a result, they will leave many transactions on the table.
Mortgage lending in this day and age is a full-time job, requiring constant training, enormous diligence, and the ability to log and remember hundreds or (thousands even) of loan programs and guidelines.
This too is something I have blogged about often. 10 years ago, most of our loans were 30-year fixed-rate loans with standard income documentation.
Nowadays, though, a solid 40% of our loans are unique products – including dozens of bridge loans, no-ratio loans, DSCR loans, bank statement loans, private money loans, down payment assistance loans, special purpose loans, and you name it else.
If we did not have a full understanding of all those loans, we would be sending hundreds of borrowers away empty-handed every year and robbing our agent-partners of hundreds of potential transactions.
Rocket’s a great company, but their model is not able to embrace all of the unique loans that we now take advantage of constantly.
I should add that this is not unique to JVM. There are dozens of extremely bright and experienced loan officers who subscribe to this blog, for example, and all of them engage in the same non-stop new loan product and guideline training that we do.
We and those loan officers are able to do so because all we do is “loans.” We don’t try to do mass lead gen, real estate, title, escrow, hardware, or dog grooming (we are considering donuts though because…let’s face it – donuts are awesome!).
Analysts say that we will see a lot more integration and consolidation this year, and I, and most seasoned loan officers, couldn’t be happier.
It will just make us look that much better.
This blog is also a reminder for agents to make sure that their loan officers are as up-to-date, training-obsessed, and willing to embrace new products as we are; if not, they’re leaving a lot of transactions on the table.
Agents should make sure their LOs can intelligently discuss at least a dozen bridge loan options, a dozen non-QM loan products in detail, a half dozen down payment assistance programs, a half dozen “special products” for low-income areas, and every type of buydown known to man.
