mailbox-painted-front-yard The WSJ recently featured an article called Facing a Bidding War? Why a Local Mortgage Lender May Offer an Edge.

(If you’re not a WSJ subscriber, we are happy to email pertinent excerpts upon request)

Andrea Gordon, from Red Oak Realty, was quoted extensively. And what I loved is that she sounded like a marketing brochure for JVM Lending :).

The article’s main point was that buyers in a competitive market need a local lender with a stellar reputation, an ability to close quickly, great communication skills, and local appraisers.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

CONCERNS ABOUT DOUBLE APPLICATIONS WITH TWO LENDERS

The only part of the article I took minor issue with was the advice to “double app” with two different lenders.

Secretly applying with two different lenders can be brutal for lenders that provide a full “pre-approvals” (that allow buyers to offer very fast, risk-free closes).

The entire process of engaging borrowers, educating borrowers, answering questions, and pre-underwriting files for a full pre-approval can easily take five to ten hours, or more.

A friend of mine uses this analogy in regard to double app’ing: “it would be like us referring buyers to a Realtor and having the Realtor show the buyers houses for two weeks, only to then have us a refer the buyers to another Realtor when the buyers are ready to write the contract…”

That would be painful for anyone.

JVM’S DOUBLE APP POLICY

We often encourage our Realtors to send clients, who are working with other lenders, to us for a second opinion only.

We only then encourage clients to get pre-approved with us if they need our value propositions (fast close, local appraisers, etc.) to get their offer accepted.

This is often the case when borrowers have only a “pre-qualification” (not a full pre-approval) from an online lender or a big bank with a 30 day close.

Pre-qualifications take far less time than a full pre-approval of course, and they are far less credible when borrowers are making offers.

We will also compare interest rates but only pursue a borrower if we can beat the interest rate by 1/4 percent or more.

Jay Voorhees at (925) 855-4491
Real Estate Broker, CA Bureau of Real Estate, BRE# 01524255, NMLS# 335646

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