What to Look for in a Good Lender

I've had a lot of good and bad experiences with this lately. Here are the top three things that I've been looking for:

♦ Available and easy to contact.
This doesn't mean that they have to answer the phone each and everytime no matter what. That's not a realistic expectation. I do however expect them to return calls that day, or have a message explaining that they can't get to phone calls that day (ie: out of town, in meetings all day, on vacation) There's nothing worse than a lender who doesn't communicate and a client that feels left in the dark. It's hard enough to keep the enthusiasm up without dealing with that.

♦ A clear understanding of their loan programs
I've recently had a lot of problems with lenders that tell me or my clients one thing and then something completely different the next time we meet. This is very frustrating! For example, within the last month I had a lender set the expectation of a 30 yr fixed loan at about 6.25%. The next time, the loan suddenly had a 7 yr balloon payment. The next time, it was a 2 yr balloon payment. I pulled my client out of there and we went with someone else.
There are things out of the lender's hands that he can't help, for example regulations change often. At the same time, It's important that a lender is up on all of the changes that would affect the client's loan. I feel more confident in a lender that tells me "I'm not sure, I'll find out for you." than I do in a lender that says "Yeah, that's not a problem." when he really has no clue what he's talking about.

♦ Programs that are realistic and work in this market
Right now, the biggest thing I look for is realistic programs that will work for my clients. I ranted and raved about the last 2 things, but I'll put up with them if it's the only option for my client that will work. For example, 20% down for a construction loan on a $200,000 would mean that my starter home client would need $40,000 to throw on the table. That's not realistic for that type of client, let alone a move up client in a lot of cases. I'll put up with A LOT of garbage so that my client only has to come up with 5%! If that's the only option for my client, I'd rather smooth things over again and again because the lender at bank X only calls once every other week with a report than just lose the client. This is a market where every client is more important than ever.

Gregory D. Brown
www.legacyhomedesign.com