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6 Life Lessons For Success From A Mortgage Loan Officer-Jo Garner
In this video podcast/blog post I share with you 6 life lessons that have personally brought me great success in life and in business. What is YOUR formula for success?
Subscribe at www.JoGarner.com and let’s stay connected. You will get regular updates of new Real Estate Mortgage Shoppe episodes with great info and solutions to your real estate and financing scenarios. What information do you want and need?
To Your Success,
Jo Garner, Mortgage Loan Officer, Author, Speaker, Radio Personality
(901) 482-0354 jo@192.232.195.219 www.JoGarner.com
Everything I learned about business and life, I learned from working on the farm with my family when I was in elementary school age and later starting a lawn and landscaping business –one of the largest lawn cutting firms in Jackson, TN at that time—and almost all of us were GALS dressed in white shorts and red polo shirts—believe me—we got the lawn cutting jobs—no problem.
The one thing that I learned the quickest? Success is not something that comes to me by going it alone. I learned very fast that 1.“If you want to be success, you need to put people around you who are very good at what they do ….and then let them do what they do best.” My family helped me a lot during those years, but I later hired an Irish gal that was very good at training, coaching and keeping everyone on a stopwatch for each job. There were other people who were really good at what they did that I hired just because I had learned, if you hire the best, you get the best. I still work on that principle today. Here some more wisdom I have picked up in life that I can share with you–
- If you don’t mind rolling up your sleeves, to ask for business and fulfill the services well that you were hired to do, you can make a LOT of money.
- Create a simple system that doesn’t take long for everyone to learn and then stick to your system so that work gets done right and on time –and everyone gets paid.
- -don’t be afraid to be DIFFERENT! Do something no one else is doing and do it BETTER!
- You’ve probably heard this one on the radio show—MAKE YOUR PLAN, WORK YOUR PLAN, IF THE DEAL WORKS FOR YOU TODAY, DO IT TODAY.
And one more—6. Adventure can take you ANYWHERE, but Romance will KEEP you there.
Today I am still learning something new every day in the mortgage business. Every time I learn something new, they change it. Ha! But that keeps older folks like me with experience worth more and more because we still know how to pull rabbits out of a hat when it is required by clients. Pat Goldstein told our client the other night that I was a magician—and in the modern day mortgage business—that’s a pretty good description.
Here are four common barriers that people experience when they are trying to get approved for a mortgage:
First, clients will tell me they don’t have any money to put down. My assistant and I are very good treasure hunters and we can find money from people in places they never thought to look! Particularly for clients who have not owned a home in 3 years or more, there are a multitude of down payment assistance programs available. If the seller pays the closing cost and prepaid taxes and insurance for the buyer, then normally the down payment assistance pays the down payment and they get in for zero down or very little.
Even if you are not a first time homebuyer, we have the 100% VA loans and the 100% USDA loans. We can possibly use a bank loan secured on a different asset to give you the funds you need to close with very little money down on the house you really want. In many cases you can borrow against a retirement fund without penalty. Gifts from family are nice. One of my customers did not have anyone to give her a gift but she used cash value in an old life insurance policy she had taken out years ago.
(tell story of guy who gambled away their $10K their newly constructed home)
The second barrier is showing enough income to qualify for the loan you need to buy or refinance a home. If you have only been on your job a few months, we can only count your guaranteed base income and not the commissions that you hope to average over the course of the next several months.
If you have a great salary but write off on your taxes $10,000 or $20,000 dollars in unreimbursed employee expenses, the loan officer has to deduct this amount from your pay, so when you are with your loan officer, be sure and tell them about any losses showing on your tax returns.
If you are self-employed and you have a lot of income that you control but, after write-offs, you only show very little, let Susan and I review ALL PAGES of your last 2 years tax returns and business returns. We have found tens of thousands of dollars worth of income in the BACK PAGES of the tax returns. If there is a way, we can find it to help our clients get qualified for what they want to accomplish.
(On the podcast, Jo tells a story of the caller who referred his daughter who was in the fitness industry and had been turned down by another bank. Story of agent who brought me two self employed people who had been turned down and I got them through)
The third barrier that we can overcome is credit issues. My assistant and I have trained on the Credit Simulators (like flight simulators). By using the Credit Simulation tools we can look at your credit report and suggest ways you may be able to raise your credit scores by 20 or 30 points over a course of a few weeks with the least amount of investment on your part.
The fourth barrier is problems with the house needing repaired or a title issue. This is where an experienced realtor or closing attorney. Pat Goldstein is a good example of an experienced realtor. Rob Draughon can fix stuff on the legal side and Tom King can advise on the condition of the property from the appraising standpoint.
These more than a few situations where you need an experienced mortgage person, or realtor or, other professional who is REALLY good at what they do to be on YOUR team, saving YOU time, trouble and in some cases LOTS OF MONEY.
If repairs on the house is your issue, we can use a number of workarounds to overcome the hurdle. If there are over $5K or even over $100K in repairs, I have 2 good renovation and repair loans. Or, in your situation, it might be as easy as getting the sellers to pay for a few repairs or we set up an escrow account so some of the work can be done after closing.
I am Jo Garner, Mortgage Loan Officer with Evolve Bank and Trust, Radio Talk Show host on News Radio AM 600 and iHeart Radio and BOCI Radio on the Real Estate Mortgage Shoppe, I am founding sponsor of the Talk Shoppe networking group. I eat mortgages for breakfast, lunch and dinner and love helping people get a great deal on THEIR mortgage.
If you or someone you know is talking about buying a house or investment property or if they are talking about restructuring their mortgage to lower their payments or shorten the term, these are great clients for me.
People who make GREAT referring partners to me are realtors who sell over 5 houses a year, builders, CPAs, Wealth Advisers . Can you help me think of any others?
ABOUT JO GARNER-MORTGAGE LOAN OFFICER:
www.JoGarner.com (901) 482 0354 jo@192.232.195.219 twitter @jogarner
Jo on being a Mortgage Loan Officer: “As a mortgage loan officer, my job is to give my client the benefits they want from their financing terms– listening to my client and determine what’s of the most value to THEM– What is their comfort level on a house payment, how much are they comfortable paying down, what type of financing do they need to get the house they want to buy or refinance. Different clients have different priorities in life—some are buying their first home with very little down payment funds. Some are recovering from medical challenges, divorces or preparing to send children to college and some are embarking on a long term goal of buying properties to build rental income. Whatever their personal priorities are, my job is to put together a mortgage with comfortable terms that will help them achieve their goals.”
Jo Garner is a mortgage officer with extensive knowledge in tailoring mortgages to her customers who are refinancing or purchasing homes all over the country. She offers conventional, FHA, VA or other loan programs for refinancing and purchases.
Jo can help you look at rent vs buy, when it makes sense to refinance, how to get the best deal on your home purchase financing.
Jo Garner has been in the real estate/financing business for over 20 years. She got her start in Portland, Maine where she first began her real estate career. She received her real estate education from the University of Southern Maine and was personally mentored in San Diego, California by Robert G. Allen, author of Nothing Down, Creating Wealth and The Challenge.
On moving back to West Tennessee in 1987, she went into business buying and selling discounted owner-financed notes secured on real estate. In 1990 Jo went to work for a residential mortgage company and has been a mortgage loan officer for over 20 years. Her goal is to offer excellent, affordable service to her customers, tailoring the loan programs to the specific needs of her clients.
In addition to her work in the mortgage field, Jo Garner is the primary sponsor and founder of Talk Shoppe in Memphis. www.TalkShoppe.com She was also the editor of Power Shoppe, a free weekly e-zine designed for real estate professionals and others indirectly connected to the real estate industry and currently publishes on her blog www.JoGarner.com (901) 482-0354 jo@192.232.195.219
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