Prior to Contract (borrower shopping for a home)
Call to Listing Agent at offer out – introduce yourself as lender for buyer who submitted offer and let them know that the buyer is strong, has been pre-approved and will close on time.
To enhance the value even further, send a guarantee that the loan will close or you (the loan officer) will pay seller X amount if it does not (X being $500 – $2,000)
The BEST process, would be to send a guarantee that the loan will not only close, but close on time.
What's the Value Add?
- Helps get your borrowers offer accepted
- Helps to sell buyers agents to want to use you as the lender
- Helps for customers to want to stay with you because you will help them win offers
- Helps to get customers to send in docs early to be fully pre qualified, making the loan process easier so that they receive the guarantee
- Helps to impress the listing agent, and create an opportunity to work with them
- Helps get you in front of all the listing agents where offers were not accepted, but now that they know who you are and what you do for your buyers, you can prospect to them, as each additional call to that agent is now a follow up instead of a cold call (extremely good prospecting tactic in today’s market considering it takes 5 to 15 offers to finally get one accepted)
At Contract Received
Call the listing agent on the day you receive the contract, and do the following:
- Congratulate them on selling of their listing
- Go over questions about the listing – this shows them you are an expert and good at what you do (Questions Below)
- Go over communication process and timelines (Tuesday status updates as well as milestones – approval, appraisal received, CTC and Docs out)
– Call on all Tuesday Status updates and always ask if there is anything else you can do for them, and how are you doing so far.
– Call on ALL Milestones
– When Docs are at Title is when you close for the appointment
You can always get a listing agent to call you back during the loan process by simply stating you are calling about the property and need them to call you back as soon as possible (don’t make it sound like something is wrong, but don’t make it sound like everything is ok either) they will call back due to worry about property, then you can say everything is great, you just wanted to let them know that everything was going as planned. Key here is that they will call you back if they think you need something to get the deal done.
Questions for Intro Listing Agent Call
Ask the Agent:
- How would you like to be updated? (Call, Email, Text)
- Who else on your team should be contacted/updated?
- Best contact method?
- Is there anything I need to know about the sellers’ plans?
- Upcoming travel plans?
- Using a Power of Attorney?
- Will closing be a mail out?
- Would they be interested in closing early if it becomes an option?
- Is there anything I need to know about the property?
- Do we need to wait to order the appraisal?
- Who should I list as contact for appraiser to gain entry?
- Best contact method?
- Is there anything else I need to know to ensure a smooth transaction?
Ask Yourself:
- Did I make the 3 promises?
- To close on time.
- There will be no surprises to the buyer in terms of loan.
- To update everyone every Tuesday.
- Did I ask for a meeting?
- Yes
- No
- Is meeting set yet?