CLOSINGS ARE GREAT LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Unless someone corrects my memory, this past Friday I spent more time at one closing that I have ever spent at any residential mortgage closing in my entire life. My wife and I sold our home of eleven years. If not for the professional people who surrounded me, it would have also been one of the most unpleasant and expensive days of my very short but exciting life.

The attorneys who attended this closing were most professional, the client/borrower was pleasant, attentive and signed every paper in the correct space. Questions were answered, money exchanged hands, some were profits, some were not. The mortgage broker broke my chops, was late, unprofessional, improperly prepared, under educated about the subject, unfamiliar with the programs, late, and late.

AN UNPLEASANT REMINDER

As I drove up to the building where the closing was to take place, I recalled a most unpleasant time during the year 1988 when I had a so-called partner in my mortgage company . Using no real names this person ("Him"), had hounded me for half my life or so it seemed, to allow him to open a netbranch of my company, and being short sighted, greedy, naive and most of all lazy to a fault, I allowed Him to talk me into this potentially disastrous arrangement. He was a mess, he had no redeeming values other than convincing me to believe that we would make a perfect marriage, and thereby make tons of money.

The partnership lasted less than thirty days.

I discovered, shortly after I had paid $5,000 to an attorney for drawing up a legal net branch contract, that Him had been given the right to take applications in an entire building that was being converted from a rental property to a co-operative like a condo, only different). All the closings needed to occur on the same day. That was the good news. The bad news was that the closings were to take place within 30 days of signing our contract. I asked Him to go to the building and take all of the applications in the next two days. He assured me that it would be no problem since the building manager was a close friend who knew every tenant/borrower. Liar/Liar pants on fire. He called me two days later to inform me that he was now working one very file and we would make it if I could find a lender. I did, that same day, find a local Savings and Loan which agreed to approve every application under certain guidelines. The President of the S&L was a close friend of mine and I guaranteed him there would be no problems. This promise was wasted, because there were nothing but never ending difficulties. Him never took the applications, never even contacted the building manager, except to call and leave a message once or twice.

I fired him in less than fifteen days from the signing of our agreement. As I parceled out the task of solving our challenge to close these loans, allowing each salesperson who worked with me to take a few applications each, we fulfilled our contract to close the loans on the appointed date. I hoped that none of that bad karma was left in the building as I took the elevator to the second floor. I took notice of a tastefully decorated hallway and an equally well appointed waiting area of the closing attorney this past Friday.

BACK TO MY CLOSING

Every staff member proved to be attentive, pleasant, knowledgeable, hardworking and helpful. I found out their qualities because I spent the entire day in that office. From 10:00 AM until 5:30 PM, with no lunch break, no coffee break, no potty break, nothing but argument and negotiation, non-stop(with the broker).

Trying to find some pleasantness in this quagmire of paperwork, I hoped that I would see some of my old mortgage broker friends. After all, I was on Long Island NY, my old stomping grounds, where I had my own office back in the late 80's.

No-one - not one person I knew showed up all day. And this was a busy attorney's office. As my closing was shuttled from one room to another so as to accommodate the closing schedule of the attorney whose office we were using, I expected to see at least one familiar face. Nada! I knew there were at least fifteen closings taking place that day, including purchases, refi's, seconds, B/C's, with room after room of borrowers, but not one mortgage company representative, not one gift basket, not one sign that any of these people had spent even one minute talking to someone in my business.

Where were you when your last client got the money that you worked so hard to get for them? Why didn't you let them at least thank you! Even if you have to arrange for the closing to be in your office.

Do it! Don't Just Think About it!