r/loanoriginators

Looking for some honest advice from people already in the mortgage world.

I’m in Colorado and considering becoming an MLO. I’ve spent the last 12 years in homebuilding/new home sales leadership, so I’m very familiar with builders, contracts, incentives, financing conversations, etc. Long term, I think I’d really like to work on the preferred lender side for a homebuilder.

I also already have my real estate license and have considered trying to do both real estate + lending so I can generate buyer leads and potentially feed those clients to myself on the mortgage side. Curious how realistic/common that is.

Right now I’m trying to understand the best entry path: • Call center lender for reps/“at bats”? • Retail lender? • Mortgage broker? • Bank or credit union?

I’m attracted to bank/CU roles because of the schedule, holidays, and potential work/life balance, but I also like the flexibility of the broker model. Remote would be ideal eventually.

Also wondering: • Is getting licensed in multiple states worth it? • Does it meaningfully increase volume/opportunity? • How difficult is it to maintain multiple licenses?

Would love real-world advice from people already in the business, especially anyone connected to builder lending.

First I feel the need to give a little back story on how I got here. I owned a business that has been consistently fizzling out YoY and back in late October I asked a friend of mine that has owned his own brokerage for the last 3-5 years if I could make a good living doing what he does and he said I could. I went to his office a few days afterwards just to see what that type of work looked like and ask a few questions and he offered to sponsor me once I had my license. So I got started on the licensing process and actually went into their office in case I had any questions in the days leading up to the test.

I got my license at the end of February and already had a rate term refi lined up for a buddy and I have my first purchase closing next week that’s with a guy I’ve known for years, but hadn’t talked to in probably 10 years that just happened to be in the process of buying a home when he came to work on my HVAC.

Outside of that the phone has rang once at the office, and I picked it up, but the deal looks to be falling through because of DTI requirements. It’s a 2 man operation plus me. Which from the get go was something I thought was a little odd. Our marketing/outreach consists of hosting breakfasts at some of the real estate offices maybe once a month (which is just something they started doing shortly before I got there) along with hosting maybe 1-2 brokers opens a month. And the co-owner/president posts AI generated photos on Facebook daily. The leads are also not very good. I’ve gotten 3 phone calls out of probably 50k texts sent out through our CRM and all had FICOs below 550. We’re licensed in our state plus one that has a border about 30 minutes away. I would never tell someone how to run a business I know very little about, but from what I’ve seen in the 2 months I’ve been there it’s just hard for me to see a path where I can learn the business. Especially in the current market. I’ve scheduled a few lunches with realtors and tag teamed them with the owner, and the company has yet to receive any business from any of them. I did have one deal sent to me from a realtor I met at an open house I went to, but the applicant needed a physicians loan. Which isn’t something we offer. My compensation is 125 bps, which is half of what the company makes.

I see people on here suggesting to work at call centers, but as far as I know we don’t have any of those around here, and the closest thing we have is a refi shop. I want to stick with them because they helped me along the way, but there’s no leads to help me get established or learn the business, and it’s hard to generate business when I can’t pitch realtors a valid reason to go with someone new when they already have established business relationships. I’ve even offered to process loans from applicants that come in on their cell phones via referrals with zero compensation just so I’ll be able to answer any questions I may be met with at a lunch or open house.

What are my options? Or better yet what are some things I can do or bring to the company that isn’t already being done so I can generate business? I see Facebook/IG ads that talk about homebuyer webinars, but I’m not sure exactly how that works. Do those companies doing those ads provide the leads to contact to schedule those, or do they just provide the platform to host them?

Thanks in advance for any recommendations

Has anyone here ever opened a call center / refi shop instead of a brokerage?

If so, how much was the upfront cost? What is the profit margins? How did you scale and go about hiring? How expensive were buying leads and the conversion rate on those?

Did you scale into a lender or anything of the nature?

Tell me your story

I plan on starting in 1-2 years, NOT IN THIS MARKET. This is for future planning purposes

working on a deal that uwm cant do, anyone have a good experience with a non-qm lender

I’ve been working for a call center for the past year and a half and just switched over to the broker model. I’ve been here for about 3 weeks now and haven’t put in a single deal which is driving me crazy. This transition is a lot harder than what I expected..Worst part is I’m just burning through money buying leads that aren’t going anywhere.

I know I need to start getting on social media to market myself and find leads but there’s one issue with that..working at the call center, everything was so focused around cash out & second products, I never got the opportunity to do a purchase. So it’s hard to find the confidence to go on social media or try to get realtor partnerships when I have no clue how a purchase works. There’s not really any guidance from management since everything is 1099 full commission. Feeling pretty lost and wanted to see if anyone has any tips or can give me some guidance.

One thing I keep running into is that old mortgage leads don’t always die because they aren’t interested. A lot of them just never get proper follow-up once reps get overloaded. Then months later someone finally calls them and they already went somewhere else. Trying to figure out what systems people are using to handle larger lead flow without conversations constantly falling through the cracks.

My business received a SBA Loan demand letter saying I had 10 days to respond. I am trying to get in touch with the bank but not sure how I should proceed. I would like to save the business but cash flow right now can’t support the current payments. I read that loan modifications can be made with SBA loans, is that true? Right now the SBA loans are about 100k so I would need it modified to about another 30 years with the hope the business can pay it back sooner. Wanted to see what the thoughts are on how I should handle this?

Hello! I am a new loan officer in Colorado, and I wanted to connect with more professionals to learn from your experience.

What are you all doing right now to generate leads and market yourselves consistently? I am having a harder time getting my first deal, and I just want to receive any advice you’d give to a newer LO trying to build a pipeline.

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys -  I’m a student at Cornell doing a summer research project on real estate financing.

I’ve been reading through this sub and a recurring thing I’ve seen is issues with workflow tools, lender relationships, and generally sourcing and tracking deals.

Would love to hear more about your guy’s frustrations in your day-to-day workflows, and any details on how AI has changed how you work. Any/all input would be greatly appreciated!

I have a client who filed amended returns for 2024 and 2025. IRS says they will be posted in 21 days, which would have been May 18th. Nothing so far and seller is getting impatient.

Anyone have a current timeline or experience from last year?

Thank you!

I’ve recently been thinking about making the switch over to Rocket Mortgage, but I wanted to know if anyone has a breakdown of their comp structure or could give some overall insight into what it’s like working there.

Mortgage brokers/LOs — how are you handling the “What rate are you getting me?” question right out of the gate before even having an application?

I run into this more then I would think for mostly purchase transactions.

Someone calls, and before I know anything about them — credit score, DTI, loan-to-value, property type etc. — they immediately want a rate, fees, APR, closing costs, the whole thing.

My usual response is something along the lines of:
“Rates depend on a combination of factors like credit, down payment, property type, loan type, debt-to-income ratio, etc., so I really need a completed application before I can accurately quote you.”

But a lot of people still keep pushing for a number anyway. Then if you give a rough ballpark, it turns into:
“Another lender said lower.”
“Your rate seems high.”
“What are your fees?”
Etc.

The thing is, I run super lean and I’m not scared of competing on pricing. I just feel like it derails the process immediately before we’ve even established whether they’re qualified or what loan scenario we’re talking about.

So I’m curious:

• How do you guys handle this conversation?
• Do you give a rough range upfront or refuse until you have an app?
• What’s your best rebuttal when someone says “your rate seems high”?
• And realistically… are these just tire-kicker shoppers that you invest minimal time into?

Would genuinely appreciate some insight from people who’ve been doing this longer than me.

thanks for reading his far

I have only been doing conventional. Hardly get beat on those, but I usually get beat on jumbo. What are some good wholesale lenders for jumbo loans for me to compete with banks and CUs? Is it even possible to compete with relationship pricing? I'm based in CA.

Are they any AI tools (vendor installed SaaS), not vibe coded or self built that you see is valuable and worth the spend?

At leadscon a panel recommended Sela Voice AI for outbound, anyone try it? How do you see the ROI.

I'm the CEO of a small correspondent lender on the central coast of CA. I'm struggling to recruit LOs to our company and I'm surprised. We have great pricing, compensation, support, in-house lending, free GoHighLevel CRM with marketing done for the LOs but none of this is leading to meaningful conversations. Recruiting is out of control and every LO gets hit from every direction every day.

I suspect I'm not truly understanding the pain points and how to message to those and how to stand out amongst the noise from mass recruiting efforts. I'm starting to pivot the messaging to "control". For example, when a deal starts to go side-ways, how much control does the loan officer have in navigating the challenge and finding a solution to keeping the deal on track. In our company, our LOs have direct access to our in-house underwriter as well as the owners 24/7 and we solve these challenges immediately. No getting in line for a response for from underwriting or management.

I'm not trying to recruit here. I'm looking for feedback on this messaging angle and asking to hear from practitioners what your pain points are in today's market. If you ever consider responding to a recruiting attempt, what drives that decision and what is the method of communication that works best, ie. call, email, text...

Hello,

My client, a non-profit hospital group based in Georgia, owns an assemblage of land with their Hospital valued at $32MM as of the most recent recert last month. Seeking $16MM in accretive cashout with a portion deployed towards recapitalization of the operating entity. Hospital is distressed—needs an interest reserve, poised to exit through an agency loan. Breakeven by Y/E. There is context to the hospitals current financial condition( that can be provided as a narrative to an interested party).

Need very quick funding within 24-48 hours. I know this is an uphill battle—looking to see if this hail mary is feasible.

Kind regards,

P.S: We can tranche this out as well. If I can secure at $5MM.

just a comment. I know the big call centers, servicers were gearing up for a mini refi boom etc etc

So I just finished training at Rocket in Dallas. Today was my first day in production. Got a call from a a client wanting to get a HEL and I had no clue how to use the systems, because the systems training was terrible. Now I feel like she isn’t going to want to proceed because I was stumbling through the call trying to figure out what to do, even though I eventually got her a loan priced out that is achieving her goals. Can any Rocket people here tell me how long it took y’all to get the systems and flow down? I’ve only got one day of production in the books and feel like this is going to be a nightmare.

Im sick of charging 6 pts on va loans and my company constantly finding ways to not pay me on the work I do. Im posting more in the comments because reddit keeps flagging my post as looking for a personal loan.

Thinking about doing some Google ads. I was going to budget like $750/mo so essentially $25/day. Is this a decent budget for google ads in this industry? Would just be targeting locally not nationally.