One loan officer's advice for standing out without taking on every hard file
When a borrower walks through the door, everyone hopes that they’re bringing with them a high credit score, W-2 income, and a low debt-to-income (DTI) ratio.
However, finding all of these pieces in the same borrower doesn’t always happen. More borrowers are bringing non-W-2 income to a mortgage deal.
In addition, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the percentage of loans originated with subprime credit scores increased year-over-year in each month from November 2025 through March 2026, the most recent data listed on the bureau’s website.
While a borrower’s income and credit picture can make a file complicated, they are hardly the only factors involved in what may become a challenging mortgage. And while originators who take on these files will never be short of work, one loan officer warns that they can be pigeonholed into getting those files exclusively.
Robyn Graves (pictured top), founder and CEO of Success Mortgage, said the best originators are the ones that can tackle even the most challenging files.
"Everybody's a rock star when you have a clean file," Graves told Mortgage Professional America. "But it's when it gets messy or goes sideways that's where the value comes in."
Learn the whole deal
New loan officers in particular, she said, haven't yet learned to spot the problems that could be caught early.
"They're just so concentrated on the easy part of the mortgage, which is, ‘Let me send a link, let me get your pay stubs,’ and then they push it off to their processor," Graves said. "But they don't do the homework."
Her homework starts as soon as a deal comes in, starting with reading through and understanding what is in a purchase contract.
"If you don't understand how to read a contract, then instead of going to your realtor partner and saying, 'Give me business,' how about going to your realtor partner and saying, 'Can I have 45 minutes of your time to explain to me this contract?'" Graves said. "Look up the property when you get the contract. Google the property."
Beyond the contract, she recommends spending time with the people who handle other parts of the deal.
"You go have coffee with your industry partners, and you say to your pest control company, ‘When you go do an inspection, what are you looking for?’" Graves said. "‘What are the things that are really bad? How do you treat those things? What kind of cost is that? How long does it take?’"
Graves once worked at a pest control company, and she still gets surprised. When a pest control partner told her a house had bats in the attic, a question she didn't think to ask cost her borrowers three weeks.
It was whether the bats were in blackout season. Mother bats and their pups can't be evicted until the pups can fly.
"That was a great reminder to me that we haven't stopped learning what our industry partners do," Graves said.
Don't become the ‘dumpster’
Early in her career, Graves said, her broker told her to ask realtors for the files nobody else would take and then show what she could do. She did that for years.
"I got really, really good at doing the crap business," Graves said. "But then I realized I was the dumpster. I was the mortgage dumpster."
The reputation had to change, she said, and it has. Getting there meant a hard conversation with a realtor, and she still takes very tough deals for partners.
"I appreciate you respect my talent, but you also have to respect the fact that I can't just be your dumpster," Graves said. "We're either going to do good business together and you know I can handle it if it goes sideways, or this isn't reciprocal."
Realtors hand out three cards because they don't want the liability if a loan goes wrong, Graves said, not because they have three favorite loan officers. The way past that is to make them feel safe.
"You make them feel safe, helping them understand that you get the ecosystem," Graves said. "You get all the parts of the transaction that could get messy. And if that happens, you have knowledge. You have people to call if it's outside your scope."
Snacks and charm at open houses don't build that kind of safety, she said. Loan officers who lean on them are easy to replace.
"The next time you don't see them for three weeks, somebody else is going to walk in with a charcuterie board, and you're out the window," Graves said.
At AIME Fuse in Austin, Graves led a breakout called "The Transaction Whisperer." Her first book carries the same title and, she said, the same warning about becoming the mortgage dumpster.
Graves sees the current market as an opportunity, and the originators who take advantage of it will position themselves well when market conditions improve.
"I feel like this is a great opportunity for us as loan officers to get out here and master our craft while we're not crazy busy," Graves said.
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