As competitors drop off amid challenges, the market will start opening up
Julene N. Stewart (pictured) refuses to dwell in negativity – no matter how challenging the times.
“Everyone kind of goes into a negative headspace and I just don’t live there,” she told Mortgage Professional America during a recent interview. “I don’t allow myself to say ‘oh my gosh’ and keep comparing it to last year. The positive trend I see is people wanting to keep their heads straight.”
To that end, she keeps herself busy intensifying her focus on other programs and developments – the FHA coming down on its monthly mortgage insurance, as one example – to stay ahead of the game. “You can fill your day from 8 to 5 doing something – from closing a loan, to educating yourself, or educating someone else to doing something in your community,” the senior loan officer at Fidelity Mortgage said.
Accentuating the positive
The key is to accentuate the positive and convey that to the client: “It’s my optimism in it,” she said. “And trying to reassure people that homeownership is still the right path to be on. Not to get brought down by this, and understand that you may not be able to buy a house today, but maybe in the future you can.”
Stewart spoke to MPA while attending the recent FUSE conference in Las Vegas organized by the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME).
There is a sobering statistic making the rounds positing that half of all loan originators from last year will be gone by year’s end, having switched to other industries after being walloped by the market downshift. This, however, presents a significant opportunity to those remaining, she said.
“It’s a huge opportunity,” she said. “With every down cycle we go through, every market needs to reset because it gets saturated – whether it be loan officers, insurance agents, realtors, whatever the case may be. The people who can’t handle the down cycles and prepare for them -- either mindset prepared or financially prepared – are the ones that get cut from it.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be here”
She gets more blunt about it: “I feel in our role, if you weren’t prepared for this year, maybe you shouldn’t be here,” she said. “I can’t say it any nicer than that. We knew it was coming - maybe not at this level, but we knew. All the signs were there as to where we were heading. From the broker channel standpoint, it’s a huge opportunity. You’re trying to grow your business and convert people from retail over or just get a bigger chunk of market share because your competitors aren’t there.”
Her advice to industry newcomers: “Get ready,” she said. “If you’re just sitting at home and waiting for it to happen, are you ready when it does happen? I’m very much a systems person – like policies, procedure – I like structure. You should be spending this time, if you’re not closing loans, to be prepared for when the floodgates are going to unload and just be able to hit one button and push all that out. That’s what you should be doing right now.”
Stewart is one of two “state captains” for AIME, staying on top of government machinations having to do with legislation related to the mortgage industry. Advocacy state captains are volunteers who are active in their local community and are a driving force for state-level legislative efforts. Community state captains, for their part, are volunteers who are active in their local community and are a driving force for amplifying AIME’s initiatives on social media.
She praised AIME for the tools the trade association has given her to help grow her business. “This event is something I would never miss,” she said of the FUSE conference. “I do take away knowledge, ideas, experiences that other people present in front of you. Definitely, I would not ever miss this event.”
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