Loan Officer = Car Salesman?

I heard someone say that loan officers are more despised by the public then car salesmen.

I though that was a pretty rough thing to say. I know we have a bad rep because of all the negativity in the media, but more hated then car salesmen???? Ouch!

Part of the fun of going around the country is the ability to drive. And to do that I decided to get a new car. Actually lease one. So I have had some very recent experience with car salesmen, and it wasn't any fun.

After test driving a few cars, we picked the one we wanted - the 2005 Nissan Murano. It handled nicely and had enough room for all the stuff we were going to take with us.

That led us to start the negotiations. I really liked the first salesman we dealt with. Too bad he told us lie after lie after lie.

After dealing with him I decided it was time to shop around. And my first stop was the Internet. I found a great site with tons of information that helped me out a great deal. CarBuyingTips.com This site has a lot of useful information. If you are looking for a car, this site is great. Even if you are not looking for a car, but thinking about putting up a mortgage website, this site would be a good model. The owner makes his money from affiliate programs. But because of the wealth of content, he has a lot of sites linking to him, and he is very high on the search engines.

The recommended course of action was to use several of the quoting sites, like cars.com, autobytel.com, etc. So I did. I used them all. All I had to do was tell them what car I wanted and they all said that a dealer would contact me with a price.

These sites do nothing but generate leads which are then sold to the dealers. The same thing happens in our biz. And I am sure that people looking for a home loan using the internet do the same thing I did while looking for a car. They visit several websites and ask for info from all of them.

TIP: There is no such thing as an exclusive internet lead. Even if the site you buy from only gives it to you, the prospect definitely went to another site as well.

As soon as I submitted my requests, the emails started coming and my phone was ringing off the hook with salespeople calling me from the different dealers. What was really astounding was that they were so hungry. You could tell how desperate they were to sell a car from their voices. I told them what I wanted, and they would call back in less then 5 minutes to tell me their price.

One dealer had a super low price. So I did what everyone does. I used his price to get a better price from the second dealer. And the second dealer not only matched it, he did better. So then I went back to the first dealer to get him to lower his price. And back and forth until they both were at the same price and wouldn't go lower.

There was only one difference. I wanted the car in Merlot (dark red). And since it was late in the year, most were already sold. Dealer #1 told me he could get the car in Merlot from another dealership. Dealer #2 told me the car was not available at any dealership anywhere near Houston.

So which one is lying? I decided to visit both to see if I could get any further concessions. At Dealer #1 they put a lot of pressure to get me to sign. And they had the car and color I wanted. But I still wanted to visit Dealer #2. When I got there he told me he couldn't find the car, showed me the inventories of all the dealers in the area, and told me that I should get it from Dealer #1.

That's when I called Dealer #1 and told him to get the car from the other dealership. But it was too late. He told me "They just sold the car a few minutes ago."

It turns out, he had lied about the color just to get me to come to his dealership. He thought that if he told me on the phone that he couldn't get my color I would go somewhere else. So he basically told me what I wanted to hear to get me to his office.

Sound Familiar? A salesman lying about a car (rate) just to get a prospect in the office.

It happens in the mortgage business all the time. So the more I went through the car buying process, the more similarities I saw. Take the paperwork for example. Pages and pages of signing, credit checks, and rate mumbo jumbo that consumers don't understand and the industry makes as hard as possible to comprehend.

Did you know that when you lease a car, they don't quote you the rate, they quote you the Money Factor. And no one at the dealership, not even the finance manager, knows (or will tell you) how they figure out the Money Factor.

In the end, I got the car I wanted, in a color that I had to settle for, in order to get the price I wanted. But it was a lousy experience.

I thought the internet would make things easy. It made a small difference: I didn't have to drive to all the dealers to get their prices. They just told me over the phone. But Bait and Switch is alive and well.

Final Thought: Not all the dealers called me right away. One dealer that is less then five minutes from my house, and who I pass on the road 2-3 times a day, never called me until 1 week AFTER I had requested info from the lead generating websites. By that time it was too late. I already had bought the car.

If you buy leads, call them immediately. Waiting even a couple days will take you out of contention.

Also, location means nothing. I got the car from a dealer 45 minutes away, and never even visited the dealer close to my house.

In the end, I chose the salesman and the dealership that told me the truth from the beginning, made it easy for me to buy, and provided a competitive price.

Around the Country in 365 Days

I read a survey once that asked hundreds of people what is the one thing they would love to do if they could do anything. The number one answer was to travel.

I too have a desire to travel and see the world. It's one of my many goals in life to experience as many countries and places as possible.

So when the chance came up for my wife and I to travel across the country for a year, we couldn't resist. By profession, my wife is a nurse. And they have something called travel nursing, where hospitals across the country will hire you for short durations 2- 6 months. They pay for travel expenses, rent and utilities. They even pay for full medical and provide life insurance.

And since I have moved away from lead generating for my own loans and converted to a referral only business, I have the ability to travel as well. It doesn't hurt that I have a great team back in the office that can handle all my loans for me while I am gone.

So, I have decided to use this blog to chronicle our adventures, and share what the mortgage and real estate industries are doing around the country. So many of the loan officers I talk to feel that their city or market is so radically different from everywhere else that they need special attention. And that is true in some cases but not in most.

By reading my observations of the mortgage industries in other markets not only will you learn what others are doing, but you will see many similarities between the markets I travel to and your own.

I hope that you will travel with us, enjoying the photos we post, and learn from the marketing I will share with you as we move around.

The plan is to be in the L.A area for 3 months. Then go to San Francisco for 3 months. Then spend some time in New York, and one other place - hopefully Hawaii.

I will try to post as often as possible. So check in every so often.