George Costanza Mortgage Leads

How many in this country have a credit score below 600? Would you guess only 15%? According to Fair Isaac’s “National Distribution of FICO Scores” a mere 15% have a score below 600. Only 2% fall below 500. I know, I know – it’s the same 2% that continually recycle from mortgage broker to mortgage broker. RRRRiiiiinnng! Wait! Don’t answer that phone. It’s the 502 FICO 100% CLTV Stated Mobile Home Purchase making its way to you. Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the plight of the credit score challenged and I have much to write about the subject, but today let’s focus on generating new business from new clients in the upper echelon of FICO, that desirable 700 plus range.

It’s not tough to find them. Fair Isaac pegs the 700+ crowd at 58% of the population. Odds are the next person you run into on the street will have a credit score above 700. I take that back. I don’t know where you hang out. I can, however, tell you where you should hang out. Find someone with a mortgage. Experian reveals that consumers with a mortgage have credit scores 40 points higher than those without and the average is a 700. OK, I won’t bore you anymore with these statistics. You get the gist of this – a mortgage broker needs to find homeowners. What I wanted to explore was courting these homeowners the George Costanza way.

There was an episode of the 90’s sitcom “Seinfeld” where George compared his dating strategy to a commercial jingle. He knew at his first introduction he was irritating but after she heard him a few times she would commit him to memory (like a commercial’s musical slogan) and he was in. All he had to do was get three dates so he left items behind at her apartment and made excuses for having to see her again. As a sane mortgage broker, I can’t endorse George’s strategy, although still, there’s something we can glean from his game plan.

Highly qualified borrowers will apply for mortgage loans with people they know and trust. You need to get to know these prospects and build a relationship with them prior to earning their business. That usually won’t happen on the first contact unless they are a referral. This article isn’t about how to generate referral business. This article is about developing relationships with the 700+ borrowers from cold calls. In as much as George Costanza needed repeated contact, the mortgage broker does too. How do you do that without the hard sell?

I’ll stagger the answer to that question in different posts, but I’ll leave you with this. While real estate markets may vary from city to city, the overall national climate for real estate has turned heavily into a buyer’s market. This creates an ideal situation for a knowledgeable loan officer who can bring solutions to sellers and buyers and order to this chaotic flux. Before you decide you know where I’m headed, I’ll caution that this does mean more refi’s than purchases.

In the next few articles I’ll discuss the value added approach to sales, the soft sell, the World Wide Web, competitive advantage, and enjoying what you do.

Posted by Paul – Broken Credit