This last month has been a great month for me and my business. The reason being is that I have had multiple opportunities to engineer custom financing packages based on specific borrower needs. To me this is the hallmark of providing great service if you’re in the mortgage business.

What do I mean by this? Not all 30 year loans are the same. Not all loan features mean the same to every borrower. For example, a pre-payment penalty may be undesirable for a borrower flipping a condo, but ideal for reducing monthly payment for someone who intends to be in the home for 5 years. There are many considerations in the analysis and I’m not going to get into details. The bottom line is many people in our industry have preconceived impressions and do not think outside the box. In the long term both the originator and borrower lose!

It is amazing what you can do if you spend the proper time and put in the required effort. Recently I’ve been able to show a young couple the value of the 2-1 buy down and another one of the reasons why lender paid mortgage insurance makes sense in their situation. In the former, he would have lost out on a superb opportunity to own a home. In the latter case, she would have ended up overpaying by several hundred dollars in the coming years. Do you think these borrowers will ever regret doing business with me?

I go the extra mile while structuring the financing because first and foremost borrowers deserve it. They deserve to receive the best possible analysis on the market. The other reason I do this is because I enjoy thinking outside the box. After all, most Nepalese immigrants in the US are engineers or doctors, I’m in the mortgage business. I’ve always known that I’m a different breed.

Every originator I meet talks about how they provide service. Let’s face it, that has become the standard line in the industry. What is service? What color is your service? Mine is dark blue – the color of my financial calculator!