The Market Changed. Here’s How a $100M Loan Officer Is Closing Deals

The mortgage and housing market has changed, and the old playbook doesn't work on every deal anymore.

Laura Witte has already closed more than $100 million in mortgage volume this year, and she says some of the loans she's working on right now are among the most challenging of her career. The difference? She's finding creative ways to structure deals instead of immediately accepting that a buyer can't make the numbers work.

In this episode of Loan Officer Success Live, Devin Dubuc and Laura break down what they're seeing in today's market, why affordability doesn't tell the whole story, and how experienced loan officers are using creative financing strategies to solve problems for buyers and real estate agents.

We'll talk about everything from debt-to-income challenges and departing residences to bridge strategies, affordability, buyer expectations, negotiating opportunities, and knowing when the answer isn't “no”—the deal just needs to be structured differently.

Whether you're a loan officer looking to sharpen your strategy, an agent trying to get more buyers to the closing table, or a homebuyer trying to understand your options, this conversation will give you a different way to look at today's market.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Devin Dubuc

Coach. Dreamer. Dad. Helping you own your worth and go after what sets your soul on fire🔥

Designer

Jennifer Rodriguez

Jennifer Rodriguez is the engine behind LOS.Live and The Mortgage Giants, leading everything from graphic thumbnails and episode descriptions to cross-platform distribution. With years of experience as an Office Manager and Executive Assistant, she brings organization, strategy, and innovation to every production. Mentored by Growth Leader Devin Dubuc for the past six years, Jennifer collaborates on branding and podcast strategies that help loan officers nationwide elevate their business. Known for her positive energy, adaptability, and commitment to growth, she is the trusted voice guests connect with throughout the podcast experience.

What is Loan Officer Success Live?

This isn’t another sales tips podcast.
This is Loan Officer Success Live - where mortgage and real estate pros come to master modern growth without the burnout.

Hosted by Devin Dubuc, Loan Officer Success Live is a deep dive into the psychology, strategy, and systems that build legacy-driven businesses in today’s market. Whether you're a high-performing loan officer, a rising agent, or an entrepreneur scaling fast, you’ll learn how to attract clients, grow income, and lead with brand, not brute force.

Real conversations. Tactical playbooks. No cold-call bro-hype. Just clarity, confidence, and creative firepower.

You don’t need a script. You need a strategy. Welcome to Loan Officer Success Live

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We're about to go.

All right.

Welcome to Loan Officer Success Live,

sponsored by Premier Lending,

the show where the mortgage industry's top

players pull back the curtain.

Your host, Devin Dubuque,

sits down with industry leaders,

top producers,

and game-changing mortgage tech

innovators,

all sharing their unfiltered strategies,

bold ideas,

and proven secrets for success.

Get ready to take notes, think bigger,

and play to win,

because this is Loan Officer Success Live.

You know,

what's funny is I'm noticing I got to

change the intro.

I think I need you on there because

obviously you've been on the podcast a

lot.

Oh, yeah.

You're a mega producer.

But Scotty went over to your team.

He did.

So, yeah, which is awesome, too.

We love Scotty, man.

You know, he runs The Morning Show.

If you guys don't check that out,

that's MLO Live.

And, you know,

I get to get on there and spit

it with him all the time as well.

Yeah.

And where you and I met, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Good stuff.

So, well, you know, today, guys,

everybody keeps talking about how

difficult this housing market is.

You know, the rates, affordability,

home prices.

We know all the problems.

Today, I want to talk about solutions.

My guest, and she's a returning guest,

Laura Witte,

has already closed more than a hundred

million.

In fact,

she just disclosed a hundred and twenty

million in volume this year.

And she's also working through some of the

most complicated loans she's ever done.

So the question I want to answer today,

how are great loan officers still finding

ways to get deals done when the easy

answer could be no?

Laura,

welcome back to Loan Officer Success Live.

Great to have you here.

Yeah, thank you.

Glad to be back.

Appreciate it.

Absolutely.

So you're already north of a hundred

million,

technically north of a hundred and twenty.

What feels different about the buyers and

deals coming across your desk compared

with the six months ago, per se?

Yeah, I will tell you the deals are,

the buyers are more complicated.

Hmm.

This is not,

there's no easy button with this market.

Easy button's gone.

You have to be- In the trash.

In the trash.

That was not easy button.

That's what we need right now.

Yeah, we need that for sure.

I mean-

People need more help than they have,

I think.

They need more guidance.

You, as a loan officer,

need to be more educated and more of

an expert in your field than you ever

have been.

I think the days,

I was talking to an agent yesterday,

At an event and the days of like

the COVID agent and the COVID loan officer

are gone.

I think a lot of people,

like when we have markets like this,

we get sort of a cleansing of where

people, you know, people need to be.

Like it's not, if this isn't your shtick,

you know,

find something else to do kind of thing.

Because you do,

you have to be all in.

You can't really,

you really can't be a part-time loan

officer unless you just want very, very,

very.

I'm losing you there, Laura.

I don't know if we're having a wireless

issue.

Let's give her a second.

Oh, you're back.

There we go.

You're back.

Yeah.

Sorry about that.

This is a live show guys.

So we were gonna get some technical

difficulties from time to time.

Yeah.

Yeah,

so this market is just more difficult,

I think.

But there are solutions, right?

So I think you have to be a

solutions-based human and loan officer.

It's like, you know,

there's appraisal changes happening.

There's condo changes happening.

There's all these changes happening.

We just have to learn to lead with

the changes, not move with the changes,

but lead with the changes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and we all have the same changes.

And I think sometimes it's easy to feel

like, hey, I'm getting picked on, right?

Maybe that other lender doesn't have these

problems, but we do.

We're all in the same boat, right?

Just different places and different parts

of our career.

Let me ask you this.

So everybody points to mortgage rates when

they talk about affordability.

Do you think rates are really the biggest

problem or is affordability more

complicated than that?

Yeah, it's way more complicated than that.

I just posted something based on...

a real live conversation with the buyer

because everything is so different

depending on each buyer,

each buyer's needs.

And somebody was looking at a house that

was originally listed at five fifty.

And it was I don't know if it

was overpriced or whatever,

but the seller was now down to five

twenty five and they were going in with

an offer of five ten.

So I said, okay, let's look at your,

let's look at the rates were low.

Let's just use six and a half and

look at the cost of the house at

six and a half at five fifty at

seven percent at five ten.

And I think they ended up getting it

for around five oh eight or five ten.

It was about fifty dollars difference.

better at the higher rate so so the

house that would have been in the mid

fives is now closer to five low fives

and the payment was actually better at the

higher rate why is that because this is

a market where there's some softening not

it's not two thousand eight not even close

but there's some softening there's some

price corrections going on right

Not with every house.

Not with every house,

but there's certain parts of the market

where things are starting to transition.

And that's nationwide.

It is.

And that's going to continue, I think,

while the rates are here and before spring

comes.

So this is a buyer's market.

It's a buyer's opportunity.

Exactly.

And so you're looking...

So as a loan officer,

you should be talking to your clients

about...

okay,

let's look at the house on what it

was originally listed at.

I mean,

if we're in a good market where the

rates are in the fives or even low

sixes,

that house is not going to be fifty

thousand less or forty thousand less.

People are going to.

Right.

So I mean, that's one strategy.

I was just on a podcast with a

realtor earlier today and he brought up

the reference, which we all know,

when if rates drop at any point in

time,

we know that's not going to happen anytime

soon.

When it happens,

you're going to have an influx of

borrowers that go back to market and now

you're all bidding on the same homes

again.

What that typically does in most markets

is it creates a competitive offer where

instead of reducing the price of the home

and accepting alternatives of maybe even

providing concessions or working with your

sellers,

now you've got people lined up saying,

pick me, pick me, right?

And home prices actually go back up,

which is a big part of what got

us into this mess in the first place.

And we talk about affordability,

and my mind goes to another place when

we talk about affordability,

and that's affordability in general due to

our economy, right?

Because not only did home prices go up

in a lot of markets,

rates went up too.

I don't think we're in a high rate

market,

but it feels like a high rate market

because before when rates were this high,

we didn't have inflation at an all-time

high.

We hadn't seen homes appreciate twenty to

twenty-five percent in some markets,

right?

And people are genuinely hurting in a way

that they haven't in previous years.

And so I think that's created the perfect

storm,

which has made affordability more

difficult.

But there's ways to get through that.

And that's what we're talking about here

today is getting creative with financing,

creative with ideas,

and helping people understand the market

with education.

That's going to allow for them to see,

okay,

there is light at the end of the

tunnel.

Maybe it is the right time to buy

a house because quite frankly,

investors are scooping up homes like

there's no tomorrow.

And why would they be doing that if

this is not a good market to buy

a home?

What's your thoughts on that, Laura?

Exactly.

That's what's happening right now.

I'm seeing investors buying homes and

people over a million getting deals.

Everyone's getting deals, right?

A lot of people getting deals, but...

The homes that are over a million or

the investors or second homes I'm seeing

come out of, you know,

all of a sudden come out.

So if your business,

specifically speaking about loan officers,

if your business doesn't include

investors, DSCR loans,

everybody talks about those.

Those are super easy to do.

Bank statement loans, second home loans,

all of those things,

you need to expand your pipeline.

You need to diversify.

If your company doesn't have these

programs,

you need to move or ask your company

for a wider array of programs.

We have a program that's a departing

residence program that I use all the time

where we can exclude the residents.

And they can qualify for the new house

using a bridge loan to pull out money.

Exactly.

Exclude the residents.

We just got super creative with a guy

who could not get approved.

Two other lenders came to us.

I felt like I was playing Tetris with

his file.

I was like, move it here.

This changes.

Move it here.

That's right.

But I finally,

it was like Sunday at three p.m.

I'm like, wait a minute.

I could do this and I could do

this.

And it was great because the guy's a

teacher.

Doesn't have a lot of extra income.

Can't pull money out of his teacher

retirement.

So the money had to come from his

current house.

So we used our bridge loan along with

the departing residence program.

And they moved in, I think,

two days ago.

So these are some of the magic things.

The strategies.

The strategies.

And I've had agents say, oh, you're magic.

No,

I just ask good questions and I get

good answers.

And I don't give up.

I don't really take no.

If I tell a client no or an

agent no, there is, in my opinion,

there is no way to do it.

And it's not like I feel like I'm

good, but my team, my company,

they're amazing.

They always say hire people smarter than

you.

We have so many people at Microsoft.

company that are way smarter than me right

now by my just my team is fantastic

so it's not like i'm just sitting here

playing i'm also i'm also emailing the

underwriter underwriters i lost your

volume

Yeah, we're losing.

You're back.

That I can ask, like, you know,

that know more than me or trying to

find out if that guideline has changed.

Because Fannie and Freddie, like,

love to change things on us.

They do.

Keep it interesting.

And let's talk about a recent change real

quick about the Fannie change.

That is tremendous.

I don't know why we're not seeing more

of that.

That is so exciting.

Right.

that people move up buyers.

Spit it out there.

Tell everybody.

Yeah.

Move up buyers can now exclude their

primary residence as long as their

intention is to lease the house using a,

a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

a, a, a, a,

So much fraud.

I'm sorry.

And that when people making like making up

a fake contract, like not me,

but I've seen, you know,

I want to put some color on that

just in case you're listening and you're

not exactly sure what she's saying.

So in the past,

when you had a client that was wanting

to move into a new property and lease

their property,

they had to be able to document that

they could actually uh had a lease

agreement and borrowers lined up to move

into their exiting property to be able to

offset that payment so they could then

qualify for the new loan okay yes and

so this would require documentation you'd

have to potentially show that you'd

receive first or last month's rent there

were things that were necessary to offset

the payment correct and now fannie has

basically come out and said hey guess what

we're going to take a lift on that

And if we have a market report in

your area that says that this home is

going to lease for this amount,

you can now offset the payment with the

potential projected lease market lease

rates and now qualify for your new home

without having to sell your existing home

or document that you have somebody in

there.

And this is massive because there's a lot

of people right now that want to move

up and they have that intent to keep

the property so they can use it to

build wealth and they shouldn't.

So this is an amazing,

amazing new program that should have been

there all along.

Incredible.

It's a long time coming.

And if you haven't posted about it or

called your clients about it or emailed

your agents, everyone,

you should do that now because you have

buyers that, you know,

the question buyers ask me.

Should I keep my house?

Yes.

If you can keep your house,

keep your house.

And if you don't like being a landlord

in a year, you can sell it,

but you can't buy it back after you

change your mind, you know,

that you should have been a landlord.

Excuse me.

So this is just since the change,

it's created three new buyers for me.

That's huge.

So I can call and say, Hey,

because here's the chicken and the egg

thing.

I can't rent my house until I find

a house,

but I don't want to find a house

without a tenant.

So what do I do?

Well, that just answered that question.

It did.

Well,

I want to go backwards a little bit

here too,

because what we're talking about is how a

hundred million dollar loan officer is

closing deals, right?

And we should now retitle that to a

hundred and twenty million dollar loan

officer, right?

And by the end of the year,

it's going to be even greater than that.

What we're talking about is if you go

back in time and you look at a

couple of things that she said,

number one,

she's looking for strategies inside of

loans that get people qualified where

other people say no.

This is where you really need to

understand your programs and understand

how those programs work and how to benefit

your consumers from that.

And a great loan officer is going to

know those things or have a team behind

them to help them strategize.

But in addition to that, she said,

I was thinking about it on a Sunday.

Okay.

So what I want you to realize there

is that this is somebody who takes their

business so seriously that on a Sunday

afternoon,

they're sitting around the house going or

wherever they may be church, right?

Saying,

how can I help the Smiths get into

that home?

Right?

Oh, I've got it.

I've got the structure strategy.

We're going to make that happen.

And the last thing she said is also

when new things come to light,

you need to be out there promoting that

socially and picking up the phone because

you said it and I'm going to bring

it up and outreaching to your business

partners to let them know what they can

now do because they're going to turn

around and they're going to go out there

and sell that product for you.

And in her case,

it brought her three new opportunities.

So this is how you get it done

in this market is you get creative,

you get vocal,

you use the programs that you have

available and help lead people to those

programs.

Yes, you said that perfectly.

Mic drop for Devin.

Boom.

Well,

you said something interesting when we

talked the other day.

You said you're seeing both extremes.

Some buyers are stretching to make

payments work.

Others are qualifying using substantially

more than what they're comfortable

spending.

This is a good one,

and I think you'll like this.

What's going on psychologically with

buyers right now?

That's a great question.

I've been delving into behavioral finance

to look at these things.

I think that people have different

strategies and you see when the rates go

down, people have the go towards,

like we all have our own strategies.

What motivates you being afraid you're

going to miss out or being enticed because

the rate, you know,

because of this deal or the rates are

lower.

So you have different strategies.

You have different people come out and you

have to like respect that everybody has

their own motivation.

Um,

And you have people that have different

needs, right?

So I would say I'm surprised for the

most part I'm seeing more people being

conservative.

Yeah.

I think I would call it sixty to

seventy percent of the people that I talk

to could buy a thousand dollar a month

more of a house and they don't.

Yeah.

And then I have a good twenty percent

that I don't know how the hell I'm

going to qualify that.

And

I have a talk with them.

Also, even if I can qualify you,

let's make sure you're comfortable.

Should we?

Right.

Exactly.

Just because you can get someone a loan

doesn't mean you should.

That's right.

Amen to that.

Yes, definitely.

So yeah,

be very careful because you also want to

make sure, first and foremost,

you honor and respect the client and the

buyer.

And secondly, you don't want an EPO,

a buyback of

failed loan, any of that.

So really qualify the borrower,

not just pre-qualify, but qualify them,

have a conversation.

For example,

the guy's debt to income that was tight

that I had to move things around.

he's gonna sell his house he has he's

got family just in case his wife works

like there's other ways okay let's talk

about backups i'm a big what's the backup

plan i love that let's have two backup

plans i love that backups for the backups

yes because i am a paranoid person

I've been in this business twenty five

years.

I've seen lots of things.

So so I mean,

you really just have to get to the

bottom of things.

And like I was like,

I tell my kids, ask good questions,

get good answers.

And just you got to go deeper than

just one or two or three questions.

And you have to go way deeper than

just the application.

The preapproval should not just be the

application.

It should be what is your goal?

What do you want?

What do you know?

And you see people.

I see this all the time.

All the time where I see, okay,

I want to put down twenty percent and

whatever.

And they have thirty five thousand in

debt.

I love that you're going here.

You really should put down five percent,

pay all your debt off.

And look,

you just saved eighteen hundred a month.

So you think you can't afford a house?

This is the opposite of that.

You think you can't afford a house?

Well, you actually can afford more.

So now you're sitting here telling me you

really want to buy at six hundred and

you're only looking at five.

Well,

you can now look at six and you're

actually going to be paying less.

You're going to be comfortable.

We literally just tackled,

I was so glad you said that.

We literally just tackled this on the last

podcast.

And the tables were turned as a realtor

asking me questions.

And it was,

how do you help me get my clients

closed, right?

That was one of the questions.

And that's exactly what my strategy was,

is let's look at alternatives that we can

do with down payment to help you make

the payments more affordable on the home

that you love.

And in a lot of cases,

there's so many different ways you can do

that.

You can use that cash to pay off

debt.

You could even look at potentially

restructuring their automobile loans or

having them pay off an automobile loan

altogether.

I do that all the time.

Every loan officer should have somebody at

a bank or a credit union or wherever

that you're friendly with that you send

your car loan refinances to qualify.

I'm so glad you said that.

I do that all the time, probably monthly.

I just had a client, okay,

here's a good one, buying a property,

doesn't want to put the wife on for

whatever reason,

and they're selling a property,

she's pregnant, there's lots of things.

So her credit's good,

that's not the reason, but...

he just took a lease out in his

name.

Yeah.

You can't pay a lease off to qualify,

but guess what?

You can move the lease until the wife's

name to qualify.

Didn't know that till last week.

So you can, so that's what we're doing.

And they're, and they're qualifying.

And let's take it a step further, right?

Since we're talking about things like

that.

And then we have a question from the

audience.

I'm going to bring that up here in

a minute.

Thank you, Lisa, for tuning in.

So what about the strategy of,

you're talking about having somebody that

you can reach out to that's going to

help you.

How about an insurance agent that

understands privacy?

policies better and doesn't overinsure

your consumer, right?

Or how about a CPA or tax advisor

that can look at a self-employed client's

taxes and help them realize where the

previous person didn't strategize properly

and they can potentially get their taxes

restructured so they can actually now

qualify for a loan.

Yeah, just did that one too.

I knew you did.

And I bring it up only because this

is what hundred million dollar producers

are doing.

They're not just doing the bare minimum

for their consumers.

They're looking at other alternatives.

They're doing a great interview to

understand their clients needs and what

they're trying to accomplish.

And then they're looking for strategies

that the standard person is just not going

to think about.

So I'm glad we're going here.

Now I'm going to pop up a quick

question from Lisa.

And this is, I love that you brought,

I love about backup plans.

And that's, she said,

what's the backup plan, right?

Like, what does that mean exactly?

What is a backup plan?

Yeah, so I always give people, okay,

first of all, as loan officers,

we know when someone tells you what they

want, it's not always what they need,

right?

It's not always the best option for them.

So I say, okay, here's plan A, B,

and C. And I always start with,

I wanna get you the lowest rate for

the lowest cost

That's what we're going to try to do.

And so the backup plan, it could be,

again, if they're selling a house, if you,

I always go to worst case scenario.

I'm a positive person.

I would love to tell everyone, sure,

it's all going to work out great.

You're going to do a bridge loan and

you're going to sell your house and it's

going to be great.

It'll happen in like that.

What if it doesn't?

So how are you going to pay the

mortgage?

Right.

So let's talk about that.

OK, where is that money coming from?

So often it's somebody that doesn't,

you know,

maybe it's family or they don't or they

live in the house,

but they're not on the loan or it's

going to come from retirement.

What happens if you have to pay this

off?

Right.

A bridge loan typically is ninety to one

hundred eighty dollars.

You don't want to hold them.

The rates are typically higher.

And at the end of the day,

you want to get in and out of

these things as quickly as possible.

But it gives you that flexibility to use

money you didn't have access to unless you

were able to tap into your existing home.

Right.

And it's much cheaper to do the bridge

spend like the NOC or whatever that

program is.

That's kind of exciting.

Keep on knocking when you're not coming

back.

But there's lots of options.

So does that mean, you know,

refinancing like that program if you do a

bridge loan?

Like there's all, you know,

what are the options for the problem at

hand?

I think is what I'm talking about for

that.

Yeah.

Well,

I've got one if you don't mind me

jumping in on this.

Yeah,

I've got a strategy that I love to

do and it works really, really well.

So a lot of the times we get

clients that are concerned or frustrated

because maybe they don't love the interest

rate that they're at,

but we look at their credit and we

realize there's certain things that they

could potentially pay down to improve

their credit score.

right so what we'll do is we'll look

at you know if you were to pay

these items down this is potentially how

your score could improve you want to do

it quickly because credit bureaus are

updating credit all the time right but if

you can pay this down we can get

your score up here we can now qualify

you for a slightly improved rate over

where you're going to be before or it's

going to cost you less money to get

the rate that you actually want right yeah

however

If for some reason this doesn't work,

the backup plan is that we're going to

qualify you here,

which we're already comfortable with.

And we've already got a loan that you

qualify for.

And what's great about this is that you're

selling them on the opportunity that there

is a better way.

And as long as they do the things

that you're asking them to do,

that will happen.

But there's still a strategy in the event

that that credit rescore doesn't come back

favorably.

And this strategy works so well because

what I'll do in those scenarios, Laura,

is I'll disclose them on the worst case

scenario.

I'll provide them an estimate on what the

positive scenario would be.

And then once the credit comes back,

if the score increases where we expect it

to do, then we'll flip the script.

The walk is already done.

Transition the walkover.

And now they're saving more money.

And that's a strategy.

Yes.

Did we lose you?

Oh, you're getting a call again.

She's popular guys.

This is live.

So we just got to bear with all

these clients that are ringing her off the

hook.

Okay.

So are you back?

Yeah, we're still, you're still muted.

I'm not hearing you.

Is that better?

Now you're, we got your back.

Okay.

So I just,

I feel like you're like looking at my

emails.

I just did that exact situation, exact,

with a client.

And I had two PDFs.

And I had one that was labeled your

current score.

The other was labeled your potential

score.

And we sent them a credit essentials and

said, this is what you have to pay.

It was only twenty eight hundred dollars.

It's awesome.

This is going to save you, you know,

fifteen thousand over the life of the

loan.

So this makes sense.

So that's yes, that's great.

And then I have another client that went

under contract that had not done their

twenty five taxes yet.

We put the contract in under the bank

statement loan.

And now today we're switching it to the

normal conventional because he's got his

taxes done.

So, you know, absolutely.

These are all backup plans.

Like here's the worst case scenario.

You're okay with this.

What can we do to improve it?

You're also gaining trust and loyalty by

doing these things because they know

you're going out of your way

Yeah, yeah.

Well,

and this goes back to what we're talking

about is, you know,

why or how somebody's still closing

massive production in today's economy.

And that's because your agents trust you,

your clients trust you.

You're giving them confidence when you sit

down and you have a conversation with

them.

It's not just...

what rate do you want and when do

you want to close, right?

This is a true consultation where you're

sitting down and getting to know them,

getting to know their situation.

You're crossing T's, dotting I's,

looking under every stone to go,

how do we get this person qualified and

coming up with creative strategies that

other people aren't doing it.

And I'm going to be frank with you.

Sometimes, in fact, more times than none,

if you're doing this,

the rate doesn't matter anymore.

Because they're buying the confidence of

working with somebody who is a true expert

in the industry.

And I hear law officers often say, oh,

man, I lost to a rate.

I lost to a rate.

I lost to a rate.

And it makes me question,

how much consultation did they have?

How much did they really listen to their

client's needs?

Did they truly look at every opportunity

to show the client how you're going to

provide value to them?

with a strategy that other people aren't

looking at.

Because if you bring a strategy that

somebody else hasn't considered to the

table,

a lot of the times they're gonna move

with you simply because of the fact that

you're thinking outside of the box where

others are not.

Yep, yep, exactly.

Yeah, and it's important.

There's so many,

we could talk about that for two hours,

but there's so many things important.

You know,

if you have a client that has potential

red flags, if you solve them,

on your pre-approval,

then when they're shopping you,

you could say, hey,

I'm going to get you the best rate,

right?

Because that's what I do.

I shop for you.

I wouldn't be in this business if I

couldn't.

Remember that we have already solved this.

If somebody that lost their green card and

had to go,

we have to be creative to prove that

he's here legally.

We've already solved this.

So, you know,

I don't know that this other,

this is a valid thing.

I don't know this other person can do

it.

Other places are more conservative than

us.

They haven't addressed this and you're

trying to close quickly.

So that's also important.

That's one of the reasons why you get

all of their documents up front and you're

making sure they're pre-approved.

Well, and I love that too,

because that's not just for the consumer.

That's also for your agent partner.

When your agent partner knows that you're

the type of loan officers that's not just

going to issue a piece of paper off

of a verbal communication and say, yes,

you're pre-approved,

go out and start looking for homes.

When they know that you're checking off

all the boxes,

analyzing the documentation,

making sure that the file's been

pre-underwritten to some degree, right?

I mean, we're not underwriters, but...

At this stage in our career,

we probably know about as much as those

underwriters do, right?

They're going to have the confidence when

you issue that pre-approval letter to put

them in the car because they know that

this isn't going to go south in the

ninth hour, right?

Right, yeah.

We're getting them to the closing table

because of a proven track record.

Yeah,

and I do utilize my underwriting scenario

desk all the time.

Same, absolutely.

You have to.

So much.

Yeah.

You got to love on your underwriters,

guys.

Love on your underwriters.

Treat them with respect.

That's another thing I've seen loan

officers do is they battle it out with

the underwriter instead of sitting down

and having a great conversation.

I can't tell you how many times I've

had to step in where a loan officer

that worked under my supervision was

having stress with the underwriter.

And I pick up the phone.

I talk to the underwriter.

And I say, hey, hold up.

What?

Oh, my God.

I'm sorry.

I've got a wounded man down.

Oh, buddy.

I got a man down.

I got to give him a quick hug.

It's okay.

Daddy's almost done.

I promise.

Okay.

Live show, guys.

Live show.

You know,

where I've got an underwriter that's been

stressed because they had this negative

communication with the law officer.

Only to pop up the phone and say,

hey, what is the problem?

well, what if we did this?

Maybe we can't get this,

but what if we did this?

Is there a way that we can bring

this client home, right?

And now you're getting a deal done that

maybe would have gotten declined because

you're just negotiating with the

underwriter to get the things that they

really need,

but do it in a way that they

can still be confident to sign off on

the loan transaction.

I think that's another way to be a

badass loan officer in

I want to also throw out this because,

oh my God, this is going to sound,

I hope this doesn't sound bad.

I am writing a book.

I'm just going to throw that out there.

It's not written yet,

so there's nothing to sell.

But it's also going to be on language

patterns and using language in the right

way.

For example, if you say to somebody,

how can we make this work?

Because that's my question went to my

underwriter.

Okay,

I understand you're saying we can't use

whatever.

How can we use it?

So then we're working towards the

solutions.

That's right.

And so it's very important how you use

your language with everybody.

With all your partners.

Everybody, with all your partners.

And then at that point,

if for some reason you can't make it

work, you can tell them.

I have somebody right now,

they called me yesterday.

They said,

you told me I can qualify on October

second.

I have that date in my calendar,

by the way,

as a pop-up reminder that this woman will

have

of her hourly to go FHA.

And she's counting the days.

She's super excited because I gave her a

plan.

A strategy.

Right?

A strategy.

And what else did I give her?

I gave her hope.

Hope.

That's my thing.

I love that because I had no hope

when I was going to buy a house

and I was treated poorly.

And that's why I got into this business.

You got to give people hope.

Hope and a plan.

That's it.

Well, it's not you can't buy a house.

You can't buy a house today.

Let's talk through how you can buy a

house tomorrow, right?

Correct.

And I think that's what you're saying.

You should never deny a client.

I know that sounds crazy.

You should never deny a client.

I don't care if they have four hundred

credit scores.

You should say.

Absolutely.

Today may not be the day,

but a year or two from now or

whenever, and that just builds trust.

It builds loyalty.

Give them a plan.

You're giving them a plan.

You're giving them hope.

And at the same time,

you're doing all these things that are

satisfying to your soul because why are

you even doing this?

You want to help people.

You want to be there for people and

be an advocate.

At the same time,

you're creating a future pipeline.

Future opportunities.

What's more than just that?

Future opportunities.

It's not just one opportunity, right?

And you just said opportunity.

So I know you know where I was

going with this is it's opportunities

because when you help that one person and

they have a friend that says, man,

I'm thinking about buying a house.

They're like, you got to call Laura.

Yeah, no, you got to call her.

She's amazing.

And what's funny, and this happens often.

is a lot of the times that person

that they're having call you is very well

qualified.

They do know people that are very well

qualified and you can get a very easy

loan out of somebody who had a really

troubled situation just by taking the time

to help them with the plan to get

home ready.

You are like, Devin,

get out of my head, man.

You're like, I'm like...

That's exactly right.

I got I got a I got a

referral from somebody and they're like

eight hundred credit scores and, you know,

all this great stuff.

But every client should be treated with

the same respect,

no matter what they make,

what they're buying.

They all should be treated fairly.

That's what fair lending is.

And that's what that's what having,

you know,

being a good person is to not just.

That's what you've called your company,

Truth in Lending.

Not Truth and Lending because there's a

statement called the Truth in Lending.

It's Truth in Lending.

And if you lead with that type of

passion and that type of heart and you

educate your clients and you strategize

with your clients and you help your agents

see the things that you're doing,

you too could become a hundred and twenty

million dollar producer.

Yeah.

In any market.

Any market.

I think anybody,

I don't think I'm that special.

I think we're all special.

It's not like I don't think I'm special.

I know I'm special,

but I also know you all are special.

There's nothing that you can't do that I'm

doing.

You can do anything I can do.

So, you know,

just it's time to maybe put yourself out

of your comfort zone and ask better

questions.

Think outside the box.

Get rid of the box.

Throw it out the window.

Fuck the box.

Use my language.

I know it's live.

Wait, your child's there.

I'm so sorry.

He's okay.

He can't hear you.

I got headsets on.

Earmuffs.

I've got earmuffs.

And get out of your head and stop

listening to the noise of the market

because the people who are listening to

the noise are the ones that aren't as

busy because they're believing what's out

there.

They are.

They are.

And I can tell you that that's the

number one advice that you've dropped here

today that people have to realize.

Get the negative thinking out of your

head.

Don't buy into what everybody else is

saying.

Yes, it's a difficult market,

but it's not impossible.

And if you make it impossible by allowing

your inner voice to tell you that it

is, you're going to struggle.

Right.

Yes.

Get it out of there.

Absolutely.

And I'll give you guys a secret, okay?

This is something I tell myself.

Trust me, I'm not perfect.

I go deep in the hole sometimes myself.

But your inner voice that's telling you

all these things that may be negative,

it's not real.

So if it's not real...

you might as well pretend that it's good,

right?

It's like, oh, I can't do this.

Well, why not?

Why can't you?

Who says?

Who's telling you this?

Your mother, your sister,

your friend from twenty years ago.

They're not in your head.

You're in your head.

You're the one that is telling yourself

these things.

So if it's not going to be real,

you might as well pretend that

everything's great.

There's opportunities everywhere.

It goes back.

It's like

I don't know how much time we have.

It's the red car theory.

It's the red car theory all the time

in my head.

What you focus on is what you see.

When I was looking for a car for

my son,

I was actually looking for a red car

for my son.

And all I saw was like,

there's a lot of red cars out here.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

I'm looking for a red car.

There are opportunities everywhere in

every market.

Somebody is doing business.

That's right.

I'm doing business.

There's people out there that are doing

more than me.

So there are opportunities if you see

them.

Yeah.

If you focus,

your success is where you focus.

Yeah, focus up here.

Nothing starts out here that doesn't start

in here.

Your success is where you focus on,

where your attention and then your

intention is.

That's where your success lies.

I love it.

Well,

I'd love to keep wrapping it up with

you all day,

but I got a little boy in the

bathroom,

back room that saying he's got to use

the bathroom.

So we're going to get,

we're going to get him there and we're

going to get you guys home.

That's what Laura's here for.

She's going to get you home.

So Laura,

thank you so much for coming on.

I love this podcast.

I love where we took it and I'm

sure we'll do another one.

So if you guys love hearing from Laura

and I, you know,

ping us in the comments, let us know.

We'll bring more of these back online.

I might know how to get ahold of

her.

her so and if you want to get

a hold of her laura i don't have

your banner up today what's the best way

to get in hold of laura witty yes

uh go to um instagram truth and

lending.com there it is our truth and

lending truth in lending.com that's truth

and lending.com i'm gonna get this boy to

the bathroom laura get back out there and

help more homeowners until the next time

we will see y'all

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