TheMReport

MReport June 2021

TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.

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20 | M R EP O RT COVER FEATURE seen that consumers have done it through decades, we just assume "what's wrong with that?" and just ask them to provide a W2 or a pay stub or a bank statement when we could get it for ourselves. For me, two of the biggest innova- tions are taking the burden of risk documentations away from the borrower and reducing the closing time by at least 40% to 50% from where they are today. William Tessar President, CIVIC Financial Services M // What is the best career advice you have received during your time in the mortgage industry and why? TESSAR // Never be outworked and treat every customer like they will be part of your business for the next 30 years. A happy cus- tomer will tell another prospect, while an unhappy one will tell five. Create customers for life! M // What advice would you pass on to someone entering the mortgage industry? TESSAR // Spend all your time building a database and nurtur- ing it. Once you find a customer, nothing should be more im- portant than keeping them and making sure they continue to come back. Master all aspects of your craft so you can deliver quality, quantity, and consistency for your firm, at all times. M // What are 2-3 ways you believe the mortgage industry needs to innovate or evolve? TESSAR // Technology needs to continue to evolve. With all the access to data that's currently available, there truly is no reason loans should take longer than a couple of weeks to close. Yet, for the vast majority of home financ- ing, the process takes two months. Tech enhancements will also lower the cost to produce loans, creating a savings which could be passed onto the consumer. Rich Weidel CEO, Princeton Mortgage M // What is the best career advice you have received during your time in the mortgage industry and why? WEIDEL // The best advice I received was from Fred Kofman, Director of the Conscious Business Center. He advises: "You can take control by saying 'I am the subject of my life, and I am not a spectator. My life is mine, so I am going to be part of every problem.' If you're not part of the problem, then you can't be part of the solution. The price of power is accountability, and the price of innocence is impotence." It is great advice, because we often choose to explain things that happen as out of our control. It feels good to be the victim, be- cause then we aren't responsible. However, it is a very disempow- ering way of thinking. By being part of the problem, we get to be part of the solution. M // What advice would you pass on to someone entering the mortgage industry? WEIDEL // As a follow-up to my first answer, I would advise: it's all your fault. Don't blame anyone else. Accept responsibil- ity for your choices, have a goal, figure out the problems in the way of that goal, and do what it takes to achieve your goal. It's simple but hard. For companies to succeed, they must have a differentiated value proposition. This logic applies for individu- als as well. If your skillsets are easily replaceable, you are easily replaceable. M // What are 2-3 ways you believe the mortgage industry needs to innovate or evolve? WEIDEL // The mortgage indus- try is: 1. Highly competitive (price sensi- tive) 2. Highly commoditized (all lend- ers provide standardized, similar lending options) 3. Boom/bust (driven by interest rates) While I don't have advice for the entire industry, I do advise that to capture market share in the industry, a lender must offer a differentiated value proposition. Otherwise, they will never escape the three larger forces described above. In my opinion, to capture market share, a company must create a better customer experience through operational innovations around quality, productivity, and costs. Mortgage fulfillment is a left-to-right process. Historically, we used file folders that would go from one cabinet to the next, following a pre-determined path. Today, we do the same thing but use screens instead of filing cabinets. We are finding success in capturing market share by re- designing our fulfillment machine around concurrent processes and automation to increase quality and productivity while driving down costs. This is both hard and complex, but it is possible. . DAVID WHARTON, Interim Editor-in-Chief at the Five Star Institute, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington, where he received his B.A. in English and minored in journalism. Wharton has over 17 years' experience in journalism and previously worked at Thomson Reuters, a multinational mass media and information firm, as Associate Content Editor, focusing on producing media content related to tax and accounting principles and government rules and regulations for accounting professionals. Wharton has an extensive and diversified portfolio of freelance material, with published contributions in both online and print media publications. Wharton and his family currently reside in Arlington, Texas. He can be reached at David.Wharton@thefivestar.com. "With all the access to data that's currently available, there truly is no reason loans should take longer than a couple of weeks to close." William Tessar, President, CIVIC Financial Services

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