As a frequent poster to Active Rain, a real estate service professionals community, I found it to be a wonderful place to receive ‘industry insider’ knowledge and opinion by making identical but delayed posts on the blog board.

28 Posts Later: Solid relationships discovered, comments were articulate and informing, I was singin in the rain, daily…

Then came number 29 or The Mortgage Industries Internal Civil War and all hell broke loose….
There was an ‘air’ about the comments right off the bat, you could almost hear the chest thumping, the type you hear from a heavy beating fist or heart. Then the mob began to materialize, with a Don and his favorite sons, although they turned out to be little more than schoolyard bullies. While I thought the post to be provocative, the comment thread that ensued teetered between nasty and funny.

Members (from the mortgage industry) started demanding my ‘full name and address’, digging stuff up about me from all corners of the the web, even Myspace.com, in feeble attempt to shut my opinion down by attacking my character, questioning my experience, and slinging some serious sh*t. They were ‘demanding answers’ to which I obliged. You may read them here if you like, I wont bother with a separate post since its mostly review.

The whole experience caused me to sling out a quick list of questions for mortgage brokers and bankers to answer, since I was demanded to do the same, it seemed fair. Although there have been no takers yet…? Odd….

Here they are (ill probably refine them as time goes on):

• Do you disclose YSP and all other costs up front, in dollars?
• Do you tell your clients how much, in dollars, you are charging/making for your services up front?
• Do you offer YSP as an option to finance closing costs?
• If you charge YSP, do you inform every borrower that they qualified for a lower rate or that they are being used to pay you?
• Do you inform clients that YSP’s are theirs, NOT yours?
• Do you think your clients don’t care about such ‘trivial’ matters? Have you ever asked them?
• Do you continue to float rates when a client thinks they are locked?
• Do you disclose all Lender paid incentives, i.e. full package submission, purchase bonuses, specific program bonuses, better pricing from a different lender even after you have ’sold’ the initial deal?
• If there are any changes to the costs of the loan or rate, do you re-disclose them on the GFE and give your clients at least 72hrs to digest the changes.
• Do you think that because you are a banker, ‘You don’t have to’ talk about these issues? Is that how you lay it out for your clients?
• Do you up-charge for 3rd party services?
• If your clients dig out their loan docs…are they going to be pleased or pissed?