Broker taking lessons learned from his father to help his community
When you are an independent mortgage broker in a tough market, sometimes you have to make difficult decisions to compete.
Sometimes, those decisions include giving the retail space a try. PJ Byron (pictured top), president of South County Mortgage Corporation, did just that after his father passed away. After deciding it wasn’t for him, he returned to the family business.
Now, back in the broker community, Byron is working to compete in markets with limited inventory and outside pressures from local credit unions. He is leveraging service to win customers and encourages brokers in a similar situation to think outside the box.
“What I try to do is sell service,” Byron told Mortgage Professional America. “I'm available on Saturdays and Sundays. I'm not a desk jockey who sits there from 9 to 5. I do my best to rely on my reputation, my years in the business, and my communication skills to let them know that you will not get this from somebody making 10 basis points, sitting at a desk collecting a salary. They don't care about your loan. You really are a number.
“They could be the most well-intentioned person in the world. But if they're getting 10 to 15 apps a day, they just have numbers to meet. Then they have these back rooms that they have no control over. I do five-day HELOCs right now. If you go to a credit union right now, they take 30 to 45 days. There’s a different level of service, expertise, and experience that I try to lean on.”
Having empathy as a broker
One of the things Byron learned early on is that you won’t be able to get every deal that you want. Some customers are simply going to go somewhere else. He encourages brokers, as hard as it may be, not to leave that relationship in a bad place.
“You have to realize that every borrower is not for you,” Byron said. “Sometimes people just have goals that don't align with what you have. I do have products and access to everything, but sometimes you just can't win them all. Don’t leave the situation with a bad taste in your mouth. Sometimes you say, ‘If that's what you want to do, that's fine, but if at some point you rethink what you were thinking about, I'm here.’ And that's kind of the way that I wind up leaving it.”
Byron learned the importance of listening from his father. He said a big part of building a relationship with a customer is understanding exactly what they’re looking for in a mortgage deal and empathizing with their situation.
“My father started this business in 1995, and I came aboard in 1996,” he said. “I knew I didn't want to go to college, so he was like, ‘You come into the family business, or you go to college.’ I've been doing this long enough now that I've got a good sense of what's going on in my area and what people's problems are. I'm a very empathetic loan officer. I know what people are going through, and I want to hear from you.
“My father had the 70/30 rule, where you listen 70% of the time, and you talk 30%. People will tell you what the issue is. You don't even have to coax it out of them. The next thing you know, they're rattling on about their wife or whatever. Make them my buddy and make them understand that I know what I'm talking about.”
Working with your connections
One major advantage that Byron sees in the mortgage broker community is the flexibility to help out borrowers who might need a little extra help to get across the finish line.
“Having the diversity of the product lineup and the versatility with pricing really helps,” he said. “Also, not having all these people that I have to pay middle management fees to really helps. If a realtor calls me and says, ‘Hey, that young couple you sent me. They can't afford this house, but they really want it,’ I can say, ‘I'm going to drop the rate by a quarter of a point and make it happen for them.’ I'm not Santa Claus, but I am able to help out when I can and still make a living.”
Not only can he help borrowers with the rate, but he can also leverage his local connections to secure discounts for buyers.
“I'm willing to throw in the cost of an appraisal,” Byron said. “I'm willing to take a firefighter or a teacher and say, ‘Hey, let's throw in a little program together where I'm going to get you 10% off with the home inspector. I'm going to get you 10% off with your insurance agent. I'm going to front the appraisal.’”
Byron is grateful for the broker community, including the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME), for their support of his efforts to return to the broker space.
“I reopened the family company, and I did that about 18 months ago,” he said. “The broker community has been very supportive of me. They love what I'm doing. I really appreciate the broker community for being there for me, and I try to pay it back. Because when I came back to doing this, I was all by myself. Now I have a small team around me that I've built up, and I've hired people who saw me back in business. I'm very appreciative of the whole community.”
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