Industry veteran explains where mistakes are often made and how they can be avoided
The relationship between mortgage brokers and underwriters is both critical and sometimes complicated.
If the borrower is well-qualified, passing a file off to underwriting for approval feels like a foregone conclusion. However, when the file is complicated, it can be anything but straightforward.
That’s why one veteran of the mortgage industry, who has been a long-time underwriter, said brokers must get that initial pass-off correct.
Dionne Bass (pictured top) is a veteran in the industry with almost three decades as a mortgage banker. She has been an underwriter for companies like Fannie Mae and Wells Fargo and has spent most of her career developing training programs. She said it starts with the broker controlling the narrative of the deal, rather than having it dictated to them.
“I would say, tell the underwriter the story,” Bass told Mortgage Professional America. “Don't let the underwriter tell you. And if you approach every single file, or every single borrower you talk to or build a file for, in that way, it makes the process so much easier if you're trying to tell a story. Then you ask for documents that are going to support your story. So, approach every file as if you're trying to build a story that makes sense.”
Common mistakes
Bass stresses documentation to all of her trainees. She said it’s not enough for a broker to know why something is the way it is in a file. It is critical that the broker can make the underwriter understand. She even suggests making sure account executives (AE) also know, so they can answer any questions the underwriter might ask them.
“You have your people who are super detailed,” Bass said. “They know what to do, but the reason why they know what to do is because they've been in the other two places that you name. When you hit that wall, so many times you say, ‘I am going to document. I am going to let the underwriter know. I'm going to talk to my AE like they got to cover all of it.’”
The mistakes she sees from brokers often come in one of two places. Bass also said that most of those mistakes could be eliminated by simply reviewing the file more carefully before sending it off to underwriting.
“The ones who don't know, the mistakes that I see are always credit and income,” she said. “Not reading the credit report and not reviewing the income. If you reviewed the documents that you're looking at before you send them, that would eliminate a lot of mistakes.”
Bass said one area that she has seen improvement lately is with companies that employ account managers. She said there has been a dramatic improvement with managers over the past few years.
“The account managers are doing a good job,” Bass said. “I am starting to see account managers being the account managers of old. They're a little bit more experienced now. I'm looking at the conversations being a little bit more informed than they used to be. I felt like, for a while, maybe like about 10 years ago, it was like, what is happening?
“As an underwriter, I remember our account managers were supposed to sign off on conditions. But when they did not sign off on a condition, they would make up some excuse and say, ‘Underwriting to review.’ Why didn't you just look at this and sign off on it? They refused to take the time to learn. But I'm seeing a turn, because technology is moving so much faster, and they had to get better.”
Become a willing learner
As someone who started writing training materials from nearly the beginning of her career, she has a simple message for new brokers: training is up to you.
“The new ones don't understand one very important thing, and that is it is not up to the company that you align yourself with to mentor and train you,” Bass said. “I am so sorry to say that it's not because, let's just be 100% real. Will they actually give you everything that you want? Because everybody's needs are different.”
Tanya Blanchard of Madison Chase Academy urges brokers to stop relying on AI for lending advice. Speaking ahead of AIME Fuse, she says true expertise comes from mastering guidelines and taking thorough applications, not “microwave approvals.”https://t.co/nPBOo4ZSxm
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) October 6, 2025
She said she wants to see that originators want to be trained, and reaching out to get that training on their own is a good sign. She said her colleague Nathan Knottingham with Vetted VA and MLO Force calls those people “willing learners.”
“Nathan calls them willing learners, and I love willing learners,” Bass said. “And so what I noticed most about the industry is that we don't have a lot of willing learners. What we have are people who start, and they only see the money, and they don't understand the amount of work that has to come in there.”
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