David Kakish says vague pre-approvals and misleading fee sheets are costing brokers deals – and trust
Where trust holds real monetary value and misunderstanding carries a price tag, transparency isn’t optional – it’s essential. For David Kakish, a mortgage broker with a ministry background and a systems mindset, it’s also a personal standard.
“Transparency isn’t broken because it’s missing. Transparency in this industry is broken because, by and large, and I don’t want to cast type [but] transparency feels optional for a lot of lenders, and that’s especially hard for the consumer,” Kakish said.
Now in his third year in the mortgage space after 17 years as a pastor, Kakish doesn’t just talk about ethics – he builds them into his process. He entered the industry in 2022, amid rate hikes and tightened credit. In that chaos, he found one clear failure: borrowers weren’t just underserved by products – they were underserved by information.
How rising rates exposed pricing games
“As rates started to rise, the difference between lenders and their pricing structures became more and more apparent. And so I think for the first time in a long time, consumers are understanding the need to shop for a mortgage,” he said. “I think now more than ever, they're realizing there is a difference between lenders and types of lenders and different lending institutions and such and such and such. So that is good, I'm thankful for that,” he said.
But the shopping process breaks down when key information is buried, vague, or manipulated. “It’s not a tangible, fixed good. In real time, the price of the thing you are shopping for is changing based on what's happening with market by securities and the 10-year bond,” Kakish said.
One common flashpoint: fee worksheets. He’s seen them used to obscure rather than inform. “A lot of times fee worksheets are like a three-card monte in downtown New York City. Find the queen. You see it? Okay? We’re gonna flip it, and now I’m gonna move the cards around and see if you can find it. And that’s what we’re doing,” he said.
How worksheet games mislead borrowers
In one case, a lender quoted property taxes at $150 per month on a $1.3 million home in Texas – despite a local tax rate near 2.5%. “In reality, I don’t remember the [exact] math... [but] I want to say it was [closer to] $1,300 a month for property taxes,” he said. “The consumers not understanding all the different fees and whatever. They just see a monthly payment of cash to close, they go, ‘Well, I’m going with that lender.’”
Sometimes, misleading optics are intentional. “I had a client [who was] so adamant he did not want to pay for discount points. He did his research, and that was his answer, [and] he went with another lender,” Kakish said. “He told me that they offered him a much better rate with no discount points... [I asked him to send the] lock loan estimate, and he was right, he had no discount points – but he had $9,000 in origination charges.”
Speed sells – but precision builds trust
In a high-speed market, vague promises cost more than just money. They burn trust – a much harder asset to restore. “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. A lot of people flex speed, speed, speed. What I have found is precision is just as important as speed, and reputation is everything,” he said.
That’s especially true in the pre-approval process. Kakish sees too many brokers treating pre-approvals as casual lead magnets. “So many lenders will issue pre-approval letters like a hall pass to use the bathroom in grade school. When, in reality, all they did was maybe a one Bureau soft check... didn’t ask for all the income documentation,” he said.
These shortcuts become liabilities downstream – especially in a digital marketplace where every borrower has a platform. “You can’t fake transparency in a viral world where every person you interact with has a megaphone. It is not hard for a voice to be heard in this digital landscape,” Kakish said.
Focus less on the problem – more on the readiness
This theme echoes what Kakish shared in a recent MPA column: that newer loan officers can differentiate through clarity and consistency, not just rates.
Asked to name the industry’s biggest problem, he didn’t reach for a buzzword. “For some it's lead generation. For others... affordability for their clients. It just depends on your business model... you could say a million things,” he said.
His strategy is simple: build systems that work regardless of the cycle. “I try not to focus on the problems. I want to focus on how to win regardless of what's happening in the world,” he said.
