A loan officer shares his juicest stories from his 10-year career
I would have assumed that being a loan officer was a pretty boring job. That was until I read some of the juicy gossip they uncover while sifting through their clients finances. This dude has some truly fascinating stores from his 10-year career in the business.
I work for a well-known mortgage company and average closing about 200 residential mortgage loans per year. It's a stressful job, and I work 60 hours a week, but it's incredibly rewarding both personally and financially. I'm one of the lucky few who can say he loves his job, and I get to change peoples lives for the better every day. Being in this position gives me access to see all of my clients financial information, credit reports, records, bank accounts, divorce decrees, etc. I usually don't pay much attention to the bank account information unless I see any large deposits, but here are a few things that I've experienced over my last 10+ years in mortgage banking that I'm going to share with you today.
This is one of the more common ones I hear. I run a credit report and see late child-support payments. When I ask my client, one of the first things they beg me to do is to keep this a secret. This happened to me again last month when a couple called me and he insisted on speaking to me alone when his wife wasn't there. Now I understand why. I've done loans for 3 people in the last 12 months who are keeping a child secret from their current wife. I call this the Schwarzenegger-syndrome.
This probably happens to me twice a year. Wife calls me instead of the husband, and when I run the joint credit a mortgage appears. I can see that the mortgage is joint with the wife and somebody else, but I don't know who yet. Mortgage guidelines require me to get a copy of the mortgage statement so I'm naturally going to ask the question who it is. Wife typically tells me it's something she bought with a "friend" in Florida and her husband has no business of knowing. Always an awkward conversation. Oh, and pay no attention to the Ashley Madison subscription from her personal checking account. I noticed this as the scandal broke last year.
This happened in 2015. My client was messing around with his wife's best friend and got her pregnant. If that wasn't bad enough, he also got the realtor pregnant. We all found out at the worst possible time (at closing,) when the wife's best friend came barging into the title company while we were going over the then "HUD 1," screaming at him, calling him all sorts of names, and repeatedly saying "cheater, cheated, cheater!!!" We all start to understand what was happening as she kept going on about promises and lies, and wife starts bawling her eyes out, burying her head in her hands sobbing while saying "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it." Once the realtor catches wind of what was happening, she also stood up and started screaming at him crying shouting "you said you would leave her for me you f*ing a$$hole!" The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The title agent and I slipped out of the room, and waited. Shouting ensued for the next 10 minutes, wife barged out in tears, friend ran out knocking over a plant, and realtor was last throwing the keys in his face so hard that it bled from a cut. Dead silence for the next 30 seconds... afraid to look anywhere. Not knowing what else to say, the title agent said "so I guess we're not closing today?" I swear I can still remember his expression. I thought lasers were about to pop from the guys eyes. Until this day, that story is well known in my state. I was the loan officer that was there.
This is another request I get. Both spouses requesting I send loan applications separately so they don't see each other's debt. I very politely asked one of my clients on why they chose to do this. Her response made a point: we have an open relationship, and as long as I don't know about anything he does, I'm happy. As long as he doesn't know about anything I do, he's happy. After she said that I paid attention to that bank statements and understood what she meant. I felt sad for both of them. Apparently they both enjoy strip clubs among many other activities; they could save a lot of money if they just did it for each other.
A few years back I ran credit for a couple and saw a few recent late child-support payment. I told husband this is why his credit was so low. He immediately started shouting at me, called me a liar, insulted me for 20 seconds and hung up the phone. 10 minutes later I get a call from an angry real estate agent telling me I'm an imbecile and have to stop spreading lies or she's going to call my boss and tell everybody "I'm the lender that loses realtors clients" so they don't send me business. I was so damn confused... One week later I get a call from the wife thanking me for bringing to her attention that he was cheating on her. 1 year later, I closed her loan as a single successful professional mother. Very proud of my client for being so strong!
This is another common one I've heard from many title agents. One of the forms you sign at closing when buying a house shows all of the names that your credit report has pulled up for you (name affidavit.) If you were ever married, your spouses name is very likely to pop up here. Over my last 10+ years and mortgage lending, I've been at 2 closings where husband finds out that wife was married before him at closing. One was where the last name coincided with the person the wife said was "only her best guy friend." At closing we all find out her best guy friend was previously married to her. She had told the husband they had never slept together. Wife had just come from seeing "him and the best friends wife" last week in San Francisco. He challenges her, forces her to call best friend, the best friends wife answers, and all hell breaks loose. Shouts, screams, insults... title agent and I quietly step out of the room to wait. This ended up in divorce, they did not sign the paperwork, lost $30,000 earnest money deposit, and got sued by the sellers. Fast forward about 8 months, he successfully proved to the court she was having an affair with her ex husband, I mean, "best friend," and got a financial reprise she is still paying for. That call busted the ex-husband as well but no idea what happened to him.
Wasn't that a fun little read ladies and gents. I guess the moral of the story here is to never lie to your spouse.
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