The hardcore loan officerEric Weinsteinloan officers, Carteret Mortgage, unemployed
If you are reading this, you are one of the survivors. Looking
back less than a year, loan officers on the streets had any level
of experience from "just getting started" to more than 20 years.
Now, chances are you have a minimum of 10 years in the business and
were "just getting by" before the rates sank recently. If you are
reading this, it means you are still in the mortgage business,
while many others have switched jobs, remain unemployed or have
opened up side businesses to stay afloat. You are the "hardcore"
loan officer. This is your chosen profession. You are sticking with
it, mainly because you really don't have any other job skills, or
stubbornly refuse to take a job from your father-in-law!
Well, speaking from the other side, let me tell you what it is
like. I was the owner of one of the nation's largest mortgage
brokers, Carteret Mortgage. You old timers will remember us. We had
a good system, strong internal controls and a top esprit de corps.
We were on top of the world. And then & we weren't.
Since closing the company, which you can imagine is pretty
devastating, I have toyed with many ideas, including selling stuff
on eBay, starting an Internet retailer, becoming an online
riverboat poker gambler (kidding) and eating a bullet (really
kidding). You go in and out of manic euphoria (when you think you
have the next great idea) to the "can't get out of your
pajamas/sleeping all day" depression; then, you realize that you
are just one of the countless million unemployed out there.
The weird thing is that I have been unemployed before. I went
through this same thing during the savings and loan crisis years
ago. It seems it should have been worse back then, because that was
when I was younger and I had nothing. Now, I have some fat still
accumulated during the good times, but I know this is a level
deeper of misery. I think it is because when times are good and
then bad, you mourn for the good times back, rather than when you
just didn't know better. I tell you this because I know many of you
are going though this, too. Well, I am here to tell you the
solution. Get back to work!
If you are like me, mortgages are pretty much all you know. If
you are, like me, 20-plus years into it, you might as well
acknowledge you are a "hardcore" loan officer and know there is
just nothing out there like it. No job pays as well, or gives you
the independence or job satisfaction. All businesses and jobs have
the same ups and downs, same frustrations and difficulties. You
might as well "bloom where you are planted" and do what you know.
As for me, I am getting out of my pajamas and getting a job as a
loan officer. I might as well admit it to myself: I am a "hardcore"
loan officer. I have been to the other side, and there is nothing
there.
Eric Weinstein may be reached at (703) 505-8692 or e-mail
[email protected].
