What Does A Mortgage Broker or Loan Officer Do?

A loan officer is responsible for generating loans and making sure those loans close. A mortgage broker needs to do the same thing. But a mortgage broker can be an employer of loan officers and this would require him to manage the office and the loan officers that work for him.

To be honest, most of the day is spent on things that are not business related. In a survey we did of hundreds of loan officers, the average amount of time they spent productively was only 4 hours a day out of 9.

But let's answer the question of what a mortgage broker does.

As stated above, the primary responsibility of a mortgage broker is to generate loans and service his customers.

In a normal day a mortgage broker can:

• Do some marketing
• Meet with prospective clients
• Handle some paperwork
• Visit with Real Estate Agents and other referral partners

A loan officer would do all these things as well.

What should a mortgage broker do?

Mortgage brokers should be doing all these things on a regular basis. But most do not. That is why it is not hard to succeed in this business, even with a lot of competition. The majority of loan officers simply do not take care of business.

A mortgage broker should do the following:

• At least one activity per day to bring in new business.
• Spend at least one hour educating him/herself on marketing and the industry
• Delegate a lot of the paperwork and minimum wage work to others.
• Spend more time on developing partnerships with referral partners.

But what does a mortgage broker really do?

It depends on the company. Some loan officers are nothing more than order takers. The phone rings or a customer walks in the door and the loan officer is supposed to convince that person to do their loan with that loan officers. Or basically, sell himself and his company to the prospect.

Once that is done, there is paperwork to fill out, and then the loan is turned over to processing. Information is gathered and sent to the lender who approves or declines the loan. If the loan is approved and everything with the property is fine, a closing is scheduled.

Other loan officers have to generate their own customers. Some loan officers have to process their own loans, others can turn the files over to processors for that function.

The answer to the question, what does a mortgage broker or loan officer do, cannot be satisfactorily answered because the answer is different in all companies.