I would like to respectfully disagree with the above statements being made about my job, my career, my life as a loan officer. I've been in the business 13, going on 14 years now. When I was in college, I was going the direction of being in IT/Computer Science (I can type faster than a machine!). A good friend of mine back in the day told me to give real estate a try, this was in 2006 and I did. Needless to say that was a great time to get into the market and also a horrible time. I put my IT/Computer science career to the side and then BOOM, 2007/2008 hit and I started seeing almost every lender in the business shut their doors. I freaked and thought to myself what did I do?
Then I did what any salesperson/business owner would do, I pivoted and entered into an arena in the same field but helping homeowners save their homes. That is why I manage this amazing website called LoanSafe. LoanSafe was and still is the largest resource for homeowners when it comes to saving their homes from foreclosure.
Then the writing on the wall came back around 2010-2011 and the NMLS came out (new regulatory agency for loan officers). The NMLS is an organization that handles all the licensing aspects in order to originate home loans. Now mind you, at the time I held my Real Estate Salesperson license and had to decide what I wanted to do, drive people around to show homes or do what I love which is math and help people with home loans. I took the direction of home loans.
I would like to address a few things mentioned by the poster above:
"From what I know the loan officer is the lowest in the food-chain" - We do not get paid like realtors (making 3-6% commission), I'm not sure what you're trying to compare being a loan officer to but that's a horrible statement to make and completely untrue. Loan officers I wholeheartedly believe handle the majority of a real estate transaction when there is financing involved and we are compensated well.
"
It is relative easy to gain the loan officer license." - This isn't true at all, throughout all the licenses I have and hold in my professional real estate career this is by far the hardest test you will take. I have seen a number of people fail that have worked even as a loan assistant/processor for 2 years more than 3 times before they passed the exam. I can't even count the amount of people anymore that I know who have failed at least once.
"To be honest, you don't even need to study to even to pass the license. There are so many corrupted examiners, just give them a few winks here and there, and an envelope with about $500. More than what they get paid for watching you." - I'm speechless! I'm starting to believe you have no idea what you're talking about and with 25 years in the lending field you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. You cannot hand the testing center rep an envelope full of money, these tests are all done electronically and sent directly to the NMLS once you press the finish button. And by the way, the testing center doesn't allow you to take ANYTHING in and they watch you the entire time you take the test.
In addition to the above mentioned, you will have to pass a background check, livescan (fingerprints) and pay your licensing dues to not only the NMLS but also for each state you want to hold a license in. On top of that, every year you have to complete a certain number of hours of continuing education to keep your license active and those amount of hours will vary depending on the amount of licenses you hold.
In short, being a loan officer isn't easy. If you don't have a book of business or a way to generate business it can be very difficult and stressful as this is a sales/commission job mainly. You can however work for a big bank that will have you typically sit at a branch and they will bring you business but your compensation won't be as large and you'll have to deal with the big bank rules and systems.
I love my career, I have helped thousands of homeowners here within the LoanSafe community and will continue to do so as this is my job and my life.
