Solano Real Estate Scene: Jim Porter
Article By: Jim Porter – August 23, 2024
HUD issued on Dec. 15, 2022, mortgagee letter 2022-22, which clarified some conflict-of-interest rules and changed the HUD dual employment policy.
Previously, mortgage loan officers, or MLOs, could not sell homes if they wanted to offer FHA (HUD) loans and a Realtor could not become a HUD-approved MLO.
People have always been able to do both, sell loans and sell houses, but they could not offer FHA loan products, and most HUD lenders would not hire someone that sells real estate because the mortgage lender would not want to risk losing their FHA HUD approval.
Over the past 35 years, I have seen more than 100 agents and brokers try to do both but only a few have been successful because both jobs are tough, and although both professions are related to real estate, selling, and underwriting loans and selling, and analyzing homes are totally different skills.
Now that large real estate companies and builders are fully engaged in the mortgage business and this NAR settlement is adding margin compression for independent contractor agents, individual Realtors might start looking into adding mortgage loan origination to their business and getting paid legally for helping their buyers obtain financing.
The key for a Realtor to be able to professionally help a buyer obtain a mortgage, they must be fully trained, they must be fully committed to the buyer’s best interest, and they better have the best processing and underwriting support imaginable because if anything goes wrong, the risk of loss to one’s reputation is doubled or even tripled when a person tries to do two jobs.
Jim Porter, NMLS No. 276412, is the branch manager of Solano Mortgage, NMLS No. 1515497, a division of American Pacific Mortgage Corporation, NMLS No. 1850, licensed in California by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the CRMLA / Equal Housing Opportunity. Jim can be reached at 707-449-4777.
