.:: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 ::.

so i've been a loan processor for about 2 months now, and i knew it would be stressful and frustrating and exhausting and demanding. it's stressful because there are so many expections of us...like how many loans we close every month (helping our team meet our monthly goal) and our customer survey results (need to be 85% satisfaction or higher) and getting loans to closing in under 30 days from the application date. it's frustrating cuz you work so hard on a loan, only to get the appraisal back and its waaaaaay lower than expected (i just got one for a house in gilroy that came in $200k less than the borrower thought it would!), and it's difficult working with some of the loan officers (some seem to completely ignore your emails and IMs, while others seem to think they can do your work better than you...still haven't decided which is more annoying). it's exhausting because you're expected to maintain a huge pipeline of loans in process and have contact with all your borrowers at least every 3rd business day (i only have 27 loans in my pipeline, most of our experienced processors can have 50-70 at any given time!!). it's demanding for all of the above reasons, happening all at once, on my mind at one time.

my manager keeps asking me if i like it. somedays i like what i do, when i'm lucky enough to not have to call any borrowers to tell them we can't do their loan because the value of their house is too low, and now instead of getting $15k cash back, they have to bring $20k to close on their loan. or when i can make 2 or 3 calls in a row telling borrowers that their values are good and we can do their loan with all the expectations they had from the beginning. and of course when i finally get that loan to closing, after sweating over it for weeks (in one case, only 13 days! woohoo!). then there are the days i don't like what i do so much, like when i get yelled at (twice) by a borrower who's loan we couldn't do because of something that was completely out of anyone's control (blame the federal gov't, it's their guideline that denied your loan!). or when i had to tell my old married couple on disability (she had cancer, he has emphysema) and couldn't afford their $2500 mortgage on a fixed income and was trying to get their payments reduced, that they didn't qualify for the loan because their debt to income ratio was way too high.

i have good days and i have bad days. i'm hoping that the good days heavily outweigh the bad days. and so far they have. i just need to learn how to not let the bad days get to me, and remind myself that the next day will probably be better. maybe it's because i'm pregnant and i'm just trying not to over-exert myself or let myself get too overwhelmed (it doesn't help that it's easy for me to lose motivation to work lately), but i have to admit, there are those days where i wish i could go back to my old funding/post-closing job...when work was so stress-free and overtime was unheard of.

:: joyce 8:14 PM [+]::
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