Brokers must “reinvent” themselves

He said: “We have to realize that the world is changing every day. There’s been a shift in the market and the supply of loans is different now than it was a year and even six months ago.”

A broker who had comfortably been doing government-sponsored loans for the last eight years was now finding it much harder because the supply had dried up, leaving them with no option but to figure out how to do non-QM, he added.

The key was to demystify the process, he explained. “It’s like anything in life, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Originators have to continue their education to stay relevant every year, but all it takes is a few hours learning how to do non-QM.”

That alone would not guarantee success, however. “Another thing is picking a lender who is an expert at non-QM,” he stressed.

FundLoans’ non-QM experience goes back to 2016 when the firm was founded. Its client base is mostly self-employed business owners, largely entrepreneurs with complex, multiple-source incomes with good credit profiles but who are unable to obtain a loan approval from a bank as they don’t have two years’ worth of W-2 forms.