Enduring the Great Recession was a blessing – broker

Another epiphany: “Here’s the deal. You have to understand the cost analysis of a loan, and why there is such a different spread from retail to wholesale. Why is the cost $9,000 nationally on a retail loan and $2,200 on a broker loan? And how does that translate to the borrower? If you’re a loan officer and you don’t know that you need to know that, you need to understand what you’re doing. We’re not slinging pancakes, you know what I mean? We’re helping people with one of the biggest purchases of their lives, typically.”

Today, she is a principal and managing partner at California-based Empire Home Loans Inc., which she helped found. Much of her job involves transitioning originators from retail to wholesale, she explained.

“We built the company actually to transfer retail over to wholesale,” Yarbrough said. “I was a broker prior and went into retail because we’re all forced there. And when I came back, I saw market compression and thought the time is now.”

Given her past experience, she was well suited for the work: “I had a long run as a retail exec leader so I built out wholesale and retail,” she said. “And because I know it so well because I built the processes, I’m able to speak to it and understand what a retail loan officer’s lens is because it’s different from a broker’s lens.”