Keeping it real pays off for broker

But back to him keeping it real – an attribute aided by his status as a homebuyer’s education instructor status. He related how his father bought the family home at 17% interest, and rates in the 80s and 90s were also in double digits. “A lot of folks see 7.5% and think it’s too high. I say ‘so tell me about your credit card at 23%’. And they go: ‘Whoa.’ They say rates are too high, I say: ‘You have a $4,000 purse, but you’re asking for down payment assistance. There’s an issue there. Your financial management needs to be adjusted a bit.’”

Read more: “I can do it better”

He keeps it real all day: “I show them what the cost is,” he said of his customers. “I break down every rate and tell them bring me an LE [loan estimate] from a competitor; I want to look at it. I highlight ‘this is what we charge, this is what they charge – apples to apples’. It’s not a specialty product, just apples to apples. This is what we do, and we get a great response from it. You have to be very real with customers. A lot of it is financial coaching and being transparent with them.”

Mortgage Professional America ran into Nevarez at the recent Fuse conference, the fifth iteration of the annual gathering for Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) that was staged in Las Vegas from Sept 29-Oct. 1. The broker was spotlighted by AIME as a recipient of the group’s Spark small business grant last year.

Given the collegial nature of the channel, Nevarez offered advice to those who may just be entering the space unaccustomed to a rising rate environment as the Fed attempts to manage inflation. “Rates are going to be the rates,” he said. “We can’t control them, obviously. But what we can do is educate our customers and be consistent. Once we educate, that’s the key piece. You have to grind it out. Sorry, it’s not ’19, it’s not ’20, it’s not ’21. Loans were falling in your lap, and you couldn’t keep up. Now you have to put effort in your work – but this is where you show your skill set. And this is what we’re seeing – a lot of originators exiting the market because they wanted that easy money.”