Client ensures her home will go to broker's son upon her death
Talk about weathering the storm.
Loan officer Jacob Saylor, who also is the director of business development at Buku Lending in Santa Monica., Calif., recalled the time he got a referral from mom and dad down in Florida.
“My parents have a home in Florida, and their housekeeper had a home in Fort Myers that her father had bought with the intention of it becoming hers,” he told Mortgage Professional America during a telephone interview. “For tax and other reasons, it made sense to do it as a purchase, with an equity sale from the father.”
Challenges emerged almost immediately. Given that the woman was paid primarily in cash or checks throughout her 10-year career as a housekeeper, she lacked good record-keeping. “I helped her establish a business account, and made sure she had good banking statements coming in. It took a year to plan out, so on paper she could qualify.”
And then there was the matter of unpaid taxes as a result of negligence of an ex-husband of some 20 years before. “It was a matter of Murphy’s Law in that whatever could happen did,” he said in recalling the various obstacles that emerged.
Gradually, things started to look more promising. “With the equity proceeds from the difference between the home value and what she needed, we even financed paying off her car,” he said of working on the woman’s debt ratio. “We actually paid her car off within the transaction on a purchase to get $500 off her debt sheet so she could get approval for the loan. That made a big difference.”
It was a case of delayed, rather than instant, gratification: “It took almost a year, but we helped her get through and organize her taxes to get to a place to get the home.”
Headed for Wall Street to help ring the closing bell
Saylor invoked the story after being asked by United Wholesale Mortgage to submit a compelling narrative toward winning a chance to help the lender ring the closing bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Ultimately, 100 brokers tied to UWM were selected based on the compelling nature of their narratives.
The event was part of UWM’s annual celebration of National Mortgage Brokers Day, which took place on July 18. From among the 100 brokers chosen to go on the trip, a smaller number were picked to help ring the closing bell at the stock exchange.
Weathering the storm as a new homeowner
But wait, there’s more to the story. Saylor recalled how the transaction wrapped up a mere six hours before a hurricane swept through Fort Myers. “She rode out the hurricane and 150-mile winds in her closet in a house that had only been officially hers for four hours,” he recalled.
She weathered the storm, with slight damage on a window representing the totality of hurricane-induced structure damage.
Without a family of her own but filled with gratitude, she surprised Saylor with a grand gesture in thanking him for his considerable help toward her securing a home.
“She set it up that when she passes away – hopefully not anytime soon – she left the house to my two-year-old son,” Saylor said. “Someday, my kid – and hopefully a long time from now so she has a long life – will have a piece of property in Fort Myers. I never would think that something like that could happen. It’s a lesson for all of us to never judge a transaction and help the client.”
She had previously acted to benefit the future beneficiary of her will and testament. The loan officer recalled how she secured a child’s bed from other clients whose grandchild had outgrown it to his parents’ home so Saylor’s child could use it when he visited his folks. “Sweet things like that,” he said in describing the woman’s devotion. “It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences,” he said of helping her achieve homeownership.
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