President and owner gives her verdict
What with inflation and higher mortgage rates, one might think this might not be the best time to become a broker – let alone open one’s own brokerage. Barb Multari (pictured), president and owner of Raleigh, N.C.-based Pathway Mortgage Group Inc. thinks otherwise.
“I think now is a great time to come into the broker channel just in general,” Multari said. “But if you’re looking to open your own brokerage, given when I started four years ago and what’s available now, AIME has so many resources to make it easier, quicker, faster and less painful coming into the broker channel. I would reach out to AIME for their resources.”
AIME, of course, is the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts, which staged its annual Fuse convention in Las Vegas from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1. A monumental affair attended by thousands of members, the event stressed the point that independent brokers are better for consumers in the long run. That’s where Mortgage Professional America caught up with Multari to gain her insights into the current state of the industry.
One thing that struck MPA is the company’s 4.9 Google rating based on positive reviews – a measure that is hard to come by. MPA asked Multari to what she attributes the high rating. It turns out it’s due largely to good old customer service.
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“I personally have always been focused on the customer experience,” she said. “When the customer gets to the end and signs everything, I want them to be thinking of the next time they work with us.”
It’s not just her personal philosophy, but the corporate culture at Pathway Mortgage Group on which she insists: “The whole team works that way,” she said. “I hired people who fit into that culture, who are very customer-service oriented. It starts when we initially meet the prospective clients – there are steps we do there. We send cute little gifts when they get preapproved, we have great communication in the process, we do follow-up things with them. It’s all about customer experience. So everything we do every day is to make sure that when the customer gets to the end, they can’t wait to work with us again.”
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Yet the realities – higher interest rates, refinances and purchases down for most of 2022 – cannot be ignored. What is she doing to navigate such choppy waters?
“I think for everyone – myself included – we have to do more right now,” she said. “More conversations; more education/more sharing with prospective clients what’s going on; preparing them for higher interest rates; showing them MBS charts; calculating their payments 1% higher and a 0.5% higher just in case something happens between the time we preapprove them and they go into contract; checking in with them more frequently. More – we have to do more right now. More context, more calls to realtors. Last year, we hardly had to do anything – the loans were falling from the skies. But we need to make very proactive – almost aggressive – contact with our customers.”
The more recent Fuse conference this past weekend was the fifth staged by AIME, and Multari marveled at all that’s transpired since. She attended the first iteration in 2018, and credits the experience as having provided the impetus to start her own brokerage – lighting that fuse, if you will.
“My first AIME conference was the very first one in 2018,” she said. “That’s what literally sealed the deal to leave retail and open my own broker shop. AIME continues to roll out new products. First and foremost, just connecting people – giving us a place to come together and share ideas. Some of what I learned from non-QM is because I heard other brokers talking in the AIME group saying ‘I did this, I did this.’ So that kind of collaboration and sharing across the industry.
“Then the different programs they’ve rolled out – with education and training and the BACPAC,” she added, the latter a reference to the Broker Action Coalition Political Action Committee created earlier this year. I was in Washington, D.C. for the start of the BACPAC and what they’re doing to advocate for consumers. Galvanizing everybody together has been most beneficial.”
