Jim Bane has a very simple business philosophy, one which has enabled him to be a successful mortgage loan originator.
“My deal is I call people back the same day. I treat people the right way,” he said.
The mortgage business is a family affair for Bane as his father was an originator for 40 years.
He started in 1991, moving over from selling credit reports to mortgage companies in Oregon. He had been living in Texas, and at the time his father was working up in Oregon. Bane went for a visit and was entranced by the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
Deciding to stay in the area for a little while, he got the job selling credit reports, but soon realized the lenders he was selling to were recruiting him for their own staffs.
Eventually Bane spoke with his father and decided the prospects were better selling mortgages. He worked in Oregon for another year before returning to his home state of Texas.
Currently he is branch manager and loan officer for the Fort Worth office of WR Starkey Mortgage. He has been with the company since July of 2001.
Bane did $82 in 2010, ranking him 36th on the Origination News Top 150 Loan Producer list. For 2011, he did $69 million, as he concentrated on some of his corporate responsibilities.
About 70% of his personal production is traditional conventional (under the nonexpanded conforming loan limit of $417,000), with 25% being Federal Housing Administration and the rest being jumbo or Veterans Affairs product.
Jumbo mortgage lending activity is beginning to pick up in his market as pricing on these loans has come down significantly in the last 12 months.
Bane does not have a target product or borrower niche. “I do whatever you need me to do,” he said.
But all the work he put in developing a referral base, both among Realtors and his past clients is reflected in how Bane is able to run his business today.
Much of the marketing he did took place 12 years ago. With his longevity and reputation in his market, Bane no longer makes traditional sales calls.
He does speak before groups a few times each year, as well as occasionally at sales meetings from his Realtor partners to update them on market conditions.
His clients “want me in my office. They don't want me bringing them a doughnut. They want me in here working on their loans.” Going out and making “19 sales calls a day doesn't happen” anymore.
Bane does keep in good contact with his referral sources. But his success with them is because he comes into the office and works. “I'm here in the office doing my job.”
Another important thing for his clients is his product knowledge. And if it isn't a product that he normally does such as a commercial loan or a land loan, his clients know that he knows the right person to send it to.
The majority of his business today comes from past customer referrals, although Realtor and builder referrals are still a huge of it. Bane said his database consists of over 10,000 people. The extent of his marketing consists of four postcards, one each calendar season sent out to his past customer database from the company's corporate office.
His base is the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, although most of his business comes from the Tarrant County (Fort Worth and environs) side of the region. This region saw a slow steady 1% to 2% growth in prices during the boom years, so when the fall came, it did not suffer as badly as other areas, Bane noted. Yes, right now there are houses that are not appraising at the sale price (and “that has hit us in the last year”). But unlike Florida, California or Arizona, there has been a moderate decline in home values.
With rates at all-time lows, business has gotten better in the middle of the first quarter he noted. On top of which, Fort Worth is still an attractive market for people and companies to relocate to. There is still a lot of available land in the Fort Worth area. He pointed out that by 2020, it is believed Fort Worth will surpass Dallas in population because it has more available land.
Bane cited statistics showing an average of 600 people a day are moving into the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And a fair amount of them are homebuyers, as they are coming because of job-related relocations.
Depending on where the person is relocating from, the home prices in the area allow them to purchase a larger house for less money then a similar property cost in the location that they left.
“Our home prices here are cheap compared to the rest of the country,” for the most part, Bane said, adding there are also high-end enclaves in the area as well.
So there is the triple threat of people moving into the area with low interest rates and low prices which helps to sustain the real estate business. “You've got a bunch of good things going for the area, no doubt,” he said.
In 2011 Bane's production was down from its typical level as spent time helping WR Starkey grow several other markets in Texas. So he was traveling to recruit and hire loan officers.
Another reason his production (along with many other loan officers' production) declined between 2010 and 2011 is that last year tighter underwriting made it tougher to originate. Program terms changed daily, lenders looked at files with more scrutiny. Even today, “it is a different world” in terms of compliance.
This year, now that has finished with his corporate responsibilities, Bane is once again concentrating on his personal production. For 2012, he is estimating he will have a more normal volume for him of $92 million.
It is both purchase and refinance applications coming in, he said, with the purchase business better this year than last. He believes mortgage interest rates should stay at the same level through out this year.
