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Under Promise And Over Deliver
By C. J. Coury
I am sure that you have all heard the phrase “Under Promise and Over Deliver” and that you do your best to live by it. However, some times we don’t recognize the opportunity to follow this sage advice when it presents itself. The current market is presenting us all with one of those opportunities right now – Setting Proper Expectations.
I recently received several requests from REAL Magazine contributors and readers to once again stress the importance of reducing preventable stressful situations by setting the right expectations at the beginning of a transaction. With the proliferation of fully documented loan underwriting we have all seen the process turn time grow rapidly. In today’s market it is commonplace to experience close dates well in excess of what we were seeing just 6 months ago.
Based on my conversations with most of the major lenders in Southwest Florida the proper expectations for closings are as follows:
Conventional Purchase Loans = 30 days
Government Purchase Loans = 45 days
Refinance Loans = 60 days
Attempting to short cut these average turn times will generally result in undue stress and a poor customer experience. I often liken it to trying to take cuts in the security line at the airport. Virtually everyone in line is in a hurry to get through to the gate and would not be agreeable to letting someone cut in ahead of them simply because they didn’t plan well enough to arrive on time. Due to this phenomena the days of “rush” processing are simply gone for the foreseeable future as almost every file now falls into this category. The only way to speed an application up is to put it in front of other anxious and time constrained borrowers.
To avoid turning what should be an excitement filled process into a frustrating and stressful endeavor for your buyers, set the right expectations up front. Make certain that your offer to purchase allows for enough time to meet today’s turn-times. Doing this will protect your buyers from the unpleasantness of contract extensions, lost rate locks, lost moving company reservations, wasted days off, missed move out dates and a myriad of other issues. These relationship eroding eventualities can be avoided by simply doing your best to set the right expectations at the onset of the transaction.
When you under promise and over deliver you will be much more apt to secure life-long relationships with your customers and reduce the stress in your life.
C. J. Coury is a Senior Vice President with Bank of America and oversees their residential mortgage division serving Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte Counties. Prior to joining Bank of America in 1995, C. J. was President of Mortgage Brokers of America in Birmingham, MI for 7 years. He has been an active mortgage finance professional since 1983. C. J. may be reached at (941) 952-2888 or by email at charles.j.coury@bankofamerica.com [2].
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