by Marco Piña

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What comes to mind when you think of closings?

• boredom
• stress
• anxiety
• a lot of paperwork

It’s just not a place where you want to be if you don’t have to. And you already know, as a loan officer, you don’t have to. But you might consider it. It’s another way for you to brand yourself as a helpful and proactive partner with your clients. According to a study by the CFPB, 18% of buyers lack guidance by crucial players at the closing. Being there lets them know you are concerned and available, and that can pay off big dividends down the road.

Frequent Closings

The reality is, most of you made a choice early in your career about whether or not to assist with closings (and let’s be honest, you decided not to) and haven’t given it another thought since. I’d like to suggest you give it some more thought, now.

Attending a closing give you the opportunity to

• be in front of possible referral partners
• bond with your buyer
• have a dramatic impact on those 18% of buyers who are lacking guidance
• set yourself up to be the go-to LO when the buyer’s friends, family, and colleagues go house shopping

What, you don’t have enough time? Even the busiest of you could probably attend 4–5 closings per month. But that aside, would your opinion change if they only took a few minutes and a handful of signatures?

If the idea of being at the closing table intrigues you, but not enough to spend half a day looking at someone sign papers, then eClosings might be a game changer for you.

eClosings

For years, consumer-protection laws and regulations have been pressuring the mortgage industry, which has led to the industry making the paperwork more and more complicated (justifiably so, in order to protect their interests). Earlier this year the CFPB announced that it would be running an eClosing pilot. The results from this pilot have the potential to turn the whole process upside down. eClosings represent a much simpler process than sitting for 3 hours reviewing and signing and initialling potentially hundreds of pages.

So what will eClosings do?

• Reduce closing time to mere minutes
• Make documents available to all parties prior to closing
• Provide an eco-friendly solution
• Facilitate consumer comprehension of documents
• Help prevent errors in documentation
• Just maybe, increase your chances of participating!

It was only a matter of time before the real-estate industry joined the Internet age. To be sure, eClosings are a big step, and there are lingering questions about whether they’re ready, viable, or efficient; but the fact is many companies have already been implementing them with success for a while now. The CFPB pilot is just an effort to provide some more public data for the companies who have yet to take the step on their own.

The fact is some LOs are already cashing in on the opportunities available from assisting closings. If you’re not, then maybe eClosing represents a great new opportunity for you.