LAS VEGAS — Credit unions shifting housing finance programs fromrefinancing existing loans to originating new loans mayl have tofire significant numbers of existing mortgage staff, according to ahousing finance consultant.

|

PatSherlock, president of credit union and bank financeconsultancy QFS Sales Solutions in Medford, N.J., told executivesattending the American Credit UnionMortgage Association's annual meeting Monday that researchershave identified nine traits that top producing mortgage originatorsshare.

|

Also from ACUMA:
Think Strategically, Attendees Told
Expand,Personalize Social Media Use

|

The good news is that six of the traits can be developed ortaught, but the bad news is that the three most unique to mortgageoriginators are developed early and are really not something thatcan be developed later, Sherlock said.

|

The nine traits are energy, follow through, optimism,resilience, assertiveness, sociability, self-reliance, lowexpressiveness and positivity about people.

|

“None of these are terribly surprising,” Sherlock told themeeting “and the first six are those you might find in other salesindustries. But the last three are really crucial to mortgageorigination – and they can't be taught.”

Asked whether this meant creditunions would have to fire a significant portion of their existingloan originators, Sherlock repled that credit unions “will have toface some very diffcult choices.”

By self-reliance, Sherlock explained that she meant someone whowould not just wait for leads to come to them but would insteadtake the steps to seek out and find new business. The qualityof low expressiveness doesn't mean someone who is inarticulate asmuch as someone who “doesn't have the gift of the gab” and is morewilling to listen to a potential borrower before they speak, sheexplained, adding positivity about people is the quality of notletting personality traits or foibles keep them from reaching thegoal.

|

Sherlock offered her perspectives to help credit unionexecutives better hone their hiring and interview skills and tobetter learn how to identify good loan originators. Shewarned the executives against assuming that someone from a largevolume lender such as a large bank would necessarily be the kind oforiginator they needed.

|

“A lot of the really good originators are probably staying withtheir lenders,” she noted, adding that “years in the business doesnot necessarily make a really good originator.”

|

ACUMA is holding its meeting at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in LasVegas through Tuesday. There were 350 executives registered withroughly 270 of them from about 170 credit unions or housing financeCUSOs, the organization said.