Banks = Boring

I got into the mortgage business sorta' by design. I have a degree in Finance and thought I would either work in Securities with a Brokerage Firm or work for a Bank. Well, I ended up with the later and starting working for a Bank right out of College in 1994. I actually took the incredibly dull tract of training to be a Bank Manager...the epitome of boring.

After working in several areas of the Bank during my first year, I decided to drop the Management Training program and just go to work in the Mortgage Department. Basically, the reasons for jumping into the Mortgage Department were as follows:

1) The most money to be made in a Bank is in the Mortgage Department. If you think all areas of Banking equates to great money, you would be wrong. You could make the same working at Wal-Mart in management. The only upside of working at the Bank is that you aren't subjected to the "people of Wal-Mart". Go "google" that site when you get a chance...you won't be disappointed.
2) The other parts of the Bank (IRA's. Branch Management, New Accounts, etc.) were so incredibly boring that I feared I would go postal one day. My target would have been some "Old Ass Fucker" that wanted to argue the quarterly interest on his IRA certificate of deposit was supposed to compounded monthly instead of quarterly (see what I mean about boring).
3) You have a bit more freedom to get "out of the office" when you are in the Mortgage Department. The ability to get "out of the office" and not be "chained to my desk" was important for the management of my Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.

The Bank I worked for was small and ultra-conservative. You actually had to qualify for the mortgage loan. When I say qualify...I mean the following:

1) Have a down payment of at least 20%
2) Have GREAT credit.
3) Have the ability to meet qualification ratios.
4) Have the ability to provide: 6 months of bank statements, 2 years of pay stubs, and W-2's.
5) Have the desire and willingness to give up your first born child as collateral.

Perhaps 5) is an exaggeration. We promise everything in this blog will be the absolute truth (as you will read later on, we couldn't even make this shit up).

To make this long story short, my counterpart and I came from totally different backgrounds before we met each other at a large National Mortgage Company at the height of the housing boom. Our experiences before we met were as different as night and day. My counterpart wrote mortgages for people a day out of Bankruptcy...the Bank I worked for treated people with a Bankruptcy like...well...a Leper.

Buckle up and enjoy the ride.