To Infinity And Beyond-My Apologies to Buzz Lightyear

  If you watch The Big 10 Channel lately (as well as the Super Bowl) you have seen commercials for an online lender that feature this little guy. The commercials are touting the speed of qualification for a mortgage of the space ship mortgage that is offered. It's fast-like a Titan Rocket. The showing of the ad during the Super Bowl has elicited a twitter war that even the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) got into - “When it comes to ‪#‎mortgages‬, take your time, ask questions and ‪#‎knowbeforeyouowe‬,” Maybe not such bad advice. While the Space Ship mortgage company is highly technologically evolved as far as automated systems go, obtaining a mortgage isn't quite the same transaction as purchasing a pair of shoes online. Shoes in the wrong size can be returned in most cases. Mortgages cannot.

  When I was a mortgage broker one of our investors was the aforementioned Space Ship Mortgage Company. I can attest to the fact that they are a highly automated company. The particular process that they are advertising actually allows them to view your assets, taxes and income (you check off that 's ok) through automation so that you aren't hassled with getting those items to a real live person upfront. Or asking that real live person to wing it. I presume you do have to provide hard copies at some point-that was the case when I had transactions with them. And that is where it can all break down. Garbage in, garbage out. While income, assets, and credit are a huge part of the story, it's the details that aren't apparent with just that information that hang a loan process up or kill it all together. Things like child support that add or subtract from income, the fact that someone quit their job a year ago and then was rehired six weeks later, thereby changing their hire date and tossing out the possibility of using any overtime to qualify since the use of overtime funds is a two year average from hire date. This speedo qualifying doesn't pick up nuances of credit. Your loan might not qualify due to credit issues, but maybe your issue can be easily solved. What you know is that you are declined-not what you need to do to fix it. For reasons such as those, I think having a person is good. Someone who knows the mortgage industry and how things work. Of course that is my job- I would prefer to keep my job so in the interests of full disclosure, I have a dog in the hunt. And I am all for automation. Hands down my company does a great automated gig. However, there is a human being on the front end.

  This is the most important financial transaction you will probably ever be involved in. Service from a person you can go see-isn't that worth a little bit of time?