“My advice to new loan officers is it doesn’t really matter what your niche is. You just have to figure out what it’s going to be – it doesn’t have to be VA,” he said. “You just have to figure out the community that you already naturally exist in.
The questions to ask, he said, are as follows: “Where’s the place that I have already a natural connection with people and then how do I lean into that to make sure all of those people in my sphere actually know who I am – what I do, what my business is? And then how do you kind of join those things together?”
Education, expertise crucial for loan officers in VA lending
Gade stepped into his new role with UMortgage towards the end of last year, having put up huge numbers in VA loan originations since starting out. He said a concern in the VA space was lack of knowledge among real estate and mortgage professionals, feeding into misleading and incorrect information being provided to veterans about their options.
“We’re working on building within UMortgage an educational platform where the truth is being told [about VA loans] and trying to get that out… having the real information there because there’s just too much misinformation,” he said.
“You’ve got to have loan officers that are great – so we’re working really hard to train our loan officers on the truth about VA loans. There’s the educational component for realtors. And then the third prong is you’ve got to have a borrower that’s being trained in the right information.”