What to ask a broker program before you send them a deal

Every broker program says the same three things on its home page. These are the questions that actually tell them apart, and you should ask them of us as readily as of anyone else.

1. Who owns the borrower afterwards?

The only question that matters if you get it wrong. Some desks take the file and market to your borrower forever. Ask it plainly: after this closes, does your company contact my client again? Get the answer in writing, in the agreement, not in an email.

2. What do I keep?

Not "competitive splits" — the number. Do you keep all of your points, or do they take half? Is there a monthly fee, a platform fee, a per-file fee? A program that cannot answer this in one sentence is a program whose answer you will not like.

Work it on a real file. On a $400,000 loan, two points is $8,000. A program that takes half of that leaves you $4,000, and if it also charges a monthly fee you are paying to earn less. Over a year at one deal a month that difference is $48,000 — which is typically the whole argument, and it is arithmetic you can do before the call rather than after the first closing.

3. Who pays, and is it disclosed?

Somebody pays for the service. If the program is free to you, find out who it is not free to and whether the borrower sees it. A fee that appears on the settlement statement, disclosed from the term sheet onward, is a business model. A fee nobody mentions until closing is a problem you will be standing next to.

4. Whose name is on the term sheet?

Your borrower should see you. If the term sheet arrives under someone else's brand, you have introduced your client to your competitor and paid for the privilege.

5. What happens when they pass?

The real test. Does the desk tell you why, and move it, or does the file just stop? Ask what their process is for a decline, and listen for whether they have one.

6. Can I see the file?

If you cannot see what has been uploaded, what is missing and where it sits, you cannot answer your borrower's questions — and you will be phoning to ask. A desk that shows you the file is a desk that trusts you with it.

7. What do you actually do?

"We have lender relationships" is not work. Packaging is work. Chasing conditions is work. Ordering title and reading it is work. Ask which of those they do and which come back to you, because the difference is your week.

Our answers, for the record

Your borrower stays yours and we do not market to them. You keep 100% of your points and your processing fee, and there is no monthly fee. The borrower pays a platform service fee at closing, disclosed on the term sheet from the first day, as its own line on the settlement statement. The term sheet carries your name. When a lender passes you get the reason and we move it. You can see the whole file, always. And we package, submit, chase conditions and run it to closing.

Ask the same seven of the next program you speak to — and if you want ours in more detail, it is all written out on the broker page.