The Mortgage Company

02/10/2025

Pro tip for my fellow Work From Home friends. Moonraker Millhouse in Cameron Park is open for house brewed coffee every day. The coffee is great and the space is enormous. See ya here

06/17/2024

Work Story #3 - Most deals signed in 1 day

You can't make this stuff up.....

My first few months as a Private Mortgage Banker, I had the good fortune of a new financial advisor starting at the same time as me (I won't name him, but lots of you will know). One day, he asks me about negative amortization loans.... Eeek, not a good topic. One of his clients has neg am loans on some rental properties. I meet with the client and go over his schedule of REO, rent rolls and mortgages. This client is detailed - he's a civil engineer by trade, and he completed his tax returns himself (and completely handwritten). The client has about 12 properties. Most of which are 4 plex's in Davis. Each of these properties are financed by a neg am loan. Luckily, he made the 30 year fixed payments and there was equity in each property (remember equity in real estate wasn't a given in 2011). We go through the process and complete all 10 refinances for this borrower. The process was not easy as you might imagine. We had to manage appraisal inspections, initial disclosure packages, and much more. If one property didn't appraised high enough, we would have had to re-structure the other 9 deals. But, it all worked out and we were successful with all 10. Coincidentally, I had another client signing earlier that same day. I attended that signing as well. It was a Power of Attorney signing. That means that one individual signs for themselves and another. That makes a typical signing time of 30 minutes easily an hour (loan officers will know this pain). So, we had a very long day of signing loan docs. Once we finished the 10pack signings the notary and I decide to celebrate and go for a beer. I head out and immediately get a text from him. His car is gone. It had been towed because he parked in a reserved space..... Unbelievable. I pick him up and drive to the impound yard where he spends a large portion of his earnings from the day..... We did not go for beers. 😒 But, 11 loans in one day! That record still holds for me 13 years later.

06/13/2024

Work Story #2 - 21st Floor

While working as a Private Mortgage Banker for WF, I officed at The Private Bank in downtown Sacramento. I was here from 2010 - 2017. Having an office that overlooked downtown was really cool. Our conference room, where I often took calls (because my cubicle wasn't very private) was 30 feet of floor to ceiling windows. During my time there, the demolition of Down Plaza and the construction of Golden 1 Arena took place. I took photos periodically over the construction site. Pretty cool to watch the demolition and construction.

06/05/2024

Work Story #1 - First Bank Robbery

Before I begin, please remember I was 19 years old... About March 2000 I was a bank teller for WF in San Diego. I had a part time job and worked about 20 hours a week. My branch was in Fashion Valley directly across from the mall. One Saturday morning, after being completely overserved the night before, I had an opening shift. My boss assigned me to the far teller window. I had another teller friend next to me. I wasn't feeling great and my co-worker and I asked the question - Could I go the entire shift without helping a client? Its important to note that this branch had very little foot traffic. We decided to try it. So, I 'looked busy' typing and reading on my computer when someone would make their way to the line. This went on for an hour or so. I became pretty unaware of the bank floor and zoned out. When I looked up, the entire bank was empty. No one in the branch. No clients, no employees on the customer service side and no tellers! My boss was walking directly to me and ushered me to the back of the bank in our breakroom. On the way she told me that we were being robbed and the robber was in the vault. I remember realizing that I was the only man in the branch. Not that I'd be able to do much, and we're trained not to do anything anyhow - but, I had the thought that I need to help. I walked toward the door of the breakroom when I heard the police scream "get on the ground, we have the building surrounded." And the saga was over. I was so into my role of not-working I didn't notice the robbery and empty bank floor for long enough that the police got there and surrounded the building. Anyhow, the robber was caught and we went home after interviewing with the FBI. I had literally nothing to say....

06/05/2024

With over 20 years of banking experience, Lonnie Dickson has been sharing unique and funny work stories on his LinkedIn page. We'll be posting these stories here as well. Enjoy!

10/02/2023

Treat your clients right during the loan process and don’t SPAM them after. They’ll reward you.

06/29/2023

Super fun networking event with Phil Kong and Sierra Ridge Wealth Management! Pickleball if you didn’t already know is really fun.

06/27/2023

Afternoons like today are the exact reason we bought the office Super73 e-bikes. A nice lil afternoon caffeine break.

Lonnie Dickson

03/07/2023

These shirts are so comfortable. Time for another order!

03/06/2023

One of the favorite ways of TMC to de-stress is to seek some time on the trails. had to cancel on Saturdays way too cool 50k due to family commitments, but decided to play hooky on Friday. Time well spent on a beautiful NorCal Winter day.

02/01/2023

Thank you Byers Team Realtors and Coldwell Banker for the invite to attend your 2023 Economic Summit. I loved watching Elliot Eisenberg and getting his take on the economy. Below is the link to watch the summit.

Wondering what the economy and real estate markets have in store for 2023, we’ve got the answers. Featured topics and national speakers cover the following:C...

01/31/2023

The Mortgage Company has penned a monthly newsletter for the past year. Even though the newsletter's content is designed for use for our financial service referral partners, there may be interesting points for anyone. If interested, click below and read any of the past newsletters.