What an originator actually does.
You become the loan originator on your own buyer's file. Here is what that means, act by act — because the pay is for the acts, and you should know exactly what they are before you decide.
You take the application.
Ike gathers the facts and assembles the file. You review it against the verified sources, you see every item that is stated rather than verified, and you take it as the application of record under your NMLS ID. Your name is on it. Nobody at Eichler can sign it for you.
You approve the number.
Your client's ceiling — the figure her pre-approval letter goes out at — is yours to set. Nothing automatic sets it, and no letter is issued above what the file supports. If you won't stand behind a number, it doesn't go out.
You present the options.
Ike prepares the comparison and explains how the products work. Which options your client sees, and how they are put to her, is your call and your licensed judgment. Your compensation is identical on every one of them, so nothing on that screen is arranged to move her.
You lock.
When she says lock, you lock — against the options you presented, on her instruction, on the date you choose against her closing.
You decide the submission.
Which lender the file goes to, and when it goes. Ike has the package ready; the decision is yours.
What Ike does.
Everything around those five. Intake, document collection, verifications, the 1003, the disclosures, the ordering, the chasing, and the status your client and the other side keep asking for. It drafts; you approve. On the five acts above, approving something Ike produced is not the act — the act is yours, and the product is built so that it cannot be performed any other way.
What you're paid, and for what.
An expected 1.00% of the loan amount — about $3,900 on a $390,000 loan. It is set in your compensation plan before the period begins. It does not move with the rate, the product, the lender, or how the deal goes. It is paid for the five acts, and each one is recorded under your NMLS ID with the date and what you were looking at when you made it.
What it is not paid for.
Not the introduction. Not the showings, the negotiation, the contract, the inspection, or getting the deal to the table — that is your work as her agent, your brokerage already pays you for it, and it is not what this compensation buys. Naming that line is the point of this page.
Where we are.
Eichler is not yet a licensed mortgage broker; we are preparing our Illinois Residential Mortgage License application. You get your MLO license first and it is yours — we activate it by sponsorship when the company license issues. Ike is not yet available, and no agent has originated a loan with it. The founding cohort is being selected now.