If you're a broker who is having trouble getting your agents to use your in-house loan company, you might take a clue from Virginia Cook Realtors. Owners Virginia Cook and Sheila Rice also own a mortgage loan company called Granite Mortgage Corporation which has just introduced an exciting new loan program.

"Lock a Listing" is one of several new loan programs Granite is offering, but this one has a twist. Instead of a buyer locking in an interest rate before finding a home, the seller can use his/her listing to lock in a rate for the buyer instead. This is a consumer benefit, but it also helps keep loans in the real estate family.

When the seller says yes, the lock begins on a 30-year fixed rate from that day. In 60 days, the rate can be relocked. What makes it attractive to buyers of the home is that they may not have locked in an interest rate by the time they view the home and make a decision to buy. A house that comes with a low rate already locked in, with a float-down in case interest rates drop before the loan closes (in a float-down, the buyer can close at an even better rate as long as the lower interest rate and closing occur during the lock period,) can be very appealing to first-time or interest-rate sensitive buyers.

"This was the first I'd heard about such a program," says Sheila Rice, co-owner of Granite Mortgage. "It is one more avenue to make a home purchase attractive to a buyer. The market for loans is low, but there have been some bumps. It gives confidence to the buyer that 'I can close this house.'

The broad Dallas area has pockets of homes that are doing very well and others where getting a home sold is more challenging due to nearby job layoffs and a sluggish economy. Well maintained homes are paying top dollar, notes Rice, but no one is paying a premium for a well-used home. "It's a more realistic and stable market," she says. "As in every market, it is the professional who continues to perform well."

"What we look for is the widest array of avenues to help the consumer," says Rice. "Does it help get more listings? The sellers know we will offer them a number of options - financing, marketing, negotiating of the contract - that will impact their sale."

Barbara Meager, President of Granite Mortgage, says she knows of several large banks that offer the same program through its real estate professional networks, but that as a mortgage broker, she has over 30 investors which can offer loan programs to Granite customers.

"We have a couple of banks that are backing this program," says Meager. "More agents are using the program as a selling point for their listings. It is a good marketing tool. We just started the program, and we have a lot of agents who have "locked" their listings. As rates have started to move up, this is a good tool to get their properties to move."

To bring more business through the door, Meager says she is rolling the "Lock a Listing" package, among other new products, out to any seller who wants to lock down an interest rate for the buyer, and she is introducing the package to builders and other contacts.

Like other "A" paper loan programs, there are some provisos.

Explains Elizabeth Newbury, a Granite Mortgage loan officer, says, "The borrower is guaranteed the rate as long as they qualify to get the locked rate. We may have more than one lender who offers the program, but it will be locked with that lender. We can't go to a competing lender and ask them to match the rate."

However, buyers have the option of choosing another program, perhaps locking in an interest rate on a different 30-year fixed rate program, or a 15-year fixed-rate, or 1-year, 3-year or 5-year adjustable rate mortgage.

"It won't fit every case," says Rice, "but it will fit a number of them. A program like this is more important in certain price ranges. For a first-time buyer on a modest budget, any change in the interest rates could knock out the ability to buy. A quarter point in the loan can make a difference in what home you buy."

Other independent competitors are also beginning to focus on marketing to sellers.

Tom Parker, managing director of HomeTeam Mortgage subsidiary of Ebby Halliday Realtors, says his company doesn't have a similar program to market to sellers, but he says, "What we do on listings is contact the seller about getting preapproved. When they list their house, that means they are moving, and we are trying very hard to find the opportunity to say 'Can we e-mail or send you a preapproval package?' Everyone's looking for more business, so it's smart to focus on the seller."