John Tuccillo, the ubiquitous real estate analyst-economist-author-consultant-expert, is resuscitating the idea of certifying real estate agents to help them originate loans. Let's hope he'll be more successful than another high-profile company lost in the dot-com detritus.

The idea of training agents to become mortgage loan originators was tried before by Onepipeline, a company whose founders were more interested in going public with an automated compliance engine than in actually helping agents get designated.

We know. We sent numerous agents to Onepipeline in its heyday, only to find out that the company never followed up on its applications. Before Onepipeline ever responded to our bewildered inquiries, it was bought by Homestore, which immediately canceled Onepipeline's ads with Realty Times, and we never heard another word.

We were stunned - these weren't blind e-mail inquiries we passed along, but genuine applications, complete with the agents' bank card numbers. We assume that Onepipeline is still in the development waiting room along with Homestore's transaction platform, and other big ideas that were no more genuine than the press releases it took to manipulate the company's stock. If that's all they wanted, oblivion was exactly what they deserved.

"Onepipeline was our inspiration," says Tuccillo, not without irony.

But what Realty Times' experience showed was that agents do want this extra edge and are willing to pay to educate and differentiate themselves. Will the one-stop agent idea take off under new management?

Tuccillo hopes it will, and he plans to do things a little differently than his smartest-guys-in-the-room predecessors. Instead of starting off big, with a compliance system geared for RESPA and to accommodate most states' licensing laws, he plans to start in Arizona and spread to California, and then, who knows?

"It is a matter of hauling it out and knowing what it's all about, before finding out if there are fatal glitches," says Tuccillo.

According to the name of the organization Tuccillo has founded, The National Association of Mortgage Counselors (NAMC), he isn't thinking small, and he may have a similar idea to Onepipeline - develop the organization and sell it on its potential.

Perhaps the National Association of Realtors would be interested. What a way to get the banks' goat at the same time. NAR has been known to buy out organizations in the past in order to put them under their own revenue-generating designation umbrella, and they may welcome an organization that helps them keep banks out of real estate.

The Certified Loan Counselor (CLC) designation program is an "innovative program designed to provide real estate agents with the skills and education necessary to provide their consumers a one-stop shopping experience that includes finding their home and financing their purchase."

It's a credential available for professionals who offer dual services as a real estate professional and loan originator and who have completed the CLC training program, a full-day course that consists of seven modules including regulatory compliance, helping clients choose the most appropriate mortgage loan product and terms, and marketing.

With commission pressures, image problems, competition from 250,000 new competitors in the last three years, and demand from consumers to streamline and simplify the transaction, real estate agents who can also originate loans have to be the superagents of the future, and incredibly well-positioned to demand more money while saving clients money as well.

Imagine a buyer's agent who can prequalify a buyer before meeting for showings, or a listing agent who can prequalify buyers at her own open house, work both sides of the transaction, plus originate the loan. These agents would have something strong besides inventory to sell - they would be able to provide service at an unprecedented level, and all for doing a little more work than they would already be doing just to make sure the deal is going to close.

The catch is - who's going to do the loans?

NMAC's solution is to pilot the program through their own "approved" mortgage companies, such as L&G Mortgagebanc, headquartered in Scottsdale, which has a "unique mortgage origination model (patent pending) which enables real estate agents, as well as financial and insurance professionals, to expand their service offering to include mortgage originations and offer the type of one-stop shopping experience the NAMC promotes."

To make the program work, real estate agents are employed by L&G Mortgagebanc as "loan associates." Currently operating in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah, L&G already employs thousands of real estate agents, financial and insurance professionals.

Because the consumer has been subject to the same technology changes and access to business has, (witness the online access to real estate listings and how that has changed client interaction, marketing) NMAC maintains that homebuyers now want added convenience, greater value and more streamlined processes than have previously been available.

“Consumers currently expect a four-fold value proposition,” says Tuccillo. “They want their real estate professional to save them time; reduce stress; increase convenience; and give them world-class service.”

Published: June 15, 2004

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