Welcome to my blog!  This site was started as a creative outlet for an overworked professional.  I’m suffering from a disorder known as “TRID”.  It sounds rather fatal, but I’m fighting the good fight, searching for a cure, and trying to remain positive!  A little background for anyone not working in the mortgage industry … TRID is an acronym that was spawned out of the Dodd-Frank legislation.  It stands for “TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures”, and if you are remotely familiar with this ailment, you may be aware of how painful it is.

A little background on the author… I have been in the mortgage industry for about 15 years.  I’ve have been a loan officer, processed loans, worked as a closer & funder, loan product manager and a variety of other roles in between.  I have also been in the mortgage software arena for several years and now hold a mortgage compliance & technology position at a mid-sized lender in the Dallas, Texas area.  I’ve seen the ups and downs of the business and have learned most of what I know by just digging in and figuring it out, also known as trial by fire.

Here’s the thing…when asked as a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, nobody ever says “I want to be in the mortgage business“!  Most of us get into this not knowing what its all about.  We might have known a loan originator that was making a killing, had a friend who hooked us up with an entry-level position where they worked, or we just randomly fell into it somehow.  Our job titles definitely don’t conjure up feelings of excitement or adventure like “bomb squad technician” or “fighter pilot”, but our contributions are still important.  We are the ones that help people get into their dream homes, begin a fresh start after a divorce, recover after financial setback and we keep the economy moving.  We work in an industry that is extremely intricate, complicated and fraught with land mines such as deadlines, product quirks, documents that lack clarity, ever-changing laws, emotions and personalities of clients and co-workers, and all of it rolled up in a ball of technology that isn’t always intuitive.  Some days, it’s all enough to make you want to quit – but for those of us that have been doing this for several years, we’re too tired to start over in a new career.  So we get up the next morning, and do it all again for our families, our paychecks, and because we accept the challenge.

So, that’s my situation, in a nutshell.  I am one of those people who can see the big picture situation as well as the minutia that is in play.  That’s one reason why this TRID legislation has thrown my whole world out of orbit.  Anyone in the business that is not completely freaked out about it, doesn’t completely understand it and will likely experience some unwelcome surprises in the coming months.  So, here I sit, trying to keep my marbles in tact, by writing a blog about it.

As I set up this site, I put serious effort into finding just the right image to use.  It had to be attention-getting and invoke thought, emotion & curiosity.  The image I chose grabbed me because of the contrast of beauty & elegance with destruction and neglect.  Many times, I’ve driven on country roads in the middle of nowhere, and as I look at the old abandoned homes and shacks, wondered what happened to the people who lived there.  Was there some kind of tragedy in their lives, or did they just move on to a different town?  Sometimes you can see the remnants of their lives on the deserted property such as trees they planted or the mailbox where they used to collect holiday cards from family far away.  Maybe I’m just nostalgic, but it struck me – what we do in this business is not really about houses or loans.  It’s about the people who come to us for help so that they can make a house a home.  They will raise their kids, fight with their spouse, decorate their Christmas tree, cook family dinners, grieve lost loved ones, and go about the business of life, all in that home we helped them obtain.  When I think about it this way, it makes me realize that what we do really has a purpose.

Just for grins, the other day I googled “the most confusing thing in the world”, which brought up a variety of lists.  I found one that was pretty interesting, composed of findings from a large survey of individuals among various walks of life.  In this list of things people found totally confusing, here is how several items ranked:  #6 – Buying a House, #7 – Politics, #8 – Insurance Policies, and #10 – Loan Interest Rates.  I couldn’t help but notice that these things were ranked more confusing than Foreign Languages – #14, Packaging on Kids Toys – 34 (I would definitely rank higher!), and Crop Circles at #35.  Buying a house is ranked more confusing than crop circles??!!!

With those results in mind (and in no small part due to a financial crisis), it’s no wonder that legislators have stepped in to protect the consumer.  I certainly agree with the idea of protecting people, educating and ensuring that everyone is following the rules.  Without rules, society falls apart and chaos ensues.  Part of me has to wonder though … if the 7 federal agencies that were formerly responsible for various aspects of consumer financial protection couldn’t do it, how is this one single agency going to do it?  Especially, when there seems to be an almost daily news thread regarding systemic workplace discrimination, racism and retaliation against employees at the CFPB.  So, we are being held accountable for all of our business practices to an agency of the government that is steeped in hypocrisy.  I have to ask…would anyone take restaurant advice from Gordon Ramsey if his kitchen were crawling with roaches?  Oh wait… this is Washington we’re talking about… logic doesn’t always prevail.  (I feel somewhat justified in my cynicism since Politics ranked at #7 on the confusion scale!)

So here we are, combining federal disclosures, attaching new civil liability to them, offering so-called “shopping tools” that aren’t accurate, applying multiple definitions of a “business day” in relation to disclosure turn times, and trying to figure out how to make software systems spit out French fries and ice cream.  Those of us stuck in the minutia of all things TRID related are either completely immersing ourselves in it, over-thinking, over-planning so that we don’t forget something or acting surprised here at the 11th hour & trying to come up with excuses for why we didn’t properly plan & heed the warnings of our “Chicken Little” co-workers.

I am proud to say I’m in the “Chicken Little” camp.  I see the writing on the wall in this thing.  I trust my gut, and it’s telling me this is going to be very ugly for all of us.  We planners of this world can’t do it alone.  Sometimes the people we depend on to take care of the pieces we can’t do ourselves don’t have their hair on fire like we do.  Sometimes our superiors don’t see the severity of the situation either.  You other compliance folks know what I’m talking about, don’t you?  That facet to our job can sometimes be the most frustrating of all.  We lie awake at night trying to figure out ways to sell our case to the people around us that are not plugging into the situation.  People think we’re crazy when we tell them what the TRID rule mandates.  Sometimes you want to shake them & say “Wake up – it’s no longer 2009”!  I have come to the conclusion that it is not within my power to steer the ship single handedly.  I am resigned to keep rowing, and scoop the water out of the boat the best that I can.  This is very difficult for people like me – we don’t like to fail, we want to have a team effort & help our team reach the finish line.  At the end of the day, all we can do is worry about the things we have the power to change, and try to do our best.  We can’t make people care or all of a sudden develop a sense of urgency.  I hope that someone out there reads this one day, and can relate to my experience.  I’m sure there are others like me, trying to engage others to no avail.

The one thing that keeps me going (other than a family I love) is the thought that no matter how bad this goes, nobody will die from TRID.  We have important jobs, but we are not performing brain surgery or organ transplants.  Nobody will be put six feet under because we make a mistake.  So I hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and try to remember what is most important in life.  Those are the things that didn’t show up at all on the confusion scale, like why my dog was happy to see me even though I was only gone for 15 minutes.  Keeping it all in perspective will be the key to surviving TRID.