Keys & Credit
The no-fluff real estate and mortgage podcast that helps you make smarter moves with confidence.
Hosted by Realtor Bill Jerikovsky and Mortgage Lender Barb Miller, this show cuts through the jargon and industry hype to bring you honest, practical insights on buying, selling, and financing homes. Whether you're a first-time buyer, seasoned investor, or just trying to decode your credit score—Bill and Barb keep it real with bite-sized episodes.
💡 Real answers. 🙅♂️ No sales pitches. 🏡 Just straight talk on homes, loans, and everything in between.
New episodes drop weekly.
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Barb Miller NMLS ID: 329237
Guaranteed Rate, Inc. dba Rate, NMLS #2611
Bill Jerikovsky RE/MAX RESULTS
This Podcast is edited and produced by Kody Hughes - Focal Point Media
FocalPointKody@gmail.com - 320-224-9828
Keys & Credit
The Buyer-Agent-Lender Tinder Match
Finding the perfect real estate team can feel like navigating a dating app – swipe right on the wrong agent or lender, and your home buying journey could quickly turn into a nightmare. But unlike many dating scenarios, you're never actually locked in when it comes to your real estate relationships.
We tackle one of the biggest misconceptions in real estate: the belief that once you sign with an agent or lender, you're stuck with them until closing. This simply isn't true. The buyer-agent contract binds the agent to you, not you to them, giving you freedom to make changes when necessary.
Large lending institutions often create frustrating experiences for homebuyers, shuffling them between different representatives with no one taking ownership of their file. The green flag? Consistency – when you call your lender with questions, you should connect with the same person each time, someone who truly knows your situation.
Credit management during the homebuying process is another critical area where having the right professionals makes all the difference. Opening new credit accounts or making large purchases can derail your transaction at the eleventh hour. A good lender monitors your credit throughout the process and keeps you from making costly mistakes.
Perhaps most important is understanding the value of relationships over transactions. The best real estate professionals view their work as a partnership rather than simply a deal to close. They're willing to do the extra work, communicate clearly, and stand by you through the entire process – not just when it's convenient for them.
Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or a seasoned investor, finding professionals who prioritize your needs and maintain consistent communication will make all the difference in your home buying experience. And remember, if you've swiped right on the wrong team, you always have the option to make a change.
Ready to find your perfect real estate match? Listen now for insights that could save you thousands and countless headaches on your homebuying journey.
We're going to throw Cody in this one. Welcome to Keys and Credit. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Bill Jarakowski, your noble s*** realtor.
Speaker 2:I am Barb, your straight-talking lender.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to talk about the buyer-agent-loan-officer Tinder match.
Speaker 3:How to not choose the wrong one.
Speaker 1:How to not choose the wrong agent or lender Right. Pick whatever one that works.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like what are some red flags that you see as an agent and as a lender that say, like this is not the person you should be working with?
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that. Let's talk about when people call, say, a Wells Fargo. If you call Wells Fargo this is just an example of a bad batch okay, if you call Wells Fargo and they say, okay, go to to my website, put in a application for a pre-approval and we'll go from there, okay. And then you call back and you get somebody else. Okay, they help you fix it and you move on. You call back and you get somebody else. You call back and get somebody else.
Speaker 1:That is a huge, huge red flag because nobody knows what's going on. Nobody knows anything except for what your file is in the computer that they're typing on right now. When you call, here's a green flag. When you call barb we talked about this last one who do you get barb? When you call for a question, who do you get barb? When you call that number again, I mean, who do you get? You get barb, you get. So when you're looking for a lender, one of the first things you need to look for is consistency okay if you want to talk to barb, you want to talk.
Speaker 1:You don't want to talk to anybody else but barb, because barb knows what's going on, right? Okay, now what happens if your lender and your agent don't get along or they don't know each other? This is your end, because you deal with this all the time when a random agent or one of your buyers uses a random agent and all of a sudden, you're in the mix of a newbie or just someone who doesn't care. Right?
Speaker 2:Then what Then? I guess I just need to take the reign, you put the pants on in the relationship. You showed him, sons of bitches, how to do it but the thing is, uh, you really want to have a good working team on your side, so how would you find that, cody?
Speaker 1:how would so? Let me ask you something so cody's in this podcast today. We're just throwing him in there because we want to. If you were looking to buy a house so you've never bought a house before where would you start? Start, definitely, a Google search. A Google search. Okay. So say you go on Google and you pull up some Joe Schmo Nobody that we know in the area Okay, and you call that person. Okay, then what? They recommend you to a lender. I'm guessing right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say. I mean in my previous experience I have bought a house, obviously. But, that's always the start, because to me the vibe is always I want to make sure that you're serious, not only that you can buy a house, but that you have the finances to do so.
Speaker 1:That you're financially capable of buying the property.
Speaker 3:It's going to start with a pre-approval.
Speaker 1:Correct. That's always been my experience. Now, what happens if that Google search ends up with you hating your agent and loving your lender?
Speaker 3:Then what yeah, that's a good point? Right Are and loving your lender, then what yeah, that's a good point. Are you asking me personally? Yeah, fire it out there. I've been in sales before, so I would figure out. I would just talk to this person like hey, listen, I had a little bit of a problem with this person.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you know conflict management.
Speaker 3:So okay, cody's the wrong person to ask Can you just point me to the right person? This isn't going to be a good fit.
Speaker 1:That would literally be my game plan and that's exactly what I was getting at. So when you say on this Tinder app, tinder match, you swipe the wrong way, does that?
Speaker 3:work. Yeah, like you swipe right on the wrong agent, you swipe right on the wrong agent.
Speaker 1:Boy, that is such a beautiful coming from a podcaster producer over there. Okay, so you swipe right on the wrong agent. You are not locked in, okay. A lot of people think when you sign these contracts, okay, we'll, we'll just go on the agent side for now. We'll get the lender side in a minute. So when you sign a real estate buyer's representation contract, okay, you swiped right on the wrong agent. You are not locked in. These contracts are employment contracts between myself and you, not you and me. Okay, so I'm locked into you, you are not locked into me. So if you want to fire me, you can fire me. And you fire me by saying, hey, you're fired. A real estate contract does not mean you are stuck in that thing forever. That is one of the big myths that are out there. I haven't been fired yet, but I know. If someone says, hey, bill, I absolutely hate your guts. You are the worst agent I've ever seen in my life, I consider myself fired right.
Speaker 3:So actually on this same topic, I've heard of this happening, actually with someone that I know, where they went to buy a house. They actually hated their agent and they ended up buying the house with a different agent, but because they were locked into this contract, they had to give commission.
Speaker 1:It's called a double commission.
Speaker 3:So they had to give commission to that person that they were locked into. Even though they didn't buy the house with them, they do have to cancel the contract.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you can go in and you can cancel it, and there's ways to do it where you can sign with one brokerage and fire another one. But the hard part is to know these tricks right. You need to ask your agent or ask somebody who knows, and they're not going to tell you. I will, if you ever want to know. Here's another caveat of this If you're under contract, I can't call you ever. Department of Commerce severely restricts that because you're represented by someone else. You're represented by somebody else, so I can't call you. But if you call me, pay attention people. If you someone else, you're represented by somebody else, so I can't call you. But if you call me, pay attention people. If you call me, I can tell you anything you want.
Speaker 1:If you ask, that's good, but I can't call you and tell you how to do it. So if you want to get out of a contract or you are in trouble and you don't know who to call, I'm always by my phone just saying but I can't call you. I can never call you back, I I can't text message you. It would always have to be that one-way street until you were out of that contract. Now there is ethics we have to follow and there's rules that we have to follow, and I'm very, very ethical and I don't break any of those rules. But that is one loophole that you can get around. So when it comes to swiping right on the wrong lender, let's say you swipe right, cody calls you know me, says hey, I'm a great agent and we're on the phone with wells fargo and he's like you know what wells fargo is.
Speaker 3:I've actually I've actually had this happen with wells fargo no, not with me personally buying my first home. It was uh, actually I loved the agent. It was awesome, yeah, but the first person that made me get pre-approval with I mean I was young also, I was 19, but, um, I mean, they treated me like they were.
Speaker 3:They totally discounted me like you're not gonna be able to buy this place oh isn't that frustrating, I still gave them all the information you know and I I definitely was qualified to buy the home. I had enough money to put down like I didn't know what I was doing, but I had an idea that I knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I think I was further along than they assumed. Okay, I never assumed that I was locked in with that person, so I literally just called someone else.
Speaker 1:How many times have we done that with you? Someone will call and say, hey, bill, we actually have one right now. I and say, hey, bill, we actually have one right now. I'm actually going to show them a house tonight. We have one. That had happened. Leonard said you're not ready. You know what. We're going to wait. So they called Barb and Barb's like let's do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that always bothers me. It's like why are you telling me when I'm ready, right, that doesn't make any sense, because they're fucking lazy, lazy and they didn't do their homework.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good point, it is so most of us desk jockey wise. We do what we do, we're good at what we do. Barb, if you call Barb and say, hey, barb, I don't know if I can buy a house, she's not going to say, well, call me back when you think you know. She's going to say, well, let's dig in.
Speaker 2:And the difference between barb and say your lender or whoever else, she. If you can't get pre-approved, I will let you know and give you ideas on what to do so you can achieve your goals in the future.
Speaker 1:There are so many people right now that we have that are working towards it. Okay, just because we're not out showing houses and doing all this stuff doesn't mean we're not working okay. We have people in the background that are getting their credit score up. They're getting their finances correct because Barb has given them the roadmap. Okay, instead of saying, well, you're not ready, call me in a year and we'll look at it again, barb will say in a year, this is what you need to have done, right, huge difference. So if you swipe right on, say the shit, wells Fargo agent. Okay, they're, they're going to pull your credit. Okay, they're going to pull. I don't know, what do you guys pull? Is it just credit, credit, just credit. They're going to pull credit. They're going to say, well, you're below whatever threshold of what you're looking at. Call us back later.
Speaker 3:Here's actually a good lending question for Barb. When I was working in cars, a lot of people would always come in and say well, my credit karma says I'm at blank. Why is that not accurate? Go blank. You know why is that not accurate? And is it more just a good tool to use as a gauge, or you know how would you treat apps like Credit Karma?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, that's exactly what Credit Karma is. It's a good way to follow your credit, to make sure that the payments that you're making each month is being applied correctly, that they're not late right amount, that no one is opening up any credit with your social security number, and then also it'll give you a score. But they're using a different scoring model to be able to tell you what your score is. When you apply for credit whether you're applying for a mortgage, a car loan, student loans, credit cards it's all going to be a different scoring model because of the loan type you're applying for. Credit Karma is just showing you a snippet of what your score is, but you haven't applied for anything.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to give you money and I'm going to give you money for long-term. So our mortgages are our long-term debts. So it's a way different scoring model than the car loan, because your car loan is going to be five, six, seven, eight years, not as long as 30. So it's even going to be a different scoring model. So if you applied today for a home loan and you also apply today for a car loan, you're going to have two different scores, two different credit scores because it's different loan type.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1:Okay. So when it comes to that too, when someone puts a credit application with you, you kind of monitor that right. You monitor their credit.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely, especially if they're going to be buying a house. We're going to monitor that and once they go under contract, we definitely are, because if you decide that you're going to go out and buy a new car or furniture, maybe your debt to income ratio is going to be affected.
Speaker 1:And your pre-approval just changed right.
Speaker 3:Yes, the amount that your pre-approval is changed how often does that happen, where someone is making a big life choice, buying a house, and then all of a sudden you're like wait, hey, dude, what are you doing? Why did you just buy a new car? Why did you just buy your wife a new car? Why did you guys both just take out a personal loan?
Speaker 1:Never, never, ever. So Barb is very adamant. So Barb is the loan officer that trained me years and years ago, and one of my very first speeches with new buyers or second or third time buyers, we have a very in-depth talk about credit, how to use it and what not to do. Okay, that's before we can go look at a house, right? So we we, you and I have a hundred percent close rate. We have never failed, but we don't fail because of these conversations. But she will. She'll light you up If something comes across her desk, say, we're in the middle of a contract, we're just about done, we're a day away from clear to close and someone opens a credit card. We all get phone calls and we are all in trouble.
Speaker 2:The problem is people maybe want to go out and get new furniture, or they need appliances and they go into Ashley.
Speaker 2:Furniture furniture and they buy all their new, their new table in their living room furniture, um, because it's 0% interest and no payment for 12 months, 24 months, whatever it is they want. They're excited and they don't think back to my conversation, Bill's conversation. Um, I'm constantly saying if you have a question about it, if it's not feeling right, call me, Text me. I am just a phone call or text message away and here's what.
Speaker 2:And people will call and say ooh, what about this? I mean, you can go buy groceries, that's cool, I want you to eat. You can buy groceries. Um, you can go to Target and you can get your paper products, that's fine. But it's buying those big ticket items or even making large purchases on your credit card that can affect you if an additional credit pull is so I've had transactions where they're not using Barb.
Speaker 1:So we use lots of lenders. People come in they'll say hey, bill, I'm pre-approved with my Uncle Bob, aunt Bob, whatever this is who we're going to use, it's going to be great, fine, so I'll give them the speeches, even though it's not with Barb. I still give them the same speeches, but they'll go out. And I had one person open an Amazon card. Okay, they just opened an Amazon card. They put like $10 on it. It wasn't anything crazy. Well, this lender wasn't paying attention, didn't think that $10 would matter. So, barb, if someone adds $10 to their current credit, what do we have to do?
Speaker 2:Well, we need to get their statement to make sure that the balance isn't $10,000 versus $10. Right, and then if it's a $10 payment, we have to add that to their debt takeover.
Speaker 1:Now say they do this one day before closing. Are we closing?
Speaker 2:Well, I need your statement.
Speaker 3:Now, how much of that is the dollar amount and how much of that is just another inquiry on your credit report? There it is.
Speaker 2:Well, so it's the inquiry right.
Speaker 1:We need an explanation, but then we also need to factor in the dollar amount, yeah, so I always tell people when they do that everything starts over, because Barb has to go through and check everything. Okay, if there's a new inquiry, if there's a new charge, anything like that, a lender because Barb is not the lender, she's the front man of rate. You know, she's the one making sure the money goes where it's supposed to and it's not getting lended to the wrong people. Um, but if it's changed, they have to make sure that 300 grand they're borrowing is still under the same terms that you started at. Because if there's an inquiry, from what? What are you doing? Right, if you charge on something, there's a new charge. How much is it? What's your new payment? Can you afford the house now? So referrals, okay. What if someone comes in like the one we have and you refer them to me? Okay, how do we know that that's a good match or not? How do you know if we're going to be a good match between your customer to being my client?
Speaker 2:well, I base it on their personality and if, uh, they're going to jive with you, bill.
Speaker 1:If we jive.
Speaker 2:Why would you refer a client to me, Bill?
Speaker 1:Because you're just fucking awesome at what you do and you are as well. Well, that's what I'm saying. So I'm very biased for Barb. This is going to sound weird, but I've worked with many other lenders. Some of them do just fine, but when I have a problem, Barb's there to fix it. When our clients and customers have problems, Barb's there to fix it. And the 100% no fail. Show me a team, a lending team over seven years, six and a half years, that has 100% close rate. Show me they don't exist. Right, and they don't exist. So we could blow your minds with everything that we know, but we never do. We just do it because we've been doing it. We don't have to talk.
Speaker 1:We can just do, you know it's yeah, it's yeah, but I use other lenders. You know some local lenders, whatever. If I need to Like manufactured homes, not on a piece of land, you don't finance those. To land, you don't finance those because, no, not in a park. You don't do vehicles. Local, local banks do right. So we go to different lenders. But even those lenders it's a nine to five. Oh sorry, bell, I can't answer the phone after 5 30. Great, well, that's when everybody has questions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or like the 30 other holidays that they get you know yeah, oh sorry, I had a sick day, oh oh it's Tuesday. I don't want to work today. Yeah, so I mean, what I'm understanding here is that, like you know, just like the bigger companies sort of lose touch.
Speaker 1:I like you on the podcast dude, this is fun.
Speaker 3:Yep. The bigger companies sort of just like lose touch. They lose that personality, they lose that human quality about them. That's like I'm not dealing with a person, I'm dealing with a company.
Speaker 1:You turn transactional. And when it comes to the three-way match on Tinder, is that a thing on Tinder?
Speaker 3:No, A three-way match you can't do three ways.
Speaker 1:No, is it legal, or what?
Speaker 3:No, it's not set up that way. Bigger subscription, just simplify it.
Speaker 1:Tinder, take note, get a bigger subscription. You can match with multiple people, bill oh, but you can't match them all together, not at the same time. That'd be a little chaotic.
Speaker 3:I completely forgot what we were talking about, because now I'm just thinking about three people.
Speaker 1:That's for a different podcast.
Speaker 3:We're not on that note here you know, what I was saying is that credit is that, uh, you know, I think a big part of what makes these big companies harder to deal with is that, uh, what makes a lender a good agent is the response time, the reliability, the trustworthiness.
Speaker 1:The working relationships? Yeah, so if I'm in Dealing with a real person, Say you come in with Wells Fargo, say you come in with whoever. Maybe it's just some rando, okay, or like a rocket mortgage or some crazy crap.
Speaker 3:Yeah, actually that was. That was where I found my first lender, so this rocket mortgage here's.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing. When someone comes in with rocket or like quick and loans, I don't even know if they still exist anymore. Um, we're getting close now. Sofi is a big one now yeah, but I usually have them get pre-approved with a legit lender because rocket, they do not do any of what barb does. So when you send barb your stuff, she will verify it. Okay, rocket mortgage just goes off. What you say, yeah. Now what happens? When you get into transaction?
Speaker 2:they get into underwriting and now what you say is bullshit, right, so we don't do that stuff um, it's a big company, you know it's like it.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of the personality.
Speaker 1:That's where I was going so you get your turn transactional. So if someone calls me and they have that lender, then my job I am now doing Barb's job, and my job because I have to helicopter the transaction in its entirety, whether it's the purchase agreement, the lending, the title, all that stuff, because now I am dealing with 65 different lenders every time I call.
Speaker 3:Well, let's take this actually back to how you know if you have a good agent or not. Like a bad agent would not do that.
Speaker 1:They don't care, it's not their job.
Speaker 2:No, it's not their job. Everyone has to be in their own lane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, right, yep, exactly so. I think you know that is one thing that is a green flag to me is that, the willingness to put in that extra mile, you know, and that is something that I personally would swipe right on.
Speaker 1:Right, I think I would swipe right on this trio, right.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you as a buyer.
Speaker 3:I might kick you to the curb. You can only do one at a time. Bill, you got to download Tinder, so you know how it works.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to download Tinder and see how this works, so wait a minute.
Speaker 3:So what if there's two people in one profile? Or is that illegal too? Well, you would have to determine which of the two. A lot of people do this. They'll put multiple people in the profile. Yeah, and then you got to swipe through all of the photos that they have, because you can upload I can't remember how many five to ten. Okay, you have to determine who's the common denominator in all these photos, because that's a little tricky, because sometimes, specifically, guys will do this, whether it's a little, take the picture with their better looking friend more More of it's all male based Tinder, Facebook dating, all this stuff.
Speaker 1:It's all just a bunch of dudes on there.
Speaker 3:It's been a long time since I've been on those Over 10 years but at the time You're married.
Speaker 1:I am married. Cody is not on Tinder. He hasn't been on Tinder for 10 years.
Speaker 3:It's been a while, it's probably changed a lot.
Speaker 1:Apologies to Cody's wife if we got him in trouble. He's not on Tinder. It's probably changed a lot in the last 10 years, but yeah, but yeah, you don't want to be transactional in this stuff. You really don't. You don't want to be considered a transaction. What did we say last couple times ago? It's about relationships. We build relationships.
Speaker 1:Build relationships, yep. So the problem with our industry is there are so many of us. Swiping right on the wrong person is more than 100% likely, right? I mean, when you Google somebody, they're going to put this persona on Google Facebook, whatever it may be.
Speaker 3:Well, one thing that you do have to consider as well is, like on Google, basically, whoever does the best job of optimizing for the search is going to get shown, and who pays the most and who pays the most. Who pays the most? A lot of this is If they just pay to get their name up there advertised with Google or YouTube or Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker 1:And that's what I'm saying. That's who you're going to see. You're swiping right on this facade, right and you have to sift through all this crap and all of a sudden you stumble on barbadei. Right, we have google reviews up the wazoo. We have nobody that's left us, but we're not top.
Speaker 2:You know, agents on google because we don't pay 20 grand a month to be that top agent and is that who you really want to work with, is it?
Speaker 1:right, I don't know. I don't know, I wouldn't, you know, yeah, that's a good point yeah, but so the short of it is you are not locked into either your agent or your lender.
Speaker 1:You are not nope, you can shop around, just like you shop around for a house and we always suggest it right and if say, you swiped right on the wrong agent and the right lender, you can switch your agent. You swiped right on the right agent and the wrong lender. You can switch your lender. You swiped right on the right agent in the wrong lender. You can switch your lender right. It all depends on who you are, your personality, your situation, price terms, motivation, all that stuff. So, uh, what else you got? Cody, throw something in there, jabber jaw. You are definitely a podcast guru here. What do you got what?
Speaker 3:do you got? Uh, no, I think that was good information. Honestly, I feel like I definitely learned something today. Did you? I do?
Speaker 1:We actually taught Cody something.
Speaker 2:Holy shit. People take note.
Speaker 1:We taught our producer something Sweet.
Speaker 2:All right. Thanks for tuning in to Keys and Credit, where the only thing inflated isn't the market, it's your knowledge. If you found this helpful, share it with a friend or leave us a review. It helps.