John Santorinoes is a mortgage originator with American Home Mortgage in the Chicagoland area. This article is the first in a series of 3 articles on hiring assistants. He has been ranked within the top 200 loan officers in the U.S. and is a member of the Mortgage Speakers Bureau (www.MortgageSpeakersBureau.com). John can be reached via email at john.santorineos@americanhm.com.

I began working in the mortgage business back in the fall of 1992. In 1993 I closed about $10 million in loans. I was very pleased with that amount and very happy with my income. For the next 3 years, my production was between $10-$13 million. It seemed like I was stuck there forever. I was working about 50 hours per week, which included Saturdays and an occassional hour or two on Sunday. I had a pager that would go off during the evenings and even worse, on Sunday, while I was with my family. I was often frustrated or even angry when the pager would go off, instead of being happy that it meant new business.

Have you been there? I would hear of a few loan officers producing more than $20 million per year and I thought, no thanks. I am giving this job too many hours as it is.

So what happened?

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