Interview George Diamantakis, Snr Loan Officer at Cliffco Mortgage Bankers in Long Island, NY
George Diamantakis, Snr Loan Officer - NMLS #1367963 - Phone: (516) 874-6394
Okay folks. Today in the studio, we have George Diamantakis, who's a senior loan officer at Cliffco Mortgage Bankers. George, let's go with your career first. Tell us a little bit about your career, what you do at Cliffco today.
Sure. So I'm a senior loan officer at Cliffco Mortgage Bankers. I've been doing this for quite some time, going on maybe 10 years. And part of my main job is qualifying clients, but I also run a team, and our goal when we do this is taking a client from start to finish as smoothly as possible. Qualifying them from the beginning and closing them in the end with a great experience and leaving happy.
Wow, that's a great statement. What are the most popular loan products that Cliffco offers?
Sure. So a lot of the market you'll see that bankers are closing conventional loans, but what Cliffco offers is a whole different array of products called non QM loans. And it gives us an alternative income basis in order to provide to the client that they may not have even known existed.
Non-QM loans
Very interesting. So that my next questions sags on this one, what is a non QM loan and why is it useful?
Sure. So a non QM loan is considered a non-qualified mortgage. The standard mortgages are considered qualified mortgages because they're backed by Fannie, Freddie, FHA, the VA. Non QM loans, non-qualified mortgages, are alternative platform, are really backed by hedge funds and other investors. And they allow us to do a big variety of things because they're a little riskier from the regular route, but they're not so risky when we lend because we qualify properly.
Okay. So if you were to say what differentiates Cliffco from other mortgage bankers, where would you go with that?
Sure. There's a couple ways I can answer that question. One, the whole part of Cliffco is that we're a smaller company that is very diverse in the product base that we offer. And we're very family oriented. There are a bunch of families that work here, and we also treat our clients like our family. So our product base in the non QM world, we offer the conventional. The FHA, the VA loans, all of those are loans that every bank offers and does well. Our non QM platform is really an outside of the box thinking type of mortgage in many different varieties, to say the least. And it allows us to really get out there and close mortgages that didn't exist before.
Give us an example.
So let's say there was a business owner and he owned a trucking company. Now, when you think about that person, and you say, "How did their financials look?" And we look at their tax returns and we say, "Wow, this person has a lot of expense that he wrote off. And his bottom line is positive, but it's not positive enough in order to buy this property."
Now, alternatively, with the non QM product, we have a 12 month business bank statement deposit. And every month, we'll take an average over a 12 month basis. We'll take an average of their income. And we'll, let's say 50% was expense and 50% was their income, that's a larger sum of money typically rather than something that they will qualify in the tax return. So it'll open up their income and allow us to qualify them for more of a mortgage on that property.
So we market all types of loans, and we do reverse mortgages and so forth. But the non QM loans are more of a specific product base than the regular loans that every bank does. So when you have a realtor going for a listing, let's say, and then the client is unsure if they qualify for their next property. Let's say they're looking to upgrade, they're looking to get a bigger house for their family. And they're like, "You know what? We just opened the business a few years ago. It's doing great, but our tax returns aren't there."
Now the realtor with education from us, can say, "Hey, you know what? I have a great bank." And they offer a really cool product that may help you qualify for that next home. Now, all of a sudden that realtor will get that listing. And then the client on the other side, in order to purchase that house. Rather than saying, "Hey, you don't qualify." He now opens up the talk saying, "Hey, we may be able to qualify you." And that's a really big thing in our industry.
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