Now we are both licensed. My wife, the “loan orig­i­na­tor” and I, the “real estate sales­per­son.” You can check for your­self at the Wash­ing­ton Depart­ment of Licens­ing Query Sys­tem. You can search for all kinds of licensed pro­fes­sion­als, from archi­tects to cos­me­tol­o­gists, and apprais­ers to embalmers and apprais­ers to real estate bro­kers and sales­per­sons (agents).

If you are look­ing for my wife you need to head over to the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Finan­cial Insti­tu­tions (DFI) and check the Licensee Data­base. Among the kind of sub­jects you can search are Invest­ment Com­pa­nies, Escrow Offi­cers, Mort­gage Bro­kers, and now also Loan Originators.

The photo mon­tage above shows the online search results for her and me (exclud­ing the pho­tos). She now works for Choice Lend­ing  in Bellevue.

It’s hard to believe but until Jan­u­ary 1, 2007 loan orig­i­na­tors did not have to be licensed in the State of Wash­ing­ton. Given the tremen­dous respon­si­bil­ity that comes with advis­ing some­one on financ­ing res­i­den­tial prop­erty, I think this change is for the bet­ter. Some cyn­ics may dis­agree. “The state’s just see­ing this as a way to col­lect more fees,” or “a licensed crook is still a crook” are some of the arguments.

I was told at a recent real estate work­shop that some loan orig­i­na­tors did not line up to be fin­ger­printed for the license because they would not pass the crim­i­nal back­ground check. Let’s hope the change to a licensed sta­tus keeps the worst out of the busi­ness. Let’s hope that mort­gage fraud will decrease proportionately.

Obvi­ously, hav­ing shared a cer­tain kind of license for 30 years, I could have told you that Frances Ann is hon­est, com­pe­tent, patient, superb at explain­ing things, detail-oriented, always cour­te­ous and charm­ing, but you may have pointed out that I was biased. Yes, I am. But I am also right. Just ask her. I am always right.

This blog has been updated Feb­ru­ary 7, 2008.

Tags: choice lending, frances ann ade, Mortgage loan originator license, real estate sales license

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Legal Lane. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.