CAP: A Lender Program for Sellers

By Kayla O’Brien

RISMEDIA, July 26, 2007–When it comes to the real estate industry, leading companies realize that to flourish with the times, the company must also change with the times. The same then holds true for the mortgage industry, where companies like Metrocities Mortgage team up with local real estate offices, sharing the need for innovative solutions to ensure a satisfied customer and a completed transaction.

Metrocities recently unveiled its Closing Assurance Program (CAP) in 2007 within all of their joint ventures. Already noted for supplying top-tier customer service under their Heroic Customer Service GuaranteeSM, Metrocities developed this new program to help ease the complications of the closing process before they arise. The CAP brings peace of mind and satisfaction to the seller and avoids the hassle of fall-through due to an unqualified buyer.

“There’s a ton of fall-through happening right now,” says Joe Carroll, senior vice president of Metrocities Mortgage. “As we were thinking through our partners’ pain-points, we looked at transaction fall-throughs and how can we help protect sellers. It was a natural to guarantee to our sellers that we know it will close.”
Dilbeck Realtors, a one-stop real estate shop in California, utilizes the Closing Assurance Program when listing properties as a special service for their sellers. Upon seller request, listing agents add instructions to the listing contract that make any offers subject to pre-approval from the in-house lender Ambassador Capital Mortgage, a division of Metrocities Mortgage and the mortgage partner of Dilbeck Realtors. The loan officer from Ambassador calls the potential buyer to pre-approve, and relays the results back to the seller so they can fully accept the offer.

“CAP makes sure that the buyers are coming in qualified, ready to close, and have reliable lenders,” explains Robin Seifert, senior loan officer for Ambassador Capital Mortgage. Working in Dilbeck’s Glendale office, Seifert has been using the program for about three months now.

“We care about not having to put the house back on the market after the fall-through,” says Carroll. “This is for us to protect them.”

What’s more, if the approved buyer does not close, the company pays the seller $400.
The only challenge, according to Seifert, is during the beginning of the process, when some potential buyers feel reluctant to turn over information they’ve already given to their chosen loan officer.

“We’re there to make sure it closes, so while they may feel we’re taking information they’ve given before, my experience so far has been very positive. We keep it in the office that the listing is generated from and may even be able to convert the buyer to a program that will be better for them,” she says.

At no time is the buyer required to use Ambassador’s mortgage services; however, when Ambassador runs the credit and underwriting in the pre-approval process, they provide a second opinion of mortgage options—at no cost to the buyer.

Based on her two decades of mortgage experience, Seifert sees CAP as a unique and important tool to make the home buying process smoother for seller and buyer. She says, “It’s really all about service. When we’re working toward the same goal it’s much better.”

For more information, please visit www.metrocitiesmtg.com.

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