Do What You Gotta Do!

Way back in 2006 I screwed up. I had expanded my company by taking over my largest competitor and while I knew that they weren't doing well financially, I had no idea of how bad things there were.

The idea of doing my "due-diligence" was overshadowed by the thrill of making the purchase and building my empire! The result was that my overhead spiked, while my income dropped because I was busy "fixing" the new business.

To make matters even more stressful, I had a huge tuition bill for my son's college

at Auburn University. It was due the next month and when I looked at my scheduled closings, it was clear that I simply wasn't going to be able to pay it.

I reached out to the cashier's office at Auburn to attempt to make some arrangements, but they were having none of it. I either made the complete payment or my son's classes would be cancelled.

It didn't matter that my (and my son's) financial circumstances had degraded. By this point, I had pretty much gone through my rainy day funds, as well as being tapped out at Mom's Savings and Loan. Our backs were against the wall. I was desperate.

I needed to do something and I needed to do it quickly. What could I do to come up with the shortfall to keep my son in college? Oh, and I still had a real estate and mortgage company to run!

Robbing a bank seemed pretty risky. So, I reached out to a guy that I knew that owed a taxi cab company (think Ubers, but with all of the cars painted the same) and he explained that he could "rent" me a taxi for a flat daily rate and that I could keep everything that I earned above and beyond that amount.

I wasn't thrilled, but I also didn't see an alternative. So, I took him up on his offer.

My new routine was to get to my office by 10:00 AM to take care of the deals that we were working, then to take the taxi out in the late afternoon to catch the evening rush of people making the dash for the airport or home.

In the evening, things would slow down and it wasn't unusual to sit for hours waiting for the next fare. This is when I noticed that there were quite a few calls for taxi's that were going unanswered because they either started or ended in the hood.

While there were a number of reasons that these calls were going unanswered, the biggest of which was that people in these areas knew that they were going to have an issue getting a taxi and would often call several companies to come and get them....whoever got there first, got the fare. In addition, very few of these riders would tip the driver and the rides were generally shorter rides....think grocery store runs, etc.

Over-all, most of the other drivers didn't see the value in taking the risk of driving to the hood only to be stood up or to get a $10.00 fare.

These other drivers though didn't have 30 days to come up with the money to keep their sons in school. So I started taking them.

What I found was that the conventional wisdom was wrong! While I can't say that I never got stood up, it honestly didn't happen all that often. The rides also turned out to be about the same as rides from any other area, including the wealthy areas of town.

To be honest, the tipping did kind of suck, but being in a position where I was trying to rub two nickels together in order to make a quarter, I understood that most of my riders were in a similar position and many were lucky to be able to come up with the fare, more or less a tip.

This all happened in St. Louis, Missouri and if you're familiar with St. Louis, you

might know that the airport is located just outside the city limits on the northwest part of town (not too far from the hood). This resulted in me often being the closest cab from my company in the area (we didn't have the airport concession, so we had to be "called" to the airport in order to take a fare from there) and since I was closer than the other cabbies that hung out in the wealthier areas, I usually got these fares...which were often sizable. Oh, and people catching cabs from airports tend to be pretty good tippers!

The end result was that I drove that taxi for about 6 to 8 weeks and earned enough to pay the tuition bill and even to restock the cash drawer at the office (which had been pretty bare for a while at that point).

I also ended up with some great stories...from picking up 5 Seattle Seahawks line men and squeezing them (and me) into a Ford Crown Victoria, to the guy who offered me $50.00 if I let him smoke a joint in the back of the car....(don't judge me, Auburn didn't care!), I had a blast!

My "Best" tip was when one of the World Series games that was being played got rained out and my fare had to fly out the next day and gave me his ticket (which I sold on Craigslist for $300.00!).

Anyway, working until the wee hours of the morning on top of working my full time mortgage and real estate gig, wasn't sustainable on a long term basis and after I restocked the cash drawer, I stopped driving a cab.

The reason that I'm telling you guys this story is that with mortgage applications falling as much as 26% (to the lowest point in something like 27 years), that YOU might have to do what you have to do in order to survive!

If that means driving a hack, then so be it. Delivering for Door Dash? Well, sign me up too! Do whatever it is that you have to do because the one certainty in mortgage banking is that things are going to change.

And, while things don't look that great right now, things WILL eventually turn around. Also, if you look at that 26% figure that I quoted above, that still means that 74% of the deals are still there to be had....

So, stop crying in your beer. Splash some water on your face and let's get busy overcoming these obstacles. Where there is a will, there is a way! Your job is to find that way!

One last pearl of wisdom.....learn from this experience...when things start going well again (and they will) stop living so high on the hog! Put some of the money that you are earning away for that rainy day. Remember, if you stay in this business long enough that you are almost certain to experience turmoil in the markets at some point in the future.

As always, the opinions expressed in this article are those of Bob "The Mortgage Coach" Mitchell alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions of any other entity. All photos are published under Creative Commons license with attribution when requested.

Bob "The Mortgage Coach" Mitchell

NMLS# 1046286

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 919-289-9611

YouTube: @bobthemortgagecoach