The Rules are Changing
In case you haven't heard yet, here's a new idea you might need to get your arms around: A mortgage isn't just a mortgage anymore.
Things have changed.
The new paradigm we've seen emerge over the past five years has financial planners and mortgage experts looking at a mortgage in an entirely new way: not necessarily as something to be paid down as quickly as possible -- but rather as a tool to be used to give leverage and strength to the complete range of one's financial goals.
Consider this for a moment: If everything you thought you knew about your mortgage turned out to be wrong ... how soon would you want to know? Here's a better question: How soon would you want to know if not knowing was costing you money? Or if not knowing was actually holding you back, and potentially jeopardizing your financial future?
The rules of money (and mortgages) have indeed changed. You will read more about this throughout our web site, and we will talk about some of those changes during your consultation. (And, if you like, you may also visit our Solutions page and download some of the articles that are hitting the forefront of the mortgage industry like a locomotive and changing how elite mortgage planners around the country are advising their clients.)
Here at Fisher & Wallace, we believe that if structured and managed properly, your mortgage can become the cornerstone of your short- and long-term financial plans.
We believe that the savings you could be enjoying, and the wealth you could be earning, are apt to prove far more substantial than you might imagine.
You will find that going through our unique consultative process is actually fun -- and we think you might be surprised by the impact it can have on your future.
Expect something somewhat different ...
You should expect something different when working with the team of Fisher & Wallace. We are not like the rest. Your experience with us is going to prove very different from what you may have experienced in the past with other mortgage professionals.
Let's start with a few words about what we are and what we are not, so as to set the record straight right from the beginning.
The fundamental difference separating the team of Fisher & Wallace from the multitude of typical "loan officers" comes down to one very important distinction: We do not see ourselves as salesmen. We see ourselves as consultants.
We are not mere "application-takers." And we do not spend our time scrambling after fast deals, slapping on anything that will stick, anything that might earn a quick buck, and then go off and running again, no time for the client, no time or anything but the next deal. ...
That is not how we work . At Fisher & Wallace, we embrace a friendly, intimate, highly professional consultative approach in working with our clients. What's this mean? It means we actually consult. It means we ask questions, we listen to what our clients share with us, we create powerful custom reports to weigh all of the options, we design mortgage strategies that truly fit the clients' needs, we educate them on how everything works ... and, ultimately, we give our clients impeccable advice, earning us the role of trusted advisors for life.
Here is what we don't do: We don't throw rates out over the phone. We don't run on about fees, closing costs, and "Good Faith Estimates." All of this merely confuses the client and has nothing whatever to do with actually structuring a mortgage specific to the client's financial goals.
A side note here on rates, because they always come up. It is vitally important to realize that the "lowest" rate on the wrong program [or even on a suitable program inappropriately managed] can cost you many, many thousands of dollars that could have otherwise been saved and kept properly invested and growing.
In fact, we believe that "shopping rates" is misguided to begin with. For one, you can never hope to land the "best" or "lowest" rate -- because rates are constantly in flux. There are dozens of factors that come into play that affect a rate; among other things, they are affected by credit scores and documentation requirements and down payments and escrows and income ratios and a multitude of other factors, and all of this is going to be completely different from one lender to the next, from one day to the next.
When you fall into the mistake of trying to chase rates, more often than not all you end up doing is getting yourself thoroughly confused. In the end, you find yourself going with some random loan officer you happened to speak with last, who may actually have given you an impossible rate that he won't be able to honor and a junkheap of hidden fees you won't know about until closing.
This sort of thing unfortunately happens far too often: The misguided rate-shopper wastes untold hours chasing after that elusive 1/8 or 1/4 of a point lower in rate ... and then finds himself enmeshed in the wrong loan, with features and restrictions he never knew about, likely with a higher rate than he thought he had secured, almost certainly stuck with fees he never knew about, and the whole mess a complete distaster.
Here's our advice. Instead of chasing after the impossible rate ... find a mortgage consultant you believe in and you can trust. Find someone committed to taking care of you and your family across the years to come. That's the one you want on your side. That's the one who is going to give you a great rate and great advice. And you will be able to sleep easy knowing it. With Fisher & Wallace, you will get an exceptional rate. And more important: it's going to be on the right product, and it's going to be structured the right way, with a plan in place to manage it properly over time.
When rates change for the better in the marketplace as the result of activity in the Bond Market, we will make sure your payments come down as well. And if anything should change in your life, we will be there for you to ensure that your mortgage strategy is adjusted to accommodate those changes -- and to ensure that your financial goals remain active and in focus.
What are some of the things you are not going to find us doing?
You will not find us dashing about town wasting our time fawning after Realtors and begging for their business. You will not find us buying internet leads or running spam ads or spending our days and nights cold-calling with the hope of snaring unwitting consumers into "slap-'em and wrap-'em" get 'em off the phone and out the door quick deals.
That is not how we work and now how we spend our time.
We spend our time helping our clients and looking for ways to transform their lives. As a result, we enjoy the good fortune of receiving 100% of our business through referrals. When you take care of someone the way we take care of every one of our clients, it's only natural that they will want to refer their friends and family to you. And that's the only kind of business we want.
We believe that our clients will be our clients for life. We approach every consultation with that assumption. Our express intention is to structure your mortgage so well, and manage it with such care and diligence, that we will earn the right to be trusted advisors to you (and those closest to you) for decades to come.
What specifically is it that we are trying to do for our clients? Seven things, really ... We want to help our clients save money and get out of debt.
We want to help our clients take control of their financial futures.
We want to help our clients guard against any unfortunate turns of fate.
We want to help our clients increase their savings and investments.
We want to help our clients save on their taxes and on interest expense.
We want to help our clients dramatically increase their net worth.
We want to help our clients meet all of their financial goals and dreams.
How do we propose to do this? Quite simply: By giving expert advice.
If we do our job right, you will have a mortgage plan that supports and promotes these seven goals. The wrong mortgage, a poorly planned mortgage, will act as a brake against everything you are trying to accomplish. But the right mortgage, the right strategy ... will put wings on all of your financial ambitions and bring them faster and faster into your life, one after another, until your life is filled with the accomplishment of all your dreams.
Our Consultative Process We believe in the power and strength of profound advice. The right advice can make you wealthy. The wrong advice can leave you and your family in the street broke and without a home.
We take this responsibility very seriously. For this reason, all of our clients go through a rather extensive (but always enlightening) Pre-Consultation Interview process on our website. After we look over this material, we schedule a personal interview with the clients, during which we get clarity about what the clients' goals are and what kind of life they wish to build.
Only then, with all of this in our notes, do we run a number of reports and compare various programs and strategies against one another. Using these reports we are able to find the program and strategy that works best in relation to the financial goals shared by the client. Nothing happens without these reports, and nothing happens by guesswork.
After we've worked up the best strategy, we then sit down and provide our complete consultation to the client. We have modeled our presentations largely on those designed by the country's leading financial planners and mortgage experts. We are working on the basis of the best ideas from the finest financial minds of today -- not on the outmoded ideas (and fears) spawned of what we refer to as "Great Depression Thinking." The education and advice we provide is the best to be had, and we are confident that you will come away from your consultation with a fresh new understanding of your complete financial picture ... and find yourself armed with a plan that will enable you to craft your future into something most extraordinary.
An eighth goal, perhaps a little unexpected ...
You might be surprised, but one of our goals is to help make money less stressful to you. We believe this is crucially important. Stress over money isn't good for you, and it isn't good for your family.
Most marriages that end in divorce cite financial stress as the main culprit. Too many parents treat their children harshly, or ignore them altogether, simply because they are buried under the stress of living paycheck to paycheck. Too many teenagers end up having to do without college because their parents never sat down with someone to come up with a plan to provide for their higher education. Too many elderly find themselves in the unhappy position of having to take altogether inadequate jobs just to pay their bills and scrape by -- when instead they should have been happily and comfortably retired, free of concerns over money, spending time with their family, traveling, and enjoying the leisure they spent a lifetime earning. Throughout your working years, you should be striving toward a set of clearly defined goals, dreams for yourself and your family, a beautiful future that is REAL because you've taken the time and care to plan it out.
Too often, however, we see honest and otherwise hard-working Americans, with many years of productive work under their belts ... with nothing but a house payment and a bunch of bills to show for everything they've done.
And it shouldn't have to be that way.
These aren't bad people. They're just ordinary folks who had some of the rules of money wrong. They thought money (and mortgages) worked in a certain fashion; but it turned out that money (and mortgages) changed somewhere along the way. And no one told them.
After you meet with us, you should never make those kinds of mistakes.
When we meet with you for your consultation, we will be discussing your financial plans in some detail (and in many cases, finding that many of you have none!). We will also lay out the groundwork for some key financial habits and a simple but rock solid financial plan that will help keep you on course. We will talk about how to best prioritize the money coming into your household, how to best eliminate your debts, how to best build your savings and investments, and of course how to best structure your mortgage so that it enhances all the rest.
You can be sure of this: After going through our consultation, things are never going to be the same again.
Next Steps
It's time to get the ball rolling.
The first step you need to take is to complete your Pre-Consultation Interview. You're looking at all of half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes if you stop halfway through to make some popcorn.
Write or call us today and we will send you an e-mail containing instructions on how to access our online Pre-Consultation material. We're looking forward to meeting you.
You are in for an exciting journey.
Wishing you the very best,
Michael Fisher & Christopher Wallace
Mortgage Consultants 
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