A bank has one answer.
I have 100+.

The loan I talked a friend out of

A friend almost did not call me. Nobody loves handing a friend their whole financial life. But he was about to refinance to pull out cash, and something felt off. It was. The fees were about equal to the cash he would get back. Then the appraisal came in low, the cash shrank, and the fees did not.

He planned to sell within a year. That refinance would have spent his equity on fees. I told him not to do it.

I made nothing on that call. It is still the best work I did that month.

The income a bank could not read

He walked in with a quote from a bank and a paycheck the bank did not understand. Commission. Variable. The kind of income I have lived on most of my adult life. So I documented how he actually earns and argued for every dollar of it.

Then a lien and a missing repair tried to kill the deal. Neither one was my job. I handled both, and we closed on a better loan than the one he came in holding.

The file is my job. So is everything that threatens it.