Submitted by: Tara Argumaniz, Processor
Life of a Trident Processor
It is hard to believe that I have been with Trident for almost two years. It was apparent from the beginning that Trident was different from any lender that I previously worked for. The moment that Marty strolled into my interview, sat down next to me, and said “relax, stop fidgeting, and just be yourself”. A few minutes later, Elena continued with the typical interview questions regarding my employment history, guideline knowledge, etc. Before I was able to respond to her, Marty chimed in and said “That’s enough of that, I can read her resume for that crap. What I want to know is whether or not she will be a good fit for the company”. He proceeded to ask me about my family, and wanted to know if I had any military ties. Once I told him that everyone in my family is either a service member or married to one, he asked me when I could start. I left the interview knowing that this was the right place for me. Although, at the time, I had no idea why my family’s military affiliation was important to him. It wasn’t until I started interacting with our borrowers (most of which are military), that I realized the significance of his questions, and why it was so important to him.
I had only been working at Trident a few months when the rates drastically increased for the first time since COVID, and the market plummeted. It seemed like every day, I would hear about another huge lender either going out of business, or having to do mass layoffs. Which seemed almost unrealistic since Trident was still producing at a high volume. Marty and Tim structured Trident in a way, that in my opinion is genius. Focusing mainly on pilots and active duty military has made Trident unstoppable. Most lenders do not understand pilot pay; it is completely foreign to them. Which causes so much unnecessary stress for the borrower when trying to get the loan through underwriting. That is why Trident is so well known throughout the pilot community. When a pilot finds us, and realizes that the only question we have for them regarding their income is what airline they work for, it is always greatly appreciated. When I ask a pilot how they heard about Trident, it always makes smile when they tell me that they were frustrated with their current lender, and found us after deciding to google “pilot friendly lenders” in hopes to make their home buying process simple.
Source: Trident Home Loans
Over the last year and half, rates finally evened out and stayed that way for a while, until a few months ago when they once again increased quickly. I work directly with several loan officers, so I stay consistently busy. It wasn’t until a mandatory meeting was called by Marty, that I realized Trident was potentially feeling the impact of the rate increase this time. During the meeting, Marty let us know his plans. He came up with a strategy for himself, and every one of the company’s loan officers to be even more involved with every single borrower, and to compete for every loan until we beat the lender we were going against, even if it meant making nothing on the loan. Initially, I was concerned that that alone wouldn’t make a big enough impact, but that didn’t last long. Over the past few months, I have been working from morning, until late at night, and over the weekends, just to keep up with my pipeline. I have been in this industry for years, and I have never been this busy before. As I stated previously, Trident is different from other lenders, not just internally with the employees, but every single one of our borrowers sees it as well. Word of mouth is how a small local broker has stayed on top against all odds when others couldn’t make it work.
