Taking Advantage of "Freebies" Can Save Your Career.

Written By:
Stacey Sprain,
NAMP Volunteer Writer

With so many costs on the rise in our industry it's good to know that some of the good things are still available for free.

Our industry offers some great newsletters and media resources from people to donate and dedicate their time to assuring we all are kept up to date daily, weekly, monthly. Below are some of my personal favorite "Freebies" that are available to you.

The key to keeping up to date but maintaining efficient work standards is to test out all of these resources but to weed out subscriptions that tend to offer duplicate information. You don't need to be overwhelmed with too many email alerts on a daily basis because they can distract from your workload. I recommend testing the sources listed but cancelling subscriptions that don't interest you or that are repetitive with news and information. Maintain no more than five subscriptions that cover the widest array of news that is most important to you and your business.

Please feel free to share any additional resources that I haven't mentioned here! I would love to hear about more "freebies" that I personally have yet to discover!

ORIGINATOR NEWS offers a free daily newsletter- Look for the orange box at their home page to enter your email address for free subscription. http://originatortimes.com/content/templates/standard.aspx?articleid=2594&zoneid=1

Rob Lawrence's BATTLECALL offers free sales & marketing flyers, short recorded training sessions covering a myriad of subjects and a free newsletter subscription. Go to http://www.battlecall.com/public/department2.cfm and locate the "Free Tips Newsletter" link to join the free mailing list.

MORTGAGE NEWS DAILY offers a free daily news alerts that give you consistent coverage on the issues that affect out industry. Go to http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/newsalerts/index.asp to subscribe.

SCOTSMAN GUIDE is a hardcopy subscription that provides you with a short catalog of great articles, tips, and resources that relate to the originators out there. Go to http://www.scotsmanguide.com/default.asp?ID=4 to subscribe.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES offers a free subscription to receive updates to keep you informed on industry-related issues in the news on Capitol Hill. Go to http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/ht092007.shtml to subscribe.

FOCUS PUBLICATIONS offers free subscriptions on behalf of NAMB that offer Economic Reports and Hot Sheet releases on an assortment of topics. Go to http://www1.focuspub.com/cgi-bin/registration.cgi?station_id=3023 to subscribe.

HUD offers free subscription to their various mailing lists which are also broken down by state to include any specific newsletters offered by individual state HUD offices. Go to http://www1.focuspub.com/cgi-bin/registration.cgi?station_id=3023 to subscribe.

VA offers a free email alert subscription service to keep you up to date on VA-related issues. Go to
https://vip.vba.va.gov/portal/VBAH/Home/home to subscribe.

About the Writer. As one of NAMP's volunteer writers, Stacey Sprain is currently a NAMP member in good standing and is a NAMP Certified Ambassador Loan Processor (CALP). If you would like to become a volunteer writer for NAMP, please email us at: blog@mortgageprocessor.org.