What kind of RUSH are you?

I work for a mortgage broker. The job of a mortgage broker company is to bring in the clients and place them with a lender that best suits their needs. We deal in very high volume and send lots of file packages to several lenders (Citibank, HSBC, Wells Fargo, etc.). More often than not we are at the mercy of the lender's own volume for a quick mortgage approval. To circumvent this problem the loan originator who brought in the business would mark the client’s file with the word RUSH with a red magic marker. Usually in big letters across the front cover of the file. This will indicate to the lender that we need them to step on it so we can get an approval quicker than a non-RUSH file. This sounds simple. However, the busier we get, the more RUSH files get sent to the already overwhelmed lender. Therefore if every file is a RUSH then NONE of the loans becomes a RUSH! The more RUSH-es we have, the word RUSH no longer has a meaning. The urgency of these files gets diluted.

To troubleshoot, we have come up with different levels of RUSH depending upon the client’s situation. Below is a matrix of these levels (Sort of a Homeland Security Advisory System for Mortgages):

- *BLANK* (No Rush. Client’s do not have a deadline to get approved, meet rate & guidelines or closing).
- RUSH (Client needs an approval in a week. And will need to close within 60 days to meet rate & guidelines).
- RUSH RUSH! (Client needs an approval within 5 days as they need it for a coop board meeting and closing within 60 days).
- MAJOR RUSH!! (Client needs an approval within 4 days as they need it for a coop board meeting and closing within 45 days).
- SUPER RUSH!!! (Without an approval in 3 days, their coop board meeting will be delayed a month and cannot close within 30 days now before their rate goes up).
- SUPER SUPER RUSH!!!! (An approval must be faxed within 2 days as the seller has already set a closing date 20 days from now and there are a lot of outstanding items that have to be cleared!).
- EXTREME RUSH!!!!! (Must have the approval by tomorrow!! The seller is threatening my client to close within 15 days!!)

Well it does get worse. We have yet to use these following terms, but maybe we may have to as this industry gets more frantic and competitive:

- SUPER SEVERE EXTREME RUSH!!!!!! (200 pages were faxed to the lender at 9:01 AM! Must get an approval no later than noon today! Must close by Friday or the clients lose their $100,000 down payment!!!)
- BLOODY SUICIDAL SUPER SEVERE EXTREME RUSH!!!!!!! (HELP!!! We stole this loan from another mortgage broker!! Needs to close in 48 hours! We just faxed you 300 pages. Need the closing set now!!! AGHHH!!!!!!).
- MAJOR SUPER EXTREME SEVERE BLOODY SUICIDAL HOMICIDAL RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH!!!!!!!!!! (I’ve never seen this kind of RUSH before. But if I do, it will probably be the seventh sign of the apocalypse).

- The Mortgage Cat.