We are looking at putting together a piece for our local clinic. The recruiter there would hand out our advertising packet to new doctors. Thoughts are still being thrown around has to what "special" can be offered to the newly hired doctors. This "special" would be advertised in the packet. The thoughts for this "special" are lower origination fees and interest rates, as well as a special in house mortgage term.

I feel this is a small population and screams fair lending. We would make certain disclosures would follow the Reg Z requirements on 1026.24. I would appreciate any thoughts as to why we should or should not run this marketing piece.

Having worked with physicians for a long time, across the country I would suggest you try your very best to meet face-to-face with the new doctor and/or wife. Offer to help their move to town (if appropriate)or move banking relationship (if appropriate). Try to connect to what 'they' need before trying to sell your bank.

First to your concerns of possible fair lending concerns: agreed.

To Rick's comments, he makes an excellent point: if you can meet face to face, all the better. Consider it almost (almost) as a private or concierge banking service. Their needs are often much more detailed and slightly more numerous than a simple swap kit sitting in the HR Director's office.

Back to your first point though, if you are looking to cater to their lending needs, consider your prgrams very carefully. Doctors can be very mobile, so a amortizing or long term fixed product may not be attractive to them.

Additionally if they are a newer doctor or resident, their debt can be very high and their starting income may not be in proportion just yet... underwriting may need to be a little fancy for this, and pricing the risk will be inportant. Also keep in mind that not all doctors are created equal or are paid quite as lucratively as you may think... not all of them are making $250k right out of the gate.

Many private banking areas dropped doctors because income is not necessarily high right out of school, unlike big law firms.

Also, you need to consider the effect of this group of doctors vs others in the area. Does this group happen to be white males, while some others in the area are female or minority? Why the different treatment? Been there with law firms.

These are newly hired, but not necessarily newly educated docs, right? Even though veteran docs may command higher salaries and be closer to paying off student loans, have you considered how much their earning power will be hurt by Obamacare? Lifetime earning expectations aren't what they used to be.

Rick, you said:

"meet face-to-face with the new doctor and/or wife."

'round here, we allow new doctors to have husbands, too.

Al

I just completed a mortgage loan review and also if you know me, I am pretty plugged into the medical community. Trust me, targeting doctors will probably reap fewer benefits to the bank than targeting garbage collectors.

Doctors are notoriously bad financial planners, unless they come from very wealthy families they have huge student loan liabilities and the income outlook for anyone in the medical field is pretty unstable.

During this last loan review I conducted, I could not understand how some of these doctors that were pulling down low to mid six figures, 20 years into their careers could have a negative net worth.

"Physician" = occupation starting with a "p".