I’m going to advance a notion that some people may find controversial, but I believe it to the bottom of my soul: Business is about relationships. Let’s say you’re a local banker getting ready to lend money to Frank. You know you’re going to see him at church, at the Kiwanis Club and at the Chamber of Commerce meeting. If you sell him something that doesn’t work for him, those encounters will become very uncomfortable.

When the job of selling mortgages got separated from the jobs of underwriting and servicing those loans, it was just a matter of time until we faced a crisis.

The originator – often somebody in a one- or two-person office – shuffled the paper and collected a fee. The underwriter sold the debt to an agency like Freddie Mac, which bundled it with thousands of others into securities that could be traded like bonds. The job of sending bills and collecting the money got jobbed out to a mortgage servicing company that in many cases had no roots – or even offices – in the home buyer’s community.

Now, we’re “shocked – shocked!” to learn that there are people who got stuck in unsuitable mortgages, buying homes they couldn’t afford.

OK, maybe the mortgage originator still has to look the customer in the eye. But increasingly, even that role is being pre-empted by faceless giants taking applications over the web.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that there’s any dishonesty in any of this. But even assuming everybody is playing by the rules, the incentive to give the customer your best advice and guide him or her to suitable products is severely compromised.

Let’s go back to Frank. You’d like for him to keep coming back for checking, car loans and business loans. You’d like to be able to speak to him at the grocery store without ducking behind the bottled water display when you see him coming.

So when you originate his mortgage, you’re probably going to make sure it’s one he can live with. You probably won’t steer him to a “liar loan” or an ARM with a teaser rate, knowing he could lose the home when the inevitable rate adjustment comes. You’ll know that Frank’s best interest – and yours – coincide in the long run.

This is why I think local real estate brokers and agents are more important than ever. With the local banker disappearing, the agent is about the only “real person” the customer sees. That means local professionals need to exercise more care, integrity and judgment than ever – guiding buyers to homes they can afford and giving them sound advice on everything from inspections to resale value. After all, we’d all like to earn a commission when that buyer sells in a few years.

And we have a good chance of doing that. Especially if we build a relationship.