Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: One, two, three, and live.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Ricky, for being on the second episode of the Unfiltered Agent. And we are actually here at home Solution lenders, which is in Bartow, Florida, which is like seven minute drive from my house in Lakeland. But Ricky is my guy. So Ricky and I have been working together, I don't know, maybe like six or seven years now on mortgages, and he has saved my ass so many times, I cannot even count it. And if I was gonna have anybody on my show to talk about lending anything mortgage related, this is the guy I would have because he's literally the guy I call. He's the one who does all my loans. So I'm really thankful for his. His friendship and just being there to save my ass over and over again. He is not only, you know, a really great mortgage guy, but actually owns this business. He has built this business, and he's a pretty incredible entrepreneur in person. So I'm really thankful. Thanks for being on the show today.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: You're very, very welcome. Thank you for having me. And like I said, so my name is Ricky Peacock, so we'll say the full name. I am the CEO and president of home solution lenders. I think we've been doing business since about 2016 or 17, right when I moved here. Right. I remember having to bail you out one time for running out of fuel.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Oh, God, that was a fun story.
I remember when I first met Ricky, I was so impressed by. By him. And I genuinely feel like he's. You're a little bit older than me, but you're genuinely, like, one of the only people I know that are super self made. Like, and I. You've only told me your story, like, once or twice, maybe, but I tell it to other people, and I'm just like, dude, this guy is impressive. So I want you to go back a little bit to when you first got started in mortgages.
What got you into this business, and how did you get here? With home solution lenders.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Cool. Yeah, that's a fun story. So it actually all goes back to 2004. So that's when I first entered the industry. I was at University of Florida. I was up there doing my degree in marketing, working on all that stuff, trying to learn my way in life. And I actually got kicked out of University of Florida.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: I'm not surprised, actually.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: I got kicked out with one class to go, and I came back and I ended up spending the summer with my dad. And so my dad's neighbor had just financed their house.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: And my dad's gruff. So he literally looks over the fence at Bruce and says, bruce, what'd you make last year? And Bruce yelled out, about 250,000. And my dad turned to me and looked at me and said, what are you doing? You're smart. He's not. You're going into mortgages. So I kind of started in zero four. I went to work for Bruce's dad's company. So 0405 in that area. I worked up in Jacksonville. And then into zero five, I started my own mortgage company, which was home solution mortgage.
And then about the zero seven era, I wanted to become a lender. So we were home solution mortgage. And then I wanted to become explain.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: The difference for everybody who doesn't understand what that means, because that's a big deal, right?
[00:03:06] Speaker A: So you have, in this industry, you have lenders, and then you have brokers. And what it is, is a mortgage broker is a person who brings a client to an investor for them to underwrite the loan. A mortgage brokerage is the actual company. The person who's underwriting, funding it, doing everything, that's the lender. So that's.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: They're the ones who actually have the money. The broker is kind of the middleman.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: They're helping originate the loan. They're finding the qualifying buyer to procure the debt. And the lender's the one actually writing the check.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Correct. The lender's the one who's doing everything in house. And so in zero eight, I wanted to become a lender.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: So before you were just brokering, I was just brokering.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: So, totally.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Okay. Way to make money. And it's, a lot of people have great businesses, but there's significantly different.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: So I had the dream I wanted to become a broker. So in zero eight, my accountant said, hey, start a new company. It's cheaper to do that. So I started a new company, come home solution lenders. I was ready to come out of the gate, do all my loans, and then all of a sudden, FHA decided they're going to change the net worth requirement, right? So between zero eight and 2013, the world was set on fire.
Yeah.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: The market crash.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: I went bankrupt. I went foreclosed. I mean, they took my cars, my houses, they took everything, so. But I was at a good point in life where I had nothing, right? So I had this dream, like, if I have nothing, where do I go from there, right? And then during that time, I met my wife, and I was ready to leave the kind of the industry.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: And did she, like, work for.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: No, she did a loan oh, she did.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: She did one of her mortgage.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: I didn't put any money on her loan, but it kept the faith going. And then. So in 2010, when me and her really got together, I decided, I'm gonna put all my effort into this business. And I sat down one afternoon and I wrote out what it would take to become an FHA lender. Now, at the time, they went from being $63,000 net worth to a million.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Dollars, which is a big difference.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: A little different. Yeah. That's like, what, 2012 times eleven?
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Something crazy like that.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: It's quite a bit.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: That's a lot of money to have to have in the bank, too, right? To be able to verify that you're solid financially to that point. And you had just gotten through foreclosure. Correct. You didn't have anything?
[00:05:21] Speaker A: I had nothing.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: So on the start of the business, I had to rebuild myself. So I worked 2010, 1112, 13 and 14. I paid myself about $12 an hour for four years straight. And I worked about 100 hours a week, and I saved every dollar I had to become a lender, and I had to become a VA lender first because they had a lower net worth requirement. So VA and conventional were lower than USDA, which was lower than FHa. So I took all the lower ones I could and I took that money that I was making, being from a broker to now a lender, because I was underwriting them. And I took that money and I saved it. So between 14 and 15, I had enough money become an FHA lender in 15. And then from then on, it was. It's been just insane. Yeah. Getting to the minimum net worth was just the fun part. And then building the business from 16 on was a whole different.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: That's a whole different structure. So, yeah, so I just. I love Ricky's story because it just speaks to his dedication. And there's not many, you know, lenders that actually CEO's that work in your business as much as you do. And I know you've. You've got a great team. Like, you've really worked hard to build the team out. But this guy, like, I can still call him up. He's the freaking owner of the company. He doesn't have to look at my files, but he does. And, you know, if my client, that that's a relationship I value, probably won't always be able to do that once you get to a certain point. But right now, I have the expert in back pocket, and I just really appreciate that.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: And that's the thing is. So I've hit my dreams, I've hit my goals. People always ask me where I'm going next. Like, where are you going next? And, you know, when I started this company, it was 16 years ago, I never thought what I was I going to do on year ten. What was I going to do on year 15? Like, that never crossed my mind. And even though people are like, oh, you're a smart person, I didn't think that far ahead. And now I'm at year 16, and I'm like, former years, I'm at year 20. Like, what do I do? But, I mean, I have kids growing up. They've expressed interest in a business, whether it be the mortgage business, who knows? But, um, I'm at a point where I've grown to where I want to be right now, it's maintaining. So I've. I've made it through the zero eight crash. I've made it through the 2016 up and downs and rates. I've made it through the 20 2021 up and down. It's all cyclical. So now I can step back as a business owner with. With that experience and go, okay, that doesn't scare me. Like, what we're going into now with rates, you know, 2022, rates shot up. Right. Government helped us, and then we were supposed to have some reprieve this year. We haven't had that yet, anything. Right? But the matter is just, if we can just stay focused on what we're trying to do. And mine is. My focus is, it's not in here. But if you read my mission statement, it's my heart. My mission statement is make sure I'm getting clients good loans, make sure I'm keeping my staff busy. I've never had to let anybody go because the market goes down. So I created a different culture, culture here than most places. To answer your question, you'll always be able to call me, right? I don't want to be the company doing 510 $20 billion a year in loans. Right? I want to be the company that I get your loan done, I get you happy. I close 1000, 2000 loans a year, whatever it comes out to be. And then you walk down the street, you wave, I'm still the same person. Like, that's what I wanted. To me, me, when you're talking about being a CEO, is I truly care about the outcome. So I always preach about, there's people who are manipulators and there's people who are leaders, right? The only difference is a leader cares about the outcome for everyone. So if my team fails and we drop the ball. Right? I screwed up. Right? I'm the owner. I screwed up. I dropped the ball. If my team wins, they did everything they could to get there, right? It's coaching from the sideline, right. I didn't go out there and do the plays. But if we lose, I'll take the credit. If we win, I'll pass it on. And so that's what I kind of mentored to them is like, hey, look, there's a lot of people who out there give you raw, raw stuff in life, but do they back it up? Right? Do they actually care where you're going? So I care where my employees are going. I care that they go out and see dance recitals for their kids or if their kids sick in the morning, that they get a late drop off. Like I want them. I kind of treat all my employees like I do my wife or my kids or my family and my sister, my brother. I want them to have the same. Do your job, come to your job and love it, but also understand everyone here has your back. And so that's the different culture. So can we ever be a big company? No. You can't have 10,000 people with that leadership.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you could try, but it doesn't, it doesn't. That's not important, right? So what is important is that, you know, this podcast I had, I created this vision for this show, is that I want to show people the difference of how to pick your lender, how to pick your realtor, how to pick a home inspector. And you're not gonna. If, and you may be listening to this podcast and you're not in Lakeland, Florida, where we live, you may be somewhere in, else in the world where we can't even service you. But what I want you to take from this and from Ricky's story and his passion and what he brings to the table and his work ethic and all the things he incorporates into how he hires, how he trains, how he just manages his business, that he genuinely cares about you, he genuinely cares about his people, his community. And so when you get a loan with someone like a local lender like Ricky, where you have a personal, a touch personal, like, relationship with, with that lender, it's not just about the money at the end of the day, like, yeah, they're not going to be able to write a loan for you if, if you don't have good credit, if you don't meet the guidelines. But they generally care about your experience. Right. They want to build a relationship. They want to keep the ball rolling down. They want you to win. Like, I send him so many deals all the time that he can't necessarily write a loan for them, but they never go away feeling hopeless or just not. Are they always like Brian, one of our loan officers, I work, he always helps create a plan. He never just leaves somebody, you know, oh, well, sorry. Here's your denial letter.
We help people get structured where they want to go. So if you're someone who's new to the home buying conversation, or maybe you've bought and sold a couple houses before, if you want to have a really good experience, you should definitely. And especially with the way interest rates are right now, you know, you're pinching your pennies, everything, everything counts. Every line item charge on that, that closing doc, you know, you probably looking at, or you should be looking at make sure you're giving your money. If you're investing in a mortgage lender and like they're investing into, you get one that freaking cares. If you go to one of these big box banks, I cannot guarantee the level of service you're going to get. And that's what I always tell my clients when, because one of the things I would really wanted to talk to you today is about from the consumer's perspective, you know, what should people be thinking about when they're choosing a mortgage lender? What is the most important things people should think about in your opinion?
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Right. So one of the big things that big box banks have always done is rates. Right? So everywhere you go, rates, rates, rates, rates, rates, rates, right. That's all everybody sees. I hear it all the time, hey, what is your rate compared to this rate? And I think one of the biggest things that local lenders don't hide behind, and there's a bunch of them, Polk county, I'm sure there's some in other places of Florida who are just as good, but it seems like Lakeland has a very good amount of local lenders.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we do. We're very thankful for that.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: It's one of those unique things. But I'm trying to say, how do I say this?
The big box stores do not have the local knowledge that the local guys do.
And it's because they're not in the general area and they push it on rate. So me as a lender, I've never hid behind the small fine print. So if you ever try to buy a mortgage, everyone's rates are always lower than mine. I don't know how, but when you start reading the fine print, fine print. Then people, it's like nine out of ten of them don't qualify and they have to be a mortgage lender, even understand what it says. So when you're looking for a lender, I think the most thing you're trying to do is one find out how many loans they actually competitively closed the last month. And I'm talking about loan officers, right? So are you dealing with someone who does five to six a month or are you dealing with someone that does 30 to 40 a month? So it's a matter of finding the level of what you need and what. We do a good job of trying to get our loan officers to explain the full scenario to a borrower. Sometimes it makes them run, sometimes it doesn't. But when you can give them the full scenario, not just here's the rate your rates today, and then no other knowledge behind that. So what we do is we try to give them the knowledge like, hey, we can do your loan, right? Here's how we can do your loan better. Maybe you need one point on your credit score, maybe you need two points. Maybe if you pay down this, you know, your ratios get that much better and you'll get a. Or you put down 1% more. So we do a lot of working behind the scenes, a lot of different credit scenarios. We're experts in aus as far as getting automated approval. So there's a lot of things we do, one of our advantages versus other companies. We do a lot of new construction.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yes, you do.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: So when you think of 1314 years of new construction, I see way more credit reports than most loan officers do. Most loan officers may see, let's say 250 credit reports in a year. That's 20 applications a month. Our loan officers may see 750 or they may see 1000 or combined with their partner who's sitting next to them because we have five or six back there, you know, they, they may say 2000 and that's a lot. So when you start seeing 2000 different variations of credit reports and how those work in the AUS systems and how those work with rates, it's a better, it's a bigger knowledge that these people are able to get learned. And that's part of my training.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Is you're going to get to see more. So therefore you're going to experience more. Therefore you're going to have to know more. The issue is you're going to have to know more quicker.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Where you know a lot of times in the industry you can make a mistake and have a little bit. Well, when you're you're doing high volume and high calls, and you don't have time to make mistakes. And so that's where I've set up my successes. My loan officers, they. They close loans, but they also have time to answer the phone. They also have time to return calls. So in our industry. So, like, pre quals, are we generally just say worthless, right? Exactly, because you have so, so many different levels of pre qual in reality. So a pre quality qualify our pre quals. You know, we, of course, everyone's going to pull credit, but we go a little deeper on our questions, like asking about income, asking about assets, which is stuff people are supposed to do. But when they go online and they do it just automated, if you make. If you say you make $5,000 a month and last month you made it, that's great. But the month before, you made 4400 and the computer system didn't ask you that because it's automated, it doesn't know. That's the difference of a true loan officer pre qual and a not loan officer pre qual. Now, everyone's going to go through, they're going to fill out the form, they're going to do all that stuff, and then hopefully, they're going to get a call from a loan officer to go over the information they put in. Now, I can't control what loan officer calls them from any other company and what information they have. I can only control what my loan officers ask. So, you know, I know I have a good if. My loan officers one through six, are all going to ask the same questions. They're all going to be because of being trained by me, being trained by Betsy. They know, because of seeing so many files, they know the what ifs, and so they know to ask that question. Okay, you make $5,000 a month. How much you make an hour? $15 an hour. Would you have overtime and bonus? Because those don't add up to each other.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: And then go, right. Oh, you just started this job. Okay, well, that's a problem. Now, we can only use your base, so it's just a matter of knowing all your guidelines off the top of your head and kind of structuring it there. So pre calls are just as good as the information you give us. When you give us a pre qual, we look at it, we ask you all these questions, and then we go from there, and then that's when we start, like, document requesting, hey, where's your pay stubs? Where's your w two s? Where's your tax returns? Where's your bank statements? Those are the information that we need to verify it's trust. But then it's verified, and then that's when usually you go in and you start ripping the file apart because you're trying to find all those variances that an underwriter is going to find. You're trying to go ahead and beat all the guidelines or meet them because you know what they are. You're not waiting till, oh, after the fact. So.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't know that was the thing. I hear that so often from lender. From. From lenders that don't have Rickey's team's proficiency when it comes to underwriting guidelines. And it's really frustrating because it's. It's. It not only waste my clients time, their money on inspections, money potentially on appraisals, to then get middle way through a deal, and you're like, oh, by the way, you. This doesn't work. I didn't know about x, y, and Z. They're trying to head that stuff off.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Yeah, we definitely are trying to head that stuff off. And that comes from the new construction background. When you're dealing with builders money and you have, you know, 25, 30, $40 million of their money tied up, they want to make sure you're pretty accurate. So, like, on our builder pre quals from start to finish, in the last 15 years, we're averaging, like 92, 93% from pre qual to close. And so that 7% is that fallout of didn't have the right job, didn't have this. Those are good statistics, and those are what builders like. So if you can do builder loans, you can do regular real estate anywhere. That's easy. Those are. Those are easy loans.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: I never really thought about that being the real differentiator for my experience, where it's working with you versus other companies. And it makes a whole lot of freaking sense because you do so much volume compared to other lenders.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: I do the builder volume.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: The builder volume. Right.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's what I stick to is because that's, hey, you got the relationship. I do. You got the relationships. You know, you have the people that come into the builders, and then if they don't buy with a builder, they buy somewhere else, and we still get that deal.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Exactly. It's a great way to originate.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: My marketing's really cheap.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's okay.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: It's really cheap because everyone else is sending me their deals. But all that's done on a handshake.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Yep. 100%, man.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: So and all that came from. What's crazy is all goes back to when I had bankruptcy and I had crappy credit and I had to build my credit, and then I had to teach all my builders that I could build their clients credit to. And then all of a sudden, that's how I got all my builder contracts. 1314 years ago was just that sweat.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Equity you put into those relationships.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: I could help everybody else.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah, but it worked out. I mean, and like I said, back to, I love it. I like grabbing a client and figuring out if a client truly wants to go from a to b. How do you get them to be? It may be one month, it may be six years, but it's a future client. And if you always, if your businessman, you're not always thinking about today or tomorrow. You may be thinking about the person you help. They may not buy for five years, but you know what? They have friends and they're going to tell you, hey, look, I didn't buy from him, but he was super nice and he didn't just hang up on me and he didn't tell me to go to hell.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: He said, hey, you're not ready. Do this, this and this, check in with me. And that's. Sometimes people don't know what they don't know. And I said this to you earlier, you don't know what you don't know.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Until you know.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Until you know. And then you got.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Usually that's. You're behind the eight level.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Exactly. That's. And that's why it's so important to work with somebody that knows what you don't know. Don't just go and get some bimbo on the Internet to give you a pre qual. If you have, can find a good realtor and if you can get good recommendations from who they have used or people in your circle that have had great experience with that lender and then go in and ask the same questions. He said, are you just some part time loan officer or do you actually do this full time? How many loans have you had experience with? How long have you been doing this? What loans do you like? Because I've learned, too, that not all loan officers or companies work best with all types of loans.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: 100%.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: And it, it really, like, for example, like, we do a lot of investing and you don't want to just go necessarily like, Ricky does great on the investment side of stuff because he, like, he combs over my stuff. But, like, we've had a couple deals. He's had to send me to another bank because he's like, their products are better for what you need. And he's always gonna be straight with me about that. And, you know, so it's like you have to know a, what kind of loan product do you need and what lender is gonna specialize in that and give you the best service possible around that loan. So ask a lot of good questions. Be, you know, proactive in this. If you think you might wanna buy a house in like the next year, go ahead and start doing the mortgage process now, because you think everything's good and you think you know what you qualify for. But until you have a professional run your application and really work through the nuts and bolts, you don't know, right?
[00:22:02] Speaker A: And you know, especially if you start nine to twelve months ahead of time, you can, it really gives you to where you could work with a client and get them where they wanted to go, whether it be in saving money, working on credit, working on debt, pay down, working, working on anything. Because a lot of people just think, sadly, I go buy a car now, I snap my fingers, you know, 2 hours after snapping my fingers, I go in and sign and then I leave with a 50, $60,000 car. And they play this game where they get to say, do you want your payment at 700, 800, 900, a thousand by moving the term?
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: And people, a lot of things think like, buying a house is like that. I've had people tell me like, I want my payment at this. And you're just like, were you putting $200,000 down? Because they don't, they don't have that real world experience of what a mortgage is. So if they were there ahead of nine months or a year into actually ask these questions and get the answers, they would have time to prepare. Because nine months a year is not that far. I mean, it goes by quick, it.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Goes by so fast.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: And hopefully the thing would be to speed up that process.
But the thing is, people never get started. So therefore they never get started. They're always a day away, but they never get the day started.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: I always have two kinds of people when it comes to buying a house, where it ends up we're not ready. Either they, they knew their credit was crap, or they knew, or they thought they were broke. As a joke, they, they run their application and then it's like, oh man, I can actually afford a house. It might not be anything crazy, but they actually can afford a house. A lot of people don't even realize they're going out there paying $2,000 a month in rent, you know, and they have a full time job. They, but they have this mindset they can't buy because they don't make a hundred grand a year. And then they'll get their thing. They're like, oh, actually, you do qualify for a house. And then I'll have the inverse of that. Somebody who makes $100,000 a year who thinks, oh, it should be just so freaking easy to go get a mortgage. And then they realize, oh, by the way, I've never bought a house, and it should be easy because I make 100 G's a year. But you have, you know, $130,000 student loan payment that you're making every month, you know, and that's 1%. If you're not, if it's in deferment and you're not paying, that's 1% that. And child support affects, you know, so getting approved ahead of time will save you money and headache after the fact because you don't want to wait till your lease is about to expire. Just start looking for a house and thinking you're good to go, because then it's. That's not fun.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's, there's a, mortgages is not a straightforward calculation.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: Right. So you said earlier 1% and it just depends on what loan program you're on. Some can be a half. Right. Some can be everything divided by twelve VA loan. Some can be omitted. So it depends on what loan program you're going. That's interesting.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: I didn't realize.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you got some.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: That's why I call Ricky. You got so many things. I always think I know things.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: And I realize, well, you went earlier to where do people do different types of loans. Yes. So you have people that, you know, we specialize, and I always say the big four.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Fha, Va, USDA and conventional. And then it seems like that's boring because, you know, they're only foreign loan products. And then you can expand off those loan products or down payment assistance off those four. Right. 100% financing on FHA, off those four. Construction of perm off those four. And then all of a sudden, down to 500 credit scores, FHA, you know, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, these do expand.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: So many people you can serve.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: And so, and then you get into the non conforming or the non QM loans, which are bank statement loans, DSCRs. There's, so there's a whole, whole different area of what you're trying to do. So, yeah, it does matter what area you're trying to go in, but if.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: You work with somebody good and local like Ricky, they're going to tell you, hey, I can't do this, but so and so can. So they'll give you good direction. Typically, if they're, they're worth anything at all.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: And I can say this from any lender that are loan officer or mortgage broker, whatever the case may be, I can tell you, for anyone that I know, and I would, I would recommend whether it be work for me or not, every one of those guys have a backup plan. And what I mean by that is if they can't do your loan, they have someone they can refer to.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Which is what you recommended. Like you said me earlier, I had someone to refer your loan to until.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: He tried all other options. Like, I can't do it, but so and so can, and they're going to close it.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Right. A good loan officer or a good lender is always going to be complete the goal.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: If the goal is you to buy something, it never says somewhere in that goal for me to make money.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: But if I can help you complete your goal. Right. You're always going to turn around and say, I use this bank, but Ricky referred me and he helped me. Your friends are never going to hear about, they're going to hear that bank did it, but then they're going to.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Hear, Ricky help me and they're going.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: To hear your friend referred you and they're going to say, wait, a competitor referred you to a competitor? Yeah. Because one of the good things is the reason I think I'm decent in this industry is I know other people's guidelines. I know what programs they offer. I know what loans they offer. I know what they like and don't like.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: I'm not. I can't do every file. I know that. I mean, as much as I'd love to, but when you have that, maybe someone else is better in that area. The goal is to get the client completed, not just make the money, make the money.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Or say deny. Sorry. And it's the same for real estate agents. Like, I'm not an expert in every single aspect of real estate. I do have things I specialize in. And if I know I'm not the agent to help you, I'm going to send you to the person who can help you. And I don't service every market, so if I can't do, do the job efficiently, I'm gonna, I'm gonna refer it out so that is definitely a sign of good service and good business. A good business person. So one of the things I want to get out of today's episode is the whole, the whole concept of mortgages and interest rates. I think to the average person, we don't know where the heck this crap comes from. Like, who decides the interest rates? How? Who reg, is it regulated? Like when they say the government's doing this stuff to like, change the rates or bring them up or bring it. How do they do that? And I just want your explanation on interest rates, what they are and how are they decided.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: I think the easiest thing to do is give you what a real world interest rate is.
What is the interest rate mean? Let's just get down to that.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: It's the percentage of the money you're making on the.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: That's what people think it is, right?
I'll just tell you my definition of an interest rate. It's how much money can I loan you safely and get my money back? That's all an interest rate is, right? So if you start thinking about it, you have, let's just say everybody went to school, right? You went to school, you're in lunch money, someone wanted to borrow money. You had no problem handing them $5, because guess what? The next day they were going to hand your $5 back.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Right?
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Then you met people who you would not loan lunch money to because no matter how many times they say you're going to get paid back, you're never getting paid back. Right.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Okay, well, those people also have socials and credit scores.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: And they're buying houses.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: So.
Or cars or anything else. So it kind of goes behind. You have several things that make up interest rates. You have credit scores, loan programs, and then you have loan to values. So that's just one of them. So it's all about risk.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: When you hear about the government, where, you know, I always hear about where did the government come? Right. They always talk about prime. Well, that's. That's really an interest rate that banks borrow from each other.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: It's not the mortgage rate.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Mortgage rates are based on the ten year bond or ten year note, TNX, and then your MBS bonds. So your mbs and your TNX, those are really what they're based on. MBS is a bond that's sold. Right. The TNX is a ten year note that is sold. And so people buy them and sell them on the.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: On the market.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: On the market, right. Because they secure their money for ten years. So when you ask about like, I know you're referring to when rates went super low in 21.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: The government stepped in and provided a ton of liquidity. And when you provide liquidity, you're buying these bonds, right? And you're buying these notes. And when you do that, when you have plenty of money in the mortgage side, the rates are going to be super low.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Right. Because they have a lot more to lend. So it's like supply and demand. Correct. So the supply of money was high, and so. And so it was able to bring that rate down.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Do you know why the government was in there? Because no one else was buying.
So if they didn't do that because.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Do you think that was because back in 2008, everybody lost their butt. They lost trust in the stock market.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: No, the mortgage market, zero eight and today are two different animals.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Right? That's true.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: A lot of people. 0807, when you had the real crash, we had what was called the mirror test. If someone would breathe and they showed, like on the mirror that they were alive, they could get a loan.
Since then, you have so much more data tracking. You know, people talk about artificial intelligence. We've been using this in mortgages for a while now, five, six years. And they also use it for statistical data. We track everything. When an appraisal goes in, it's tracked. The cops on it are tracked. Everything. So that's how it does a comparative data. If this was.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: That's how they know. Yeah.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Yes. Everything that goes, when you're running a file goes into a black box, and it calculates algorithms, because this is how the world works. Certain credit scores may get a loan approval based on prior data that's in it. It's the black box. So the more so if you have a bunch of 500 credit scores that are defaulting, guess what's going to happen? The next scenario. They're not going to get loans. So it's all into black box, all into Agatha Brown, how that works, right?
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Averages, correct statistics to decide how the underwriting process.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: And then when you talk through those and when you're talking about money, right, money either goes into the stock market or goes into the MBS bond. So that's kind of where the money goes back and forth. When you start seeing the stock market doing really well, you're gonna see mortgages do worse because people are gonna pull their money out and put in the stock market where they can make more, three, four, 5%, you know, they're gonna try to make more money over there. So it's always, it's usually a very, very inverse.
And you have to, in order for the mortgage market to work correctly, you have to have liquidity, you have to have investors who are willing to put money in. So it's kind of weird. So we have, like these spurts where rates get bad for a little bit. Two days they get bad, and then the next couple of days they get better. And it's because people are waiting and then they're going in and buying their bonds, and then they're waiting for the next go round. You have hedge funds, you have a bunch of people who play in this field. It's not just the government does not control interest rates, it's free market.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: And then the next part of the interest rate that's controlled is. So you do have some government part of it, the ten year, the bonds, all that that's sold. But then you have, how much does a lender want to make off the loan?
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: That controls the rates.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: So if you have a lender who wants to make more, they're going to market.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: So there's, there's so much that go into just what is an interest rate.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: Right. What, what created this scenario where we did the whole 2021 rates were really low and now they're really high. Like, what created that scenario?
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Well, the 2021 was definitely the government stepping in and providing liquidity.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: All that liquidity, like we said before.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Yeah, the 2022, that's easy. The Fed stepped in. And so part of the thing you have to understand is inflation, right? When you have prices of homes going up, the only way to do that is to kill interest rates because then no one really wants to buy. And then they started getting, hopefully a little level, maybe come down a little bit. So you're in this catch 22 because they originally said, like the first part of 24, they're going to start working on interest rates and reducing it. And then now quarter one's over, and.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: None of that happened.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: Nothing happened. Quarter two, we've had rates actually jump up a little bit because of inflation. If the feds go in there and drop rates too fast, your house is going to appreciate, you're going to go right back into the same scenario. So it's a fine line of what they have to do. This all started in 22.
If you start looking at the fed prime chart, it went up, it was like three quarters of a jump, and then the next quarter.
So that is the only thing they can control is the Fed prime. So when they're controlling the prime, right, they're controlling what banks borrow at it.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: It makes the rest of everything go up there. So they basically set the prime, which is what the rate banks can borrow liquidity against to write new debt.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: So that's how they're, that's how it trickles back down.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: That's why you're affecting your interest rate.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Correct. And that's why you've seen, so like a lot of things are based on prime. You have helocs, right. Most helocs are not fixed or lines of credit and they're very credit cards. So a lot of those things are based on that. Commercial arms.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Wow. So what do you think is going to happen with all the interest rates and what the government's going to do? Do you actually see interest rates coming down? Because I'm personally, I'm not living in that world where I foresee rates going down. I'm living in a space where they could potentially be as they are or even a little higher.
I'm preparing people for that reality. If they come down, great. Be prepared to be competitive. If it does. But what are you telling or what.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Do you think that's. I always get asked this question.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: I know you do.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: Everybody asks, what are rates going to do?
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: And if I could answer this question, I would be on my billion dollar yacht because there really is no answer. I mean, you're going to flip a coin and you're going to get heads or tails. Right.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Someone's going to be right, someone's going to be wrong. Rates are either going to go up or go down.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Right. It just depends on what.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: So you have so many different forecasts. So when we looked at the end of 23, you had like, even Fanny was like, hey, we're gonna get rates under 6%. And then now they're like, I want to do that. A bunch of the forecasters are backing off. That I do not see, honestly, rates getting better until the election.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: After after election. Yeah, that's my thoughts, too.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: You have the, if rates start going down now, right, you're going to have an influx of just property values going up. You're going to create that urge to buy again. And I think now if people were really smart, they would go out and look and decide today's rates aren't bad even.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: I'm buying two houses this month, even.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Between six and a half to seven and a half percent. That's cheap money. Super cheap money. And if you can get people to understand that, right, maybe it only lasts a year, maybe it lasts a year and a half. But the minute the rates go down, the value is going to go up.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: And then that's going to be. You're going to have to.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: Right. But you're going to have equity.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, if you buy now with seven and a half percent interest rate, you can benefit from the fact that you didn't have to pay as much. And then if you wanted to refinance later, you can. And that's kind of the same advice I've been giving people. Go ahead. If you need to move, make a plan and let's get you moved. Find a house you love because there's not as much competition right now and there's a decent amount of supply. People are a lot more comfortable than they were in the fall. I see a lot more inventory coming up all the time. But it's not like this manic buying craze like it was a couple years ago when rates were really low and you can have an inspection, you could actually, you know, have a 45 day close.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: If you mean normal real estate, yeah.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Normal real estate's happening. But when moment rates, like you said, go back down, that will go away for however long. And even if rates stay between like five and a half and six and a half percent, which I foresee being the case, I don't think we'll ever see to 2% interest rate. I think that was ridiculously cheap money and it wasn't sustainable for our market.
But when that dip happens, you'll see a lot of people. So I'm just trying to buy up as much stuff as I can right now so I can refinance it later. And if I can't, then I still got a good deal because I bought it. Buying now is always better than buying two to three years from now because properties just still appreciate, especially Florida, where we are, everybody's trying to make money.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: But it was bought on a game plan.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: That's the thing is, no one buys on a game plan.
It's just like explaining to them, like, what's going to go on in their transaction. Like just future costs, like, you know, taxes and insurance may change.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Oh, that's so true.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: So it's just, it's just simply walking them through it to where they have a game plan. So that's the thing is, could you imagine like you're telling somebody if I told you day, hey, you're closing, but your tax and insurance may go up next year. You wouldn't be as surprised next year if your tax insurance went up, right?
[00:38:36] Speaker B: No, I wouldn't because I would have had a heads up.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah. But imagine now you're getting your bill and your payment goes up, right. Who lied to you? The lender lied to you. Right. Because your payment will never change. Right. Well, P and I will never change, but taxes and insurance will.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: So all, every homeowner in Florida is complaining right now about insurance going up.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Well, my flood insurance just went from 2800 to 7000.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Yeah. That's nuts.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: That's the only carrier that would take it.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: That's crazy, Rick. That's for your beach house. Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, that's, that's a whole nother conversation.
So with that, with interest rates, we understand that the urgency will be there if interest rates go back down. Buy when you can, buy when you can afford to. But if you're a buyer in this market and you're thinking maybe in the next, you know, couple months I'm going to be looking to get a house, what would you, what would be your best advice for that, for that couple say this better, buying their first house. What, what would you, what would advice would you give them?
[00:39:37] Speaker A: I think it'd be to sit down and have a real hard budget talk.
A lot of people don't understand.
They start with how much house they want to buy versus how much they want to pay per month. We get that quite often. The sticker shock.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: So I think it'd be coming up with a game plan first and game part of that game plan is budget. Right.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: And what you're willing to spend. So if you're only paying $1,500 a month in rent now and your payment's going to go to 2500, you know, the $1,000 has to come from somewhere.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: And so you have to be mentally prepared for that instead of us as the lender. Shocking you, letting you know. And I think that's where a lot of people get the cold feet, but I think it's, a lot of people rush into it too quick.
It's like I've seen people talk to them on Thursday and they mentioned nothing about buying a house and the next day they're buying a house and they're all up in arms and they're flailing and you're like, whoa, what's going on, dude? I gotta get, I gotta get, you know, it's like, calm down. Like this is a lot, this is a 30 year decision. Just relax. Take a breath.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's so true. I have a lot of clients that if you're working with me, that typically doesn't happen because we have that conversation. But what can happen is I have a client who will bring me a house. Like, maybe they weren't in the market to buy a house, but then this amazing property hits the market, right? And they're like, oh, my God, I want to get this. And. Or they want to go ahead and start shopping without a pre qualification. And there's a couple of instances where I, you know, when I'm trying to build a relationship, I might show somebody one or two houses, but after that point, we're going to get pre qualified. Right? So they're going to run their credit, and then they're like, oh, a $400,000 house is going to be like, what?
3200, 503,000. Yeah, a month. I mean, and people just. It blows their minds. So, understanding what the money costs, what you should actually, like, theoretically expect in the hypothetical scenario you're wanting to walk into, is a really important conversation to have with the lender, who really knows what the heck they're talking about.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: But you're going back to that. When I go back to the budget. I see. We hear this all the time. People are like, I want to spend $2,000 a month, right? And then all of a sudden, the house payment comes at, let's say, 2100, $100 off. They will come up with every excuse in the world not to buy this house.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: And then we'll tear through their bank statements and we'll see, you know, 20 trips at Starbucks at 980 a piece. And you're like, excuse me? Yeah, like, you're. You're blowing money that you could afford this hundred dollars a month. So it's just about priorities. But that's what I think is just. It's just the shock. I mean, when you're. Okay, I'm not gonna lie. If I was not ready to buy a house right now, I wouldn't be living like I'm ready to buy a house. Right. Maybe I'm having a little bit more fun, you know, going to the movies more often or going out to eat or whatever the case may be. Maybe I'm in a little apartment with my honey.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: And I don't want to be there.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: So it's just a matter of having that conversation and say, hey, look, things are going to change, and this is why they're changing. Well, we're going to buy a house now, and we're going to have this, this and this. So just the mindset. No, I think we'd get more people to convert if we could flip their mindset.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: First, there'd be more homeowners, correct in this, in the less renters, if people would switch their mindset. I personally can say, you know, I've been in real estate for ten years selling houses. And for the first, like, what, five years, I didn't actually own my own home. And Ricky was on my ass. He was on my ass because I was a single mom and I was making really good money. Like, and I had, like, he said, you have the money to do this. But I was so I was, I was younger and I was nervous, I was scared. Okay? I don't know if I want to take on all that. You know, what if the air conditioner breaks or, you know, whatever, you know, just all the variables. But I kick myself in the butt because if I had started back when Ricky started pushing me and said, hey, you need to do this. You need to get your crap together, and you need to really make this part. Let's sit down and create a game plan. I can't tell you how many times he's like, let's sit down and get a game plan together. And I didn't do it. But, you know, I finally, you know, like five years ago, he helped help me get into my first loan. I'd already sold, like, probably over 300 houses by that point for other people, and I didn't own house. Now I own almost after this week will be like, what? Like four? So that's pretty cool. And I've done that just in a short period of time. And I wished I had started way sooner, but it was a mindset shift I had to make. And now it's like, I don't. I just want to keep replicating this because I'm like, everybody, we all want to have passive income. We all want to build wealth. Well, most of us, and not have to, you know, work till we're dead, you know? And so building that, that game plan to have a retirement plan, to have a strategy to actually be in, being a homeowner gives you a lot of control over your finances because you're not yet mortgage. Like, not mortgage. Your insurance may go up, your taxes may go up, but you're going to have a lot more control over your cost, you know, of your, of your housing versus being in a renter situation where you're just.
I can't tell you how many clients have come to me who said I have to buy a house because their landlord decided to sell their home or their rent just went up. Dollar 500, and they're sick of it, you know, so it's just, it's just all about, you know, some people, it just takes them getting pushed to, to that. But, but, yeah, if you want to get into something eventually in your life, have a conversation with a good loan officer, it'll make a huge difference.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the difference with you is just getting out of that comfort level.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: It was, it wasn't. I didn't have the capacity. I was just nervous.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Everybody's nervous until they do something. And that's the biggest thing is once. It's funny, once you get past doing a couple, it seems like you look back and you're like, why was I scared? Why was I scared about.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it was just. A lot of clients won't go to a loan officer and do a loan application. They want me to show them ten houses because of that. Because they're scared of what they're going to find.
They're, they're scared of what they're going to be told. And nine times out of ten, either it's better than you thought, or they're going to have a plan to help you, get you where you want to go.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: I see a lot of people who, maybe their first house isn't their house or their dreams, you know, in their mind that. Right, big deal. But if they have a game plan and they realize, okay, maybe I'm only gonna stay here for twelve months, 18 months. Right.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: They now have an asset that maybe next time it's better.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: I can't say that hard. I can't. Because I had that same problem when I bought my first house with, with you. And I wanted, I thought I needed this super nice, super finished place. And I thought, oh, I can't afford what I want right now, so I'm just gonna wait. But was like, Ricky's like, well, what can you afford? And I got approved for way because I'm self employed, because I, you know, of all these other, other things. If you're self employed, you understand, I didn't qualify for as much as I thought. So what I did was I bought a house that I could afford with, based on what my taxes would allow me to borrow. And I put a ton of money into it. Now it's worth way over $400,000 and I paid like, what, 250 for it. And now I have an asset. Now I have something that's worth something.
And I put like 40 grand into it, made it really nice. It's beautiful.
But if I had just waited till I could afford the $400,000 house, I would have not. I may have not bought anything, and it would have set me back, way back. And I'm so thankful because now I have this. This asset that's just given me the courage to go and take more steps and take more action. So it's been a huge blessing.
So, yeah, that is, when it comes to mortgages, people just need to get out of their comfort zone if they're scared of it. Just. Just ask the questions, you know, get the process started.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: You have. You have several choice right now. How much you make without taxes, like pre tax. Right. That's the first thing you need to do. Right? Get a. Give it, get a credit karma, something to monitor your credit. I don't care what it is. Like, I use capital one credit wise because it just tells me.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: But just little things like that, you know, starting to become smarter with your, you know, credit helps not only buying a house, but buying a car, car insurance, house insurance, renters insurance.
Credit helps. Yeah. So you can start monitoring that stuff. And this is stuff you don't need a professional to do, right. Just monitor your credit. If you try to keep collections from hitting, try to keep medical from hitting, try to, you know, work all this, pay your bills on time if you, you know, budget.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:14] Speaker A: People don't budget.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: Live in your means. They like to don't have $50,000 worth of credit card debt, you know, and that's a big thing. I see student loans keep people from buying houses and credit card debt, consumer debt. That's unnecessary. And before I bought a house, I actually confession. My girlfriend was on me really hard because I, at the time, had, like, $40,000 in credit card debt that I'd use it in college. It was an old credit card, too. It was like I had used it back in college, and I'd put a bunch of stuff on there, and I was just, like, making the payments, but it wasn't. I wasn't making a dent in it. And she chewed my butt. She's like, how can you even have this? This is ruined. Wrecking you. Go pay that shit off. I paid off 65,000, not just that credit card, but other debt. I paid $65,000 worth of debt off in a year. And it was the following year, Ricky was able to get me a home loan, and that was hard as hell. I didn't go out to eat. I saved my money. I worked harder. I made more money that year. Because you're focused, you know, because I had a goal. It was more money that I'd made the past two years combined, I made that year, you know, and that was because I had a very targeted goal. I had very targeted things I wanted to accomplish, and I was woke to say, hey, I have to get this crap. A lot of people just want to put their head in the sand when it comes to their finances and just say, oh, one day I'll take care of it.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: It'll be better tomorrow.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: It'll be like, it's just gonna freaking go away. Like, yeah, so. But, but, yeah, it was a huge thing for me. It literally changed my life, paying off my debt, and I have no. No consumer debt whatsoever. I don't need to thank God. I just pay my. I do leverage point credit cards all the time, but that's. I pay that off.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: Credit card points.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: That's the best. If you don't know about that, you should. We should have a whole episode on credit card. On credit card points.
[00:50:04] Speaker A: I'm my 2% cash back.
[00:50:06] Speaker B: Yeah. It's so nice. You could do a lot if you. Especially if you own a business like I do, and you spend. Anyway, that's a whole other conversation. But. So I want to wrap this up with, what are some of the things that you wish people that they do that you really wish people would not do when it comes to buying a house?
[00:50:26] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
This is a fun one. Somebody wrote me a note over there.
[00:50:31] Speaker B: Oh, did they?
[00:50:32] Speaker A: And it was on that question.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: That's funny.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: And then note said, tell quit. Tell people to quit going to Google, reading one article and letting them be an expert. I think the problem is they're not letting people be an expert.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: Um, I know one of the things we face is because we see so many files, we're able to give a quick, expert answer. And a lot of people don't like that. They want you to, like, wait two, three, four days and then tell them you banged your head against the wall, then come back and answer them, and it makes them feel so much better than when you're like, I've seen this, like, 200 times. It doesn't work. No.
So just. I say trust, but verify. That's the number one thing you need to do. Like, if your loan officer is telling you something, try not to run it by eight other people on the Internet, because no one knows your exact situation.
And this goes, like, even when realtors send us, like, if you send me a client, right. As much as I'd like to tell you what everything is going on behind the scenes, you know, I have privacy laws, so there's only so much I can limit. Right.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: But I know if he said it, it's because he knew it was.
[00:51:34] Speaker A: There's only so much I can limit and tell you. Like, legally, I tell the client all day long, but if can't tell you something that behind the scenes it's NPI. So you're going to look at me and like, what's wrong? And I'm like, it doesn't work.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: So, you know, I would go back to set a budget. Step one. Step two, start looking at your credit. Right. Step three is when you go into the, you know, start doing some research for local people around you and just ask them a question.
One thing we do for our company is a lot of people don't like hard increase on their credit because we're dealing with builders. Maybe you're not building with my builder. Maybe you're gonna go to another builder or maybe. So we do soft pulls.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:52:17] Speaker A: So that's one of the things we don't like to hit people with credit increase to start with because maybe they don't finish with us.
[00:52:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: A normal client who. Who, like, would call us would have no clue of that for sure.
[00:52:28] Speaker B: They don't know the difference. They don't even know what they don't know. They don't know the question to ask that. And that really leads me into another. Another thing I wanted to get your opinion on, because a lot of people are like, should I shop my rate or should I not shop my rate when it comes to buying a home? So if they're going to go look at purchasing a new home, should they go to, like, two or three local lenders and get three different loan estimate. Loan estimates and just compare them? Like, was that something you would recommend people do?
[00:52:55] Speaker A: I would always compare. Right. Recommend to compare and then actually ask them. So a lot of times, like, you can give me. It goes back to going online and pre qual with the big box people. So when I do your loan estimates based on everything you have, right.
[00:53:10] Speaker B: Yeah, all stuff.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: Maybe their rate is lower than mine, but it may not be. It may.
[00:53:14] Speaker B: It may not be a real rate. They may not actually.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: It may not even be a viable scenario.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: Right. They may not have enough info to even tell you what their rate is based on the little algorithm them you put in the computer.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: But I think most everybody is going to be generally, and that's the thing, is people think you're way off. If I'm an 8th off from my competitor or my competitors, an 8th off from me, is it money? Yes. But is it a lot of money a month? 2020? $5? People think it's hundreds, right? And so they look at rate first, but they never look at rate and cost.
[00:53:46] Speaker B: That's what I was going to point out, because that's one thing we noticed on my girlfriend and I were buying a house. Like, shopping rate. She was shopping rates. And I was just like, she's done this a couple times, you know. You know what lenders I like, you know, she knows who she can call. And she had shopped it out with a couple different people. And comparing all those, the rates were very similar, but it was when you got down to what's their loan origination fee, what other junk fees that they put in there, what are the hidden costs in that? And look at your cash to close and what your mortgage payment's going to be.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: You know, what. What would that be? What you would recommend people to do?
[00:54:21] Speaker A: Correct. And then the original one you started with, have them review it and ask and answer questions.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:26] Speaker A: Cause you trusted them enough to do the application. So that's one of those things. Yeah, I believe or not. So I'm not one to push everybody to use me. You'll never hear me. Like, I've never been one. You know, I'll ask for a deal, but I don't. I don't stick my face. And.
[00:54:42] Speaker B: Well, you're at the point now with your business. You don't have to.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Yeah, but I've never been like that. It's not like you'd be talking to a client and all of a sudden be like, I need your loan.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Like, don't forget to call me. I'm not like that either.
[00:54:53] Speaker A: I've never been like that. So my sister right now is doing a mortgage, right?
[00:54:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: And so she calls me last week. And so we're in. We're licensed in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama. And she said to me, they are offering me this rate.
I said, who is they?
I didn't know.
[00:55:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, but she was talking about a refinance. So, of course, she got one of those flyers in the mail to refinance. And me being me, I'm also the baby brother. So one of those things you have to deal with is like, marlena, you trust me, but it seems like when you have friends and family you don't.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: Trust, that's very difficult.
[00:55:29] Speaker A: You don't trust them immediately. Right?
[00:55:30] Speaker B: No, you can. Well, it's like you're my little brother who may not know everything.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I can make a client a friend easier, and I can make a friend a client. So I just told my sister, I said, listen, you go get the best deal they have from them and just send it to me.
[00:55:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Let me look at it, and I'll tell you if it's a good deal or not.
[00:55:46] Speaker A: And their deal came back. It was. I was, there was 6.49 at 2.75% origination on a $512,000 loan.
So set me up really easy. I saved her some money and, like, five eighths of a point.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: On a refinance. So it wasn't. That was her lender, right?
[00:56:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: I couldn't until I had someone who gave her that information.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah. You needed the loan estimate, right?
[00:56:13] Speaker A: I didn't need her loan estimate.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: Oh, you didn't?
[00:56:15] Speaker A: Not to beat them. No. My system's already set up for that. I don't have to play games.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: That's cool.
[00:56:19] Speaker A: It was just a matter of. She wouldn't have respected it.
[00:56:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: Until she got another professionals answer.
[00:56:26] Speaker B: Well, that's what I was thinking, too. It's like, I think because she knows me. Yeah. So even if you have a lender you like, sometimes it's great. And I've learned this as being experienced now as an agent, you know, a lot of people trust my opinion. And I give Ricky's contact info out, but I also give a couple other local people and I say, this is who I use. But these are also good. These are also people my clients have had success with because I want them. When they pick their loan officer or the mortgage company that they go with, they've a hopefully shopped at least one other person. Whether it's one I picked or no one I picked, they've shopped it out with at least one person. So. But what does that do to somebody's credit? You know, at what point, you know, does it impact you generally, you have.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: About 45 days to repull your credit. The same inquiry.
[00:57:12] Speaker B: So, like a mortgage application. So you could do a couple, like two or three, and it would be counting as one inquiry. Yeah.
[00:57:19] Speaker A: The biggest thing is people don't understand is credit scores can change daily.
Yeah. Because, for example, you could have two credit cards, three credit cards. One could reported yesterday, one reported today, and one reports tomorrow, depending on what day I pull, is what information it shows.
[00:57:35] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:57:36] Speaker A: Credit bureaus are live. So when I pull it, it's the information I'm getting that real time. Correct. And mortgages are different than cars, mortgages are different than credit cards, we have different factors that create different credit scores.
[00:57:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And they don't go off your highest score when you're getting a mortgage.
[00:57:51] Speaker A: Lowest, middle. Sorry.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And everybody's like, I have an 800 credit score. I'm like, no, you don't. Yeah, you might, but, yeah. Not by what the mortgage lender is going to go on.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: So. And that's. I didn't come up with that system. 800, 700, 600. Your credit score. 700 with us. It's crazy, but it's, I love it.
[00:58:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:12] Speaker A: I get to see a lot. I mean, I really do.
[00:58:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:15] Speaker A: I get to help a lot of people. I've helped a lot of people make a lot of money.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And I would say that the lenders like, having ricky to help me with clients is probably, I can, I can do, only do so much when it comes to getting somebody through a deal. Like, it's, I do half of the work, really, when it comes to making sure the contracts are good, you have the right inspections, you, even if you have a lender you've picked, I help manage that, that person. But when you have somebody like Ricky, when it's on the buy side, any, any good lender makes a world of difference when it comes to my client's success. So my career has been built through relationships that I have with people like Ricky because I, it makes me look really good when I have really good people to help me do a deal and, and somehow or another, when my clients, lenders, they pick them and they screw up and they suck and it makes the deal a nightmare. I'm still, it's still my fault.
[00:59:07] Speaker A: It's always, well, it's always the lender's fault. Don't ever, don't ever get past that. It's always the lender's fault.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: It's, well, no, well, sometimes it can.
[00:59:15] Speaker A: Be my fault and I'm not in the transaction.
[00:59:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I got you.
[00:59:18] Speaker A: I laugh at some of the stuff. That's the lender's fault.
[00:59:21] Speaker B: Well, and then title, they just get the worst of it. We'll have title on one day and have them explain their life to us.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: Title gets the brunt of it because titles like today's Thursday and they're like, you know, someone's promising them they're closing tomorrow at 10:00 and titles over there going, we have no clue what's going on. Yeah, I don't have a package. Why are people calling me for figures?
[00:59:41] Speaker B: It's like that, that, it reminds me of that meme where it's like the guy's like, you're making 500,000. She's like, what you're getting, you're getting. I'm only getting 25,000. And he's like, y'all are getting paid for this. That's title.
That's title. Title is the last guy. And they get the shit into this stick every time. So I'm. I love my title people, and I'm thankful that they do what they do and for my lenders, too, because they. I really couldn't.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: Couldn't do what I do because it takes a team.
[01:00:13] Speaker B: It does. It takes a team. Team. We've got a good one. Um, but I want to thank you, Ricky, for being on. Thanks for helping me and all you've done to help me build my business and help my clients be successful and just be real honest with all your answers, because that's what we want to give people is, like, the real deal talk.
I'm sure we'll do some more of this. Maybe we can, like, niche in on, like, certain types of loans and, like, products and who knows?
[01:00:37] Speaker A: Oh, we can niche in all kinds of stuff.
[01:00:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thanks, guys, for watching. And I hope if you have any questions, you can reach out to us. We want to be a resource for you. So thanks for watching.
[01:00:47] Speaker A: Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Bye.
