SPECIAL REPORT REPORT SPECIAL
Mortgage Professional America spotlights 69 originators who capitalized on a red-hot real estate market to fund more than $150 million over the past year
CONTENTS
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Feature article .............................................. 2 Methodology ................................................ 2 150 Million Dollar Club 2021 ...................... 5 Profiles .......................................................... 6
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SPECIAL REPORT
150 MILLION DOLLAR CLUB
MAKING THE MOST OF MARKET CHAOS HOME WAS the theme of 2020 – houses become more than a traditional milestone in a person’s life and came to represent safety, security and freedom. Amid many other storylines, the tale of America’s real estate industry was one for the record books. The sector experienced a perfect storm of concurrent strong purchase and refinance markets – and the industry is still riding that wave. “I’m preparing for an aggressive and
– taking in a sporting event, heading to amusement parks or concerts, going on a cruise, or even just enjoying a sit-down dinner at a restaurant – “the home will still be desirable.” With the median home price hitting an unprecedented $370,000 nationally, she predicts continued yet slightly more gradual appreciation during the second half of 2021, with inflation peaking over the next few months before settling down.
“What worked two years ago isn’t the same thing that worked last year and isn’t the same thing that will work this year” Nicole Rueth, Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation strong purchase market for the foreseeable future because I think there’s going to be massive demand across the United States in all the markets – in the suburbs, in the cities – to buy a home,” says Shant Banosian, branch manager at Guaranteed Rate and a member of this year’s 150 Million Dollar Club. Nicole Rueth, branch manager and mortgage consultant at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation and another 150 Million Dollar Club member, says even with the promise of some return to normalcy
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“This year we’re refocusing on interest rates and what changes do to people’s affordability,” Rueth says, “and what happens to supply and demand because right now we have such intense demand, but we don’t have full supply.” Although the vaccine rollout is a positive sign that the country is moving through the worst of the uncertainty, this year’s landscape is still quite similar to the landmark environment of 2020 – and that’s presenting some challenges for the mortgage industry.
METHODOLOGY In February, Mortgage Professional America opened up nominations for the 150 Million Dollar Club, and our readership responded in spades. To be eligible for the list, originators had to have produced at least $150 million in loan volume in 2020. Each nominated originator was required to provide specific details about his or her production. After verifying each originator’s 2020 loan volume, the team whittled down the list to the final 69 originators that make up this year’s 150 Million Dollar Club.
3rd Year of Mortgage Professional America’s 150 Million Dollar Club
805 Average number of loans funded by 150 Million Dollar Club members
$317 million Average annual volume of this year’s 150 Million Dollar Club members
How low can they go? Dianne Crosby, a 150 Million Dollar Club member who serves as branch manager and vice president of lending at Guaranteed Rate, has been originating loans since 2002 and says that “no matter what interest rate we have to offer, clients are always hoping rates will go down. We’ve had such a lowrate environment in general for so long that people have become accustomed to it. As they start to rise from those all-time lows, I wonder if our clients are prepared for the adjustment.” The pandemic taught Crosby that while technology is a wonderful tool that was able
last year. However, she sees refinances falling significantly this year and says lenders need to shift their focus accordingly. Banosian agrees, noting that people refinancing their loans to take advantage of the record low interest rates were a major driver of volume in 2020, but as rates have crept back up, the refinancing business has slowed down, which is presenting a challenge in itself. “We’re making sure we identify all the people who should have refinanced and let them know they have to get in before it’s too late,” Banosian says, adding that while rates are beginning to trend upward, he doesn’t
“Never have clients needed to consult with their mortgage lender as much as they do today”
THE REAL ESTATE MARKET AT A GLANCE Year-over-year change, March 2021 National inventory down 52% Newly listed homes on the market down 20% Newly listed homes in large metro areas down 18% Days the typical home spends on the market down from 60 to 54
Dianne Crosby, Guaranteed Rate to help the industry through the restrictions on in-person meetings, it can’t replace the detailed, face-to-face conversations that are more critical than ever. “Never have clients needed to consult with their mortgage lender as much as they do today,” she says. Rueth says the home-buying process is hard right now – clients are making multiple offers in multiple bidding wars that they keep losing, and this stretches out the timeline. All of a sudden, home prices have gone up, along with interest rates, which ultimately pushes the client’s affordability down. “It’s adding more salt to the wounds,” she says. “Not only are clients frustrated, upset and stressed out, but now they can’t even afford to be in the home they wanted to be in. It’s a double-edged sword right now.” Rueth predicts that rates will stay low – just not historically low – and that volume in sales and purchase lending might even top
see them climbing too high, too fast. Crosby says misinformation or misleading information is another stumbling block she’s facing. Running refinancing clients’ credit often leads to that information being sold, generating “a flurry of calls and emails” on rates they supposedly qualify for, which makes it difficult for them to trust the process and understand the rates they’re getting.
Not enough pieces of the pie The number of houses available to buy at any given time continues to fall, and the lowest inventory levels on record, combined with massive motivation on the buyer side, means it’s difficult to get an offer accepted right now, Banosian says. Though clients are getting preapproved, not many are having offers accepted, and he’s working with clients to add value and take away some of the stress and uncertainty where he can. “We’re helping clients get underwritten
National median listing price up 15.6% Average price gain in large metro areas up 12.1%
Source: Realtor.com
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SPECIAL REPORT
150 MILLION DOLLAR CLUB
WHERE ARE INTEREST RATES HEADED? Moody’s analytics February 2021 baseline outlook Federal funds rate
10-year Treasury
30-year fixed
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0% 2021
2022
2023
2024 Source: Moody’s Analytics
“We’re making sure we identify all the people who should have refinanced and let them know they have to get in before it’s too late” Shant Banosian, Guaranteed Rate earlier so they can be more aggressive in terms of timelines,” he says. “We’re closing loans quicker to help make them able to compete with some of these cash buyers and other strong buyers out there.” Rueth agrees there’s “a lot of work going into prequalifying somebody,” noting that it’s taking months rather than weeks for clients
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to find a home – if they can land one at all. Now, she says, “the real pain point is the frustration and lack of patience and turbulence” from figuring what to do when their lease is ending or their current house is sold, or their new job is starting and they can’t get settled. In this tight market, 150 Million Dollar Club member Christopher Keelin, Northeast
senior vice president of sales at Family First Funding, says a lot of people are “in purgatory right now.” Despite the motivation to get in those high offers to try to land a home, he keeps preapprovals at 85% to 90% of the client’s budget so he’s not pushing people past their comfort level. “If you look at the industry at a granular level, people can’t afford the houses they’re ultimately buying right now,” he says. “They’re not in a great position because one event could change everything – and we’ve seen that with the pandemic.” While people might be able to swing overpaying by 5% to 10%, he says, in some cases they end up ‘house poor’: able to pay their bills but struggling to fund other aspects of their lives like leisure activities or saving for the future. And if they end up losing their job and can’t keep up with the mortgage payments at all? Then come foreclosures and short-sale implications, Keelin says. “It’s not the same bubble as in 2008, but I feel some kind of shift will happen, a realigning, that could be scary if the world doesn’t continue at this pace,” he says. “We have to have a moral compass that says, ‘Listen, you’re not the person to overpay by $50,000.’ I’m having those conversations. Money’s great, but I don’t want to see anybody homeless.” Last year was such a wild ride that “everyone was in the moment and not preparing for the exit of this,” Keelin says, adding that he’s focusing on being proactive and preparing for a future that still holds many unknowns. Despite the challenges, Rueth believes 2021 is shaping up to be a great year in the mortgage world – as long as industry players continue to adapt to the changing landscape. “This is the year lenders and Realtors alike need to redefine themselves in a reopening economy,” she says, “because what worked two years ago isn’t the same thing that worked last year and isn’t the same thing that will work this year.”
150 MILLION DOLLAR CLUB 2021 1 Thuan Nguyen
23 Ken Cheung
47 Brady Day
2 Shant Banosian
24 Elsy Hedman
48 Dave Venugopal
3 Christopher Gallo
25 Sean Patrick Condon
49 Jason Le
4 Michael Rodriguez
26 Karen Nielson
50 Jerilyn Shaw
27 Lauren Maxwell
51 Greg Giokas
28 Michael Brown
52 Bob Cooley
29 Hanh Dao
53 Hannah Nguyen
Loan Factory
Guaranteed Rate NJ Lenders Corp.
Platinum Capital Mortgage
5 Brian Minkow
HomeBridge Financial Services
6 Max Leaman
LoanPeople
7 Mike Meena
Augusta Financial
8 Craig Stelzer
CrossCountry Mortgage
9 Christopher Keelin
Family First Funding
Phone: 973-303-6789 Email: ck@fam1fund.com Website: ck.fam1fund.com 10 Jarret Coleman
U.S. Bank
11 Dianne Crosby
Guaranteed Rate
HomeBridge Financial Services AMH Capital
First United Bank & Trust Co.
30 Timothy Taylor 31 Cathy Haddad 32 Kristi Hardy
33 Melissa L. Cohn
Phone: 908-202-7293 Email: michael.borodinsky@caliberhomeloans.com Website: caliberhomeloans.com 18 Dan Gjeldum
Guaranteed Rate
19 Damon Germanides
Insignia Mortgage
20 Nicole Rueth
Fairway Mortgage
21 Oleg Tkach
NFM Lending
22 Matt Oliver
Lund Mortgage Team
Residential Mortgage Services
55 Arman Ghamami
C2 Financial Corporation
56 John Antonelli
Vantage Point Financial Group
57 Joseph Chacko
C2 Financial Corporation
William Raveis Mortgage
34 Lynette Bonnett
58 Michael Deery
Citywide Financial Corp.
Guild Mortgage
38 Waleed A. Delawari
Caliber Home Loans
54 Matthew Attaya
Atlantic Coast Mortgage
15 Shashank Shekhar
17 Michael Borodinsky
Loan Factory
Atlantic Home Loans
37 Jeremy Engle
Sunnyhill Financial
The Cooley Team – Guild Mortgage Company
HomeBridge Financial Services
14 Lance Johnson
16 Brian Cooke
Residential Mortgage Services
Loan Factory
36 Peter Galvez
Arcus Lending
C2 Financial Corporation
Churchill Mortgage Corporation
13 Hank Metzger
Regions Mortgage
Loan Factory
CrossCountry Mortgage
35 Mike Murgatroy
American Financing
Residential Mortgage Services
Guild Mortgage
12 Anthony Musante
PNC Bank
First Class Mortgage
59 Josh Moody
Goldwater Bank
Guaranteed Rate United Wholesale Lending Vero Mortgage Delaware Pacific
39 Mark Johnson
HomeBridge Financial Services
40 James Nesbit
Academy Mortgage
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David Brown Guild Mortgage
61 Michael Bowen
Guild Mortgage
62 Tim O’Brien
Zipfel Capital Phone: 513-310-7180 Email: tim@zipfel.com Website: zipfel.com Tyler Bahnsen
63 HomeBridge Financial Services
41 Tammy Saul
64 Jodi Ryder
42 Preston Sims
65 Claudette Khachatourian
43 Casey Van Winkle
66 Brent Palmer
44 Russ Lang
67 Kevin Luchko
45 Jay Vogel
68 Ryan Dunn
46 Jesse Morgan
69 Tom Sherman
Federal Hill Mortgage HomeBridge Financial Services First Class Mortgage Vista Lending, a division of Network Funding Residential Mortgage Services PNC Bank
C2 Financial Corporation HomeBridge Financial Services HomeBridge Financial Services loanDepot
Oceanside Mortgage Company Benchmark Mortgage
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SPECIAL REPORT
150 MILLION DOLLAR CLUB
TIM O’BRIEN Mortgage Broker and Shareholder Zipfel Capital 2020 loan volume: $159,431,786
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n many ways, Tim O’Brien feels like he spent his entire career building up to 2020. His approach to his business – focusing on people and building relationships, not on transactions – meant he was well positioned when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and interest rates fell to historic lows. “The hard work I put in up until that time put me in a position to really capitalize on one of the small bright spots in a tragic situation,” O’Brien says. “Anyone I had done business with or had developed a relationship with could benefit from refinancing and saving interest.” Recognized as a leader in the lending industry, O’Brien studied business at Xavier University and got into mortgage lending after graduating in 2006. With a people-first approach that encourages trust, O’Brien says he’s fortunate to be “very well-connected here,” having grown
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up in Cincinnati, where his business is based. He has strong working relationships with wealth managers, attorneys, business owners and real estate investors and has leveraged those connections over the years. “I love real estate – I invest in residential and commercial real estate – I love finance, and I love developing relationships with people,” he says. “I get to do all of those things as a mortgage broker, and I’m still passionate about doing this 14 years into my career.” Heading into 2021, there are a few market trends O’Brien is keeping an eye on. One is that it’s getting harder and harder for self-employed homeowners to obtain financing, which he says is unfortunate. However, he notes that Zipfel Capital has established relationships with lenders “that do a great job working with people who are self-employed or don’t have a conventional income.”
The industry is also seeing homebuyers paying over asking on purchases in many cases, with prices rising rapidly “in all different sectors of the country, from East to West Coast.” That will continue as long as interest rates are low; although O’Brien predicts a steady rise in rates, he doesn’t think there will be any rapid changes. “That’s based on what I’m reading and seeing – but I’ve been wrong more than I’ve been right,” he laughs. Regardless of what the future holds, O’Brien plans to continue to focusing on building relationships and on the experience rather than the transaction. He doesn’t spend time cold-calling; instead, he works on cultivating existing connections. “I focus all of my energy on my best referral sources and people within my circle,” he says, “and that’s made me efficient – and helped me cast my net further as a result.”
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CHRISTOPHER KEELIN Northeast Senior Vice President of Sales Family First Funding 2020 loan volume: $399,548,937
rom the start, Christopher Keelin has been a competitor. After being drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies, Keelin played minor league baseball for seven years. When he shifted his focus to the mortgage industry, he went from making $7,000 as an originator his first year to earning a spot in MPA’s 150 Million Dollar Club. “I felt like, in my life, there was nothing I would do that I didn’t want to be the best at,” Keelin says. “As a former athlete, everything in my life I want to be the best – the best father, the best husband, the best boss, the best mortgage originator.” Keelin is currently the Northeast senior VP of sales at Family First Funding, succeeding as an originator and overseeing a group of 40 mortgage professionals who provide customers with cutting-edge mortgage services. Over the last decade, Keelin has been ranked within the top 1% of originators, has been recognized as a top 200 national mortgage originator and has been ranked as the number-four Top Producer (based on FHA-insured loans) by National Mortgage News. “People just want answers,” he says. “Being able to get back to people as fast as possible, being able to respond, being able to articulate a plan, is paramount to my growth.”
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MICHAEL BORODINSKY Vice President and Branch Manager Caliber Home Loans 2020 loan volume: $349,075,568
he key to Michael Borodinsky’s success over 30 years in the mortgage industry is working nonstop. “It required long hours, a game plan on how to establish new referral partners and a commitment to customer service excellence,” he says. “If you take care of each and every customer as if they were your own family, you will create customers for life – and referral partners for life.” As VP and branch manager of New Jersey-based Caliber Home Loans and a member of the New Jersey Builders Association, Borodinsky and his team provide ideal financing options to homebuyers and homeowners in the Tri-State Area. “My approach is to be a financial advisor, as opposed to a salesman,” he says. “If you provide a fully transparent set of expectations, rates, terms, etc., you will gain the trust and confidence of your individual borrowers. Caliber is consumer-oriented. They provide me with state-of-the-art technology, backed up by topnotch operations partners who deliver unparalleled execution.” Borodinsky adds that customer service is his number-one priority, which means responding quickly and providing clients with industry-leading expertise – all at a competitive price. “In other words, we close our transactions on time and meet the expectations of our customers,” he says. “Customer satisfaction is the end game.”
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SPECIAL REPORT
150 MILLION DOLLAR CLUB
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