How To Create A Thriving Mortgage Business Utilizing Authenticity and Transparency, with Dustin Rosenberg!

0:30Hello everyone and welcome to another Elite episode of the Get Authentic with Marcus Shelf. I'm your host Marcus Ogden on today's episode. We are joined Mr. Dustin Rosenberg. But before we bring on Dustin to the stage, we want to thank one of our amazing sponsors, Carpa Deal Lawford. Here's something most entrepreneurs don't think about until it's too late. Is your business name legally protected? Can someone else trademark it tomorrow and force you to rebrand everything you've built? That's where Elona Anderson comes in. She's the founder of Carpa Deal Law Firm, as she helps authentic entrepreneurs protect their brands and their businesses so you can focus on growth, not legal disasters. Elona specializes in trademark registration to lock down your brand, employ himpals to protect you from lawsuits and contracts that actually work in your favor.

1:33Whether you're bootstrapping your first startup or skilling a center figure business, she's got your covered nationwide. Don't wait until someone steals your name or an employee sues you. Visit CarpaDiam LawFirm.com, C-A-R-P-E-D-I-E-M-L-A-W-F-I-R-M.com, or connect with Elona on LinkedIn. Protect your business, protect your future. Now here he is, Dustin. How you doing, Dustin? Good, how are you doing, Marcus? Doing well, my friend. Thanks for joining us. So Dustin, first question, sir. What does the word authentic? The last authenticity mean to you. Putting me right on the spot right there, but authentic I think is in its purist form, either acting or being or living in what you truly believe is your own self or your own, you'll call it specialty or niche.

2:35And not trying to be somebody that you're not, whether that's business or profession or just your own family, friend, lifestyle. Love it. Listen gentlemen, it's being yourself not trying to be someone that you know you can't be and not trying to do something that you can't sustain because as Dustin said, the best way to live your life is being the true version of yourself and not trying to be someone that quote, unquote, others want you to be or trying to make you be. So Dustin, please tell our global audience a little bit about your bad story and the work you're doing now today in your career. Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Los Angeles. I had a 10 year spent in San Diego and then I lived now in Los Angeles again. I've got a wife and three kids all under the age of nine and I've been in the mortgage industry before about 15 years, you know, offering home loans to clients, of course, across

3:40the country. But about six years ago, I started my own company with my partner, Jonathan, you who's not here today. We used to work together at the same mortgage company and then eventually decided we had saved up enough money and saved up enough knowledge, if you will, to start our own gig. And the biggest thing that we thought would be a value add to the mortgage industry as a poll, and I'll dive into a deeper as this podcast goes on was catering mainly to real estate investors, not first time home buyers, not that we don't do that, but catering to real estate investors and then the luxury side of real estate lending. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I'm really enjoying this so far because Dustin is talking about how him and his partner had saved up enough money and enough knowledge to be able to go into their own business and become their own entrepreneurs and pursue what they wanted

4:44to do in their business. And I love this because at the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, when you have worked hard enough and you have put enough away and you have enough wisdom and experience to be able to be very knowledgeable in your industry, it allows you, and I feel to say, you know what, let me go ahead and try this. If you have enough grit, if you have enough, which herb is you have enough discipline to do it on your own, because when you're still in your own, yeah, I mean, you're your own boss. That's the great part about it also. You don't do what you're supposed to do. Things aren't going to work on the other side. So it got to be discipline. So Dustin, before we get into your business, congoy home loans, and you said you serve like residential, high end, you know, clients, things of that nature, we'll get to have a moment. My next question is Dustin, how does being authentic and or showing authenticity help you in your chosen career path? Well, I think it's that one's kind of an easy one for me in my opinion, just because

5:46by nature, when you are applying for any sort of, you know, mortgage or real estate loan, just knock on wood because there is a lot of AI that's infiltrating our industry, of course, you're going to want to speak to somebody. You're going to want to have an advisor, a loan officer is the term that most people know that you can trust that knows what they're doing and is going to have that fiduciary responsibility to have your loan be the best loan available for that client's particular situation. If you're not authentic, I think everybody has had it all, you know, in the past, it could be any type of sales call, whether it's a mortgage, a new TV, a new car, where you didn't feel comfortable because the guy or the girl that you were speaking to was an authentic. They were trying to either offer something or give you knowledge on something that they really didn't know about or weren't passionate about, and then you moved on to the next company.

6:49You know, something interesting, right? I wrote this down, people want to talk to someone and they want to have the options to be the best for them. I tell people in any business to be successful, you have to be an corruptive listener, you have to be able to listen to people and help them figure out where you can help them solve their problem and do someone the quickest, fashion, possible because people don't have time to waste. Dustin, let's talk about Conway Home Loans. When did you all start the business and what year and what are some challenges that you all had to work through to now get to where you all are doing a very good, successful thriving operation with your organization? Yes, we started in mid late 2020. Technically, the first five or six months, it was no revenue, right?

7:50It was just expensive, getting set up and doing anything in the financial services industry, there's going to be a lot of licensing and compliance and regulations that you have to follow within the state that you're operating in, but all the other states you plan to operate in. That was definitely a tough time, the first six months, but it was a fun time because that was when he really got to set the blueprint and see how everything was going to work. We started with me and my partner, Jonathan, that I mentioned and I think day one, we had three employees. Now we've got about 55 or 56, I think, with two offices, one in Los Angeles, where I'm stationed out over our headquarters in the one in San Diego, and the growing journey that we've had has been no, I'm not going to put it all on me and my partner as if we're the main reasons, but making sure that you surround yourself with enough people that you trust that you can actually delegate and actually get benefit where there's, and we stay

8:55this a lot in our meetings and management and sales meetings, we're really keen on it, but we want everybody that comes through the door to add one more step to the company where we're stacking knowledge on top of knowledge and experience on top of experience. We don't want everybody doing their own thing where it's just, you're only as good as yourself. We want everybody to be as good as the entire company is. Justin, you're talking about a winning mindset. We're going to talk after this interview because I do a lot of keynote speaking, coaching, consulting for a lot of major organizations. One you may know very well is mass mutual, the one of our premier clients, and we just did a job for them last week in Boston for their second line leaders and their recruiters, right, Dustin? And the thing, because this is mass mutual's 175th anniversary this year. Four and 1851 and get this 10 years later, we have the Civil War in our country.

9:59How crazy is that? And so that was our fourth job with them, Dustin, and 15 months forth. And they say, more of you guys so much more work coming because you know how to connect to our audience, but their theme of the entire event, right, Dustin? A legacy of purpose creates a future possibilities. So my question is, right, Dustin, how do you and your partner instill in your team a legacy of purpose for them to go out to these clients and create for them a future endless possibilities? So I alluded to earlier when we started Convoy home loans that we wanted to cater mainly to real estate investors, okay? And that was the purpose that we sought out where if you are anytime applying for a mortgage, right, it could be your first home, it could be an investment property. A good 95% of the consumers out there believe or think that the only way to get applied

11:01and approved for loan would be speaking to a bank or a lender or a loan officer and then providing them with personal financials such as tax returns, W2s, pay stubs, 1099s, whatever it might be for your line of work, right? Because that's how you're used to applying for a loan. It could be a car loan, it could be a credit card, they're going to ask for personal financials. And why we thought the real estate investor community was underserved was because five, seven, eight years ago, that was the only way to buy an investment property. You had to provide personal tax returns. You had to provide W2s. And when you're a real estate investor and you're a seasoned one, you may own five properties or 10 or 20, etc., right? A good chance is that your tax returns do not show too strong because you're writing

12:01off a bunch of things, right? And you can't get a loan from Chase. You can't go to Rocket Mortage. You can't go to loan depot because they're going to look at your tax returns and say, hey, you don't make enough money. Even though deep down, we know the loophole with our tax system that ultimately you're given the chance to write off any sort of item that's business related, a.k., real estate investor can do that. But because you've got all these write-offs, you can't qualify for a loan. Sorry. Okay. So, the problem is there's a specific type of loan that we have a really strong, you know, reputation on the blogs, investor meetups, YouTube podcasts, etc., and it's called a DSCR loan. It stands for debt service coverage ratio. And all it does is you're looking at whatever property the clients try to buy. And for a quick easy example, let's say a client trying to buy a for unit property and

13:03each unit is collecting $2,000 in rent, right? So that client is going to get a property that's going to get $8,000 in monthly rent, right? All we look at in terms of the ability to qualify for the ability to make the mortgage payment is, okay, can we get a loan where the monthly payment is less than what you're collecting in rent? That way we know that, hey, the property can self-sustain itself. Because if the property can self-sustain itself, I really shouldn't be asking you about what you do for work because you're not the one quote on quote making the payments, right? The tenants are. It's different when you're talking about your primary residence because you're not collecting rents. Your living wages is how you're going to afford the mortgage, right? So tying back to the question on authentic. Most real estate investors want one guy that can do all of their deals for them, right?

14:03They want to know that they can get the deal done. They want to know that they can get it quick. They want to know that, hey, if I've got a fix and flip opportunity, if I've got a ground up construction opportunity, if I've got a 30 year fixed mortgage that I want to apply for on a brand new home, I want to have that one guy that I trust that knows the market that knows where to get these deals done. And I don't want to go to rocket mortgage. I don't want to go to chase and talk about my 300 page tax return and why I can't qualify because I know I can afford it. That's what are being an authentic loan officer and specifically the real estate investor side of the mortgage industry is so powerful because most real estate investors are not doing one deal a year. They might be doing two or three or five or 10. That's their livelihood. People buying their first home on average, re-five or sell or buy a new home once every

15:06seven years. So I may do a deal for a client that bought their first home, but I probably won't speak to them again for seven years. But a real estate investor, we're speaking weekly, daily, monthly because this is all they do. So for being authentic, especially at Convoys Home Loans with Art Plain Tell is so important. Football is finally back and prospects is bringing their best offer yet. New users who suck will get a hundred dollars in lineups if you win your first bottle of lineup. That's right. If you win your first bottle of lineup, you get a hundred dollars back in lineups. And now, prospects is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock it for kickoff because everyone, everything is on price picks. Did you know price picks invented the injury reboot? If a player in your lineup gets injured in the first half and doesn't return, your lineup can still cash. Dell at the app today and use code authentic to get a hundred dollars instantly in lineups

16:09if you win your first bottle of lineup. Price picks run your game. Jason, I really love Dustin's approach to the niche way that grown their business. As a person has a background of construction real estate and I know exactly what he's talking about. It's so nice to go to a mortgage company like Comm way home, I said, Hey, I want to buy this, this property. I'm going to end up, I'm just going to go, I'm going to go, bring it out and say, Hey, man, you have going to bring in 10 grand a month. You're going to be 6000. I'm 10, 4,000 in the black. Let's go. And you keep going. You keep moving. You keep grooving. Jason, gentlemen, this was what it's all about. Finding a way to serve the market and help people who have issues or problems and people

17:15aren't being creative and trying to solve the problems. Most big banks aren't going to give you the type of financing that Comm way home loans will and they're not going to do as quick and or as consistent. And again, I love their thought process. You know, Dustin, I just question for people that are listening and we have a lot of real things. That's a matter of fact, we'll go talk about what I've got. One of my clients and sponsors, he does insurance for residential, high-end properties, airbnb's, rent them. So I'm going to connect you guys. Because again, he's in Florida and there's a lot in that space. I can see lots of connection, lots of synergy there. Let me ask you a question, Dustin, when you think about what people are doing, right? For real estate investor listening, what is it about Comm going home loans that you feel other than of course you're awesome that single product. What about your organization stands out to why they should work with you over somebody

18:15else because again, I think I know what it is. I love to hear from your perspective what that is because we get a lot with our real state space, investors in that regard that feel you can now speak to directly in that response. So number one is I always like to say this and we tell it in our sales meeting to our loan officers is we are your real estate investor's best friend. Meaning whatever you may need, that's real estate investment focused, we can do. Like I touched on the DSCR, your ground up construction, your fits and flip, bank statement loans, cross collateralizing your stock portfolio or other real estate that you own to acquire a new property, things of that nature, we can do them all. But one thing that I don't think a lot of consumers understand and why we have a footprint the way that we do right now, not to beat our own trust, but you can look this up online. We were the number two biggest loan originator of DSCR loans in the country and we only got

19:2055 employees, right? It's because that's all we focus on. And when we say that, why it's so important, DSCR loans are bought and sold on Wall Street. Small, medium-sized, large-sized hedge funds that a lot of people would probably know if I said who we sell a lot of our loans to because that's how the mortgage industry turns, right? It's not like Convoys letting a $150 million sit on our balance sheet and just wait to get paid back 30 years later. We're going to Wall Street, we're selling it, getting it paid down so we can offer money to clients again. That right there is very important to know if you are a real estate investor where Fannie Man's friend Matt, right? They're going to be where most first-time home buyers are going to have their loans backed and insured by, okay? Fannie and Freddie, Fannie Man's Freddie Mac, do not offer better rates to quick and

20:20loans who does tens of thousands of loans every week versus a one-man shop that does one loan a month. That's their rate, that's what they'll insure, those are their guidelines, right? Who has more overhead, who has less overhead, that will determine a lot of times just the cost between quick and loans in the one-man shop. But what's important to understand on these real estate investor loans is your relationship, your track record, right, and your volume that I can offer to a Wall Street hedge fund. That is what gets me either better deals, looser guidelines, better rates, than somebody that no offense does 90% of their business is first-time home buyers and they offer DSCR. But that DSCR product isn't going to be as good as ours because they don't have the same track record, relationship, reputation, volume that we have comparative to what they

21:23have. And that's the biggest difference dealing with any sort of lender, mortgage broker, etc. on the real estate investor side versus Fannie, Freddie side where you're doing a first-time home buying product. Ladies and gentlemen, this is absolutely sensational because I work with a lot of real estate investors through coaching. I do a lot of speaking in that area, I do a lot of coaching in that area, consulting, again, sales, collaboration, growth, expansion, again, right, Dustin, you're not going to get hired by the last mutual four times in 15 months if you're not the best. They're just not going to do it. They can pick anybody to work with. They pay amazing, they pay great, they take care of stuff, they're professional. Everything about mass mutual is always 5 out of 5 star all the time. They can pick whoever the hell they want to work with, but they pick us because we bring value. I love this because what you're doing Dustin, you're bringing value through different channels

22:26and I love how you said, you're Wall Street back, you're going to hedge funds, they're buying up your loans, which brings to, especially stability, because again, Wall Street's not going anywhere. It's going to continue to go up. They've been around forever. My dad actually used to be the head of the Federal Homeless Bank of New York in their DC office in their stocks and bonds. I have a degree in finance myself. This is awesome because this is exactly why Dustin, Jonathan, Convoy, Homeless are crushing it because they're niche. They got the right type of people around them and they surround themselves with great organizations, a great blueprint, a great strategy, great interview Dustin. How can our global audience connect with you and get in touch with you? Yes, super easy. You can go to our website, convoyhomelones.com. We even have a app in the Apple App Store or Android Store, Convoy Home Loans and don't be hesitant to reach out. Nice job.

23:26You're going to hear a lot more from Dustin's because again, we're going to connect after I coach a lot of people looking for what they're offering. I'm excited about creating this partnership with Convoy, Homeless and Dustin and Jonathan that doing amazing things. We want to thank Carpideum Law Farm for sponsoring this amazing episode and the authentic tip of this great interview. In life, in this is create a blueprint, create systems, systemize before you automate. That's how Dustin and Jonathan have grown to almost 60 plus people because they have systemized now they're automated and they're bringing people in where it's a winning mindset, victory mindset culture within the organization, which is a good thing for everybody to win. Again, my name is Marcus Albin. I am the host of the Get Authentic with Marcus Show.

24:26Thanks for tuning in. Have a fantastic day.