Embarking on a new dawn
After three years in retail, another colleague asked Taylor to join her in landing work for a broker. “And that’s how I got in the broker world,” she said of her brief stint for Home Lenders of Georgia Inc. After that stint, she opened her own brokerage firm she named Alvorada Mortgage – the corporate name reflective of her new horizon, the Portuguese word for dawn.
It was a similar sentiment that propelled her to move to the US on a wave of love that could’ve been invoked by bossa nova great Antonio Carlos Jobim himself. She met her husband, Bradley Taylor, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after six months of online dating, she told MPA. She not only gained a husband, but a reliable business partner as well, she noted: “My husband helps me on the side of things I don’t like,” she said. “I focus mainly on operations and origination, and my husband is actually the one who does my compliance, payroll and things like that, so I don’t have to worry about that.”
She made it clear that would be the deal, she added. “When we opened the brokerage, I told him I couldn’t do it without him because there’s a lot of paperwork that I hate to do. I told him if I can just stay in my lane and originate, that’s what I love to do. But I wouldn’t want to be the one taking care of the administration part – checking if bills are paid, if payroll is done, if compliance is done. I like the part where I talk to the clients and try to figure out ways for them to qualify. Most of them are very limited with their English skills.”
Familiar faces among her clientele
And that’s when she sees the familiar faces of her motherland, catering largely to a Brazilian demographic that comes to her for their mortgage needs given their common language. She noted how her clients have achieved trust in her given those cultural ties, reminding her of herself when she first arrived in the US. “It was a little worse than it is today,” she said of her English when she first arrived in Georgia. She described her brand of immersion in order to learn English: “When I came here, I did the opposite of what other people do. I didn’t go live where most Brazilians are here in Atlanta. I was watching TV in English. I was trying to work mainly with English speakers so I could actually get better with my English skills.”
Which does not diminish the affection she feels for her compatriots: “I try to serve everybody, but my niche is 90% with Portuguese speakers,” she said. “It’s primarily for the language,” she said of the appeal for her services from her niche audience. “When I bought my house in 2013, I didn’t speak great English yet. I just signed the papers. Did I know for sure what I was signing? No, I did not. That’s why today I choose to help people I know don’t feel too comfortable because they don’t know what’s actually written on the paper. When we speak the same language, it’s easier for me to help them.”
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