Thriving in mortgages after taking a leap of faith

“In talking with the owner, he was ‘hey, I really want you to go into sales. I want you to become a loan officer.’ I had a baby born in February – this was all in 2019. I passed my test in November and started in December, closed my first loan in December, and then had our baby in February.”

The job was at Movement Mortgage in Virginia, where he worked as a condo processor, starting in 2014. “I was in condo and then I worked my way up and became a loan officer in 2019,” he said.

Mom saves the day

Before entering the industry after graduating in 2007, he had a series of jobs – including selling cars. “I didn’t know what I was doing with my life,” he said of his post-college years. It was his mother who would come to the rescue: “Honestly, it was my mom who said she knew somebody that worked at Movement, and I just shot an email and said I was interested in starting this journey and would love to see what I could do, and they took a chance on me.”

Right off the bat, he was a natural fit for the industry: “I built teams in that company. I funded millions in renovation financing and worked my way up there and then became a loan officer. When I became a loan officer, I took off. My first year, I closed $19 million.”

By the following year, he would launch his own firm, Virginia-based VA Wholesale Mortgage Inc., with partner Eric Tan.