Navigating challenges to build a leading brokerage house

Armed with an economics degree from college, he went straight to it: “I wanted a career path where the harder I worked the more potential I had. Coming out of college, I was full of spit and vinegar and was eager to make a name for myself.

“I saw mortgage origination as a real opportunity to not only make a good living but help people. I had a skill set that fit nicely in doing mortgage origination. I was very outgoing, hardworking and had a lot of personal drive. Seventeen years later, Brady and I are the top two originators in the state of Minnesota.”

Indeed, in 2021, he posted volume of $220 million over some 800 loans originated.

What Great Recession? Given their nascent status, the crisis hardly affected them, he said. “The good news was we were small, so we didn’t have a ton of overhead. And during that time, the housing crises, FHA was an important product to have. We were able to hire an attorney to go through that process and got approved on the quicker side. We ran with pretty slim margins, very little overhead, and survived through ’09, ’10, and then things started to turn for us over time.”

 Yet the firm didn’t rest on its laurels: among its keys to success, he said, was “being consistent in networking and developing a reputation for being hardworking and available.”