Unlocking Mortgage Success: Expert Tips from Darren Kaplan

Erika (00:00.92)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika Proctor, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Darren Kaplan, branch manager and mortgage superstar at Total Mortgage Services. Darren, thanks so much for joining us today.

Darren (00:16.391)
Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Definitely.

Erika (00:19.916)
I know our listeners, whether they’re new to real estate or they’re a seasoned pro, they’re going to love your insights on the mortgage process. So we need to dive in now. Can you give us a quick rundown of what your main focus is at Total Mortgage?

Darren (00:36.615)
It’s definitely 100 % helping people who can normally walk in their bank and get a mortgage by either purchasing a home or refinancing if you’re already a homeowner. So not everybody’s fortunate enough to actually say, hey, I have all the money to put down or I have the best credit or my employment is in current standing.

Erika (01:01.964)
What markets are you currently serving in?

Darren (01:04.634)
Primarily, it’s the Northeast, right? I’m in the Southeast as well, but we’re up and down that whole East Coast. I have the branch here in South Carolina, so like we try to really spend most of our time here, but it’s that whole shift of people moving, you know, out of the Northeast to the Southeast.

Erika (01:26.626)
With all the years of experience that you have, what would you say is the secret sauce to keeping clients happy and closing deals efficiently, especially in today’s market?

Darren (01:39.173)
Well, yeah, I just hit my 25th year, right? So it’s definitely been different between my 20s, my 30s, and now my 40s. I think I’ve approached people absolutely differently, but really just being cool, calm, and collective, right? I have a little saying, which is, hey, if you’re an ace, you’re going to get a home. And when we say ace, we mean assets, credit, employment. And when somebody comes to me and says, hey, Darren, I want to buy a house.

But there’s always a but behind it. But what? Your income’s not good, your credit’s not good, you don’t have enough money? Though we want to still help you. We want to still work with you. that’s how we approach it.

Erika (02:24.046)
That’s great. Every real estate pro, and I’m sure this is the case in the mortgage industry, you’ve had a deal that’s been kind of difficult or you had to think fast on your feet. Do you have a situation like that and how did you handle it?

Darren (02:41.913)
No doubt about it. So here, check this out. Ready? So, bank comes in, big bank appraises the house. The house has a leaky roof, a water heater blown, and a couple of cabinets falling down. The borrower was like, but we really love this house. And the bank says, okay, well, if you fix all of that, you could be the owner, right? So the borrower says, well, I don’t have the extra money to fix it. What do I do?

The bank says, unfortunately, the appraisal came back subject to fixing all that. You have to fix it. So the borrower came to me and said, Darren, what should we do? And I said, look, clearly this seems like a real renovational type alone in a limited 203k. We can fix the roof, the bathroom. What other other few things that you want to fix that may be on your bullet list. And you can still be the homeowner almost at the same price and almost at the same payment that you’re already paying.

And what did he say? No problem. We pulled the file in, we scanned it in, got our bid, transferred the appraisal. And now that homeowner was able to close actually faster than a normal process because we were already in.

Erika (03:56.728)
That’s awesome. You turned a difficult situation into quite an awesome results. So that’s great.

Darren (04:05.169)
But why wouldn’t anybody do that? Right. And it’s just because the bank that they went to didn’t offer those type of loans. So the borrower sat stock, you know, and what do I do? Right.

Erika (04:19.214)
So one thing that I noticed when I was looking at total mortgage is you have something called a Greenlight Approval Program. Can you share more about how that works? And it seems like it’s very effective.

Darren (04:27.719)
Absolutely.

Darren (04:33.255)
Greenlight’s one of our most awesome programs and the realtors, they love it even more. And this is why, from the listing end to the buyer’s end. So you come in, you get approved for a mortgage, right? We pull your credit, we look at your documents, we do all the thorough checks that you have to, to actually get a mortgage. And then what we do is we issue you a commitment to lend. So now when you’re going to put offers in on homes,

You’re not just submitting your pre-approval, but you’re also submitting your commitment. And then so you’re only, we call it 21 days, but most likely you could close faster your appraisal, title, insurance, and contract away from closing.

Erika (05:23.15)
Fantastic. So another theme that I was checking out is a lot of our viewers who are a little bit more experienced, they deal with high value properties. What kind of advice would you give to someone who’s dealing with a jumbo mortgage and how would you help them get set up for success?

Darren (05:37.041)
Mm-hmm.

Darren (05:45.221)
All right. So the jumbo mortgage process is a little different than like your first time home buyer or somebody who’s got less money to work with. So if you’re buying jumbo and let’s just say it’s somebody who has enough money in reserves to work with, let’s use that as the right client, right? I would go with a guaranteed mortgage. I wouldn’t go with like the adjustable or the buy down. Now people may think differently and Darren, you’re wrong and whatever, but

If you really have enough money, why don’t you just set it and forget it, right? Take the one rate, the one fixed product, whatever that maximum or minimum amount that you want to put down versus the payment, whatever that comfortability level is, that amount of money, and you just, pay that for the next however many years. If you want to get it paid early, apply a couple of extra payments towards the principal per year, that’ll get you down from like that 30 year to the 22 year over.

22 years, right? So you’ll be able to say seven or eight years off that mark. But when it comes to jumbo, if you have the money already, don’t worry so much. Just buy what you love. Accept the payment for what it is. Right? You got the reserves. And then in the future, if you have to sell it or you have to get out, you’ll have more equity in that to apply to maybe a smaller home or something more, more affordable. But I’m, don’t think that people are thinking that when they think jumbo, they think, what can I buy?

Where’s my payment? And you know, do I love this home? And that’s what you should be thinking when it comes to

Erika (07:19.17)
That’s some really, really great advice here at Real Estate Pros. We really value building relationships and I’m sure you have a lot of experience with like the industry that you’re in with mortgages. What has been the biggest game changer for you with building a strong network?

Darren (07:39.473)
So I am from New York, right? So up North, Long Island, right? And I moved to Chapin, South Carolina. So I had a like kind of start all over again, right? So during that time, people give you advice. you got to join this club. You got to meet people here. You got to do all this. And I consider myself a pretty seasoned veteran on how to attain and get business. But what I noticed was everybody was

at that same spot. they go to this networking meeting, it’s everybody, the 200 people. And then they go to this networking meeting, and it’s the same 200 people that go, right? And then they go to this networking meeting, and it’s the same 200 people, right? So if you can figure out your own niche and compete with yourself and know that you’re the only person or one of two in that mix, I think that would be the best advice trying to start

or attend a group or a networking group that where you’re the only one, you know, or just have a special niche like I do. Like I deal with people with negative and shaky credit, right? Crappy credit, low down payments, you know, and that’s my niche. Jumbo mortgages are some other people’s niche. Lake homes, those are some of, so if you have your niche and you’re able to go and sell your niche and be your niche, then yes.

Do those, do as many of those as you can. Get out there, let people know what you’re doing. You don’t have to sell. People will just know, you got their credit, go deal with Darren. You know, your credit’s not great. they denied you why they said my credit wasn’t good. advice did they give you? Nothing. So like, you know what? And I think going out there and being you and finding what you do and where you do it, that’ll be the most successful thing.

Erika (09:31.874)
That’s really, really good advice. you know, people want to do business with people they like, no one trusts. And you’ve got to go out there in order for that to happen.

Darren (09:37.553)
course.

Darren (09:41.157)
Of course, without a doubt, definitely. But also, you know, I think working from your desk and doing it remote. I also, I’m a big believer in that as well. It’s not just face to face because look, I could do 10 meetings in a day on zoom where I can only do one networking meeting. I’m so shot after it. I gave it everything I had, you know, you have to, you know, be above, go above and beyond.

who you are, right? To make other people happy as opposed to just one or two people happy on Zoom, you know? So I think a little bit of everything, a good mix, healthy mix of it. I like healthy.

Erika (10:17.42)
Yep, yep, can’t put all your eggs in one basket. So what would you say is next on the horizon with total mortgage? Are you gonna dive deep into something or what do you have that’s coming up that you’re excited about?

Darren (10:34.727)
The culture of Total Mortgage is amazing. We’re a young group of guys, women too, obviously, right? It’s not like your older, privately, know, Fortune 500 type of atmosphere. It’s really a customer service, tech-driven company with amazing people behind it, right? Everything, from soup to nuts that they have that give you the capabilities of whether you’re a beginner loan officer,

Or you’re an advanced loan officer of really diversifying and you think you’re doing worse where you are now, you come to total mortgage and you automatically, become a superstar. And the reason being is because you get loans done. They have the technology, they engage in your, with your clientele. The, all the things that make a successful loan officer, right, is usually within the person. Because showing up to work, having the ability to talk.

having the ability to put loans together. And when you have all of that, plus the type of company that we have, it’s an amazing explosion. There are tons of companies that are good. Everybody loves their company. Who does it? I hate my company. They sink. No way. You love your company and you love your company for a reason. Guys love movement mortgage. They, they love cross country. They love guild. They feel like they’re part of that. The problem is,

that the companies really don’t care about the individual loan officer as much as they say they do. But total mortgage has that different feeling.

Erika (12:15.566)
That’s really great to hear. mean, the passion that you’re speaking from, I can see what a great place it must be. So before we go, if a listener wants to connect to you, whether they’re a buyer or a realtor looking to partner with, or they just want to pick your brain about the mortgage process, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Darren (12:21.063)
It’s a long time coming.

Darren (12:41.763)
Absolutely, right. 844-772-LON. Right. You call me, you text me, I’m always there, but you could check out our website, right? It’s ChapinMortgages.com or just Google me, Mr. Mortgage Guru. If you don’t see me, it’s not me, but you can’t miss me if you do all that. We have a YouTube channel. It’s Mr. Mortgage Guru. It’s got some old content on there, but it’s cool to see some of like,

what you used to do versus like what’s there today type of things.

Erika (13:15.33)
Well, Darren, you’re clearly passionate about what you do and helping people achieve homeownership dreams. It’s been really great having you on today. Thanks for dropping all your knowledge.

Darren (13:26.245)
Definitely. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Remember, be kind to yourself and everybody around you, right?

Erika (13:31.894)
Yes. To everyone tuned in, if you love this episode, make sure to subscribe to Real Estate ShowPros for more conversations with top players like Darren who are making things happen in the real estate and mortgage world. Until next time, keep building, keep closing, and we’ll see you on the next episode.