First-Time Homebuyer Mortgage Tips | How to Buy Your First Home and Build Long-Term Wealth

Giovanny Mirabal (00:00)
Man, I would tell you what, since I’ve gotten into entrepreneurship in general, but specifically in mortgages, it’s opened my eyes to how much money really flows through our economy and how much money people really have. My whole life, I grew up in a different environment where you go to the store, mom’s not getting that. And I kind of had, yep, I had a mentality where man, this is how life is. And majority of people who are around me, they live like this. But when I got into mortgages, and people were applying for mortgages and I was looking at bank statements and tax returns and et cetera. It really, it was a aha moment when I said, hold on, this is just where I was from.

Quentin Edmonds (02:10)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And indeed, I am excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest with me. This gentleman is a mortgage broke broker, company that he works with is Clear 2 Close Home Loans. This dude knows how underwriters think. And so he is a commodity, he is someone that we want to glean experience from. So I’m gonna introduce him the way he told me to, the way he feels comfortable. This is Gio the Mortgage King. Gio, how you doing today, sir?

Giovanny Mirabal (02:47)
I’m doing good, man. Thank you for the intro. I appreciate it.

Quentin Edmonds (02:50)
Absolutely, my friend, man. Listen, I’m so glad you’re— you’re here. I think time is our most precious commodity. So the fact that you would give us your time, man, I appreciate that. And Gio, I am the type, sir, I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. And man, if you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in.

Giovanny Mirabal (03:11)
Awesome. So basically, my key points is helping first-time buyers and seasoned investors. Those are my typical two points. And when I say seasoned investors, I’m talking about people who are looking to buy and hold real estate. I do have a separate company that helps with fix and flips, but as far as my online presence, I do want to hone in and let people know we help people who are trying to buy and hold. Also first-time buyers, people who never thought homeownership was possible because maybe they read something online or maybe their cousins got denied or whatever the case is. We’re showing people that ownership is possible. And why that’s important to me is because I’m from Miami, Florida. And over here, we need to help people understand that homeownership creates neighborhood stakeholders. And oftentimes I’m seeing in different neighborhoods in Miami, a lot of people aren’t owning. So there isn’t any stakeholders, and people are doing whatever they want to these neighborhoods. But homeownership to me is very important. I like to show people that this is something that’s very possible. And as far as my origins and how I got into this… you know, it’s a question that I’ve always got from the beginning. And it’s one of those questions where I just sit back and I laugh because I always say, you know, I never really found mortgages. I kind of think mortgages found me. I have no idea how I stumbled across it— across this business, to be honest. I was just hanging out one day. I had a child on the way. I was looking for different things to do. And I always loved money since I was a kid. You know, I learned how to count money before I could even read. And so I’m not sure if I attracted it to me, but no idea how I stumbled across it. And I’ve been doing it since 2016. I was blessed by the Lord to have such great mentors and really understand the business. And now I’m here where I’m at now.

Quentin Edmonds (04:44)
Yes, sir. Hey man, don’t be missing— don’t be mentioning our Lord, man. You drop our Lord name, I start to— I start to get really excited. So, blessed by the Lord, I— I love that, man. I love how you said mortgage found true, brother. And so I’m gonna— I’m gonna peek into your mindset a little bit more before we talk about operational stuff, right? So I truly believe destiny has no wasted moments, right? Destiny has no wasted moments. We are building and refining the people we are based on the story that comes behind us, right? Or that came before us. And so we’re learning from our lessons, we’re learning from our failures, we’re learning from our success, we’re learning from it all. So, Gio, I would love to know, man, throughout your journey, what has the moments taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline? Has it made you humble? Have it given you tenacity? Has it changed your look on innovation? Like, what has the moments taught you about you, man?

Giovanny Mirabal (06:24)
Man, I would tell you, what since I’ve gotten into entrepreneurship in general, but specifically in mortgages, it’s opened my eyes to how much money really flows through our economy and how much money people really have. My whole life, I grew up in a different environment where you go to the store, mom’s not getting that. And I kind of had, yep, I had a mentality where man, this is how life is. And majority of people who are around me, they live like this. But when I got into mortgages and people were applying for mortgages and I was looking at bank statements and tax returns and et cetera, it really, it was a aha moment when I said, “Hold on, this is just where I was from.” But majority of people, especially here in Miami, you know, you live across on the other side of the track and don’t realize how much money really flows. And so I can have a great year where I can fund a hundred million dollars, and that’s still not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of how much money is really flowing in our economy. And so that was a big eye-opener for me. I think that’s something that I, you know, I could never— never get in any university or institution of higher learning. That’s a great eye-opener. Yeah. I would say also one thing that I did learn about myself would be a discipline. It would be… I really realized how low my faith was as far as opening a business and, you know, not having to worry about tomorrow, as the scripture says. A really— really… I would— I would say, and I don’t want to use your podcast with it, but it did make me a way better Christian hopping into entrepreneurship. Yep, hopping into entrepreneurship. I really discovered how weak I was in the faith. I discovered how much more work I need to do as far as not getting worried and stressed. Entrepreneurship stressed me out so much. And so, yeah, those are things that I discovered about myself. I went to entrepreneurship in my early 20s. Now I’m 33 and, man, I’ve changed so much. You can ask anybody who’s gone to— who knows me from high school. They say, “That’s Gio. Gio’s changed so much,” et cetera, et cetera. But that’s the journey. That’s the whole part of growing up and finding your identity and walking that walk. You know what I mean?

Quentin Edmonds (08:25)
Yes, sir, man. Absolutely, sir. Man, thank you for— for sharing. Thank you for sharing your faith. I think I asked that question because the— the main person at the center of business is the business owner, right? So we can change, but we are who we are to be core to our core. So I’m so glad you brought your faith in it because that’s a part of your success. I mean, people can say… but I mean, we— we can talk about— we can break it down to habits, we can take it, break it down to mindset, or we can talk about faith. Like, where— whoever you are, you bring to the table and it helps you be successful. And so, man, I— I thank you for sharing. One of my favorite scriptures, I say that— and it’s a different translation— but it says, “We make our plans, but the Lord determines the outcomes.” Or, “We make our plan, but he orders our step.” So thankfully, he lets us make our plan, but the outcome, he determines it. And so, right, right, right. Yeah, you know, so, man, brother, thank you for sharing. Gio, let me ask you this, sir. What is one operational thing that you’ve put into place the last two years that’s made the biggest difference in how you run deals?

Giovanny Mirabal (09:23)
One of the biggest implementations was having in-house processors. So oftentimes as a mortgage broker, you would have to hire a third-party processing company. And that’s one of the reasons why a lot of loan officers are a little scared to hop into the mortgage broker space, because they don’t really get as babied as they would working for a big bank or working for a direct lender. As if you’re working for a direct lender, I can just get up from my desk and go talk to my underwriter and say, “Hey, what do you want?” The problem with that is, at least for my clients, is when you run an operation with such— where you have underwriters in your office, et cetera, it creates a huge overhead. And somebody’s gonna have to pay that overhead. It’s probably gonna be the person who’s applying for that mortgage; they’re gonna have to pay high origination fees, high underwriting fees, things of that nature. Yeah. And so what I’ve done in my side is I’ve— we’ve implemented processors that are in-house that are great, and that understand how we want the process to run. So typically when a loan officer comes over and wants to work within the Mortgage King team, they’re surprised to find out that we have the entire broker model, but it feels like a lender model. It feels like a direct lender or a big bank model, which is something that we’ve implemented. And there’s a few things we’ve implemented. We’ve also implemented, as we were talking earlier, about AI. I’m having people now complete their own applications. Before, we would have people, you know, sit in my office and then I take the application. “What’s your name? Bring your documents.” And really, that— that’s a demand from the clients. Nobody these days wants to go to the office— only my older clients. So when I say older, I mean somewhere in their sixties. Even the 50-year-olds these days are like, “Hey, can you just send me the application? I’ll have my daughter fill it out for me,” or something to that degree. Yeah. And that’s helped a lot. That’s helped a lot with people who want to apply— they don’t have to take time aside or a day off from their job to come to the office. They can just do it when they get home from work and they’ll fill out their own application, upload their own documents to the secured portal. That’s helped a lot with time efficiency, for sure.

Quentin Edmonds (11:49)
Yeah, absolutely, man. And I love it. So the mortgage king, right? I mean, of course, you know, I— I— I love the fact that we know who we are. I mean, I— I think self-awareness is— is key, right? So, mortgage king, what makes you so efficient and so good at mortgages, man? Talk to me. Like, what’s— what makes you the mortgage king? What makes you good at what you do, sir?

Giovanny Mirabal (12:10)
That’s a really good question. Well, first, the actual name Mortgage King comes from a position, not of a boastful position, but it comes from more of a humble position. Because if anybody knows who the best king of the world was, and you already sound like you know, he was a servant. Am I right? And so most of the— most of the great kings, even in the secular world, whether it was a Roman king or King Alexander, whoever it was, these were people who were ser— who put the needs of the people before their own. And so that’s why I said, “You know what? That’s what I’m gonna do,” because oftentimes in this business, it’s always about numbers. And I’ve worked for companies in the past where they treated everyone like a number. “Hey, just get the application in. Can they fund? Can they not? If they can’t, get them out of here.” Yeah. And so I didn’t see how that helped or served. One thing people love is getting numbers up front. Oftentimes, way too often, you apply for a mortgage, they’ll tell you, “This is your interest rate, this is what your monthly payment is going to be,” and somewhere along the transaction, your entire cash to close has changed, the interest rate has changed. And why people like to work with me is that everything is up front and super transparent. I don’t see any reason why we need to bait and switch numbers. And of course, I’m a big believer of: your name has the most value. So I might be able to trick one person over here, but they’re not gonna send me their family and friends. You see what I mean, right? Yes, sir. And that’s the— that’s the also a huge difference between working with a big bank, a direct lender, or a mortgage broker. That mortgage broker, if you don’t— if he doesn’t close that transaction and get a five-star rating, you’re not gonna send him more referrals and business. And that’s how he runs. As opposed to a big bank, you’ve got someone who’s taking a W check, a W-2 check, which I’m not against, but they are taking a W check— whether they close you or not, they’re gonna get paid that Friday. And so the urgency of getting you closed on the biggest transaction of your life really isn’t there. And so that’s why most people like to work with me. They understand the transparency that I deliver, the customer service that I deliver, and how the numbers don’t change. And the actual approval comes at the end, which is the most important part, right? Actually— actually getting the funds.

Quentin Edmonds (14:07)
Sir, man, I— I love, man, I’m loving everything you’re talking, man. I love the way you deliver it. I just love your self-awareness. Always say there’s difference between self-awareness and self-confident, right? Self-aware people, they— they’re aware of the compliment of everybody else. Self-confident, they’re aware of themselves at the detriment of everybody else. And so I love a self-aware person, man. I appreciate you, brother. Thank you. Yeah, man, absolutely. So, Gio, what’s next for you, business-wise, man? What are you looking to solve? What are you looking to scale? What’s next for you, sir?

Giovanny Mirabal (15:17)
So that’s a great question. And the— the simplest way that I could answer it— and you let me know if you can understand what I mean by this, because oftentimes people don’t— I really just want to be the number one trusted mortgage broker in the entire state of Florida. I’ll get the United States later, but I want to be the number one trusted in Florida, and I want to help specifically Floridians. I want to help all the people that I’m close to in the Tri-Counties— Miami, Broward, Palm Beach. I want to branch off. We’ve already helped tons of people in Tampa, but I want to be number one. I’m tired of outside corporations being number one in our state, and they have no idea what’s going on in our state. We’ve got— LoanDepot just bought the Marlins Stadium, and now you see LoanDepot on the top of the Marlins Stadium, and they’ve never been fans of Marlins ever in their lives. I grew up a Marlins fan. Yeah. And so yeah, I really just want to be in a position where hopefully where the Lord sees it fit, where everybody can say, “Hey, we don’t have to worry about closing disclosures changing numbers. We don’t have to worry about all this craziness within the banks. Let’s just go to Gio, the Mortgage King.”

Quentin Edmonds (16:16)
Yeah, yeah. So, no, right real quick, I— I just want to hold this up. It’s a book I’m reading and finishing up called Gradually, Then Suddenly. Gradually, Then Suddenly. It’s by Mark— Mark Batterson. Not sure if you heard of him. He’s a— he’s a pastor in DC. He has bestselling authors, but he talks about how success happens two ways: gradually, then suddenly. And so, man, when you talk about— yeah, and so I— I— I held it up because you asked me if it makes sense what you said. It makes total sense. Because you— you’re gonna build that gradual success and then suddenly you’re gonna be the biggest mortgage broker in— in Florida. So you’re right where you need to be, brother. So yeah, so I just had to bring that up, man. So tell me, talk to me a little bit about relationships, Gio. How do you look at— what’s your perspective on, you know, relationships within business and who are some of the people in your corner that’s has impacted you?

Giovanny Mirabal (17:07)
So relationships to me is the number one key in any business, to be quite frank. I actually— people don’t know this, but I worked at Publix when I was very, very young. That was my first introduction into business. And one thing they always emphasized, which I thought was so strange, was customer service. They would rather lose money on products, but they rather not lose that customer. They were always honing in on that. And so in the beginning, it was strange, but towards the end, I said, “Man, this is a great business strategy.” Because my stocks were always going up in Publix, so I said, “Man, this is a great business strategy.” So again, that’s something I would have never probably learned in university or an institution of higher learning. That’s all ground, you know, boots on the ground experience. And so relationships is key, which is why I’m so avid and fervent on getting those five-star reviews. And I tell every client that I talk to, “Hey, look, I’m doing this for a five-star review.” And so if you don’t think that you’re getting five-star review service, I need you to call me and say, “Hey, this is where you guys are messing up,” because I’m open ears and I’m always open to the relationships. Relationships that have helped me out throughout in this career… I’m not sure if you’re aware of who Marc Shapiro is, but I built a relationship with Marc Shapiro over here in Miami and he texts me every Friday. He— he’s Jewish, so he texts a Shabbat text every Friday, man. And I love it. That— that guy knows real estate up and down. Yeah. Yeah, he knows real estate up and down. Also, people in the mortgage space itself… I was mentioning the CEO of Clear 2 Close Home Loans, Mike Neumeier, he’s guided me a— a huge way, teaching me the ins and outs of the mortgage space. And before him, when I started in the business, I was working with George Viteri, who’s the owner of Superior Mortgage. And man, that’s when I really learned a lot about mortgages. That’s when he took me as a mentor and showed me the ropes that no one else would show me, along with Jacklyn Gonzalez, who was— I was her assistant for such a long time. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (18:56)
Yeah. Man, Gio, sir, this has been a— a privilege. Really an honor, man. I— it so— was so great talking to you. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, sir, how can they get in contact with you, man?

Giovanny Mirabal (19:12)
Man, honestly, the best way to reach me would be on my direct cell. This isn’t a 1-800 help me number; this is my direct cell phone number. If you text me, I can’t miss a text. I’ll probably miss a phone call, but not a text. And so you can reach me at 786-355-6164. That’s my direct cell phone number. If you want to reach me on Instagram, it’s mortgage_king_. Facebook: Giovanny Mirabal, just my full name. And that’s pretty much it. You guys can contact me through those ways. If you want, you can hit me up online. That’s pretty much another way, another form that I won’t miss as well.

Quentin Edmonds (19:45)
Yeah. Gio, man, let me say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time again— time is our most precious commodity. Secondly, thank you for your story, sir. Thank you for your authenticity, your— your integrity. I believe stories have a way of planting seeds. And we never know when they’re gonna grow, man, but the seed is there and it’s getting planted. So I appreciate you planting seeds. Lastly, man, thank you for your mindset, sir. Thank you for the way you think, and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you, sir.

Giovanny Mirabal (20:10)
Man. Hey, Quentin, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I really do.

Quentin Edmonds (20:12)
Absolutely. Well listen, y’all heard Gio, the Mortgage King. His information is in the show notes. Please get on it, get on it, get on the mission with him, right? This is a good guy. Get on the mission with him. Contact him, connect with him. But definitely make sure you subscribe here. Cause I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Gio. So, sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else— absolutely, my friend— and everyone else, well, have an incredible day.