Here’s How to Still Qualify for Your Home or Investment Property with a Smart Mortgage Broker

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Brent Graney shares his journey in the real estate and mortgage industry, detailing his experiences from the early 2000s to the present. He discusses the evolution of the mortgage landscape, the impact of the 2008 market crash, and the importance of adaptation in the real estate business. Brent emphasizes the benefits of working with mortgage brokers and provides insights into the current Florida real estate market, including trends in the condo market. He also offers advice for first-time homebuyers and investors looking to navigate the lending landscape.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Brent Graney’s Website
    • Brent Graney on Facebook
    • Brent Graney on Instagram
    • Brent Graney’s Phone Number: (786) 385-0511

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Brent Graney (00:00)
  the absolute number one place is brokermatchup.com in my opinion because I mean, I can back it up with facts, but of course I’m a broker. So I’m going to go that route with it’s going to be the broker channel because I know what it saves the borrower. It’s an average, it’s just under 10,000 per transaction, $10,000 per transaction. When you go with a broker versus a retail location, let’s say you go to ⁓

  Chase Home Loans or Regions, or one of the big box banks that they have loan programs, but that’s not really their expertise. And they are more expensive at the end of the day.

  Dylan Silver (02:10)
  Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Brent Graney with Florida Home Finance is a wholesale broker for investors as well as retail buyers. Brent, welcome to the show.

  Brent Graney (02:26)
  Hi Dylan, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

  Dylan Silver (02:29)
  It’s great to have you on here, Brent, and we were talking a little bit before the show was starting about the differences in some of the terminology, and I do want to dive into that here. But before we get into that, I want to ask you how you got started in real estate.

  Brent Graney (02:46)
  I actually got started in 2001 when I first moved down to Florida from New York. I was looking for a job and I found a company that was brokering loans and I ended up applying. They brought me in for an interview and we hit it off. I had some sales experience in the past. Everything went well. So I started training with them, learning the ropes of, of wholesaling and mortgage brokering. And from there I just grew and I now own my own

  company and I’m actually the owner of Florida Home Finance and ⁓ we I’ve learned so much over the years and I’ve continued on the path with the wholesale brokering even though along the years I did try other I worked for different banks I tried other methods of providing loans for people but I’m a mortgage guy through and through and and it all started in 2001 when I first moved down

  Dylan Silver (03:38)
  So I wanna add, we didn’t talk about this before hopping on here. South Florida, Florida in general, pre 2006, what was it like? It seems like a movie.

  Brent Graney (03:49)
  Yeah, I mean, back then it was different in a lot of ways. mean, Miami has developed so much. I’ve seen so much construction as they built out west in Swampland, basically. Chrome Avenue is one of the avenues that runs west ⁓ in Miami. It runs north and south, but it’s pretty far west. And there was no housing out there whatsoever. And now there’s tons of new construction that’s been going on for the last 10 years or so, 10 years plus.

  and also different parts of Miami that have grown. Everything except for the transit system. So we have our bad traffic got worse. Our population grew from about three and half million in 2001 to about six and a half million today and a lot of construction. But during those earlier years, there was definitely different types of loans. There was a lot of loans that were subprime, which were loans that people could get without verifying income. And they had what was called stated income.

  Dylan Silver (04:31)
  Yeah, wow.

  Brent Graney (04:47)
  where you just state someone makes X amount per month, but you didn’t have to verify it. And that was one of the issues that caused the market to crash in 2009

  because we weren’t verifying income and we were giving people loans with very low credit scores, 100 % financing. So the landscape of Miami at the time was, you know, go ahead and buy a property, it’s gonna increase in value and you’re gonna take that equity and either buy another property or add a pool and…

  remodel and there was a lot of refinancing going on and a lot of business and a lot of adjustable rate mortgages as well, which after the market crash, when it grew back, it was more 30 year fixed type mortgages, which are still the most popular today. But back then it was quite different.

  Dylan Silver (06:22)
  So was it like, you know, you get a home, you get a home, you get a home, like where people, you know, I don’t want to say minimum wage, but you know, not, not making, you know.

  more than $50,000 a year qualifying for homes with pools. And I also know at that point in time in maybe not Miami, but large parts of Florida, that you could get a very cost effective, nice brand new home with a pool where very middle class, even lower middle class income wise people buying and qualifying for these homes.

  Brent Graney (06:57)
  They were, there was programs that would allow them to qualify without showing the full income. It could be husband and wife and one of them’s making 50,000, the other one is in construction. And as long as they had a decent credit score, they would get the loan and it would be at a higher amount than what someone would qualify for today. Since now it’s based on, at least for primary residents, it’s based on income.

  and it’s based on debt to income ratios, they’ve got more strict. There are a lot of programs to help people on that side. We deal with down payment assistance and also we go up to 97 % financing. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which regulate conventional loans, they go up to 97 % financing. So you’re only putting down 3%, which I think is low. I think that’s a great program for first time home buyers because it’s not a huge amount that they have to save up. And then you also have FHA, which would be 3.5 % down.

  That’s a great program as well. It works with lower credit scores. But back in that time, you could do 100 % financing and not show your pay stubs and income. And that’s what it really set up a house of cards and it all fell down, you know? So yeah.

  Dylan Silver (08:09)
  So,

  man, this is such an interesting conversation for me to be having because I’m sure you were excited to be there. Like you’re probably, you know, getting into the business, you’re talking right around that timeframe. There’s a lot of money moving hands. People that are, you know, mortgage brokers are doing really well. You probably saw a lot of wealth being built, but then crash comes. I’m imagining you saw a lot of

  wealth leaving and people getting out of the mortgage business. Did you see this max exodus from mortgage at that point?

  Brent Graney (08:46)
  did. There was a huge amount of people that were displaced into different industries. Insurance, car sales. was just, it was hard for people to continue when so many banks were imploding and the programs changed quickly to where not as many people would qualify versus before when you could give so many different people loans and then refinance loans and it was…

  It was popular almost to refinance and just keep pulling money out of, know, take your equity out and use it for even trips, you know, traveling and, and home improvements and buying other properties. And then people were buying multiple properties to rent them out, but they didn’t have the reserves because it’s an, think it’s an important factor to have reserves. If you’re going to be a landlord, you’re going to be someone who owns investment properties, you should have some money put away, but people were just buying and buying without really having that.

  Investor structure in place to where they’re doing it the right way and then that all fell apart and unraveled and so many people were also in the industry of Home improvements and building pools and everything that was tied in together with that. So they were all affected as well

  Dylan Silver (09:43)
  Yeah.

  Brent Graney (10:33)
  So it was was a big crash in Miami. I mean it hit really hard here

  Dylan Silver (10:38)
  How did you get through that, man?

  Brent Graney (10:42)
  I honestly barely got through it. I had an office and I had to downsize. at one point, I mean, it was just such a struggle to even get one loan, but I would just find a loan that I could do, get through it. We couldn’t do FHA back then. I couldn’t because you couldn’t broker FHA. So with the wholesale lending and you broker,

  you have a lender that funds the loan, FHA wasn’t allowing the broker channel to fund or to originate FHA loans. You had to have what’s called ego status and you had to have a huge net worth and then you could qualify and underwrite your FHA loans and work with lenders that way and they would fund them. But a lot of brokers weren’t able to do that. So that was a hard part because as a lot of banks were…

  Imploding and programs were going away. The FHA program was always there three and half percent down low credit score Not so strict on credit So that was still there, but I couldn’t even do that program. So I really just had to Find whatever I could and get so many more applications just to close one loan because a lot of people were underwater the values were dropping during that time Very fast and people were owing more than what the value of the property was

  and it made it so you couldn’t do a refinance. And so it got difficult and actually for a while I ended up on the other side of things, which is lost mitigation, helping people keep their home and giving them loan modifications through a program that I was working with a lender with that they are actually a loan servicer that they had a lot of loans that were defaulted. And I would work those portfolios and bring them back to current. We’d buy the house back, whatever solution we could come up with.

  to help them keep the house in most cases. But yeah, I did that as well just to kind of supplement what was going on with the originating because it was a difficult time.

  Dylan Silver (12:36)
  Hey.

  Hey, love of the game, man. People have to pivot through those times. I everybody that I’ve talked with on this show who’s been in real estate for more than like five years has had to have not just a small, but a significant pivot in their business. you know, if I am almost skeptical of people, if they say, yeah, I’ve had, you know, I’ve sold homes for 20 years the same way, or I, you mortgage broker. I’m like, there was a time maybe where you weren’t doing that. Maybe you’re not doing the volume.

  that you say you’re doing. don’t know. what I have noticed is that these pivots, you talk from going in the more traditional space to loss mitigation and from helping people stay in their homes. That’s a lot of what I’ve seen, you know, investors doing on in a different regard. So maybe right now I’m licensed in Texas as a realtor. Fix and flip is maybe a little bit more challenging because there’s just so much new construction happening. So people are pivoting into how do I become a builder?

  a developer, how do I maybe get into multi-family? So they’re still in the game, it’s just a different avenue.

  Brent Graney (13:52)
  Correct, yeah, I’ve seen that as well with different people that I’ve met in the industry. They’ve had to pivot along the way. Even people that get into commercial purchasing with storage units, like those facilities with storage, that’s something that I know a few people that ended up pivoting from buying real estate going over to that market and buying it. It’s still real estate, but it’s just a different type of owner. Being an owner of a facility like that, you have many tenants that are

  basically just renting storage space versus a house where you have multiple moving parts. You know, have appliances that can break down, you have the, you know, the plumbing and different things that can happen along the way. And I’ve seen, I’ve seen that as well, just because everyone kind of has the different breaking point you could say, or a different time when they say, okay, that’s it. I need to try to get into something else. Well, this side of the business is either not doing that well, or it’s having more challenges.

  Dylan Silver (14:48)
  I want to ask you a granular question about what I guess the way to this would be

  who’s the right person for people to go see in their situation if they’re looking for their first home, their first home loan.

  so many different options that people can go to. And I think most of the time people start off on Google, and that’s how you end up with the behemoths, because they’ve got the most ad spend. But I am kind of woefully ignorant on this. The terms like wholesale broker, direct lender, indirect lender, and then of course you’ve got the big.

  behemoths, you can go find like rocket mortgage if you just Google mortgage. Where should people start?

  Brent Graney (16:09)
  Well,

  the absolute number one place is brokermatchup.com in my opinion because I mean, I can back it up with facts, but of course I’m a broker. So I’m going to go that route with it’s going to be the broker channel because I know what it saves the borrower. It’s an average, it’s just under 10,000 per transaction, $10,000 per transaction. When you go with a broker versus a retail location, let’s say you go to ⁓

  Chase Home Loans or Regions, or one of the big box banks that they have loan programs, but that’s not really their expertise. And they are more expensive at the end of the day.

  So, brokermatchup.com is excellent because it’s nationwide and it’ll hook you up with a broker in your area. It’ll connect you with someone that is experienced. You can see how they’re ranked. So if you put in your zip code, it’s gonna rank.

  ⁓ Top to bottom now how they’re ranked is with the lender that’s behind this. It’s called UWM United Wholesale Mortgage They’re the largest wholesale lender in the United States. They’re they’re behind it So you could say they’re powering it and they have they have all their brokers ranked and now that they’re ranked by Volume by the way, submit the loan meaning how clean is the file? How fast is it closed? How fast did they get conditions to the underwriter? So there’s there’s a lot behind it to get them in a status where they’re where they’re at

  meaning that they have good reviews as well and they’re someone that this lender is trusting to put at the top of the website. But brokermatchup.com is a great avenue, a great place to go to find a broker in your area that has the credentials, has the experience, has the rankings that someone would be looking for and they can go in with confidence knowing that that’s going to be someone that can help them in the right way. Because ⁓

  Dylan Silver (17:45)
  Yeah, yeah.

  Brent Graney (18:01)
  You you do find some misleading advertising in this industry and you find that there’s different misconceptions, but brokers have access to many different lenders in different programs, whether it be down payment assistance programs or first time home buyers, which is the same category, and also just the low interest rates, low cost type loans versus retail. So that’s a great tool to use.

  Dylan Silver (18:29)
  It’s interesting because as we’re talking about this again with me being a licensed realtor I’m realizing okay, and I’m newer I’m in my first year in business, but still like it’s confusing for me someone who’s younger maybe just at a school looking for their first home and Maybe they got turned down at one place because they don’t have you know tremendous credit that to them they might think okay Well, I guess I can’t buy a home, but I’ve now seen like it’s very dependent on

  the lender that you go to. I didn’t even think about this idea of wholesale brokering and of really scanning the landscape in that regard, but it makes a huge difference, the person you’re talking to, not just your situation.

  Brent Graney (19:12)
  Right. And I can’t tell you how many people we’ve had that have been declined elsewhere and we are able to pre-approve them and close them. There is a builder that we work with that we are the fallout lender for them and they have a hard stop on DTI at 50%. So DTI is the debt to income ratio. Basically, it’s how much your mortgage payment is going to be along with your monthly obligations, which could be your car payment, credit card payment divided by your income.

  So if your mortgage and everything else is $5,000 and your income is $10,000, you have a 50 % ratio. So that ratio is, it can be set by the lender depending on where you go. So you could go to a bank and they could say, we have a hard stop at 50%. Now we go up to 56.9%, which is the highest that FHA allows. And that window right there between 50 and 56.9

  A lot of people fall into that window and it allows more people to get qualified with us, let’s say, or a lender that allows that higher ratio compared to a lender that has the 50 % hard stop. So we did so many pre-approvals for people and we were able to actually approve them, close them for many different lenders, but that builder is one example because they have their own lender and they have that hard stop. And there’s also other criteria as well that fall into place.

  whether it be ⁓ just overall credit criteria, ⁓ whether or not the lender is going to allow another borrower that’s not going to occupy the property, a non-occupant co-borrower. There’s different ways to structure the loan. You have a credit score, of course. You have three credit scores and you have the middle credit score from each borrower. Most lenders traditionally will use the higher of the two. We have lenders that will use the higher score of the breadwinner, which would be the one that makes the most money.

  Dylan Silver (21:07)
  Mm.

  Brent Graney (21:08)
  They get denied somewhere because the one that makes them the lower amount of money has a very low score and the lender is saying we’re going to use that 550 credit score and they come to us. We can use both borrowers. We can use the income together. But now we’re using the higher credit score of the breadwinner that has a 700.

  Dylan Silver (21:28)
  Yeah, that’s a humongous difference. I feel like when I am hearing that, most lenders are going to be cautious and say, well, we got to factor in the person with the lower credit. So to be able to remove that credit score from the file makes a huge difference. I want to give kudos to that builder too, because they’re really going above and beyond to try to get themselves some business and get people in homes, which is what this is all about. At the end of the day.

  Brent Graney (21:49)
  Yes.

  Dylan Silver (21:53)
  Yes, money comes and goes, but ultimately, the more that we can service the community, get people into homes, the more our business will expand. so many times, people could, a similar builder, they could go to the builder, the in-house financing gets rejected, they might say, okay, out of sight, out of mind, onto the next. But to get someone into that home, that is gonna be a very…

  loyal referral. They’re going to be so grateful for it. And I could see them going to that builder with more people ⁓ or just spreading, you know, the good word for them.

  Brent Graney (22:29)
  Yes, and that’s exactly what has happened with this builder that we’ve been working with them for about two and half years. And the amount of referrals that we’ve gotten from them after they started to realize how we work. And we also like to move fast. So we would try to close as fast as we could. We try to do a two to three week closing on purchases. So when we strive to do that and they see how fast we’re moving and that we’re approving people that they couldn’t approve with their lender, it kind of snowballed from there. And then we have people coming back.

  from those loans and wanting to refinance and also referring friends and family.

  Dylan Silver (23:05)
  I want to pivot a bit here, Brent, and ask you about the Florida market today specifically. But I actually want to ask you more specifically, Florida Home Finance is the name of the company, right? So I’m imagining your loans are all in Florida for people who are living in Florida.

  Brent Graney (23:22)
  So that’s actually a great topic to bring up because for primary residents, we can only do Florida. We were licensed only in Florida. But when it comes to the DSCR loans, which I can go into deeper, which are designed for investment, we can do almost every state in the United States. ⁓ Right now, we can’t do California, Arizona, and New Jersey, but we can do all the other states on an investment product.

  It’s pretty interesting how that works. We’re partnered with the lender, the investor that does the loan, and we do it through the wholesale channel, and they allow the property to be in a different state as long as it’s not gonna be occupied by the buyer. It needs to be an investment property.

  Dylan Silver (24:05)
  Hmm.

  Now. This is related to this, and it’s given me some pause because I love the idea of doing real estate remotely, but I’ve seen now the people that are involved in hard money loans, direct lending on the traditional side. It seems like the whole idea of lending money is now borderless. So I like talking with someone like yourself whose business is focused in one area because to me as a realtor, I’m thinking.

  You gotta be aware of all the specific programs that are very much regional to your area. It’s hard to be a master everywhere. Do you feel the same way?

  Brent Graney (24:44)
  I do and we, that’s kind of why I stay away from commercial because I like to focus more on the residential and we do have multiple programs and we find niche programs with different lenders that we partner with, but staying kind of on course with, know, first time home buyers is one of our major channels and then investors would be the other channel and it’s gotten to be about 50-50 at this point. And

  I like that business model because when I’ve tried to venture off into the commercial financing realm and it’s gotten to be, it’s very time consuming and it’s a totally different type of lending. So I try to keep it more focused. But when it comes to the wholesale side of it, you really have to be in the game. can’t be just kind of a part-time, part-time brokering to me, just doesn’t work.

  You know, I am always reading the new guidelines, reading what’s coming up next, what’s changing. And that can be for all types of programs, investment programs, ⁓ homeowner, know, first time homebuyer, primary residence. Condos is a big thing down here in Miami that is different in Miami, South Florida, I should say, than it is in other parts of the country because they have a much more stricter guidelines to qualify for a condo here than they do in other parts of the country. And that’s because of the condo itself.

  not the loan program per se, the condo has to also qualify through a questionnaire. They have to have reserves, a 10%, and they have to meet some other requirements. So the condos have been something that, they’ve been a challenge, but there’s also many moving parts around the condos. But we also do the condos as well. But I think it’s a matter of, it’s such a fluid industry, it’s always changing. You kind of just have to, you really have to be on top of the new guidelines.

  Dylan Silver (26:38)
  So condos is an interesting, ⁓ we could do a whole podcast probably about condos. Is this a growing mark? I imagine it’s been in Miami for quite some time, but is there more interest now in condos, both because of price point, maybe because of people wanting to get out of renting, but not being able to afford the homes per se? Is there some waves being made in the condo realm?

  Brent Graney (26:43)
  yeah, yeah.

  I would say there’s really, there’s a market for condos and they’re still building more condos downtown and different, they’re building huge skyscrapers and there’s definitely a market for them. The price point can come into play when there’s someone who will come to me, let’s say to get pre-approved and they can’t qualify for a single family residence, a townhouse, and then they go for the condo. They kind of have to fall into that price point. So that’s the biggest factor.

  I would say that causes people to kind of go into that market and start looking at condos just because the price point can go much lower. And then I advise them to look at it as a stepping stone. Buy the condo, live in there for two or three years, save up while you’re there, and then that will become an investment property eventually. And that’s really how I look at it. I would say that I’ve seen in our applications, I’ve seen a decline in condos.

  Dylan Silver (27:54)
  That’s right.

  Brent Graney (28:04)
  in the past year. I’ve seen it in mortgage applications, but that’s just for what I’m seeing. And I’ve also had people who will wait to buy a townhouse or a single family before they buy a condo because they want to avoid homeowners associations which don’t have the best reputation.

  Dylan Silver (28:09)
  Yeah, yeah.

  What and I know it’s going to be a range here and difficult question, but what’s what’s like the range of a price of a condo in Miami?

  Brent Graney (28:30)
  So you can go down to the low 200s, let’s say about 210, 220, but that’s gonna be a one bedroom, one bath. That’s where they’re gonna start and then they go all the way up into the millions. If you’re gonna be in, let’s say Kendall is like ⁓ an area of Miami that’s ⁓ it’s Southwest and it’s pretty affluent, it’s a nice area. You’re gonna get a condo there, maybe like a three, two for like four, maybe in the 400 range.

  Dylan Silver (28:41)
  Wow.

  Brent Graney (28:58)
  You might find something in the threes that’s older because we have seen a little bit of a decline in property values, but it’s kind of tricky because earlier this year, the property values were declining in Florida. in recent, in the past few months, we see a little bit of an increase, but mainly on single family. But we’re seeing the market is tricky and it does come down to supply and demand. There was a lot of people that moved here during the pandemic from California, New York, and they were bringing

  a lot of money with them. They were selling the property from where they’re coming from, and they were coming here, and they were actually even willing to overpay on a property. during the pandemic, it was kind of a strange time because we were going through everything together as a nation, but then there was the economy. When it came to the market for the housing, it was actually strong. was a high price point market, and it was more of a seller’s market. People were overpaying. But then it all kind of died out last year.

  into the beginning of this year. But I’m not sure the exact reason, but there’s a little bit of an increase in price in the last few months that we’re seeing. And I don’t know the exact reason for that, but that is what we’re seeing lately.

  Dylan Silver (30:11)
  could really have a whole conversation about condos. They’re interesting to me. Where I live out in the Dominican Republic, it’s very much condos. Sometimes they use this word penthouse, which I feel like to us means a totally different thing, but they are kind of interchangeable when they’re thinking about condos. And you’ll see like renters, owners of the condos mixed together. So it’s two totally different, you know,

  Brent Graney (30:15)
  Yeah.

  Dylan Silver (30:35)
  plays for the person who’s living there, but for the investor, they’re like, we need to get everything sold. If it’s not, it’s going to be rented out. We could have a whole other podcast about that, but we are coming up on time here though, Brent. ⁓ Where can folks go if they’re in Florida, maybe a first time buyer, maybe they’re an investor themselves. They’re looking at a deal, not sure where to get the lending from. How can folks reach out to you and your team?

  Brent Graney (30:44)
  Yeah.

  Okay, so my phone number is 786-385-0511. You can call anytime and I’d be happy to go over any information, any questions that you have, get you pre-approved. ⁓ Also, our website is www.floridahomefinance.mortgage and that’s a great place to go. We’re on social media. If you look up me, Brent Graney, I come up.

  and you’ll see a lot of information as well. I literally use my personal page as a business page. Also, we do have the photo home finance page as well. So if you just look up photo home finance on Instagram, Facebook, we’re on there. feel free to call any time. I I talk to people every day. Sometimes it’s not the right time to buy. Sometimes people just have questions on the process. We guide a lot of people and set people up to become homeowners.

  and also investors that are able to buy properties. I’m working with people now that I met when they were in their early 20s and fast forward 10 years later and they have eight, nine properties under their belt and they followed what I had set them up to do. And sometimes it’s about, it’s just about having the format, having the guideline, have, you know, knowing what you can and cannot do, knowing where your credit should be, knowing what your down payment needs to be, knowing how the investor loans work.

  ⁓ There’s a lot of great information on that and it’s a great avenue to go through brokers, not just because I’m a broker, but I know what the cost, the savings can be when you go through this channel. But definitely feel free to reach out anytime and ⁓ you know, by phone, that’s probably the best option. But if you look me up on social media as well, you can send a DM and I’d be happy to speak with anyone.

  Dylan Silver (32:47)
  Brent, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

  Brent Graney (32:51)
  Thanks Dylan, I appreciate it.