How to Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster: Grant Lee Explains CMG’s All In One Loan Strategy

Grant Lee (00:00)

And a big reason why I wanted to come on this podcast is we have a proprietary product called the All In One Loan. And this particular product, it is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It is a revolutionary new way to pay off your mortgage. The way that it works—I’ll keep it quick—they allow you to pay your principal first as opposed to paying the mortgage interest. A lot of people don’t know that when you buy a house, let’s say you buy a house for four hundred thousand dollars,

you’re probably going to pay like $450,000 in interest and you’re really not going to start paying off your principal balance until years 15 to 20. The problem with that is that statistically, people tend to refinance or sell their home within five to seven years.

Quentin Edmonds (02:13)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds.

And I’m super excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest. And yes, I say that, but I deliver every time, like my guests, they are fantastic. And this gentleman is no different. I love his inspiration, I love his outlook. Listen, he’s a loan officer, lender, but so much more. And he—he works with CMG Home Loans, he’s an entrepreneur,

and so he’s definitely business-minded, business-savvy. And I love the fact that he just wants to help people. He wants to educate people, and so I’m super excited for us to peek through the lens of Mr. Grant Lee. Mr. L—Mr. Grant, how you doing today, sir?

Grant Lee (02:55)

I am doing spectacular. Thank you for that warm introduction, Q. How are you doing today?

Quentin Edmonds (02:59)

Man, thank you, sir. I’m doing good. You are what my wife calls an “and you” person. So if you ask somebody, like, “How are you?”, some people say, “I’m good,” but then some people say, “I’m good, and you?” And so you are an “and you” person, so thank you. I am doing great, man. I’m glad that you’re here. Yeah, right, right. I’m glad that you’re here. I’m glad we get to do this together, man. And Grant, if I’m being honest, bro, I’m the type, I like to dive right in.

So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in, and then tell them what market you’re operating in. So Grant, my friend, you have the floor, sir.

Grant Lee (03:37)

Yeah, absolutely. So once again, my name is Grant Lee. I am a senior loan officer with CMG Home Loans, been in the business for about four years. I am based out of Tampa, Florida. However, I’m licensed nationwide, so if you need any help at all, give me a call. I’d be happy to walk through any type of scenarios that you got going on. And I think you said an origin story about how I got started. Have you seen the movie The Wolf of Wall Street? Yes.

Quentin Edmonds (04:01)

Sir.

Grant Lee (04:01)

So there’s that scene where Jonah Hill and Leo—

Leonardo DiCaprio, they meet for the first time and Jonah’s trying to figure out like, “Hey, what do you do? I see you driving this nice car, like how much money do you make?” And then Leo gives him an answer and he says, “There’s no way. Show me a pay stub for that right now and I’ll quit my job,” right. And that’s exactly what happened. So similar story to me: I was in between jobs and I had a fascination with real estate. I grew up reading all of the books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, I was listening to the BiggerPockets podcast.

So I was very interested with the idea of real estate, I just didn’t know where to get started. So when I had found out one of my fraternity brothers was in the space of mortgage lending, I started inquiring more about the job and it seemed aligned with what I wanted to do. So I asked him—this is during COVID, by the way—”How much money did you make last month?” And he said thirty thousand dollars. And I had never heard of people making that much money in one month, right? So I told him, “Get me a job interview right now. I’m fired up, let’s go.”

I didn’t have any sales experience, didn’t have any real estate experience, I didn’t even have my mortgage license, but I had a good first interview. I guess the branch manager saw something in me and decided to give me an opportunity, and I took it and ran with it, right? Yeah. Within the first week of being on the job, I already had my first deal locked up, and this is in September of 2022 when rates went from three to seven percent, right? So I was over there cold calling,

putting in the work, doing anything I could to get some business, and they were very impressed that I got a deal so quick in my tenure, because most agents and most lenders, it takes them a little bit of time to get that ball rolling. But I dove in headfirst and just got after it, and I was able to start closing deals, yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (06:30)

Yeah, Grant, man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for taking us through the journey. I—I love stories, right? I try to be the best storyteller. When people talk, I see things in pictures. And so, man, thank you for the Wolf of Wall Street reference, thank you for the—the $30k, like because as you talk it, I’m seeing the movie play. I’m seeing the Grant—I’m seeing the Grant movie play, right? Yeah.

Grant Lee (06:51)

That’s

right.

Quentin Edmonds (06:52)

The $30k a month, that was the hook for you. You got your first deal within a week. And so I often say destiny has no wasted moments, right?

Grant Lee (07:01)

That’s beautiful. I love that.

Quentin Edmonds (07:03)

Right? We learn from every leg of the journey, like nothing’s random. We’re—we’re borrowing from the failure, we’re borrowing from the success, and it’s reinforcing the people we are today. So, man, $30k was the hook, got your first deal within a week, but now the ball is rolling, you’ve been successful. I want to know:

what did the journey reveal to you about yourself? Like what did the journey reveal to Grant about Grant? Did it make you more humble? Did it increase your tenacity? Did it increase discipline? Like talk to me, what was the journey revealing to you as it—as it was unfolding?

Grant Lee (07:34)

Yeah, absolutely. The biggest lesson I learned from this journey is that I am not made to be a fixed-income employee. I need to be in a sales position. As a loan officer, I’m a hundred percent commissioned. So the only time I get paid is if the deal closes, right? And as a result, I’m required to give the most amount of value I can possibly give and expect nothing in return, right, yeah. And the fun part is you never know what your paycheck’s gonna be. You never know what you’re getting paid or when you’re getting paid, but life has a way of working things out.

So what I’ve realized is in the fixed-income environment, I found myself very unmotivated to go above and beyond in my work. Once I got into a position where, you know, you have to get after it and you have to be self-motivated, I found out that I have been the most motivated in my whole entire life by working in this type of job. Before, I would look at the clock and I would wait for, you know, the day to be over so I could go home. Nowadays I find myself working until

midnight, 1:00, 2:00 AM sometimes, right? And sometimes I gotta tell myself to slow down and like close my laptop, because in this business you can work as many hours as you want, right? During like the on-hours you can work on your prospecting, and then once you’re off you can work on dialing your systems or vibe coding with Claude, right? So that’s the biggest thing is just I need to be like a self-sufficient, like motivated, commission-only or entrepreneurial person.

Quentin Edmonds (08:55)

Yes, sir. Well, man, you—you literally walked me into something I want to inquire about: systems, right? Sys—we—we—we know to be successful, you gotta have systems in place, you gotta have habits in place. And so on an operational level, like what is—what is maybe one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say maybe like the last two years, that has really helped you be successful?

Grant Lee (09:14)

Yeah, I’m happy you asked. The biggest thing I’ve done for myself in my business is tracking my KPIs. So every single day I have been logging all my prospecting activities. This is anything from social media, the comments, the DMs that I’m sending, how many people I’ve called that I’ve spoken to, how many video calls that I have, how many meetings that I go on, how many events that I go to, how many deals I’m closing—all that stuff is being tracked on a regular basis. And I’ve tracked before, but this past year I got a really, really good tracker

that’s allowed me to dial in my—my systems and my KPIs. And I’ve been super consistent this year, tracking them every single day, and I’m super proud of that.

Quentin Edmonds (09:52)

Man, love it, man. Like systems are everything. So one—one of my favorite books is the book Atomic Habits. And if I say it—

Grant Lee (09:59)

Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (10:00)

Yeah, James Clear, you got it. So help me, help me make sure I say this right: Like we don’t fall to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems, right? So—and so, man, and so having those systems in place, having a tracker in place, that’s gonna pay strong dividends to success, and—and in a way the outcome is gonna happen moving forward. And so

speaking of moving forward, Grant, what’s next for you, man? What are you—what’s the next real goal? Where are you looking to solve and scale next? What’s next for you, man?

Grant Lee (10:26)

Next for me is to scale my business. I have goals that I have, financial and personal goals. And the only way I’m gonna be able to get there is if I start stacking more bread and closing more deals, yeah. So to give you a little bit of context, last year I ended the year with about twelve million dollars of mortgage volume that I closed, about thirty-two transactions. So I was operating about three to four loans a month. What I wanna do is go from twelve million to about forty million, so my goal is to close about three times more volume,

yeah, than I was doing this pr—this previous year. So I want to work on closing about ten deals a month, and that’s what’s got me really excited. I have been working on a couple of different things that are gonna help me get to that goal, mostly working with referral partners that are doing a lot of volume and people that are qualified agents, because let’s be honest, everyone and their mother is a real estate agent.

But doesn’t mean you should be pursuing every single one. The ones that I’m after are the ones that are gonna recognize me as a partner in their business, and those are gonna be the ones that are doing enough loans or closings for me to be able to achieve the goal that I’m trying to achieve.

Quentin Edmonds (11:30)

Yes,

sir. Grant, it’s almost like you’re in my head, man, because I’m sitting here like, okay, what’s gonna be my next question? And when you said referral partners, I was already thinking the word relationship, right? And so I would love to know just from your perspective, how do you see building healthy—healthy business relationships, healthy partnerships? Like what is your philosophy on building it? And what are some relationships or spheres that have helped you be successful, and relationships that have helped you be successful so far?

Grant Lee (11:58)

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. Right now, my criteria is for looking at for people that are qualified, right? They have to be doing a certain amount of volume every single year for me to be considering that person to be worthwhile to pursue, right. And past that, my philosophy is: Number one, they have to do business. Number two, we have to get together and we have to have a—a good relationship, and we actually have to enjoy each other’s company,

right, because there’s so many people out there that could be doing great business, but I’m not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea, right. I want to find my tribe of dedicated ten, twenty, thirty agents. And Realtors is usually my biggest referral partner, because they’re the ones that home buyers go to first—same with investors as well. But yeah, I just want to have a book of business of agents that I love working with, that appreciate me for what I do for their business. And really that’s the biggest thing. The type of rooms that help me get around those type of people

is different events. I’m big on networking, I go to so many different networking events. I think for the year I’ve already gone to about 120 events. Wow, it’s September. So getting in those rooms, people see you, they start to realize like, “Hey, maybe I should get in contact with this person, because they’re super active and they’re doing a lot of deals.” Past that, different walks of life. I mean, I don’t really like cold calling people, I think that’s a terrible approach, especially a lender calling like a Realtor. They get blown up every single day. Like ten

lenders will call one Realtor if they’re doing a lot of business, and they’re probably sick of it. So the type of people that I pursue are people that I’ve either met in person, or I’ve connected with through like a warm handoff, you know what I mean? Yeah, so realistically, networking events, different type of like CE classes if you can sponsor those, and then just different walks of life. I’ve been in Tampa for about 15 years and I went to high school here, I went to college here. I was in a fraternity,

I was in the music industry and nightlife industry. I was a pretty successful DJ back in the day in the EDM music scene. And even right now, I’m still doing events on the side as a DJ for like—like private parties and high-end weddings and stuff like that.

Quentin Edmonds (13:57)

I want you to brag on yourself a little bit. What sets you apart, Grant? Like when someone sits down with you,

maybe what are they gonna get with you that may—they may not get with someone—someone else?

Grant Lee (14:07)

Well, I got a good vibe, for starters, right? That’s a good way to kick it off. But after that, I consider myself to be, instead of just a regular loan officer, I like to be a strategist that helps investors and home buyers find creative financing solutions to their problems, right? A lot of loan officers, they kind of fit into a small bucket. Maybe they do like three or four different loans. Over here at CMG, I have access to about a thousand different in-house products, and we have three hundred broker partners,

right. CMG is the number four largest retail lender in the country. I was telling you earlier, they did thirty-five billion dollars in home loans last year alone, licensed nationwide. They’re getting so successful to the point where they’re buying banks. Usually, banks have a mortgage division. In this case, we’re getting so successful that we are buying banks and getting our FDIC charter, right. So with that, I’m able to get very creative, and I have

went to the moon and back for my clients in terms of the products that we offer. I mean, we have proprietary products that allow you to pay off your mortgage in like five to ten years instead of thirty years. Past that, we do a lot of non-QM stuff. I know a lot of the investors in this room probably do DSCR loans, maybe they do like fix and flips, ground-up construction, maybe they do like bank statement loans or they’re self-employed, stuff like that, and we have a solution for every one of those people.

And a big reason why I wanted to come on this podcast is we have a proprietary product called the All In One Loan. And this particular product, it is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It is a revolutionary new way to pay off your mortgage. The way that it works—I’ll keep it quick—they allow you to pay your principal first as opposed to paying the mortgage interest. A lot of people don’t know that when you buy a house, let’s say you buy a house for four hundred thousand dollars,

you’re probably going to pay like $450,000 in interest and you’re really not going to start paying off your principal balance until years 15 to 20. The problem with that is that statistically, people tend to refinance or sell their home within five to seven years.

So if you’re constantly restarting that hamster wheel, you’re really not making much room or progress in terms of building equity long term, right? So what we did is we developed this product,

and it’s kind of like a sweep checking account. What if we could use the dollars that are passing through your bank account and turn that into a superpower to pay down your principal balance? Now the benefits of this program, we talked about it before: pay off your loan in five to ten years, you have access to all your liquidity so you get incentivized to make additional payments, and your mortgage payment goes down every single month, right? Isn’t that crazy? So if you’re an investor, imagine that just from having this loan,

not only are you paying your mortgage off much sooner, your cash flow is increasing every single month. If you’re a homeowner, the benefit to this program is instead of wasting hundred thousand dollars on interest, making the banks rich, you’re putting more wealth and equity into your pocket. And once your house is paid off, you’re gonna have four hundred thousand more dollars to invest into whatever you want, to really grow and amplify your wealth. Now, wouldn’t that be like a life-changing product for so many different people if they found out about it? Mm-hmm.

Quentin Edmonds (17:18)

Yes, sir. Man, well, listen, there it is. I’m glad you put that out there, I’m glad we got that on record so that people can really see why CMG. Like, this is why. So no, man, I appreciate you, Grant. Listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

Grant Lee (18:21)

So the best way to reach me would be through phone or email. My phone number is 813-618-9095, and my email address is grantl@cmghomeloans.com. Also feel free to connect with me on social media, @grantleeteam on all platforms.

Quentin Edmonds (18:39)

Yeah, love it, man. Well, listen, let me say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. And yeah, I know how podcasts work, but you gave us your time, and so I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Secondly, man, thank you for just sharing. Thank you for your authenticity, thank you for your integrity, thank you for showing up and dropping some what I call seeds.

And we never know, like seeds can take root and grow at any given time. We don’t know, but the seed is there, it’s getting—it’s dropped, and now we just gotta get planted in good soil. And so the people that’s listening, they got the seed. I just hope we get planted in good soil. But thank you for dropping some seeds, man. Lastly, Grant, man, thank you for your mindset, man. Thank you for the way you think, the way you process, and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on, sir.

Grant Lee (19:23)

Absolutely. I love that you said seeds, because I—I use that metaphor all the time for our line of work. As a salesperson, I consider to be like a farmer, right? And we’re planting seeds, and then we’re nurturing and tending to our crops, and then if we do a good enough job, then we can yield that harvest. So I really like that you said that.

Quentin Edmonds (19:40)

Sweet, man, yes. Look, that’s—that’s the mic drop. That’s the mic drop. So again, man, I really appreciate you coming on. Everyone, I’m trying to make sure, because you—you got—you got that C thing. It’s like I want to build on that, but I’m like, no, let me—let me—let me—let me call my horses. But everyone, y’all heard Mr. Grant. Please get in contact with him. His information is in the show notes, so please get in contact with him, get connected with him.

But definitely make sure you are subscribed here, cause at the top of the show, I told you my man was gonna be fantastic and you see it, and we’re gonna continue to bring up fantastic people, just like the Grant Lee. So, sir, I appreciate you. Thank you so much again for coming on. And everyone else, y’all have an incredible day.