Mortgage Punk: Disrupting the Home Loan Industry with Chris Waipa

Chris Waipa (00:00)
I’m kind of sick of my industry. I think it blows and sucks. And I’m ready to just say it like that. Like this is this needs that something needs to change. Like people should have a really good time buying the American dream. I mean, it’s the number one wealth accumulator in America.

Hey, we’re mortgage punk. we’re punking the mortgage industry

Quentin (01:55)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am excited. I am excited today because I have someone here who’s been in the business for a long time. mean, he has a lot of different kinds of things on his belt. He’s been in banking, new construction, investing. Right now he cuts his teeth being an investor and a lender. Listen, I am so excited and I should have asked you about your last name before I came on, but I’m going to take a stab at it. Mr. Chris Waipa.

How did I do?

Chris Waipa (02:25)
⁓

Almost. 60 percent, maybe.

Quentin (02:29)
60%, okay. Give

us your last name, Mr. Chris.

Chris Waipa (02:34)
It’s Waipa. Waipa from Hawaii. Well, I’m not from Hawaii. My dad’s from Hawaii. So I’m a Kansas boy with a Hawaiian last name. So.

Quentin (02:36)
Waipa!

man.

Absolutely, I apologize. I always say I like to respect on people’s names. So man, please forgive me, Mr. Chris. But listen, man. Yeah, absolutely. I know.

Chris Waipa (02:50)
Hey, least you were bold enough to try it. So, kudos to you. I wouldn’t even try it, man. I would’ve said just watch the last game,

dude. Like, I’ll get it wrong, probably.

Quentin (03:01)
Absolutely,

Thank you for your grace, I appreciate it. And listen, I know our listeners are going to take away something from your approach to where you do business, your insight. And so listen, man, I just want to dive right in, man. Of course, people may not be familiar with you, familiar with your world and what you do. So just give us a short version of what it is your main focus is these days. And also tell me what markets you’re operating in.

Chris Waipa (03:07)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Sure, and before I start or answer that question, did you introduce yourself as Q? Is that what I call you? Do I call you Q?

Quentin (03:36)
Yes, can

call me Quentin, you can call me Q. I just try to keep it as memorable as possible. So Q, I think everybody can get along with, right? So it’s all up to you, Mr. Yes, sir.

Chris Waipa (03:51)
So you want me to give you a two minute bio? Is that what you’re asking for?

Quentin (03:54)
Listen man, I’ll ask the question however way you want to respond to it, it is up to you. I want people to get to know you and what you do, man.

Chris Waipa (04:02)
So I’m in the Wichita, Kansas market. So kind of right smack dab in the middle of the country. ⁓ And ⁓ I’ve been in banking now, mortgage banking for 23 years, ⁓ but it’s not the career that I chose. I ⁓ am a kid that grew up without ⁓ a lot of money around me. We grew up just pretty average.

probably lower middle-class-ish, I guess. So I’m kind of an 80s kid, like hardcore 80s. Like if you show me you’re wearing 80s stuff, I’ll get all fired up. And so I make a lot of 80s references. So because of that, I was a BMX kid. I was kind of the skater boy, BMX, sort of on the outskirts of all the popular kids. ⁓ Everybody seemed to kind of like me, but…

then I was never really had really super tight close relationships. ⁓ I had kind of a crazy ⁓ semi messy upbringing to a degree. you know, I kind of focused on my bike and like, you know, I don’t know how old you are, Quentin, but like in the eighties and the nineties, like if you have a BMX bike, like what else are you going to do? Like there’s no game gaming system.

or nothing, you go find something to entertain yourself with. So anyhow, I found that in like rock music, punk rock music, BMX bikes, skater, skater, skater, although I probably leaned more towards the BMX side of things. ⁓ And then in my younger years, after I graduated from high school, ⁓ I met my wife of 27 years now. We’ve been married, four kids.

⁓ and when her and I were super young, we were in a rock band. And so throughout the late nineties, ⁓ that’s what I had my focus on. And if you’d have told me back then that the rock band was going to blow up in my face and I was going to become a banker that wears a suit around an office, like I might’ve jumped off a cliff. ⁓ or I would’ve just denied all of your claims and lived in, you know,

Just utter disbelief. So anyhow, ⁓ so I had to pick up a job after this train wreck of a ⁓ band that we had with a really good following, a really strong following. And believe it or not, Quentin, to this day, all of our band members are professional musicians. Like they play with major recording artists. They’re on salary, they tour, or they’re now starting to slow down and not tour anymore. So man, I’m the only dude that went into

Banking in real estate and I didn’t even want to do it like I felt like happy Gilmore like I just wanna play hockey like I’m I just want to play my guitar I you know, I don’t care if I can do mortgages. Okay, you know, I just want it. I don’t care. So that’s my story so I’ve been at the banking industry the mortgage industry specifically for now for 23 years And that’s my I’m like that’s what I’m laser focused on mortgages mortgages mortgages

So that’s a little bit about me. I don’t know that’s the answer you’re looking for, but ⁓ so yeah.

Quentin (08:13)
Man.

Listen,

we will definitely go with that answer. I was born, I’m an 80s baby. Baby, I was born in the 80s. I begged my father for a BMX bike. Begged him for a BMX bike. You know what this guy, you know what my father did? Now I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. I don’t know if you guys know anything about Baltimore, Maryland. Like you said, you grew up rough. I grew up rough. Baltimore is rough. My dad got me a girl bike and flipped the handlebars.

Chris Waipa (08:41)
Yeah.

Quentin (08:47)
upside down. So it was a 10 speed and he flipped down and the boys upside down. Man, when I tell you I had to fight for my life.

Chris Waipa (08:55)
Dude, that’s the worst thing I’ve seen. Did he at least put pegs on it for you?

Quentin (08:59)
So…

Nah, man.

Nah, man. Then it got mad at me when I didn’t want to ride it. It was a total debacle, man. It was a total debacle, man. I was begging somebody to steal that bike. Please just steal it. My bike wasn’t even worthy to steal, man. This is crazy, man. So no. So I get you, man. I understand what you mean, man. But I’m so glad you was able to get through those waters, man. Be to where you are. Right? 27 years. I think you said what?

Chris Waipa (09:16)
Thank

That’s hilarious.

Quentin (09:32)
I’m four kids, Man.

Chris Waipa (09:35)
four kids from an

18 year old daughter and then three boys, 13 year old, 19 year old and a four year old boy. So they’re all across the spectrum and I’m just gonna be an old dad. That’s what’s gonna be happening with me. ⁓

Quentin (09:44)
Absolutely, Yeah. Listen, I hear you, And listen, I

mean, you taught some stuff to my heart. I thought I would be songwriting for the rest of my life. I wrote some songs for stage plays. I thought I would be

Chris Waipa (09:58)
Okay.

Quentin (10:35)
huge, man. And here we are, Chris. We’re talking to each other today, So I hear you, So listen, man, you got a lot going on, man. You got a wonderful family. You in business.

I know things are not always easy in this climate. So what keeps you motivated? What keeps you running smoothly,

Chris Waipa (10:56)
Well, ⁓ I would say two things have happened ⁓ over the past three years that really have helped inspire me and keep me moving through the daily grind. ⁓ So number one is I got into a coaching program about three years ago and it’s a business coaching program specifically for lending.

And that has significantly changed my

operation from just a solo loan officer doing some mortgage loans to building a branch and a brand and a team and a process to deliver just exceptional service in the mortgage industry because it has a big problem in that area. So that’s number one, I would say, is my coaching. So I was never a big believer.

Now I’m like, okay, Michael Jordan had a coach. If the best of the best of the best need a coach, well, I’m a believer now. Get a coach if you want to go to another level anyway and compete at the top. which that’s kind of who I am. ⁓ So that’s ⁓ one thing that’s changed significantly in my business. The second thing would be my brand. ⁓

about right about the same time. about three years ago, I got with a marketing and branding company. And I said, look, like,

I’m kind of sick of my industry. I think it blows and sucks. And I’m ready to just say it like that. Like this is this needs that something needs to change. Like people should have a really good time buying the American dream. I mean, it’s the number one wealth accumulator in America.

you know, just amongst average individuals, ⁓ buying homes. And so I got with this branding company and I said, Hey, I don’t quite know what I want to do. I know that everything’s going online and I don’t want to be left behind. So help me get there. And then I want to do something to disrupt my industry. I don’t know what it is, but I’m like, I want to spend the rest of my career, like disrupting the system.

and figuring out a way to make this better for people and serve people better. You know, like take super good care of them when they’re going through the process of getting financing. so anyhow, we just threw ⁓ probably about a six to eight month period of balancing ideas back and forth and meeting up and, you know, for brainstorming sessions. I ended up hiring this kid that was fresh out of college. Like he had long hair.

chains hanging down his jeans. came into my business networking group. He was super quiet. Like you could tell he was a total introvert. And I was just like, man, I love this kid. I don’t even know anything about him. Don’t care. I just was kind of watching him. And so he stood up in front of our business group and he said, Hey, you know, here’s my name. Just graduated from, you know, business school. And I got my degree in marketing and graphic design. And I brought my little notebook. So you a little spiral notebook, Quentin. And he’s like,

If you want to see some of my artwork, I got my spiral notebook here. And instantly in my head, was like,

I’m going to hire this kid walking out the door. I don’t even need to see your notebook. I don’t care what your art looks like. Like I’m hiring you to do something very different. And it was that decision that led to my brand launch, which was not something that we tried to do.

because normally when you’re a loan officer for a bank, in which I’m a branch manager and a licensed loan officer for a bank called Neighborhood Loans, ⁓ which is a nationwide mortgage bank, ⁓ normally mortgage banks don’t let, I don’t know if they don’t let loan officers like sub-brand themselves,

but it’s definitely not a practice in my industry. And so this kid that we hired to do graphic design was in a meeting with us one day and he’s like,

So Chris, I’m trying to figure out a way to make things look like I’m gonna create an image for you and I’m gonna make it look something like mortgage and punk. as soon as he said that, man, I was like, oh dude, that’s the most brilliant freaking name you could ever have come up with. I could have never come up with that. I would never have put those two words into the same category together.

Quentin (16:03)
Ha

Chris Waipa (16:18)
And so I was on just this high horse and I thought, okay, is this just me? Cause I’m a punk rock kid and I love this. Or can this actually work in the finance industry? And so we finally decided to take it to my bank and take it to some, you know, ⁓

respectable and ⁓ high-level realtor producers in our market. And we just got tons of positive feedback like, Chris, that’s totally you, man. You should absolutely do something like that. So three years ago, we launched this brand called Mortgage Punk. And the goal is to punk my own industry to get better.

Quentin (17:01)
I love it, man. Listen, I’m going give you a little moniker. You let me know if this kind

this sticks. I think you guys should make the mortgage process suck less in the whole industry. I came up with that myself first. You can have that, man. think I think now I’m just playing everybody like you heard this guy. That’s they’re going to pump the industry. This big go. How do you get that on that?

Chris Waipa (17:22)
suck less

mortgage process.

Quentin (17:26)
You get that on ass so fast, Chris. I just gave it to you, man. Look at that. I love it, man. I love it. You right, man. I don’t think a lot us would think about mortgage and punk being in the same kind of sentence together, but it’s brilliant, And so listen, before we got on, you know, I told you there may be a little portion where you could tell me maybe a little story about maybe some, some horror stories, right? Because of course things get real. There’s moments when

Chris Waipa (17:31)
So.

Quentin (17:54)
Things go sideways when you got to pivot fast. And so man, I don’t know. There you go. Absolutely. Is there a short, a story like that that maybe you can share with us, a moment where you had to pivot fast?

Chris Waipa (17:58)
It’s still business, right?

related to the brand or in my career.

Quentin (18:10)
man listen, related to the brand, related to your career, because I think a lot of our listeners, I don’t know where they are in their journey, but there are times when they reach opposition, right? And sometimes we talk about the success, but we also need to talk about the journey and the rough times. And so I was just wondering if there’s any story within your career, within your processing, that you maybe had to pivot fast, or you had to, you know, kind of head up against a real moment where you had to face some adversity, you know?

Chris Waipa (18:37)
Yep, well, definitely we face it ⁓ probably daily. I would say probably the most recent, mountain we’ve had to climb and hurdle we’ve had to jump would be with our. So I do mortgage loans for residential properties, one up to 10 unit. So mainly one to four, but.

We’ve got one going right now that’s I think is a six or an eight unit ⁓ investment property. so ⁓ we’ve gotten really big into the DSCR space. I’ve been doing those loans since 2016 and I also have a hard money fund with another business partner of mine. So we do a lot of hard money lending locally. That’s the most suckless mortgage ever, Quentin. We close in like five days. That’s it. We just make a decision. No appraisal, no credit, nothing. Just the numbers are there.

rate and we’ll fund the loan. ⁓ But I do every type of mortgage for home buyers, buying their first home to repeat buyers, move down buyers. I’ve got FHA loans, conventional, VA, rule development, ⁓ no money down programs. I’ve got the whole menu of mortgage products. And then I’ve got all the way into the investment space as far as DSCR, hard money fund. We’ve got everything.

in residential real estate. so ⁓ DSCR is a newer product in the industry and it’s got a lot of buzz and excitement going, but a lot of banks don’t know how to navigate those loans and they’re really rough and they take a long time to close. And we’ve just gone through a series of DSCR closings that have been really hard.

And what’s been really the most, I guess, discouraging aspect of it is because it’s so against my mortgage punk brand. Like if you do a regular loan with me, like if you’re buying your own house and we’re doing a Fannie Mae conventional loan, we will perform at a five-star, you know, white glove level. And those loans close on time, every time, smooth, they’re airtight.

And we just have fun and we take super good care of people. But lately with our DSCR channels, I’ve really have been challenged with just some really good relationships that I’ve got and people that I love. And I just feel like we haven’t been able to perform, you know, behind our brand. so thankfully we’re on the other side of that and we can all see the sun start to shine and through that adversity.

Quentin (21:21)
Yeah.

Chris Waipa (21:29)
we’ve figured out how to really crank down and master these DSCR loans. So I have a really bright outlook on the next six months in our DSCR business because we get a lot of DSCR calls every day. It’s just a huge, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the product, but it’s just a 30 year fixed mortgage that does not require income or employment. So you could be an investor that owns a hundred properties and you could buy another hundred with DSCR loans.

And you don’t need any tax returns. You don’t need a job. ⁓ You don’t need any income. So they’re very attractive to investors. So I’d say that’s probably the most recent, you know, not being able to stand up behind a brand that’s very loud,

Hey, we’re mortgage punk. we’re punking the mortgage industry

it sucks so bad. And it’s about time that somebody calls it for what it is and doesn’t hide behind it and tries to do something about it.

Quentin (22:20)
Yeah.

Chris Waipa (22:28)
⁓ anyhow, that’s just been a huge challenge. anytime I can’t stand behind caring about people, it really eats out of me, eats at me.

Quentin (22:31)
Absolutely.

Yeah, I appreciate that. you talked about caring for people. You talked about this kid who came into this meeting with the long hair, and he kind of changed the course of the brand. So a lot of people, listening. They’re either early in their journey or looking to level up. And I think their benefit from hearing this from you, when it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what has made the biggest difference for you,

Chris Waipa (23:08)
Hmm, getting to the point where…

I’ve been able to embrace like, like really truly embrace, not just say it because it’s the right thing to say and everyone knows it’s the right answer, but like truly being able to embrace a giver’s gain mentality and really be truly and genuinely interested in taking care of people and helping them grow in their business. Whether or not anything comes back, you know, to me from them, I…

just believe it will, it all goes around, comes around. I mean, that’s, it does. You just take good care of people and it’s just amazing how well that you end up doing in your business by doing that. So ⁓ just, just have it a real servant mentality, really wanting to help people. That’s what my brand’s all about. You know, I’m like, Hey, I’m on your side out here. You people that have gone through a mortgage train wreck.

Like I’m on your side and, my industry is the one to blame for all this stupidity. ⁓ it just needs to change. There’s other ways that, that, ⁓ the process can, can be done to take way better care of people and not tell them, you know, the worst thing I hate and I, and I’ve, I’ve had to do it, you know, ⁓ many times throughout my 23, three year career, but the worst thing.

in the world for me is to tell someone you’re approved for this or even pre-approved. No one understands that. Everyone takes pre-approved Quentin as approved. You can explain it all day long. The bank says you’re pre-approved. Most people register that as great. I’m good to go. Well, no, you’re really never good to go. Unfortunately, that’s how home loans work. But I hate telling people that and then having their expectations, you know.

Quentin (24:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chris Waipa (25:06)
That’s the worst feeling in the world to me. So serving people is, and that’s how I approach networking. I belong to a B &I chapter. I’ve been in for nine years. It’s an exceptional chapter, has some really just incredible high level professionals. And then I belong to some real estate investment networks. ⁓ And I just try to help people. I don’t care whether they’re doing alone with me. Like if I can help you, that’s it.

Quentin (25:08)
Yeah.

Chris Waipa (25:35)
That’s the name of the game. If everybody would just do that, I think we’d have a pretty good world ⁓ of business. that answer the question? ⁓

Quentin (25:46)
Absolutely, man. Yes, sir.

Absolutely. No, definitely agree. I definitely agree with the service art. Serving people, there’s a proverb I like to live by that says, if you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed. And so I hear you, man. So listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way that they can reach out to you,

Chris Waipa (26:02)
There you go.

Yeah.

Well, if you want to reach out to me on social media, I promise you I’m the only mortgage punk in America. Period. That’s number one. So just go to at mortgage punk on any social platform and we’re on it. Or you can reach out to me at 3 1, Erico 3 1 6 7 7 6 4 1 2 5. You can call me there. You can shoot me a text. If I can’t answer it, my team might reach back out to you and set up an appointment or something like that. So.

⁓ But yeah, that’s how you would get a hold of me, pretty easy.

Quentin (26:47)
There he is, y’all. I appreciate you, Mr. Chris. I appreciate your story, your perspective. I just appreciate what you’re doing, in this space. I appreciate your service heart. It was a pleasure having you here today,

Chris Waipa (26:59)
Yep, anything else you want me to leave with or lead out with at all?

Quentin (27:04)
Nah,

man, you nailed it, man. You nailed it. You told people where to get in contact with you. I just, you know, I just, again, just thank you for being here, man, and just shining a light on what you do. So listen, appreciate you, man. Absolutely. So listen, for everyone tuning in, if you found value in this conversation, please make sure you are subscribed. You do not want to miss out on the conversations that we have coming next. And so again, thank you, Mr. Chris, and everyone, thank you for listening in. We’ll see you next time.

Chris Waipa (27:14)
Awesome, appreciate you having me.

Thanks, see you, thanks Quentin appreciate it.