Unlocking Your Mortgage Career: Expert Advice from Monica Robinson

Dylan Silver (00:01.31)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show I have Monica Robinson in Atlanta, Georgia, if I’m not mistaken. Monica, welcome to the show.

Monica Robinson (00:14.146)
Thank you for having me, Dylan. I’m so happy to be here today.

Dylan Silver (00:18.89)
We’re happy to have you. I always like to start off at the top by asking folks how they got into the real estate or related space.

Monica Robinson (00:27.589)
Okay, so I am a mortgage broker. So basically how I became a mortgage broker is that, you know, I bought my house in 2007 and it was like at the peak of the crash. And so I never met my loan officer. All I knew was my realtor. And I was like, you know, I got a deal. Once I got in the business, I realized what type of deal that I got. And I was like, you know what? I can do better.

So that’s exactly what I did. I went and got licensed and became a loan officer and I’ve been changing lives every step of the way.

Dylan Silver (01:01.79)
I’ve heard multiple loan officers on the show now with the same story. Either someone said, man, I could do that. Or someone else said, that’s it. And so it seems to be the case actually right around the timeline where you got in too. So it’s interesting, these cycles that people see. At that point in time when you were getting in, what were you involved in? What other work were you involved in at that time?

Monica Robinson (01:10.253)
Yeah.

Monica Robinson (01:24.469)
Well, at the time I was in banking and I also had a online beauty line. So I was an entrepreneur and I was working in the banking industry at the same time.

Dylan Silver (01:37.598)
And so you saw this opportunity based off buying your own home and you said, hey, I can do this. Let’s see what happens here. Did you immediately leave banking or did you do both for a while?

Monica Robinson (01:49.549)
Well, I immediately left banking and I started bartending while I was building my pipeline. And so that’s how that happened. So I got licensed. I went to school to get my education and then I passed my test and I got licensed at the top of 2017 and I closed my first deal at the end of 2017. So I went a whole year.

without closing any loans before I close my very first one at the end of the year.

Dylan Silver (02:20.416)
Let’s talk about that first year 2017 right so I’m a new realtor here in Dallas And I’ve been licensed now for under two months. Let’s talk about that first year. What was that first year like for you?

Monica Robinson (02:31.308)
The first year was tough. It was a lot of tears. It was a lot of trying to get myself acclimated with underwriting the process, know, sending files, what documents to ask for, how to review the documents, what to look for. I mean, it was a lot, but it was new and every day was different. So it made me more in tuned with, you know, what I was doing. So I was very relieved when I closed my first loan.

but it was a lot of trial and error.

Dylan Silver (03:04.116)
Let’s talk about that first deal. Was it someone that you knew? Was it a friend of a friend? How did you find that first deal?

Monica Robinson (03:10.162)
What is so crazy is my first deal was sent to me by a realtor friend of mine. And he just like met these people out and about and he was like, you know what, I have a good person that does loans. I’m going to send them to you. So he sent them to me. Like, I think he might’ve sent them to me like in August. And you know, they had credit challenges and they had to get their assets and stuff together. But other than that, like I literally followed up with them until we closed in December.

Dylan Silver (03:38.356)
Hmm.

Monica Robinson (03:38.46)
So it was a painful first one, but it really taught me how to be engaged, how to follow up, how to stay in front of your borrower. It just taught me a lot and I just kept those values from that first month and I just kept it going throughout the rest of my career.

Dylan Silver (03:55.264)
So 2017 becomes 2018, right? Was this a great time to be alone, officer?

Monica Robinson (04:01.682)
It was a great time. 2020 was really the most excellent time. my God. I ate, sleep and dreamed about loans. I’m telling you, like I worked 24 seven across the top. was doing purchases. I was doing refinances. Like, I mean, I literally slept with my computer at the top of my head. So, I mean, it was just great. was getting, at the time I was working for a broker.

Dylan Silver (04:06.442)
Let’s talk about it. How did that go down? Talk to us about those years.

Monica Robinson (04:31.691)
at the time, so I had all different type of programs. mean, things that the big banks were not doing, I was doing. So it was just one of those times where a lot of my realtor partners, they were just like, hey, I have a girl, I have a girl, she’s on it, she’s on it. And that person was me, I was the go-to lady. So that was a good time, especially during the shutdown where we could be around only five to 10 people. So I had my little…

tightly knit group and I had my computer, had my processor and we just literally rocked it out. Like that was like one of my most successful years. I closed literally like in one month, I’ll never forget. It was a lot for me. I know other loan officers were doing extremely better than me, but I closed 10 loans by myself. So I was very, very happy about that. In one month.

Dylan Silver (05:25.472)
So 10 loans in one month. I don’t know the commission rates but I’m thinking about real estate agent commissions. So what is a good year for a loan officer as far as number of deals funded? What is a good year for a loan officer?

Monica Robinson (05:42.485)
So a good year for a loan officer is 10 million loans funded. So that’s roughly, I don’t know how many units that will probably be because we get paid off of the loan amount. And then we also get a smaller percentage than real estate agents, right? Cause we’re capped at 2.75 versus you guys have, you know, 3%. Sometimes you get a little bit more 3%. I’m not sure what NARS is doing as far as that is concerned because I do know there was a big re-

reorganization with that. And so, yeah, so I was like one and a half at the time. So yes, I say a good year for a loan officer is 10 million loans funded for short plus.

Dylan Silver (06:25.344)
Okay, yeah

that checks out that that makes sense to me 1 % rule right so I’ve now seen so many people talking about maybe you’ve heard this term or maybe you have or have not heard this term but this term digital nomad right this idea that you can kind of live anywhere and do some certain types of work I don’t know if I could be a realtor and be a digital nomad although I would like to try to I’m actually moving later this year to Santo Domingo part-time which is in the Dominican Republic right so who knows how exactly that’s gonna transpire

would need being a realtor in Dallas. But as a loan officer, think I don’t exactly know how it works, but I’ve seen loan officers be licensed in many many states at once. Are you familiar with this and are people able to actually help people across state lines?

Monica Robinson (06:58.398)
Right?

Monica Robinson (07:13.162)
Absolutely, you can live anywhere and originate as long as you’re within the US and you have great Wi-Fi, right? It gets a little tricky when you start to be outside of United States like certain certain countries like Mexico is one of them where when you go to pull credit You you won’t be able to pull credit. So you have to have a VPN to

Dylan Silver (07:39.262)
Mmm.

Monica Robinson (07:40.584)
to do things like that. But you can definitely work out the country. You can definitely work anywhere as long as you have strong Wi-Fi.

Dylan Silver (07:49.726)
That’s the key. That’s the key. Let’s get the Starlink router out there, right?

Monica Robinson (07:54.575)
I know, right? I know, Elon, if you hear us, get us going.

Dylan Silver (07:59.338)
That’s what we have on the ranch out here actually because I don’t think, I don’t know if we have fiber running to where we’re at on the ranch. I actually had a guest on earlier today who told me that T-Mobile has like a box of some kind. said, what, is it going to the wall? He’s like, no, it’s like a big hotspot, but they track if you move it. So it’s got to stay at the same location. said, that’s interesting. I got to go check that out.

Monica Robinson (08:20.207)
yeah, and then that could be your VPN.

Dylan Silver (08:23.424)
Yeah, I don’t know. I’m gonna I’m gonna find out here in a couple months and move in there in October, but I digress here. I digress here. So go from 2017 2018 2019 2020 hits kind of low interest rates a lot of transactions. I think it was a great time. I wish I was in real estate at the time great time to be involved in this space at that time 2020 time frame. Are you aware that this is really like kind of a peak market maybe for our lives if you will?

Monica Robinson (08:54.025)
Absolutely, I knew it was not going to stay down that long. So I was beating the phone to a pulp. And I was telling people like, even if you didn’t feel like you were going to get qualified, you still need to give it a shot. Because I mean, this is like the crème de la crème of interest rates. mean, like I literally did like a 2 and 1.5%. 2 and 1.5%. 2 and 1.25%. It was just ridiculous. The money was so cheap.

And so, you know, a lot of people were able to qualify. And then it was just a lot of moving parts. Like, you know, it was people from LA, I mean, California that was moving to the East Coast with cash, like exploding the market with cash offers. Like it was just going berserk. Where everybody was all nestled up in their home, trying not to get sick. People was like, no, I’m outside. Like I think.

Dylan Silver (09:38.623)
Yeah.

Monica Robinson (09:45.609)
I traveled so many places during 2020. Like I was in Mexico religiously. I felt like I almost bought a condo in Mexico because I was over there. my first time ever. Okay, so during the COVID was my first time even traveling to Mexico. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. I’ve been everywhere else, but I went to Tulum my first time in Mexico. Yes, I did. I mean, we were everywhere. We were in the sacred gardens.

Dylan Silver (09:53.6)
Where’d you go in Mexico?

Dylan Silver (10:06.506)
Did you go to the jungle gym?

Monica Robinson (10:15.791)
was all doing all type of excursion, dipping our bodies in all the, all the cenotes. Like we were just doing everything like.

Dylan Silver (10:26.624)
I know about the jungle gym, see, see, say, hey, there’s people working out with wood out here, this is interesting, I gotta get out of here.

Monica Robinson (10:32.69)
Yeah, it’s really dope. We were out there doing squats and lunges with seashells and volcanic rocks.

Dylan Silver (10:38.922)
Ha ha ha

Dylan Silver (10:43.274)
Did you pick up any Spanish while you were out there? Did you pick up any Spanish while you were out there?

Monica Robinson (10:46.245)
I’m saying again.

Look un poquito español.

Dylan Silver (10:51.748)
Okay, hablas un poquito de español, todo está bien, okay.

Monica Robinson (10:54.665)
Yeah, I almost had me a Spanish boyfriend. I was like, okay, Monica, you’re going to…

Dylan Silver (11:01.504)
You know, with the name Monica, that’s very much, that’s almost Spanish in lot of contexts.

Monica Robinson (11:08.258)
Yes, Monica. They were like Monica, Monica, mi amor, mi amor.

Dylan Silver (11:13.726)
And you were like, okay, ahora estoy hispanohablante, I’m here. How long were you there in Tulum for?

Monica Robinson (11:16.744)
Yes. So we stayed a week, literally stayed a week, came back, got tired of the States and all the BS that was going on. It literally went right back this time when we went to, which one did we go to this time? We went to Tulum. What’s the one that’s really popping you fly into there?

Dylan Silver (11:42.074)
There’s so many. Tulum, Cancun, Cabo…

Monica Robinson (11:45.063)
Cancun. We went to Cancun next, which is the party city of Mexico.

Dylan Silver (11:50.836)
Yeah, so how was Tulum vs Cancun, Monica?

Monica Robinson (11:54.184)
I Tulum better. Tulum is better if you’re looking for like quiet, if you’re looking for indigenous life living. And then Cancun is if you just want to party, you just want to be on the scene and you just want to, you know, hop bars and it’s more Americanized. Well, at the time, Tulum was more indigenous. But if you go back now, Tulum is more Americanized now.

Dylan Silver (12:19.102)
Yeah, I remember seeing the jungle gym the first time. Being like, where in the world is this? Like, who created this thing here, over here?

Monica Robinson (12:27.208)
we went to the ruins and everything. Like I’m telling you, I was Mexican.

Dylan Silver (12:34.88)
All right, you convinced me, you convinced me. you mentioned you traveled quite a bit. I got the travel bug two years ago. I didn’t have a passport. I got a passport, giant rigamarole. If anyone listening to this is in Texas and has to get a passport, all I can say is I hope it gets to you. Because I ended up spending, I’m not kidding, like $900 to get this passport.

between having to go out to Houston, wait in line, I had to stay overnight, they shipped it to the wrong address beforehand, it was crazy. crazy. It was crazy. I felt like I had a heat case for getting a passport. But I…

Monica Robinson (12:57.679)
wow.

Monica Robinson (13:09.504)
wow. That is so crazy because out here in Atlanta, they have a passport center where you can literally, as long as you have your itinerary, you can get your passport in two weeks.

Dylan Silver (13:22.142)
That’s really good. See, had to, tell you how they did it out here. I applied three months in advance, got it expedited. Then after that, it got lost in the mail. I had to prove that it got lost, which I, it was kind of hard. It’s like, I don’t have it. I don’t know how to prove it. And then I had to go out to Houston, but they wouldn’t let you in unless it was.

Monica Robinson (13:27.815)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (13:43.41)
two weeks before your travel date. So there wasn’t even a guarantee. It was like, if you’re leaving the country in two weeks, then you have like an emergency case. And fortunately, I was able to leave at that point in time. And I’ve now been back to Santo Domingo five times. And I’ve lived there for a month and a half. So yeah, I picked up Spanish over there. By the way, people comparing like Mexican vacations to Dominican vacations, unless you’re going to Punta Cana,

Monica Robinson (13:59.333)
Wow.

Monica Robinson (14:10.576)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (14:10.676)
They don’t speak English. There’s no English happening in the Dominican Republic.

Monica Robinson (14:13.924)
Right, I went to DR too and we went to Sosua.

Dylan Silver (14:18.494)
Yeah, there’s very limited English in Sasua.

Monica Robinson (14:20.517)
Very limited English. Like I feel like I almost was fluent Spanish. I’ve lost a lot of my Spanish speaking capabilities, but definitely, so SUA was one of those countries where I literally had to like, okay, let me think. Let me pull out my translator. Let me all my words, refresh up on everything I’m trying to say over here.

Dylan Silver (14:41.3)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (14:45.674)
We’ve probably been to the same places in Sosua. I really have to go back. I’ve been there once. But there was this one place, like, overlooking the… I don’t know what you would call it. It like a half pool, half resort type thing, and you would overlook the ocean. was like multicolored water. It was crazy.

Monica Robinson (14:55.984)
night.

Monica Robinson (15:01.118)
yes, Dominican is beautiful. The people are beautiful. The food is really, really good. It’s good and cheap. Yes, one thing that me and my friends did, we rode the 18-wheelers through the city and we passed out money. It was so fun.

Dylan Silver (15:06.954)
Food is good.

Monica Robinson (15:19.175)
mean, there were like dollar bills, but you know, still like the kids were running and the parents was running and kids were like coming back for more. It was so good. I mean, they, the tour guide was like, we wished you wouldn’t do that. But we were like, okay, we’re going to do it because we know how hard it is for some people in other countries. And we know, you know, how, you know, advantage we are here in the States. So we had all got like a hundred dollar in ones. Of course we didn’t throw it all out. That would have been too

Dylan Silver (15:23.615)
Yeah

Dylan Silver (15:44.328)
It’s true.

Monica Robinson (15:49.126)
you know, too bad, but we literally was going through the different villages and just was like passing out two, three dollars at a time to all the kids. you know, everybody was like, no, yes, I know how to have a good time.

Dylan Silver (15:57.662)
man, you know how to have a good time. You know how to have a… I think…

I think I’m learning from a pro here though. I can tell you my first so here’s a Dominican Republic story I have to have a similar story in Santo Domingo. I go down excuse me in in Mexico I go down to Santo Domingo the first time no Spanish I don’t know any Spanish right and I’m down there thinking like I’ll pick something up I have an Airbnb. I remember it like it was yesterday It was in calle number five, which means street number five, right? My phone does not work because the phone

Monica Robinson (16:30.457)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (16:34.238)
reception it wasn’t like a different network, right? So I’m trying to read a map that I had downloaded to my phone only to find out that there’s three streets in the same city called Calle Number 5.

Monica Robinson (16:49.317)
my god, that’s so confusing.

Dylan Silver (16:53.608)
And so I’m driving around third world developing country, Pouring rain, roads, chaos. I mean, just you’ve seen it, like chaos. There was a guy with like a motorized bike and like a trash bag over his head and then just like it was pouring rain. I’m like, wow, I’m really out here. Finally, I found the place. And after that, I was like, just grateful for roads. I came back to Dallas and I was like, I’m great at the time, San Antonio. And I’m like, I’m grateful for roads.

Monica Robinson (16:59.909)
Mmm.

Monica Robinson (17:12.489)
Mm-hmm.

Monica Robinson (17:22.884)
Yes, and then you know what else I’ve learned. mean people, mean people get to work by any means necessary in those countries. Like I was baffled like we saw like on a scooter like a family of four. the wife had the baby, the son was in the middle and the husband was driving. They had groceries on the side. I mean they had something on their hand. was just gross. I was like you know what? I will not.

Dylan Silver (17:38.506)
Ha

Monica Robinson (17:51.557)
complain about nothing. Okay, I won’t complain about anything anymore. Like the way I saw the way I saw the people get around to their jobs, how they went and shop for their families. Listen, I’m fit flaps like no shoes on. I’m like, salute. For real, it was amazing.

Dylan Silver (18:19.84)
Did you see that people can do Uber mopeds? Have you seen this?

Monica Robinson (18:25.188)
Yes, we seen a dog on the back of a moped. not, like, not holding, like, not holding on, sitting down to the, I mean, I’m like, how does it know how to, like, the balance was amazing? We were like, look at that!

Dylan Silver (18:30.304)
HAHAHAHA

Dylan Silver (18:41.087)
HAHAHA

Monica Robinson (18:43.94)
have a picture in my phone. have to find it. I could not believe it. Like this man had his dog on the back of his scooter. The dog, like you would think the dog would have been like strapped in or some type of harnessing. No, the dog was just sitting down with his back up against his owner on the bike every turn he was leaning to. It was amazing.

Dylan Silver (18:53.088)
you

Dylan Silver (19:02.944)
The dog was using the g-forces in the turns

Monica Robinson (19:06.212)
Yes, the dog was leaning, going left and right. I mean, it was amazing.

Dylan Silver (19:10.92)
man, was Dominican dogs. bless them. Pivoting Monica back to the lending here. So when you go through 2020, you go through unbelievable vacations, right? Coming back.

Monica Robinson (19:14.636)
Amen.

Dylan Silver (19:25.792)
COVID kinda starts dying down. I know I’m in Texas, so we kind of died down sooner than everybody else. But maybe Georgia had a similar deal, but still you had COVID for a while, right? And then you’re seeing interest rates start to climb and climb. And so now I’m dealing with investors in my wholesale business and they’re like, well, it’s really not a great time to buy. And they’ve been saying this now for a while. So now that you have the perspective of both, you have the kind of peak low interest rates and it seems like everyone was buying

Monica Robinson (19:40.395)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (19:55.698)
and that you have now, you really are able to tell people, like if things do go back down, like hey, you really have to seize this moment because we don’t know when the next time is that this is gonna happen.

Monica Robinson (20:04.222)
Okay.

Monica Robinson (20:09.161)
Right, right. So by that time, by that time I was more so like doing the numbers under being someone under someone else’s brokerage. And so by that time when COVID passed, I was like, you know what, I’m going full force. I opened up my own brokerage. Okay. Because I got tired of waiting two weeks to get paid and I wanted to get paid at the closing table like everyone else.

Dylan Silver (20:21.641)
Yeah.

Monica Robinson (20:36.676)
So fast forward, now I’m an independent mortgage broker and my business opened up in 2022 at the end of 2022. My baby is called the Lone Bar LLC. And so now as a independent mortgage broker, I am the president and CEO. So I’m able to have other LOs under me. I’m able to adjust my compensation however I like. I’m able to pretty much call all the shots, right?

And most importantly, I get paid at the closing table.

Dylan Silver (21:09.472)
You don’t have to wait on someone else.

Monica Robinson (21:12.045)
Correct, correct. So I’m in a really, really, really good spot. I have amazing lenders. I do investor loans, of course, for some home buyers. I just do it all now, all of the funky stuff, which I really do love the little funky stuff. That stuff is so challenging. But at the end of the day, it’s just been a dream come true.

Dylan Silver (21:34.824)
Monica, if you had to give one piece of advice for someone who is an aspiring mortgage lender, maybe they’re just starting or maybe they’re in school to start and they’re taking their courses, one piece of advice that would help them be beneficial in business, what would it be?

Monica Robinson (21:50.45)
my God, in the words of the CEO of UWM, Matt Ishbia, answer the damn phone.

Dylan Silver (21:58.503)
answer the damn phone.

Monica Robinson (22:00.002)
That is my advice. Pick up your phone. Answer the phone. Okay? You just never know. You need to answer the phone.

Dylan Silver (22:07.796)
There’s actually a phrase that I’ve heard out here where I’m at, which is as soon as real estate agents get their license, they lose their phone, which is kinda, I mean, it’s not great, but I am an agent, right? But you hear it all the time, it’s like it’s hard to get ahold of people. And I couldn’t agree with you more. You really have no idea what connection that you’re gonna make, whether it’s gonna be a deal for you or someone who could bring you a lot of business and a lot of connections. You have no idea if you’re not picking up the phone.

Monica Robinson (22:27.073)
Mm-hmm.

Monica Robinson (22:32.897)
You’re not picking up the phone. Like I work with a lot of agents out here and I send them out with, you know, that golden piece of paper, that pre-approval. And it’s just like pulling teeth trying to get the seller’s agent to answer the phone. I’m just like, these, like, they were hired. Like they have a commitment to the seller. Like, I mean, when I get ready to sell my home, I’m going to be like, listen, you better answer the phone. Like, I don’t care if it’s.

a telemarketer, mean two seconds you can hang up if it’s a telemarketer, but you know, two seconds you might, be somebody like trying to make an offer, you know, so definitely pick up that phone.

Dylan Silver (23:04.202)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (23:10.164)
Pick up the five. You’ve heard right now people are talking about having a AI receptionist or even this is a crazy one. AI clone of themselves. So when they’re at their kids soccer game, recital, anything graduation, you know, they have to send it to voicemail. Hey, this is Dylan’s AI assistant.

Monica Robinson (23:30.549)
and

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (23:33.94)
how can I, and it’ll go back and forth for five minutes and then they’ll get a transcript of it. And this is like just the tip of the spear. Like we’re about to see the next six months, some utterly unbelievable mind blowing things that are about to come out of real estate and the real estate services space for AI.

Monica Robinson (23:53.282)
Yeah, I’m, I don’t know, I’m pro-human, you know. I think AI is okay to a certain extent. Like, I never ever want a robot to replace a human’s touch or a human’s response. I mean, I think that stuff is great. Whenever you’re, you know, you’re trying to attend your children’s events or family, I totally get it. But, you know, a simple pick up the phone, like, hi, I’m at my child’s graduation or, you know, I’m here at my bar mitzvah, whatever, whatever, you know.

and can I just give you a call back and really call back, I feel like that is more impactful than a robot pretending to be me. And I think it’s just, it’s just so crazy, really pretending to be me, like no one can be me but me, you know, so.

Dylan Silver (24:42.772)
That’s true. mean, I’ve seen it now. Monica, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Monica Robinson (24:47.702)
Okay.

Okay, well you can follow me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is Loans with an S with Monica. And you can also follow my brokerage, which is the Loanbar LLC on Instagram. And yeah, my website is theloanbar.co, that’s C-O-not.com. And you can definitely find out about all the programs and get my contact information from there.

Dylan Silver (25:16.722)
Monica, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Monica Robinson (25:20.128)
Thank you for having me, Dylan. It was a pleasure speaking with you. I’m so glad. saw this. I saw the commercial or the opportunity to sign up for this on Instagram. So I guess you guys was running some ads. So I’m glad. I was like, you know what? I’m going to do this because you never know what may come about. Thank you. So I see that it’s recorded. Will it be listed on the website?

Dylan Silver (25:33.106)
Instagram.

hop on the show. It was great having you.