Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Justin Hopkins Mortgage Loan Officer with Huntington Bank

Episode Date: March 24, 2024

At Huntington, we’re committed to doing the right thing for our customers. He has been a Mortgage Loan Officer since 2020 and has helped many individuals and families purchase and refinance their homes. He offers an array of conventional and government-backed loans including FHA, VA, and USDA. Huntington is also known for a variety of products that help with down payment assistance or reduced closing costs.Justin is proud to serve the Denver communities.Huntington helps put his homeownership goals within reach. You can count on them to be there, every step of the way.Learn more:https://linktr.ee/justin.hopkins | https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-hopkins-75115b19bElite Real Estate Leaders Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/elite-real-estate-leaders-podcastSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-justin-hopkins-mortgage-loan-officer-with-huntington-bank

Welcome to the Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group, bringing you interviews with the best real estate and mortgage professionals, empowering you to understand the current trends in the housing market so that you make the American dream your reality. Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Elite Real Estate Leaders podcast. Today we have with us Justin Hopkins, who's a loan officer with Huntington Bank. Justin, welcome to the program. Thank you very much. Hey, I'm excited to talk with you because I understand you have some good, innovative out-of-the-box programs, and so that's always interesting. But before we dive into that, get us started on telling us a little bit about yourself and your story and background. And how did you get into the lending industry? I kind of stumbled into lending itself. I started working with a bank probably about 20, I hate to say this, but about 25 years ago.

Time for us. I was a teller and my my boss at the time. She came down. She goes, I think, I think it's kind of being not wasted here, but your potential could be used other places in the bank. So I want to put you in the collection department, kind of learn how loans go and why loans are made the way they are. And you can see through the files why these loans shouldn't have been made to start with

before you can actually start doing loans. I'm like, okay, I'll just, I'll try it out and see if I liked it. Well, I never looked back. I did collections for a long time and then I moved up and I started doing the actual auto lending stuff. So if you ever went to a dealership and bought a car, I was in the guy,

I was the guy on the other side that you never saw that approved your loan for you to buy the car. I did that for a long time, but then I got burnt out. And so I just kind of took a flyer. I said, hey, I'm going to put myself out there and see what other kind of opportunities are out there for me with all my experience in lending

and understanding the consumer and reading credit reports and income documents and stuff. And then this small little boutique firm out in Florida called me one day says I got this perfect bank that's up here really trying to grow in Colorado. And you can get hug on with him as a mortgage loan officer, which I think would be awesome given your background. I know you've never done any kind of residential lending before, but you know this stuff and they can teach you the systems and stuff. And I haven't looked back. It was a neat. I was very fortunate to be provided that opportunity and met some really awesome people along the way. And

And it's been great. I mean, the freedom that I have in this job to be able to do, to provide, you know, service to my clients and whatnot, the whole, to get them what they want as well. But I also get to walk my daughter to school every single day. I get a period of school every single day. You know, it's kind of like you're an entrepreneur. You know, you're entrepreneurial under the umbrella of a company. They're allowing you that flexibility.

and that's a really powerful opportunity. Huge, huge, especially when you don't mind working at 8 o'clock at night, just to button up a file. Yeah, that's okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you shift. You have to do a little bit of family stuff at 9 or 10 a.m., but then you shifted and got that other stuff done at 7 or 8 p.m. And everything's wonderful, but it gives you that flexibility. That is just great.

And, you know, one thing you mentioned about starting off in the business from kind of behind the scenes, what a huge education that is. for you to draw from because when you know how things work and what underwriters look for in approvals and even now it translates into what you're doing on the residential or commercial or that kind of side, now you're knowing how to structure things on the front end to avoid potential pitfalls. So talk a little bit about that. How are you using that ability to streamline and make sure that your process now is wonderful for your borrowers?

I would say the biggest thing that I do right now is I don't, when I talk to potential clients about getting pre-qualified, I tell them, what is your comfortability as far as the payment goes? I can get you pre-qualified up to this amount of money, but what is your comfortability? Where are you going to be happiest? What's that payment that's going to be your sweet spot for you so you can still go out and enjoy other parts of life too? You're not going to be stressed to make this payment. I don't want to put that burden on you. Just because you can afford $600,000 doesn't mean you want. to afford $600,000.

So I would say that's, that was the biggest takeaway I got from learning my, from, the auto stuff. It's like people, you know, they'd make a mistake. They'd go buy at the time a $50,000 vehicle when they were making $24,000 a year. And it just didn't make sense. You don't need to have

that kind of expensive car payment. It just hamstrings you and you're not happy and you're upset. And then it ends up taking back on the, on the collateral on the car at the time, the stuff you'd get back because people were just upset that they made the decision and they wouldn't take care of stuff. So I don't want to ever put someone in a position where they're not going to be able to be happy and grow and enjoy what they've actually

purchased because buying a home is such a huge, monumental, enjoyable experience. And you're basically buying a place to put memories in. It's fantastic. So, you know, that mentality is such a giving and serving attitude that I know without you even saying those words necessarily to a borrower that comes through. And when they can sense that you're not leading them to 50, 60,000 more house than they should afford. And you're kind of leaning more toward this and just kind of, that kind of resonates well with them. So I think that is just spectacular. Talk a little bit about your programs and what you specialize in because I know that you tend to want to provide some unique opportunities in the market. Yeah. I have access to all kinds of programs, right? You think

about a mortgage and the mortgage is it's it's a title for a portfolio of stuff right there's all kinds of different different lending options out there you got your traditional 20% down fanny freddy you know type stuff you got tri fha stuff you got all those things you hear about all the time all the all the all the acronyms you hear about but then there's some things you don't hear about that are also out there too like um given the certain market right that we're in right now with with the higher rates that have been all through 23 and in the first part of 24 where people, there's a lot of pent up demand out there where a lot of buyers are waiting for rates to come down.

Well, when rates do start falling this this year, and they will, the Fed just got down with their meeting a little while ago and they said they still anticipate three rate cuts this year. When that stuff starts happening, there's going to be another feeding frenzy that we dealt with back in 21 in the first part 22 where there's some stuff. The competition's going to be so high. And so I'm trying to think outside the box, what kind of things? What kind of things do we have out there that could help someone to avoid the feeding frenzy?

If they're not ready to buy right now, just because someone tells you it's good time to buy, doesn't mean it's right for you. You know, when you are ready to buy, let's say it is in July or August or September, what are some things that you might be able to think about to know you wouldn't have to deal with 50,000 different other people out there trying to bid on the same house, right? I know I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea. Have you ever heard of the concept or the book read the Blue Ocean strategy like Red Ocean versus Blue Ocean? What you're describing there is like when the quote that Wayne Gretzky said, you know, I skate where the puck is headed, not where everyone is just, you know, fighting.

And the Blue Ocean strategy is like, hey, red ocean is where all the chum and the boats are putting the chum and the sharks are feeding frenzy. You don't want to be in that. You want to be out way on the horizon, the blue ocean where it's nice and smooth. Well, if you can guide your borrowers to that blue ocean to like, hey, let's not get into that mess. What if we considered this? Now it's a less stressful environment. What is that that you're now discovering is beneficial to them that you're focusing on? So they're going to have a little bit of patience.

But I think my first thought comes to a renovation loan where you can use it to either refinance or purchase a property. You can do a construction loan. You know, you can buy a piece of land and finance the cost of the construction all into one loan, one-time clothes, all that kind of stuff. Or if you've got to even more time, you want to buy just a piece of land and hang on to it until you're ready and you find that perfect builder to actually build your dream home on it. But you buy the land now. And then you can go out there and you can talk to builders. You can interview a bunch of them. You can find who you're comfortable with and what you want to do.

And when the time is right, get the construction loan and wrap everything all into one. those are three areas I think would be untapped right now that you could actually use. Yeah, and talk a little bit about some of the uniqueness of that because I know that when you think about a construction loan or a renovation loan, sometimes it's like, oh, you need this much money, but the house isn't worth that right now. But if you had already done the renovation, it would be worth that. So how do you straddle the aspect of I need the money before I do the work so that it would be worth that amount? Yeah, so it's, what's really cool about the renovation loan is, well, let's backtrack a little bit. Let's say you owned a property right now and you wanted to redo the kitchen, but there wasn't enough equity in the property to do the kitchen because you can't take a heat lockout. You can't do a cash out refinance because the equity's not there, right?

Well, with these renovation loans, it's really cool because once you get to plan together and you get the contract from the, from the builder or the general contractor, we send it off for an appraisal. and the appraisal comes back as future value. Once the renovations are done what it's going to be. So you're not dealing with today's conditions. You're dealing with, oh, let's look in the future. What do we think that house is actually going to be worth? And if it fits, then bingo, you got your money there to do your dream projects, your kitchens, your extra bedrooms, your bedrooms.

I mean, even additions, landscaping, it's, it's bonkers, which you can actually do with some of these loans. You'd be surprised. And in a crazy environment, like we've seen. in years past and might come back and will come back because everything's cyclical. But that's where you're saying to your clients, okay, yeah, you need a little bit more room or you wish you had this or that. So rather than trying to sell and buy something else, what if we did this?

And now all of a sudden they're like, wow, that just resonates well with us because we love 82% of the house. But boy, if we just had this done or that done or the other done, and now that renovation loan can give them that opportunity. I think that's a really unique approach. Yeah, I think, let's say you love the schools that your kids are at, but you're just kind of outgrowing the house. Or you're really close to those staple stores you like to go to, you know, the grocery store, your Chipotle or Hobby Lobby, let's be honest. You know, but you just, your house is just outdated or your family's growing, you need an extra bedroom, or you only have a one bath or you need two more or something like that. Let's do one of these loans, see what it looks like, and maybe you don't have to go anywhere. You can just improve the one you already love and not have to. have to move away. Love it.

So talk a little bit about land slash construction because I know that a construction project, you might be going to a builder going, okay, let's get a construction loan and build this house, but you might need to have a piece of property first. Sometimes, yeah, you do need a piece of property first. So there's especially like if you're, let's say, because you can do construction loans on second homes, right? Let's say you wanted to buy a home up in the mountains, but we all know some areas in the mountains are really expensive, but the worth of land itself is still relatively cheap. So if you grab a piece

of land right now, you know, you put your 20% down on it because that's what land loans do require is a 20% down. You can get one of those, but if you want to hold on to it and then you've got yourself a piece of land, when you find that, that construction, that builder, you meet that person you want to work with, then it's ready to go. And you can just finance the cost of the construction and put it on your land you already own. So that's pretty unique as well. Yeah. And, And I think that a lot of times people, you know, they might not be ready to pull the trigger on blueprints and construction, but it might be fun from the dreaming aspect and feeling like you have a sense of accomplishment to go, where do we want to live? What part of, you know, Colorado. And here's some land.

And it's fun to kind of get started. And then even if they're a year or two years out, we've got the land. And I think that that really helps to bring that dream to life from what you're describing there. Absolutely. You know, and I just thought of this, too. We used to love going up camping because my friends owned land up there before they sold it. Dang them. But it was fantastic because there was no stress.

You can go up on a Thursday. You didn't have to worry about finding a spot or being too close to someone or, you know, being too loud or someone else being too loud around you or in that kind of stuff. It was, you actually got a way to go camping and you relaxed. It was fantastic. So while you're waiting to find that, that contract or the builder to build that house on it for you, you can still enjoy the property. You can still go do things. You can ATV.

You can stay there in camp and whatnot. It's really kind of a cool thing. That's maximizing your time because you're, you got the land for a bigger purpose, but let's not let it sit dormant. Go have some fun. And I think that's a really neat, neat concept. In fact, let's take it one step further. Put up a, you know, tiny home on that or puts, you know, a smaller structure while you're

getting ready to build a big one. So who knows what that could do, but I think it really opens up creative thoughts for people that might not be ready to pull the trigger into a full-on construction loan, but finding some of that land. I think that is really, really cool. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, it's unique. It provides options for people. So what else are you looking at regarding out of the box and unique that you're able to serve your clients with? Yeah.

The other thing we talked about was like the construction aspect of it, you know, if you already had the land or say you're going to inherit some land or, you want to or you want to buy land and do the construction all the same time there are programs out there we have them here that you can buy the land

and finance the construction costs into it all in one loan all in one close there's no multiple closings there's no any that kind of stuff going on you we just do it all at the same time

less stress for you and when the construction actually starts you only pay interest on what's actually been drawn for the construction as you go through the process so your full

PITI, which principal interest tax and insurance payments, don't come into play until the construction's done. You have your certificate occupancy and you're in the property. So it's kind of affordable that way too because you're not paying the full payment the whole time the construction is doing it because you've got to live somewhere else too, right? So yes. It shows that idea as well. That is neat. So when I guess let's wrap up with this thought, I always like to learn from other people's mistakes. So when we're talking about some of these renovation loans or land or construction loans, what would you say is the number one mistake you've seen people make that you help them prevent so that people can learn from that? Savings. I would say unexpected costs, right? So when you,

when these loans actually do like the FHA construction loan, for instance, right? That one, once you're done with construction and you got month two, you're going to, you're going to to get an awfully big bill because you've got to set up the escrow account. And that there's like you can't not escrow on an FHA thing. You have to set that account up. So you've got to have savings there to have a year's worth of insurance and three months of property tax ready to go to be put into account somewhere. So I always tell people at the beginning, start saving, start put thrown two, 300 bucks a month

into a savings account, be ready for that bill to come due in the next, you know, nine to 10 months once everything's ready to go. We don't want to have surprises at the end. So the biggest thing when you're doing the construction renovation land stuff is the unexpected. So you always want to try to be upfront, transparent and say, here, here's all the things we're going to need. Here's all the things that, here's the process, what it's going to go like. Here's what you should expect. You know, does that sound good to you? You know, do you think that's feasible for you? That kind of stuff. So that's that I would say. You know, from when we first started talking about how you guide people not to get in over their head to the aspect, what you just closed here with saying, be prepared, expect the unexpected. That is just such a sane approach that I think is just powerful to be able to bring that to your clients and say, look, here's the lay of the land. I want to give you the best advice, the right advice. And I think that is just such. a great way to approach serving your clients. And you know, it might put off the quote unquote

sale for a little bit for you by giving certain advice. Or it might, you know, be a smaller house because you counsel them to get something a little bit more affordable, but it's the right thing to do. I just applaud that approach very much. Yeah. Thank you. It's, it's all about the relationship. It's about taking care of the people. It's not about the transaction. It's making sure people get what they want to have. Well, Justin, if some of these tips and topics resonate with someone, listening to this and they'd like to learn more and also reach out and connect with you. What's the best way that they can do that? Best ways call or text.

Bon numbers 303-960-487. Email also works. And then connect with me on social. I'm on all the platforms, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. LinkedIn's where you're going to find me the most. But yeah, I'm on all of them. Excellent. Well, Justin, thank you so much for coming on.

It's been a real pleasure. with you today. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Elite Real Estate Leaders podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group. To learn more about the topics mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.org.com.