Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Yoseph Assefa, Loan Officer with American Financing

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Yoseph is an accomplished Mortgage Consultant with a passion for guiding home buyers to navigate the mortgage industry and process. With a career spanning eight years, he has established himself as a recognized authority in the field, known for his expertise in first-time homeownership and exceptional leadership.As a senior mortgage consultant at American Financing, Yoseph plays a pivotal role in helping to ensure all communities are well-informed when it comes to home ownership and real estate investment. He is dedicated to driving American Financing’s mission and vision forward, consistently achieving remarkable results and delivering high-impact solutions to complex challenges.Yoseph’s journey to excellence is marked by a strong educational foundation, holding a bachelor’s in Economics from Colorado State University. This academic prowess, combined with a relentless pursuit of knowledge, has positioned him as a thought leader in residential real estate financing. Yoseph is a passionate advocate for affordable housing and down payment assistance programs, actively contributing as a member of the CHFA lender advisory board.Outside of the professional realm, Yoseph is an avid entrepreneur, community event producer, and public speaker. These interests enrich his perspective, fueling creativity and a well-rounded approach to serving his community.Learn more:https://AmericanFinancing.net | 303-437-4599Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/elite-real-estate-leaders-podcastSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-yoseph-assefa-loan-officer-with-american-financing

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. Hello and welcome to Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcast. Today we have with us Yosef Ocepa, who's a loan officer with American financing. Yosef, welcome to the program. Thank you so much.

so happy to be here. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm excited to learn from you because every single conversation we have personally or professionally, it seems like you pick up a little tidbit of something encouragement or knowledge. So I want to learn from what you've been doing, but get us started first with what's your story, what's your background, and how did you get into the mortgage industry? Definitely. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Like you said, my name is Yosef Asfa. I am, I consider myself almost a Colorado native, but I was born and raised in Ethiopia. I've been in Colorado for almost 20 years now, but I was born and raised in Ethiopia. I moved here with my family when I was a teenager, lived a couple of years and three

years to be exact in Oklahoma while my dad was working at Oklahoma State University and then moved along with my family again to Fort Collins, Colorado when my dad moved over to Colorado State University and been here in Colorado ever since attended Colorado State University, moved to Denver. And now I am, like you said, I'm a loan officer here in American financing. I'm a father of two and a lucky husband and live here in Denver and have been an entrepreneur, pretty much my whole adult life. And I call Denver home and I love living here. love the community that I've built here.

So that's kind of my short background there. Yeah, that is. That's awesome, you know, because not many, it's real, I don't know the percentage, but not many people call, you know, or are Colorado native. So when you do find someone that's a Colorado native, that's rare. But I think like myself, I've lived here for 26 years, came from Virginia. And I call this home and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. So I think that's, you know, you kind of get the Colorado bug and you never want to leave.

Exactly. I am actually a native though, you guys. Well, hey. We have someone right here. Here we go. One out of three people, you know. And you did say, Yosef, something about entrepreneurship. You've been an entrepreneur your whole life.

I would love for you to elaborate on that just a little bit. What else do you have your hands in besides the mortgage industry before we get a little deeper into that? Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, I have, you know, I grew up in a family, even though my dad was an education and he's a professor. My mom is also an education. But, you know, as an emigrant coming to this country, you're always figuring out ways to advance and ways to figure out how to create security for your family. So my parents have always been kind of looking at other things, not just their main career.

So that's kind of the environment I grew up in. So after college, I've been in, you know, event production and promotion industry for about 15 years. And also in the past, you know, seven, eight years, I've also been in the food industry. I own, I started with my really good friend, Fatian, we started a food truck, the first Ethiopian food truck in Colorado, actually. and then that has progressed into a restaurant inside of a food hall, Edgewater Public Market here in Colorado. And then on the event production side, I do a couple of marquee events every year,

the Denver International Festival that happens to Civic Center Park. That's an event that I created and manage every year. And then we also do a pretty big New Year's Eve party in partnership with the Sheridan downtown every year. So those are kind of the other things that I do to kind of stay connected with my, with my community. And also, you know, to just, you know, I always have an entrepreneur or a creative itch. And that those two things kind of allow me to to exercise those, you know. So those are the things I got going on.

That's a great way to get visibility. You know, a lot of times people say, oh, I'm active in the community and you just have a booth somewhere. But you're out there, you know, really diving in with, with, both feet jumping in with both feet. And obviously, I'm sure that your real estate side of things is one of the sponsors of those things. But that's a really elaborate opportunity that you're going out there and really making a concerted effort to be part of the community in a powerful way.

Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. It's one of those things. It's just, it becomes, everything becomes so organic because, you know, my, my interactions with the community or with the folks that I work with is. It's not forced. It's not, you know, a sales call or it's not, you know, a networking, quote-unquote networking effort.

It's just, I'm just out there working with folks that I have a lot of interest in, common interest in. And, you know, being able to provide that, you know, mentorship or feedback when it comes to questions around real estate. It just brings a lot more value to the table with, you know, when it comes to the relationships that I hold out there. And on top of it, I know Yosef is so humble, but I'm going to brag a little bit and say I've had his restaurant's food and it is amazing. So you does a really great job. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

We work very hard. My partner, like I said, is she's been a chef a lot longer than, you know, we've had the restaurant and food. She's extremely, extremely amazing. Her name is Fatian. So I give that all the credit to her when it comes to the food. But, you know, I'm right there. to get some credit. Yeah, definitely. Well, with that then, you've got so many things going on. Why are you in the mortgage industry? Well, you know, that's a really good question. I've always been a people person,

and I know that's something people say all the time, but I really, really enjoy working with people, serving people, helping people, and just interacting with people. I'm extremely social. I'm extremely interested in different things as well. I think moving from a different continent to a new continent when you're a 13 years old just kind of opens you up to a lot of possibilities. So I've always been in the people business, even if it's events or food or whatever it is. And I just felt like as I was getting older, as I was getting more mature and kind of looking at the next five, 10, 20 years, I wanted to make, I wanted to continue working with people, but I wanted to make that impact a little bit bigger, a lot more meaningful and a lot more, you know, something that's

going to last a lot longer than a moment or a day or an experience. So I thought, you know, mortgages and the real estate business was exactly the way to do that. And it's just, like I said earlier, it was super organic because all of the relationships that I had before that are based on trust, based on, you know, respect. So it was really simple for that network to look at me in a different light and give me an opportunity to help them with with real estate with a big decision in their lives. So that's kind of how I got into the mortgage industry. So obviously the mortgage industry is just smooth sailing. It's the easiest thing in the world. There's never any bumps or hurdles. Right. You know, ha ha. But what do you find as a challenging

aspect of the business for you that you need to recognize, overcome, and then be prepared to smooth it out for your borrowers. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I definitely catch the sarcasm on that, you know, part of that question. It's definitely a tough business and it's been even tougher in the past, you know, 12 to 18 months. But, you know, to me, to be honest with you, more than the current challenges that we're facing as far as rates and everything like that goes, it's really misinformation. in my opinion. A lot of people either don't make the right decision or don't make a decision

at all because of bad information that they're receiving from. Mostly, to be honest with you, is probably the internet. It's probably those short clips online that don't really give you, you know, the context, you know, around what they're talking about and, you know, somebody's selling something or class or, you know, there's just so much bad information out there. I just feel like a lot of people get stuck in being too scared to do something, or they will make a rash decision and make a bad decision. So I really think that's one of the biggest challenges that we face as an industry. And, you know, when I look at it from my perspective, that's what I try to focus on. How can I make this process in this industry more accessible and more understandable to my

community? You know, what is actually out there that they should be concerned about? is something they should understand as part of the business and part of the market that we're in, you know, without the, you know, without scaring them or without getting them too excited or giving them unrealistic goals. How can we get that information to our community? That's really, you know, my focus most of the time. It's like information and overload out there right now. I mean, it's great that you have such a big community and they trust. you because it's really important that they come to somebody who's going to give them good information who knows what they're doing, which you have all of that. But so that's great that

you have so much experience and you can give that to your clientele. Definitely. Definitely. It's important because everyone wants to be an expert, you know, and you can't fault people from, you know, for wanting to share their, their expert, you know, opinion to others. But, you know, this industry is so complicated for somebody that's just getting into it for the first time, that they need somebody that they can trust that can give them a straight shot answer instead of, you know, things that are motivated with their own interest. And if you don't do that, then you run the risk of really guiding someone down the wrong path. And where I'm going with that is, do you know what the Latin derivative of the word mortgage is?

I don't. What is it? Mort is like, you know, death, mortier, death, and gauge is grip. So literally, in Google this, but really, it stands for death grip because in reality, a mortgage can be a death grip when you, you know, as a whole, but especially if it is not structured in the best interest of the client. We saw that back in 07, 8, 9, you know, and all that with all these toxic mortgages from all of the, you know, all of the, you know, all. the loan officer just wanted to get them into this and make the most for the loan officer, but it put the client in the borrower in a bad situation. So because a mortgage can be a death grip, your approach, what you're just saying here of, I educate, I make sure they understand, I make sure I'd put my client's best interest. That right there is a huge opportunity for your clients to understand. And I think that's a really, really special approach. Definitely, definitely. I mean, that's, that's, first of all, I did not know that. And I'm

going to, I'm going to put that in my back pocket. But that's a really good way to look at it. It could definitely be, you know, it could definitely be something that completely destroys somebody's financial future if it's not done the right way. That's a fireside chat for the closing table, right? Exactly. Or the first time you meet with someone. I mean, really, it's like, hey, let me just tell you something. I am going to teach you and help you make the right decision because. If you don't understand, this can be a death grip. You know, that's the approach. So when you are teaching people and educating them and making sure they understand all of their options,

what are some of the typical hot buttons that people are either not fully understanding that you're really having to dive into so that they really, really know what they're getting into? What are you seeing out there? Definitely. The first thing is, you know, understanding what is happening in the marketplace right now, on understanding, you know, I always, you know, people always focus on, you know, how much is a house, you know, how much house can I afford? And instead of talking about how much the price point is for that property, I really just start at the monthly payment. That's one of the things that I really

start out at. And we end up spending a lot of time on. And by the time we're done with that conversation, I really do feel like the customer understands, you know, what kind of commitment they're making. So instead of talking about, is it 500,000, is it 600,000, can I pay off something to get to a little bit higher point? I really just focus on what does your family feel comfortable with on a monthly basis. And once they identify that number, then, you know, building the mortgage or the proposal around that is a lot easier. And the customer feels like they're in control of that conversation, not the other way around. You know, it's not me telling them, hey, you can't afford anything over $350,000. It's more of them saying, okay, if I can only afford $2,500 a month,

where can I stop shopping or what's my ceiling? So it's just, you know, the question or the, the item that I focus on is different with every person, but it's really about being as transparent as possible because this is not the type of sales environment where you can, you know, push somebody to make a purchase. No matter how good of a presenter or salesperson you are, nobody's really going to buy a house because you sold them really well, right? They might not buy it right now, but if you give them the right information, that customer is going to come back when the time is right for them.

And because I'm trying to build a long-term career and business here, that's what I'm focused on. That's actually so beneficial to a real estate agent, too, as you're your partner because when you give them that monthly payment, it really caps them. And there's no, hey, we're going to go 10,000 over budget. We're going to go 20,000 over budget. It's like, here's where we're comfortable. And that's that. So I feel like that's not only good for your customer, but it's really good for an agent. I agree. I agree 100%. I communicate that with the agent and a lot, because a lot of times, you know, agents will jump on a calculator, a mortgage calculator and try

to figure out some numbers, you know, to put their buyer in a better position sometimes. And, you know, if you give them a range of where the payment needs to be, at least it gives them a little bit more guideline. I always prefer them reach out to me so I can do it. But if they're doing it themselves, I like to give as much guidance as possible. So I agree with you 100%. Exactly. What kind of borrowers are you working with these days? Are they first time homebuyers? Are they move up, move down buyers? What do you see them? I'm seeing definitely, I definitely work a decent amount of first time home buyers. I would say probably 50% of my business at least is first time home buyers.

Out of those first time home buyers, I would probably say at least another 50% of that is using a down payment assistance first time home buyer program like Metro DPA or Chaffa. The other half, I would say, is upsizing and downsizing. Yeah. You know, you know, older folks, you know, getting rid of a property that has $500,000 in equity and buying something, you know, a lot more manageable. And then I'm also seeing, you know, families that are that are getting bigger and needing more space.

So it's a good mix. I see, you know, about 10, 20 percent of my business is investment properties. Most of them are not in Colorado because of the prices. But the Colorado business that I'm seeing is first time. home buyers heavy. Yeah, and I think that no matter what the rate environment is, because today's rates might be whatever, tomorrow might be different, two months from now might be different. So once you have decided, you know, we need to buy our first home because of these reasons,

maybe pride of ownership, maybe get some equity growth, maybe tax write off, all of the above, right? Then you just need to go, okay, let me just make the best mortgage decision for right now. And there's a whole ton of different mortgage options you can choose from. And that's where you come in and educate them and show them, okay, here's how this one would look. Here's what this one would do. But in reality, it's like the old example of, you know, if it's a hot day, you should have planted a tree 30 years ago so you can sit under it. But what's the next best time today?

So, you know, yeah, rates two years ago were whatever. And two years ago, they could be totally different. So look at today. Make some wise decisions. Exactly. Exactly. It's all about what is right for you right now. And we always spend, we also spend a lot of time, especially right now because of the right environment, about a short and a long-term plan, right? What can you afford? What can you stretch for? What can you manage for the next 12 to 24 months because of where we're at? And then what does it look like after that 12 to 24 months? Never get into a position where you don't feel comfortable handling, that payment for from day one. But at the same time, you know, families are able to make decisions based on a long-term plan. And we're definitely seeing, you know, prices, you know, and home prices are definitely a lot more reasonable than they were, you know, at the height of the boom. So there

are opportunities out there for the right family, for the right person. But they have to know, they have to walk into the situation knowing what they're dealing with. And that's my job. I really do feel like that's my responsibility. Well, Yosef, it's apparent and very clear that that is your job and you take that responsibility very seriously. So thank you for coming on. If someone is interested in reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way they can do that? I am on my cell phone 24-7. My wife hates it. But, you know, for your listeners, call me. text me on my cell phone. My phone number is 303, 437, 4599. And then also, you know, I'm on all social media platforms under my name, Yosef Acefa. And also you can reach out to American financing and ask for me there. But I really, really appreciate this opportunity, Mike and Tia. Really, thank you so much. You're so welcome. Thank you for coming on. Definitely. Definitely. You guys have a wonderful day.

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.