Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP 22 Feat. Joe Dougherty

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Embracing the Journey: Joe Dougherty's Path from Rock Stardom to Mortgage Consulting In this episode of 'Good News York,' host Mike Brindisi welcomes Joe Dougherty of Cross Country Mortgage. Despite the snowy spring day, the discussion stays warm and focused on positive news. Joe shares his journey from aspiring rock star to successful mortgage consultant, highlighting the importance of personalized service in the mortgage industry. He explains the intricacies of the home buying process, addressing common misconceptions about down payments and stressing the importance of financial literacy in public education. Joe also discusses the impact of economic changes on the mortgage market and provides insight into specialized loan programs that make home ownership more accessible. The episode wraps up with a light-hearted conversation about Joe's musical background and a fun debate on creating the ultimate rock band. 00:00 Welcome to Good News York 00:28 Meet Joe Dougherty: Mortgage Expert 01:52 The Mortgage Process Explained 04:25 The Importance of Financial Education 11:07 Helping People Achieve the American Dream 13:18 Navigating Market Volatility 21:36 Unique Loan Programs and Services 26:17 Addressing Down Payment Concerns 26:39 Exploring Loan Options and Grants 28:57 Myth Busting and Expert Advice 29:26 Tips for First-Time Home Buyers 32:08 Understanding Market Dynamics 34:22 Impact of Micron on Local Real Estate 37:25 From Mortgages to Music: Joe's Journey 41:18 Ultimate Dream Band Discussion 44:31 Closing Remarks and Contact Information

You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. All right, welcome to Good News York.

It is Wednesday. It's April. It's spring, but there's snow on the ground. But we're not going to talk about that. That's not good news. This is good news. I'm Mike Brindisi, my producer, Danny Tripodi in the house. Matt is off giving to charity and doing push-ups.

So I am lucky enough to say I am here with the great Joe Doherty, one of our clients at growth mode content. but more importantly a friend of ours, a friend of the show. Joe, welcome, good morning. Happy to be here, thanks. I'd shake your hand. I love it. I can't reach that far. I'm so glad you're here.

We don't want to talk about the snow this morning. No, we're not. Okay. We're not because it's good news, York. Well, here's the thing. I like snow. Well, right? I mean, I, people that, you know, friends and family that I know down south,

they don't understand why I enjoy the snow. And I tell them, I love seasonal changes. I love the snow around the holidays. The only problem I have is when you get past New Year's, you get into February and March, I'm done. Now it's good. Now we're good. Yep.

And the problem I have is that it just, they tease us with warm weather and then we go back to snow. You know, let's just have it one way or the other. Well, that's kind of what I was going to say. How would we know how beautiful it's going to be in the summer in Central New York? If we didn't have these little days, we're battle tested. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is, you can't appreciate it.

the light till you've been in the dark. You can't appreciate the good weather till you've been in the hideous cold. It's yin and yang. It's yin and yang. Listen, you are here. Joe Doherty, Joe Doherty mortgage team or cross-country mortgage.

Yep. Same thing. Yeah. So you are a mortgage broker. Mm-hmm. But you also, would you consider yourself a realtor as well? Nope. I mean, I cater to realtors.

So basically, I'm the money guy. Okay. Realtors take interest in people looking to buy home. and I'm part of that team. I mean, I've been doing this for over 20 years, and we have a pretty good playbook. My team does on, you know, making sure we work hand-at-hand with realtors. And just for definition, a realtor is somebody that really shows unlock stores, make sure somebody wants to buy the house.

And then when they, you know, when they're ready to move forward with a home, we're right there behind him with the money, the mortgage, the financing, the consultation to make sure that they know what they're getting into. And, yeah, in a nutshell. You're the guy that's going to find the best rate and the best mortgage option for the potential buyers. Correct. Yeah, we go through a pretty extensive application process, educate our clients to make sure they know what they're getting into. We break it up into, are they a first-time home buyer? Are they an investor? Are they a move-up buyer? Are they somebody that's been through their life, empty nesters, and they're looking to downsize?

So we take all that into consideration and make the best recommendation possible. I mean, there's a lot of different mortgage programs out there. I'm lucky enough to say across country, we pretty much participate in everything that exists. And then some. Really great company. In fact, the number one retail lender in the country right now. We have the most top 1% loan officers in the country. So we're like really, really love what we do and it shows in our numbers and how many people we help.

I mean, I'm blessed to say that I've helped at least 6,000 people get their first homes in my career, and it's pretty rewarding. A little stressful. It's very stressful. If you've ever bought a house. I've bought and sold multiple houses. My wife and I had a rental property or two for a short time. And, you know, there's obviously a way to train and learn and go to school for this kind of stuff. Then there's also just the gorilla way.

which is my way. I just learned by doing it. Yep. Did you, what kind of training did you, did you go through, if any at all? And how do you kind of learn all that stuff? Very interesting. Well, a lot of it, every, I always tell people that I train in loan officers. I've trained some loan officers that have gone off to be top producers.

So I really love doing that as well. And interestingly, and this has talked about a lot, they don't really teach a lot in school or in the secondary education system about how to actually take financial responsibility in your life, how to get a mortgage. There's no class on it. So when I'm getting borrowers, especially first-time home borrowers, they're like, so is this like getting a credit card? I just got a car, so I know what this is about.

Like, no. No, you don't. You know, it's a whole different thing. So we have to really educate everybody that gets into it. And so there is no real formal training. I mean, there's a couple of companies out there that take you through like an online training program. But most of what you learn, you have to go under somebody that's done it for a while and have a mentor and shadow them and to understand how to do it. I always say it takes about a year to really wrap your brain around how the whole real estate transaction cycle works.

you know, you have the realtor component. In New York, of course, there's more red tape. In Good News, York, there's more. Nice. Which is consumer advocates to protect people, but there's more players involved in real estate transaction. We're considered an attorney state, so you'll typically have an attorney when you're buying.

But to go back to your question on, you know, how did I get into it? I started as a financial advisor. Funny story. When I had my first son, Aiden, and ironically, he's getting into the business now. He's 26. There you go. I tried to tell him, no, do something else.

Don't do it. But it's going to be great. I was like, I got to do something important. You know, I got to feel like business, you know, white collar. I went out and got a suit, and I'm like, took my financial advisement testing through the state of New York. And from there, kind of transition into lending, I found it a little more rewarding to see people buy their first homes. Absolutely. To see people go through the actual experience of that.

Yeah. And I've been doing it ever since. And learning how to do it properly really takes years of experience because you have to really know the psychology of why people are buying a home. It's probably one of the most emotionally charged purchases that people will ever do. You know, you're absolutely right. You know, there's a running joke in my house. My daughter, she can't make decisions. So we'll be like, what do you want for dessert?

You want, you know, half moon or you want cookies. And we joke, she acts like she has to buy a house. She's buying a house. She can't decide because that really is the metric for, you know, when you think of big decisions to make, that's one of them. Sure. Before I go on, continue on this, I want to just circle back real quick to what you said about school. You know, you said there's no, you know, there's no training in school for this kind of stuff.

I have been such an advocate for, you know, there's a lot of jokes on the internet of like, you know, while we were square dancing in PE class, you know, we should have been basically learning how to do our taxes, learning how to deal with mortgages. This stuff, I mean, don't you feel like that is something that could and should be woven into the public education system? I've been speaking on this for 20 years, you know, and my kids seeing them go through school. And like you said, they're square dancing. They're doing the parachute game. Teach a model. They're like, hey, we don't know what to do today. Let's put them in Dodgeball, which I do.

They'll dodge ball. I agree with Dodgeball. They have to keep. But I actually went to the school where I went to in Weedsport and I talked to the business teacher. You know, they have those electives in school. They don't really put a lot of emphasis on the business classes. Like, hey, this is a half year. Sure.

And the guy's like, well, this is. And I was like, hey, you want me to come in and do some guest speaking on, you know, for the kids to get their finances in order, their ducks in a row to be able to become a homeowner just so it's not that they should start buying homes. Right. I shot high school, but it gives them an idea of what their parents went through. Yeah. If they own a home, if, you know, or how to jump. And they were just had no interest.

They're like, no, we don't, we don't want to do that. And it blows my mind because. No idea why. You know, a lot of the times the things that we learn, some of the things that we learn in, in public school, it's great. It's all relative, but you don't use 70% of it, you know, most of the time. I don't understand why we wouldn't have, you know, more emphasis on economics, mortgages, you know, learning how to balance your finances, doing your taxes. I always rave about media literacy.

That's a whole separate topic. You know, all the problem with misinformation and disinformation, we really need to catch people up on that. They cross paths. They absolutely. Because now, like to your point with the economics, it's like a big media craze. Everyone's talking about terrorists. And everyone's like a. a specialist now all this side.

And as you can imagine, that's very frustrating for somebody like I would imagine. You can read through the red tape, look at everything, and it's, you know, people are. You're like, that's not how it works. Exactly. But if they learned in high school, had some of these fundamentals. Well, and that's the thing, you can't even get really mad at them because it's, a lot of times it's not their fault.

It's like you don't know because you were never taught. Yeah, exactly. You read one article and now you're. Yep. And I have my son all the time. I have a teenager as well. He comes up to me, Liam. He's like, showing me some TikTok realtor investment scheme that some kids selling, you know, an info product on or creating his click phone.

I'm like, no, dude. That's bullshit. That's what we call in the business bullshit. Yes. But back to what we were saying, if I can remember, you know, you're talking about helping so many people. And, you know, you and I know each other a bit now. And you have such a good heart. And I do too, almost to a fault.

And there is that element. I think would you say that maybe that's probably the crux of why you're doing it and why you're still doing it? Because there's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of research, a lot of bullshit to go through. But is the payoff really when you see somebody get what they need and what they want? Most days. Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously there's challenging days where, you know, and on top of all that, the industry changes.

a bit. Sure. As the economy changes, the mortgage securities changes, which all goes and bleeds down to the consumer. Learning the psychologies of people can put a lot of pressure. All in all, I really love what I do. And I'll give you a couple examples why. Please. You know, I'm able to, like most recently, help a refugee by their first house who went through immigration, worked very hard save their money. And when you look at those instances and those families and you're at the closing table and you hand them. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're in a podcast, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from and start earning from ads like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. The keys to their house, it's like you're seeing in real time the American dream come true. 100%. And it's just like very emotional. And they're more appreciative than anything you can ever imagine. I do a lot of mortgage rescuing as well where people have been turned down by multiple banks. And then finally a realtor is like, we have a pretty good reputation. We have a pretty good reputation. You know, if we can't do it, nobody can kind of thing. And unfortunately, when people do apply for things, they're fearful about getting turned down or getting rejected.

Sure. And we don't use words like declined or rejected and stuff. We, you know, I have my team, like, we just need another roadmap to get you there. Yeah. You know, we put them on a path and a roadmap. That's something we do. And I take a lot of passion in, but I recently had a veteran who was turned down literally by the top two national veteran lending institutions in the country. And I took a look at it. And it was a little bit of a hell Mary, but I was able to find a way to get it done. And we just closed last week. And he was like, brother, you just changed my whole family's life, you know, relocating here.

And he's actually using the GI Bill to go to school at SU and he's going to be a doctor. It's an incredible story. So it feels amazing in those instances when you can do that for somebody. Yeah, I mean, we hear over decades, we've heard the story of, you know, people came here for the American dream, the American dream. And, you know, as you're talking, I'm realizing, you're one of the guys on the front lines of facilitating the American dream, like, genuinely. And that's special, man. I appreciate that. No, I mean it.

It's amazing. I would imagine when a new presidential administration comes in. So is it like every four years, does everyone in your company, like, kind of hold their breath? we go, does it like a complete shakeup when a new administration comes in or is it just like a little bit of a bump? Not as much as recently, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, yes.

There's always some kind of shakeup and you're always wondering. There's always a mentality with investors in the public, like that are on eggshells when they see what the economic outlook is going to be and what the policy is going to be for a new administration. But the reality is, is that there's very little political. influence in the Federal Reserve and monetary policy. They do a pretty good job. And, you know, there might be conspiracy theorists out there like, oh, no, you don't know. I get that. But if you actually look at Bureau of Labor Statistics and you look at and you file bond yields and you kind of take an unemotional and influenced look at the markets, you could determine where things are going to go.

And, you know, to comment on the recent economic volatility, which is very high, which makes people very nervous. Sure. It was bound to happen. I mean, we went through the largest, you know, mortgage crisis of our generation in 2008, yep, which the Fed had to put downward pressure on rates to stimulate homeownership, foreclosure crisis, COVID. There was bound to be inflationary problems when we pump that much money and dilute the value of the dollar into the economy, so they had to raise rates. Yep. And rates go up and it shakes the market up. Sure. Inevitably, these bubbles flatten out over time, a lot of investors get rich on volatility. They're like, look at this dip. I'm going to they know it's going to go back up. That's right. That's right. So it could be disconcerting.

And the biggest shame is people waiting on the sidelines because they think they can time the market. And to your point, the media discernment, you said people don't know the difference between. It just, there's so much basic propaganda and misinformation and disinformation. And again, I go back to saying you want to get mad at these people for falling for all of this stuff, but we don't have media literacy woven into public education to be able to spot those kind of things. But it's actually getting even harder now with AI. I mean, AI is not just thoughts anymore.

They're creating AI, I mean, image videos. It's unbelievable. It's ridiculous. You know, I preach about not, you know, misinformation and disinformation. I'm falling for the shit half the time too. I find myself doom scrolling on these AI stuff. And I'm like, how? Yeah.

It's bizarre. It's unbelievable. But yeah. And people think now that they understand how the market works and because they saw a couple TikTok videos and that's, that's frustrating. And you look at the kids and I often wonder, you know, how much of this is going to teach them how to have better. Are they going to be like, positive way to spin it? Yeah.

You know, are they going to be like because they're in the thick of it that they're going to have to have better. discernment, you know. I mean, yeah, I think, I think it's going to force us all to really take the time to look into what we're viewing and what we're reading and, and really, it's going to take someone to get burned really bad financially. Yeah. I mean, to apply it to this before they go, maybe I should stop taking advice from

mortgage people on TikTok. I should call Doherty, Joe Doherty. Yeah. Speaking of, you know, Joe Doherty, mortgage and Joe Dory mortgage team. Yep. And cross-country mortgage, yeah. Yeah. What sets cross-country mortgage apart in terms of like your customer service and your loan options?

Like what I want to come to, you know, there's dozens of your types of companies. Why am I coming to you? I mean, I know why. I love you. But for the regular person, what kind of sets you apart? What's your process? I think that's great. Thank you for let me answer that question.

So I'm not going to let you. Moving on. Time's up. So setting ourselves apart is we take a really highly consultative approach to it. And we take somebody buying a home as a big investment in their life, which it is most of the time. So we teach our customers through education. We'll do like side-by-side analysis. We make sure that they feel very comfortable moving forward.

board with big decisions. It's a very fast market right now. So in the instance of first-time homebuyers, you know, our borrowers don't just come in, felt an application. We're like, okay, here you go. You're approved up to this. Good luck. We take them through a whole set of coaching to make sure they know what they're getting into. We then work with the realtor to help co-pilot the whole situation for them. It's very handholding. So that sets us apart. Cross-country mortgage nationally, is a really pro-business, which bleeds down to the customer, highly qualified loan officer situation. The owner of our company, Ron, it was a loan officer. So everything that he does takes the client approach to our business.

And so when you look at everything that we have, and we have competitors that have similar products, and there's some right in our community that do a great job that I love. With cross-country mortgage, the reason I put my license with them is that I feel like we just go a little bit above and beyond when it comes to that service piece of it, educating our clients, making sure we're putting the right programs, first-time home buyer programs, everything in place to make our customers feel comfortable moving forward with buying a home. That's ultimately what they want to do. It's hard to do, and we don't kind of gloss over it. I love that, man. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes complete sense because I was going to ask, you know, how do you and your team simplify the mortgage process for first-time homebuyers?

Yeah. I mean, you just answered it. And I think that the hand-holding thing, you know, that can, when you hear about having, you know, hand-holding, you think of it as a negative kind of phrase. I think in this business and in your situation, that's important, especially for first-time homebuyers. Yep. So I love that you put so much emphasis on the customer. You know, people say that all the time. The customer comes first, but they don't really practice it.

They just preach it. And, you know, I love what you said about, you know, how one of the guys, would you say the owner was a loan officer? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That really resonates with me because when I was doing radio back in the day, I noticed that a lot of GMs of radio stations were also former on air, but also former salespeople. Because they got, because a lot of companies want somebody who can see both sides, because those are the two sides of that. It's crucial.

It's crucial. Yeah. So to have the owner, not just be the owner, but someone who comes from that side of it, I mean, that's got to play a huge role. It plays an enormous role. And in the case of the mortgage industry, I would say probably less than half of the mortgage lenders out there, the guy at the top of the org chart has probably never originated alone in his life.

So that's why you have so much differences in how smooth the transaction goes. So particularly in all the, are in the greater Syracuse area where we have attorneys. Yeah. You know, if somebody comes into town and realtors will definitely, you know, see this a mile away and be like, please go with a local lender. If you don't know the players involved, you can't quarterback the situation. So if somebody comes in with a pre-approval from East Wichita Federal Credit Union,

they're basically going to look at this and say this is only as good as a paper it's written on. Right. You know, so you've got to have that expertise, particularly in this area, It takes a certain amount of expertise to do it. But yeah, it's amazing to see people run companies that actually don't have the experience on the front lines of dealing with customers. And that's what you want.

And that's one of the reasons cross-country is doing extremely well. I mean, we're growing where other mortgage companies are having terrible years. And that's not something, you know, the everyday buyer can know ahead of time, you know? You just go by what you hear and see. You might not know that I'm dealing with someone that doesn't actually have a ton of experience in this certain aspect of it.

Sure. I got to ask, are there any unique kind of loan programs or services that you offer that clients might not be aware of? Yeah. One thing that's really popular right now is, and in order to describe what this is, I'll have to kind of give you an example of a situation. So in this particular market, there's low inventory. And that means a highly desirable house has multiple offers from multiple buyers.

And the competition amongst those buyers is crucial for the seller making a decision. It's not just price. It's loan type, how much they're putting down. They get all that information on a purchase offer. Now, add to the fact if they have a contingency. In other words, say you're coming to buy my house, but in order to do so, you have to sell your house to qualify because you need the money from that house, et cetera. we will do a bridge loan, which will give you the money out of that house so that you can put it down and not have a contingency on the sale of your house. That's huge.

Because if I'm selling you my house, I'm like, man, I got to wait for his house to sell in order for him to buy my house. I can't do that. That's a stressful part for people. That was a stressful part. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're in a podcast, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more.

Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. For my wife and the whole like, well, we can't do this until we sell this, but how do we, you know, it's hard to navigate that. Yep, yep. So that's really useful in this particular market right now. where it's fast. If you want to be a buyer and you want to win in this market, you know, I'm talking and coaching borrowers all the time, we're going to win and this is how.

We're going to set you up with the best approval that you can have. We're going to make sure you don't have contingencies. It's going to feel really nervous. But if you want this, how bad do you want it and you want to win? We're going to help you win, you know, and it really is a competitive market. Where in years past, it would be you could underbid and try and none of that. right now. I mean, every house pretty much is going for what it's listed for or more. In this market, or you mean in general? In this particular market. Yeah. You know, when rates go up, people sit on their interest rates that were better, you know, which I can agree or disagree with.

I mean, waiting on the sidelines to move on with your life due to market conditions, I always think is generally a bad idea because you would have been building equity in your next house where you want to be. That's probably a topic for another, you know, podcast. But to win, to remove those contingencies is extremely important. The other thing we have is an enhanced approval called a cash plus guarantee. And a few of my competitors have this as well. The thing about cross-country mortgage that makes it a little more accessible is we typically have lower credit score requirements. Oh, wow.

For that. And basically what it is is a fully underwritten borrower. that we've underwritten it to a degree that we're issuing a letter saying that this offer is as good as cash. Wow. If this borrower falls through for any reason, cross-country mortgage, we have a fund set aside to specifically do this. I was going to ask, you're putting your neck out there. Yeah. How are you able to do that? So, that's fantastic.

We do a lot of servicing, too. We service a lot of our own loans. So when a borrower closes with us, they can come back to me and say, have a question on my taxes or escrow. And so in most instances, we're holding most of our mortgages or servicing most of our mortgages as well. And that was important to me because I like to stay with the borrowers even after they close. A lot of the lenders, you know, that are my peers in the industry are just selling it off to get service by Wells Fargo, 1-800, you know, or another company, not to say anything bad about any of the other ones. But what's important to me is that we're keeping most of the servicing.

And yeah, we actually set a fund aside for these cash. plus guarantees, whereas a lot of the companies are just kind of, you know, so we have that financial solidarity, which is important. Yeah, that goes right back to earlier when I asked, you know, what sets you guys apart? That's, that's huge. Yeah. And there's no worse feeling as a buyer that when you make probably the biggest, one of the biggest purchases of your life up to that point and maybe even after. And then it's like you're there and there's nowhere to be, now you're alone. You know, it's like the first day after the hop. And, when you have your kid and all the nurses are helping you, anything you need, you

beep the butt. Then you go home with your first child and you're like, oh, what do we do? You know, it kind of feels that way with a house, you know? And then some, some company, some brokers would just, okay, we're done here. I like you. You're still there for them. Yeah. That's sweet.

I don't know if this is a dumb question or not, but I feel like it's an important question because I find that a lot of people I've talked to over the years, one of their biggest fears when buying a house or what they think is the biggest hurdle is the down payment. And I've heard through the grapevine TikTok, you know, it's much. There's grants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard that it is important. It isn't important.

Is that, can you address that? How is that a big deal, the down payment? Sure. I mean, there's multiple ways to approach how much money somebody has to invest in the transaction. So when we take an application, sorry, and do our, initial consult, we're seeing how much money they have to work with, how much money they feel comfortable putting into a transaction, and that really lends what type of product and

recommendation we're going to make for a mortgage instrument. So if they have, you know, as little to put down as possible, we might look at like FHA loans that allows you to roll in quite a bit of your closing costs. Sunny May, which is a New York specific program, often has these waves of huge grants up to $30,000 that people can use for their down payment and to lower their loan balances. The interest rates very good on that as well. So we try and do as many sunny Mays as possible for people that fit into that program. That's huge.

We have a lot of rural areas in upstate New York. Yes, we do. Danny and we're just talking about that, actually. And what's cool is USDA, which we're a direct USDA. Yelander is a, they have a guaranteed program that banks can participate in. It's 100% financing. There's a zero down payment and you can roll in your closing costs up to a certain percentage. I mean, I've done USDA's $200,000 loan, just an example. And the borrowers come to the table with like $1,800. You know, and in the case of veterans, veterans, I mean, you pretty much can roll in as much as the

appraisal will allow. Good. It should be that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So those are some solutions. for that and actually conventional has some low down payment programs too. There's a program called Home Possible. That's a 3% down. You can roll in closing costs. The interest rates very good and the mortgage insurance portion of their payment without getting too technical is lower than what it would otherwise be. You're talking about the PMI, the private mortgage insurance?

Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm so glad you addressed that. I feel like this is the most important part of this interview so far because, like I said, I didn't word it correctly, but basically there's just my, a lot of people I've met that thought the down payment is the maker. Well, we can't buy a house.

We don't have the money for a down payment. And that's, that's kind of what I meant. And you addressed that. Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that. There are options out there. It's not the deal breaker. Yeah, I do a lot of myth busting when I'm talking to borrowers in terms of what they've heard. I basically like, okay, so now that you're talking about buying a house, just so you know, everyone's going to turn into an expert. That's right. Even if they're a renter. Like your uncle, your parents, your friends. Here's what you need to do. Try not to listen to any of them.

Listen to them, but don't, then come to me and I'll just suss it out for you. Exactly. Is there a couple more questions? Is there any sort of tip on, you know, first-time buyers or buyers in general that, you know, they should maybe red flags? Is there, like, what's something everybody can do to take a step towards, you know, buying the home that everybody, should do ahead of time or and are there any red flags they should look for when dealing with someone in the mortgage broker broker? Sure. Brokering business. Yeah. Yeah. I was like eight

questions. Sorry. No. Hi guy. Well, I'll probably be like, wait, what was the second question? What? First step. I, so I owned a credit repair company as well back in, I think I sold it in 2012. So we really take the credit piece of it seriously and everybody's pretty hyper-sensitive right now to credit score due to credit karma. You know, what's my score and hard inquiry? I don't want a credit pull and everybody's really hypersensitive about that. But the first step really is to not guess at what you should be doing. Don't be a WebMD, Google doctor. Come to somebody like myself, come to us. I mean, I love talking to people that aren't ready and say, hey, listen, here's what I'm seeing. Here's what you need to do. We have a mortgage coaching calls with people

that don't qualify now that what we call future buyers. We don't say, hey, you're a lot of banks just say, hey, sorry, you don't qualify now. Go pay your credit cards down a little bit. We'll check again in six months. We stay right with them. We say, okay, here's a plan. If you save this much per month, you'll be ready on month three, you'll qualify for this, we'll give the qualification back to your realtor, and we really put them on a really defined path. So the first step is to talk to a qualified loan consultant before you think you're ready to do it, because a good loan consultant is going to say, I'm glad you called me first before you assumed you knew what you were doing from looking on the internet or assumed you knew what was happening due to somebody else you spoke to or some false

expert. So that's the first part. I would say any red flags, if they are already working with somebody or they've been turned down. I love looking at turn downs, by the way. If anybody's listening to it, it's been turned down for a mortgage for some reason, you know, give me a call. You know, I take a look at it. There might be a solution for you right now. Don't call me. I will not be able to help you.

Call one in a hundred. A one-six-six-doer-de-old a mortgage. Yeah, second-market. Second-morgas. Second look at your mortgage. Have you been declined? Have you been turned down? Well, I got news.

I got good news. Say no to Joe. That's phenomenal. I got to ask this, too. And again, maybe this is a dumb question. But the term, it's a buyer's market. It's a seller's market. It's a bellar.

I can't wrap my damn head around this. Is there a way, it's a broad kind of question. But when is it a buyer's market? When is it a seller's market? Because so many mixed reviews on that. So it's all supply and demand. Right. So when supplies low, it's a seller's market.

It's like, think about it like something rare, like diamonds. There you go. You know, the less diamonds that are in circulation, the more expensive they are. So the less houses listed for sale, the more the seller has competition for that, it raises prices. So that's considered a seller's market. Now, there are pockets that turn into buyers markets during that period. It shifts kind of slowly, but if you look at a market like, say, Florida, you know, where they peak way quicker than central New York.

You know, it's more vacation resort, you know, and prices rise and fall much sharper. And it's a good place to look for indication of what might be happening in other areas. It's almost like seeing a crystal ball. Okay, this is happening in Florida. You know, here we might see flattening. Right now, I think Florida's prices are starting to flatten a little bit in certain areas where it might start to turn more into a buyer's market. Whereas, I mean, I saw, I did more, I licensed in Florida.

So I've done mortgages there, say five years ago, you know, I just, just one example. I think I did a house in Naples, not on the water, like two blocks off the water for maybe $650,000. And I think it, I'm doing a refinance that's praise it like 1.5. Wow. You know? Yeah. And it's like that type of appreciation in any market in stock.

or anything, and you're going to see it go like this eventually. Yeah. You know, where the good thing about Syracuse in this area is we don't, the bubble doesn't really pop. It just kind of flattens out for a little while. Nothing's in the extreme. Yeah, there's no extreme here. Which is a good thing.

Sure. I want to, that was kind of my last question, which is there is a lot of excitement around Mike Ron coming. And I would assume that's generating a lot of interest in your field. Yeah. Can you give us a little bit of an outlook? Yeah. I mean, I feel like now would be a great time to buy, especially if you want to flip something, right?

Sure. Yeah, I mean, we have a shortage of housing. Okay. Back to supply and demand. Yep, especially taking on Micron. And I'm not an expert in that particular space, but I can tell you what I'm seeing is a ripple effect of this news in mortgage originations and applications. which is a lot of foreign investors coming in, a lot of people looking to invest here to be landlords because they know that there's a shortage of housing and these people, you know, the workers

and the boon to the economy is going to drive more population growth, which, by the way, interestingly enough, we're a member of Center State CEO, which is an excellent resource to find out a lot about what's going on locally in the economy. that the Syracuse population has begun to increase. I don't know the exact, but in the past few years, but it was like for the first time in 50 years or something like that. Wow. It began to increase.

And another good metric for the buzz in Syracuse, which all relates into home buying and people needing houses and things of that nature, is the airport, Syracuse-Hancock Airport, has jumped from like the sixth busiest to the fourth, fourth in the country? No, in the state of New York. Oh, we state of New York.

Okay. Oh, God. I was like, wow. We just beat L-A-X. Yeah, exactly. No, it's, so it's like LaGuardia, Kennedy, and then it was Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse. And then Syracuse jumped, which I guess, according to the economics presentation I saw, that never happens. like for the past two years for the population in an airport,

the busyness of it, I guess you'd say, to jump to spots like that. Yeah. That much. It's just, it's rare that it happens and they use it as an indication what's happening in Syracuse. That's cool.

That's cool. I didn't know that could be a metric. I didn't know that was a thing, obviously. I didn't either until I heard it. But it also tells me that this Micron deal is as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. I mean, there's grumblings that this is the most important thing to happen to this area since the Erie Canal, which, you know.

I agree. And when you talk about the airport metric, that kind of checks out, right? Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And right up the street in Utica, Wolfspeed, that's a chip manufacturer. So there's precedent already. So I'm, it's exciting. I love it. I know. Let's have some fun. So, enough of this mortgage shit. No. Bore me. Yeah, God. Get out of here. No, Joe, something that we haven't really had a chance to talk about, you and I both have a background in music and planning in bands.

That's right. And when you think of, you know, not, I'm going to generalize for a second. When you think of someone who is involved in mortgage brokering, you don't really think of somebody being in a band. And I love that you break that mold. Tell me about it. What did you do? Were you the singer?

Were you the guitar player? What was the band like? Let's go. Yeah. So, dude, I, this is fun. So, yeah, I basically, I've been. wanted to be a rock star since I was like five. Sure.

Right. So Kiss was my favorite band. No kidding. Yep. So I saw Gene Simmons. I was like, that's what I'm going to do. Yeah. And so by time I got into high school, I was playing guitar pretty proficiently, writing songs.

That's great. After high school, I tried college for like a half year, dropped out, wrote four songs, printed tapes, sold them on the street, moved in. You pretty much did the same thing. Keep going on. I'm just blown away. moved, moved into an area, actually, where my bass player was going to school, which was a five college area in Massachusetts. Within like a year, we were playing, you know, four or five nights a week,

you know, gaining some popularity as an original rock band. I was singing, playing guitar, writing songs. And we had some, like, some cool, like, little things. Like, we were opening up for professional bands, like Godsmack, Vervepipe. Nice. Obviously, Stained, who, my best friend, who's the drummer for Stained right now. now, Sal Giancarrelli, is actually going on tour with them, like, next week. Oh, that's great.

So they do another tour. So, yeah, I had a stint doing it. Now I still play. Like, I have guitars around my house. I write some, some folk. But, you know, it's always there. Yeah, it's always there. And we had some, like, band drama.

You know how that goes, right? Of course. You fight with your band. People used to say to me all the time, you know, we would play shows. And, you know, you'd get the friend or the person to go, man, it's got to be, like, you're living the dream. And I'm like, live in the dream. I'm like, do you know what I'm like when we're on stage, that's the payoff. Yeah.

Everything that goes on before you get on stage and after with booking and money. And I think the number one thing, the hardest part about being in a band or being in the music industry is managing four or five, six other personalities. Because you all have to be on the same page. Yep. And everybody's got different responsibilities, different lives, different likes, different interests. And to keep everybody together, especially the older you get. It's hard, man. Yeah, when you're young, you know, it's, it's, everybody does have big personalities.

Sure. Because if you're a musician, you got to that point, I mean, for me, it, it, like, saved me from, like, the high school blues. Same. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm like, rebel without a clue. You know, I'm like, this'll make me look great in front of the girls. You know, they're going to love me. They're going to love me.

I'm going to the bonfire tonight, and I'm going to play Wonderwall. Yeah. No, I get it. It was, you know, you and I were on the same. trajectory basically. That's awesome. And I moved to a college town and found some success open for different national acts. But I just love that you have that background. And, you know, nowadays, you know, I think back in the day, it used to be a thing where at some point you kind of had to go, am I going to keep doing this or do I have to, it was like a definitive ending.

I mean, now with the internet, you don't need a record deal. Like, you can record an album whenever you feel inspired to do it. I know. It's amazing. It is. Absolutely. It's better. And you can do it in your house. Right. You just cut a record. Actually, we should jam. We could jam. We should jam.

We should write a record. We could. Well, the mortgage blues. No, I, I, I'm in. I think that's what's great about music in general. Do you, I got to ask you a couple questions. And then we'll get you out of here. I'm sorry.

Fire away. No. I got time. This is my favorite question to ask. I don't even know if we have time for this. But if you could create, all right, the ultimate band, living or dead, who would be in it? We'll say like guitar, bass, singer, drummer. We'll just go with, if you want to throw in keyboard, you can.

If you need to think, I'll give you mine. So, so. So, we should have John Paul Jones or bass. Sure. Great pick. The ultimate band, man. Since God rest is sold recently, Neil, maybe Neil Peart on drums. Just we did.

Doot, do, do, do, do, do, do, he died. I know, is that crazy? I love that. Peart. Yeah. Peart. Pirt. Something Canadian.

So far, I'm, I'm front row for this. I love it. So you got drums, you got bass. Need guitar. Need some guitar. And remember, it doesn't always have to be the best. Right, right. I hate that.

It's so hard to pick the best. But your favorite? Something weird. Or something that they had that they brought to the table at stage. It's hard being a musician because you always want to pick their technical. Of course. Not really. So I would say like Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Add some blues because you got that 60 vibe. It's flavor. Then you got that. Canadian 80s that rush 70s 80s and then singer This is tough This is really tough

I mean Because the argument It kind of ruins my question But it's like Well what kind of style Are we doing? I know I'm not gonna pick

So and so if I'm doing this Need somebody that could do anything That's it Let's just say Freddie Mercury Great pick Dude Doordy That's a great van John Paul Jones

All deceased Neil Purt Yeah that's gonna be a boring show That's kind of what I went for It's going to be like, wow, they're just laying here. They're not really dead. No, I know. But for me, I'll give you mine real quick.

I want Carter Buford on the drums from the Dave Matthews band. Oh, God. Base, I've got Victor Wooten. He played in Bella Fleck. He's very underrated. He's insane. Guitar, I want to put Gilmore from Floyd, but just to go, we got to factor in a lot. A little sleepy.

I'm going slash. I'm going slash. Dude, he's the man. He's the man. I could see the top hat now. The stove. Yeah. I want him in there for obviously image and performance.

But here's the thing. Do I think Slash is the greatest guitars of all time? Not even close. But he's very good. He's top two for me. And I'll tell you why. Because I can sing you back his solos. That's how melodic they were.

I could sing you. His phrasing is amazing. Exactly. I could sing to you the November rain solo. I actually have goosebumps thinking about it. Yeah. Like, you know, when you, know the sign of a good solo when you can you can hum it back so that that's my reasoning iconic solos and then

for for singer i'm going with my man you were talking about full package yeah stephen tyler oh god what a great pick i mean how could you how could you because he could do it i mean you could throw them blue actually they had a blues album i went yeah on that tour honking on bobo was the album and i went and saw them so that was mine but i love i love that that uh question i always came up with it and I never had a place to ask it and I thought about it. I love it. I was like, I'm going to ask Joe. I love that.

All right, Joe Rockstar, Joe Doherty, Mortgage Consulting or Cross Country Mortgage. Is that it? Yeah. I say it right. Perfect. Give them some calls to action, numbers, websites. What do you got?

Yeah, so you could just basically Google Joseph Doherty cross country and I'll come up as the first search result. I'm right. I give out my personal cell phone number. 315-567, 667. 6594. I manage all my texts and communication on the front end through there. And that's basically it.

Get a hold of me. Joe Doherty, friend of growth mode content in Good News, York, hell of a guy, rock star, mortgage broker. Come back anytime. Appreciate it. Look for his podcast. I think we're going to still do. We'll talk about that. But his podcast powered by growth mode content coming.

And thank you guys for joining us on this, what's today, Wednesday? Wednesday edition of Good News York. Matt and I will be back tomorrow, and we'll see you then. Appreciate it. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more.

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