Loan Officer Gains Local Office Support and Competitive Wholesale Rate Advantages

Greg (00:03) Hi, my name is Greg Marshall, and I am a loan officer with Mortgage Professional Associates or MPA Home Loans. have been in the mortgage industry since September of 2020. I started off in retail, not knowing what wholesale or anything else was. And then my first introduction into wholesale was in 2023. then I eventually joined MPA home loans in April of 2025. So one of the issues I was running into is a lot of mortgage companies would like for you to work remotely, where they don't have offices. And my previous companies, after I left the retail industry, there was one in California. I'm the only loan officer here. There was one in Colorado. I'm the only loan officer here. And then another one that was in Austin. Again, I'm in San Antonio, so a little bit of a distance, and I was really looking forward to having an office experience. where I can come in, communicate with other loan officers, as well as have a place to take clients if I needed to. So what made me decide to join Mortgage Professional Associates is a former LO colleague - or loan officer colleague, when I was at my very first company said that she was getting back into the industry, and talked about this company. And I said, "Well, if you're going there, I got to find out what this company is all about." So I was able to talk to Jake Garza, who is a manager at the local office here in San Antonio. And Jake was saying all the right words, and saying everything that I needed to hear in terms of support, which was a very important thing to me as well. And so I made the to come over to Mortgage Professional Associates. Since joining the company, my experience has been great. Again, having that local office that I can go into to be able to speak with other loan officers about their experiences, about situations that might be difficult, getting help with local home builders here to be able to help instead of losing those deals to the in-house lender. Those are all things that have helped make me a better loan officer. And I'm looking forward to that continuing in the future. so what's stood out to me the most as far as the leadership here is their willingness to talk with you, to reach out to you, whether it be corporately or one-on-one. We have a couple of different chats or threads that we communicate on, whether it's the San Antonio location specifically. We also have different ones for the lenders. have the ability to get in touch with your processors. Being able to communicate is very important in this business. So I have a lot of communication obviously with my branch manager here in the San Antonio location, Jay Garza. He's very successful at not only being a manager, but he is an active loan officer as well. So for him to give you tips and guidance on getting loans to get passed through, things that you might not have thought of when you're talking with different agents or when you're talking with clients. having somebody that is actively not only doing the business, but being successful, is a key to all the loan officer success here at Mortgage Professional Associates. I see the future is being coming in at a time when the market in general is tough. But we're right at that point where the market is shifting. So with MPA giving us information, giving us the knowledge that we need, through the hard times, that's just gonna make it that much easier for when the grass is greener on the other side, then it'll be a lot better moving forward for us because we were able to make it through being in leaderships capable hands. I think the biggest thing in looking at the future for MPA home loans, and as far as bringing in other loan officers is just understanding #1 what's the difference between retail and wholesale? If you have the ability to be a hustler, then wholesale is going to be the way to go. And that's the way that MPA is moving forward is with the wholesale route. You go retail, but then you're dealing with a higher rate structure than you are with wholesale. The #2 thing is wholesale just beats retail 99% of the time on rates. You have a lot more options that you don't have in the retail industry. So for those of you - especially those of you that have been in the business a long time, you've already got a good book of business, good book of referrals, then give the wholesale industry a shot. It'll open you up to other loan opportunities that you just don't have with the retail industry. I think MPA has really taken the time to give us a lot of options, and I'm looking forward to exploring as many of those options as possible.