Transcription
[Music] Hello, and welcome to the Global Luxury Real Estate Mastermind with me, your host, Michael Valdez. Today's guest—I'm excited about this—we've actually started a great friendship. His name is Sean Patrick. He is the president of Success Lending and has an amazing amount of experience in our industry, especially on the mortgage and lending side. Sean, welcome to the show, my friend.
Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Excited to be here.
Great to be a part of this. I'm excited that you're here too. This is gonna be great. So listen, I'm gonna jump right in: How did you get started in this crazy industry of ours?
Wow, great exciting. So back in about 1995, I had the good fortune of talking to my father, and he is a CPA, or was a CPA, and um, you know, I talked to him and I said, "Dad, you know, in 1995, that there was a bit of a tech bubble burst, and um, you know, I said, 'Who—who do you—you know, which one of your clients are out there really doing well?'" And he—he went and he said, "You know, I—I have a couple of young bucks that are in the uh, the real estate section, the real estate business; they're in mortgages, and um, you know, I can set up a meeting to have you talk with them." And I went and learned a little bit more about the mortgage banking business, and um, you know, sure enough, uh, joined a company about three months later, and um, and took off from there.
Wow, so that's amazing. So always listen to Dad, huh?
He built a great career here. Yeah, you know, I'll tell you, there's an old adage: There's uh, there's never a genius in the village, but one of the biggest uh, biggest places you can find wisdom is right next to you—your your mother, your father, your friends and family—and um, you know, you don't have to climb a mountain and, you know, see a—a—a sage-like person at the top of the peak. You—you can get wisdom from anywhere, and I tend to listen to my father.
That's so true, and it's like there's usually not so many sages at the top of the mountain these days.
That's right. So talk to me a little bit about this amazing career you've had. You've worked with some amazing institutions, so tell me a little bit about that. Take me to the trajectory of that.
Sure. You know, I—I uh, started in 1995, and um, you know, grounded out. I was doing a lot of the cold calling, and I quickly realized that if you make some wonderful relationships with individuals, you can—you can be the benefactor of getting several leads without having to make all the calls, and um, really built a referral business back then in lending and really understood the value of those relationships and—and understood how to develop those and sort of that cross-edification between individuals, and uh, it—it really took me places in the mortgage business. It was probably in the late 90s, I left um, Minnesota, and I went out to Southern California and opened up an office in Anaheim and was out in Anaheim for about three and a half more years and built a pretty good business there, and um, you know, it just came a point in my life where I—I thought, "Gosh, am I going to have a family, and if so, are my parents ever going to see them?" And so I moved back to the Midwest to Chicago and built up another office in um, the southwest suburbs of Chicago, and uh, that was a great run too.
So exciting. That's awesome. And it's sort of like I could—I could sort of see why somebody would move from Minnesota to California.
Yeah.
Moving from California back to Chicago, maybe not so much, right?
Yeah, well, that's okay. So tell me about your views now on the market. This is a crazy, crazy market. You know, you hear so many opposing viewpoints, right? Where the market is oversaturated, where there's not enough inventory. Now you have the crisis with, you know, Russia and the Ukraine that's going to um, really sort of have a—a strain on materials for building and for adding new inventory into the market. You hear so many opposing views. What's your view?
Yeah, so I think there's some great opportunity right now in the realty space. In particular, is that there's probably been a housing shortage brewing since maybe '07. You know, we saw housing growing up until about '07, and then after that, it just slowed, and you know, on the aggregate, when you're missing the number by, you know, 100,000 or 200,000 a year, you fast forward a decade, and you're short on homes dramatically. So I—I do believe that we are still in a housing shortage. I think the demand for housing is strong, and I do think you have a lot of other factors coming into play. You've now got big business coming in as investors buying up homes. I think—I think last year was 2,000; this year they're forecasting, you know, big business—you know, big investment business—to be buying 8,000 homes next year. I think they're forecasting 12,000 homes. So, you know, you're having pressures from sort of from big corporate finding investment uh, value in renting homes, and then you also have a great opportunity with, you know, there's some FICO inflation where FICO scores are improving; they're—they're um, you know, taking away medical debt is an impact against FICOS. I believe that's coming down the pipe. They—uh, during—during the pandemic, you know, you had companies pausing some negative um, FICO uh, impacting uh, accounts, and you know, FICOS were increasing by 10, 12 basis points—12, 10, 12 points—during that time. So what you're seeing is you're finding people out there that can also afford home ownership, and that's exacerbating even, you know, more of a lack of or shortage of housing. So, you know, in—in general, I see the market continuing in the purchase realm very, very strongly, and I don't think anybody's going to argue that interest rates are going to continue to—continue to grow—you know, go northbound—until they can—can slow down inflation. So I think the purchase market is where it's at. I think the realty market, you know, is in for a great run, and I think there's probably uh, a lot of opportunity for—for builders out there and for anybody really trying to create gateway housing, first-time homebuyer housing. I think there's a shortage for that, and the cycle really begins there, and who's gonna sell and buy the next one. So um, big opportunities right now, in my opinion.
I love that. Now, and I—and I agree with you completely. It's sort of like every indication shows it on a global scale, by the way, because obviously this is a global phenomenon. So you're sort of seeing housing prices going up in almost every market that we operate in as eXp Realty, but really overall, just sort of seeing how bullish everybody still is in real estate, even though we are now going to enter into an environment of rising interest rates. And so tell me a little bit about now the great sort of venture you've taken over with Success Lending and the association with eXp Realty. Tell me a little bit about that.
Yeah, just the best opportunity I think I've had um, to be involved in—in—in—in—in the last probably 15, 20 years of my career. I've—I've built some major platforms on—on two or three occasions now on a national platform, and I think uh, I've certainly done, you know, a couple local rebuilds of my career, but this is the best opportunity I've ever seen. eXp's got such a unique culture, and it's such a unique company, and that it's this—this platform that's level across, and it just has an incentive for everybody to help everybody there, and when I saw the platform, it just—it made so much sense to me to try to get in and—and—and be the lender that drives uh, the parity with—with eXp and—and that opportunity. And it's rare to see that. You know, people would say to me, "Well, it's a virtual platform," and they'd give me a lot of reasons why it would be a—a tough sell, but it's the incentives that exist at eXp drives a culture where everybody wants to work together and really propel the—the whole brokerage forward, and that's—that's where the opportunity in the mortgage business as a partner and—and—and being owned by eXp, it really creates the biggest opportunity. When I'm talking agents and influencers and others at eXp, they are interested in propelling their company; they're interested in all things eXp, and they have plenty of incentives to—to behave that way, and that's—that's the culture where I've been embraced really positively by so many people in the organization that I'm just so grateful and thankful to be a part of the business here.
I—I really can't even express it. And we're so glad to have you. I mean, you got thrown into the deep end, didn't you? You came into the first event, which was eXp Con, that had 6,000 people in Vegas, and that was your very first event. What on earth were you thinking at that point?
I don't know. You know, I—I jokingly said to some folks, I said, "You know, I've always worked with realtors, but in the first literally week that I worked at this company, I talked to more realtors that I've ever talked to in my entire life." So um, it's apropos for the times, I guess, in—in the mortgage business. But yeah, I—I—I've had such a great opportunity to connect with so many people in such a short amount of time, and people have been uh, welcoming and both, you know, business, but you know, I feel like I'm starting to—to build some great relationships with individuals, and um, you know, really from my perspective, I don't want to let anybody down. You know, I just want to keep driving the business as fast as we can to grow and, you know, really backfill with the best infrastructure so that we can execute in every case and deliver the best service along the way. And mortgage platforms don't always come that quick. We're fortunate that uh, Kind Lending with Glenn Stearns is a great partner to eXp and—and a great partner in the joint venture, so we're—we're building very quickly behind our growth uh, with—with loan officers, which has been great. We're—we're approaching nearly 40 loan officers um, with 14 starting in the beginning of—beginning of April. So very excited at her growth.
That's amazing. You just mentioned Glenn Stearns, who's been on this podcast before, as has Mindy Stearns. They're both amazing people, and I know that you worked with them, and you're very good friends. Uh, you were at Kind Lending for many years as well, so tell—what's it like to get back in business with Glenn?
Yeah, it—it really is wonderful. So in December of last year, it was 10 years that I had worked at Stearns, and just an exciting run there in—in—it couldn't have been a better culture and a better company with people that were—they were true start to finish; their integrity was strong, you know, front to back; their—their—the way they had addressed you is the same way to the next person to the next person. Not a lot of inconsistencies there; everybody really had a deep caring uh, for themselves in the—the environment of the organization. So, you know, when I talked to Glenn, it was more like, "Hey, come back to work at, you know, at Kind Lending," you know, instead of what we'd say the other company here, but it's coming back to work with him, and it was a very comfortable fit, and you know, it's not—it's not comfortable where it's not challenging, but it's comfortable that I know how he's going to operate, and I know his integrity is going to be very strong, and he's going to be extremely fair. So I was—I was really, really happy this time to be endorsed by Glenn to earn this opportunity with eXp and Success Lending. And he is such an amazing human being. I loved having a conversation with him and hearing his stories, and I know you probably have quite a few too. I don't know if you can share any on this podcast, but he is an amazing character.
Yeah, so Glenn is, you know, individually, he is—he—he's about the nicest fellow you're going to meet. You know, he's going to be so respectful and uh, very honorable. Mindy as well at Kind Lending, they absolutely have a kind culture there. Um, Mindy is their chief kindness officer. She—she literally calls every new employee and introduces herself and welcome—welcomes them to the organization. I—I actually was in the office and heard her calling a new employee, and I was just like, "Wow," you know, I was so appreciative. I actually sent her a text, and I was like, "Thank you so much," um, you know, that she does that, but it's—it's a quick embrace right away, and you know, after working with him for 10 years, I've—I was with him for 10 years, you know, and even in the very beginning, I had contact with him, and he was present in the business, and uh, now I'm with him all the time, so it's uh, it's just great to be back.
I love that. So tell me what the greatest lesson you've learned in your career thus far.
Yeah, you know, I—I think there's a lot of them, and uh, I'll—I'll start with—with the answer to the question, but I'll give you a couple of follow-ups. You know, again, my father passed away last year, and you know, his—his favorite thing to say to me was, "You gotta listen. You gotta listen to people," and a lot of times you find yourself talking, but you're not actually listening, and I think that's really important. It goes back to: People are telling you what they want; they're telling you how they want the relationship to work; they're telling you how they want to define things, and if you just listen closely, you can find ways to work with just about anybody, and I think that's really, really important. But some of the other big, you know, big ideas I've had um, or some of the other um, influential thoughts I've had throughout my career: Thinking big. I—I didn't always think as big as I do now, and you know, maybe I thought I didn't qualify to think big earlier, and thinking big is something everybody should do, no matter how big their business is initially or how big they think they can get it, and that's the biggest impact zone I think, you know, really individuals can—can have. I—I've talked to people that started out in mortgage and even realty, and they've asked some advice, saying, "You've been doing this for 25 years," and I wish I would have told them to think bigger. They've done such amazing things that it's actually proven to me how big you can think, and it's made me now think big. So very important. And it's crazy when we're surrounded by these huge big thinkers—when you think of Glenn Sanford and Glenn Stearns and, you know, these billionaires that have created amazing companies—it challenges you to sort of—sh—you see the—the possibility every day around you, so it is something that I think when—when we're all in the senior leadership position, it challenges us to continue that legacy. So I love the "think big," but you just sort of mentioned something in the 25 years that you've been in the industry, and maybe this is one of your top three, but if you were to talk to someone entering the business today, whether it be on the mortgage and lending side or on the real estate brokerage side, what would be three pieces of advice that you would give that individual?
Yeah, I—you know, I again, I'm bringing up my dad, but you know, he used to talk to me, and—and uh, it's something advice I would share with everybody: It's gonna take hard work. You know, I would say, "Dad, I want to work a half a day," and he'd say, "Which half are you going to work? Which 12 hours are you going to work? You know, are you going to work 12 hours of night or 12 hours during the day?" But it just starts with absolute hard work. You're not going to find anybody succeeding or successful that isn't very frequently taking action and—and—and working very hard. If it's—if it's not getting up and reading things and knowing what's going on in the world, it's getting up and taking the time to clear your head and plan your day, but really getting in, working hard, and getting in front of things. You know, I think that's a critical—a critical—critical space. I think learning to work with people and collaborate is really, really important, and I'm going to tell you: Collaboration is going to make everybody successful. I—I—I've often said cooperation uh, is required in corporations, and it's that collaborative—cooperating with one another to—to work together to get projects done. The further up the chain you go, the—the—the harder it is to get things done with priorities. You—you know, you need to clear out the bureaucracy; you need to cut directly to people, and you need to move the needle every day. So absolutely critical to be collaborative. The last thing I think is just going to be: You got to have integrity. If it's going to be calling yourself out or recognizing things, I don't think—you know, sometimes I'd get in my own head because I would think I didn't do something right, but you got to be very steadfast on what is the situation. You can't mask things with lies or alternate realities. You got to be very true to the situation; you got to keep your integrity level strong, and—and that's going to ring true in some sort of—some sort of authenticity with everybody you deal with. People want to deal with people that are fair; they're honest; they're objective, and they're going to take the—the world for what it is at the moment and—and understand where they have to go from there. And I think—I think that's probably the third, you know, foundational pillar that people should really think of as their building their career.
I love that, because integrity and transparency will remain with you forever. It's how you build your career, and you just sort of said it: It's a career. When you enter this, all of your actions will follow you. And so when we live in an age where information is just readily available to any consumer, they don't really need us for that; they need us to be a trusted advisor. And so I think that was a really poignant part of that because that is infinitely important in a career. So you—I probably know the answer is because you've mentioned him a couple of times already, but who was the most influential person in your life, and why?
Yeah, you know, it's—it's hard. Um, I hear people answer this question a lot of different ways, but I think it's the people you have around you a lot of times the most, because they're driving a lot of the influence. You know, I—I—I would say my dad, you know, early on. Um, you know, I haven't seen—you know, he passed away, but I haven't seen him much in the last probably 10 or 15 years, and that might be a small regret of mine, but I've had a chance to work with some really successful people in the industry. Um, you know, many really solid supervisors that have had, and—and um, at the other company, I—you know, reported to our president of retail, and—and um, and he was a very uh, you know, I—I would say he was my mentor and just gave me a lot of the right ideas that we're talking about today. He's at another lender now, so I don't need to mention his name probably, but um, but just to bring it all the way home, I'd probably have to say the absolute biggest influencer is my wife, because I'm with her all the time, and my wife is probably the most positive person you'll ever meet. She's just like high leg kicks and cheers all the time. There's uh, nothing too small to celebrate, and ironically, I'm probably the opposite. You know, they say there's opposites attract, so she's the one that um, just constantly gets my compass heading moving in a positive, enthusiastic direction, and I think that's really what's to make people ultimately do big things: is you can't break stride; you got to stay at that compass setting; you got to be positive; you got to be enthusiastic; you—you have to want to go to a new place and do big things, and those are really critical uh, critical directions to have, and—and my wife—my wife keeps me on that heading.
Well, I'm looking forward to meeting her. Is she in the business as well?
No. You know, my wife has been in the media business for just about 25 years. She started in radio; she moved to, you know, linear television, and now she sells digital. She's a leader in the digital media space; she sells streaming TV ads, and it's very successful. Very proud of her.
And uh, she keeps me going, so I love that. So I have one final question for you, Sean: in your book of life, what's this chapter called?
You know, that's a tough one for me to answer, because I'll tell you, we're really at the beginning of something big. And you know, you think about it, you know, it's it's hard as as you get older, you think in terms of where you're at in your life, but it's really where your opportunity is right now. There's such an enormous opportunity that's why it's a chapter. Yeah, so right now I'm at the first chapter; I'm at the beginning chapter, and um, I'm excited to fast forward to maybe one of the next chapters, but I'm trying to embrace every moment. You know, I look at it like like like with my kids: do you let your kid come in bed and sleep with you at night? You know, and you think there's only going to be another month where they're going to do that, and then they're never going to want to talk to you, and they'll be teenagers or something. You know, and so I look at where we're at right now in the business and all the hard work that we're doing to grow and build in the infrastructure behind us at Success Lending, and I really look at it like we're at the beginning here, and I want to embrace every opportunity, every moment. We've got just so many great things coming together in our platform, and every time we bolt something on and sort of fortify our offering, it's that much more exciting. So I don't want to miss any of these elements, but it'll be also really exciting when we sort of get to the other side and we're this matured organization. But, but building, growing, hiring, it's it's never going to end; it's it's a constant business, so exciting.
I love that. I mean, it's sort of, you know, it's so exciting to see the success side of the business with EXP World Holdings and to see Success Lending, obviously, Success Coaching, other things that we're doing under that brand, and it's so exciting to see what the future of this is. And with you as the leader of Success Lending, I know that it's going to be an incredible endeavor. We are here to support you in every step of the way. It's such a pleasure to really have you in this organization, John, to know you, to build our friendship and our business together. So thank you so much for your thought today, for being on the show.
Thank you, Michael.
Thanks so much for having me.
Really great.
My my pleasure. And thank you all of you for listening. This has been The Global Luxury Real Estate Mastermind with me, your host, Michael Valdez. [Music]