16W Media Group Presents The Branding Highway

Mortgage Therapy With Katie The Mortgage Lady

• Mike

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Ever wonder why your mortgage payment jumps months after closing, or why a rock-bottom rate can still leave you cash-poor? We sit down with Katie “the Mortgage Lady” Weldon to unpack the real levers behind smart home financing: cash flow, taxes, and the honesty to run the numbers before emotions take the wheel. Katie’s consultative style cuts through the noise—she shows how to weigh closing costs against monthly payments, when it makes sense to use equity to crush high-interest debt, and how to plan for Florida’s tax resets and CDD fees so your first escrow analysis doesn’t blindside you.

Katie’s story brings both grit and clarity. After building her career in Massachusetts, she moved to the Tampa Bay area, reconnected with community, and doubled down on what clients actually need: transparent estimates, written cash-to-close, and programs tailored to real lives. From FHA, VA, USDA, and down payment assistance to investor-friendly options, she maps each path to a goal—whether it’s liquidity for a young family, stability for a relocating buyer, or rescuing a deal other lenders gave up on. Her message to agents and buyers alike is simple: don’t let deals die. A thoughtful restructure can turn a denial into an approval.

We cover the pitfalls big box lenders miss, the mindset that keeps credit cards from creeping back, and the practical steps to protect your budget in a higher-rate world. If you’re sitting on a sub-3% rate but paying 20%+ on revolving debt, this conversation may change your math. And if you’re buying in Florida, you’ll learn exactly how to get true tax and insurance numbers before you submit an offer, so you can move forward without fear.

If the no-surprises approach speaks to you, connect with Team Katie at teamkatie.com or call 978-751-1934. If this conversation helped, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s home shopping, and leave a quick review to help more neighbors find us.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Branding Highway podcast, where local businesses meet the community and share their unique stories. Let's hit the road with your host and voice of the podcast, Mike Sedita.

SPEAKER_02:

Hello out there and welcome. You are entering the Branding Highway. I am your guide to this trip, Mike Sedita, and I am joined today by Katie Weldon. She is the branch manager for Annie Mac in Apollo Beach. Katie, how are you doing this morning?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm doing great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm so glad to have you on here. We we we never know where we're gonna find guests for the Branding Highway podcast. And we just happen to stumble across you at a networking event at a church of all places. Yeah so it's excellent to have you on here. What we like to do is just take business owners, help them get noticed in the community. And and you know, you do a very, a very high frequency type of job with numbers and homes, and it can get emotional, and everybody gets crazy. So we want to make sure people know that you're just Katie, the mortgage lady, and that you're here to help them with their mortgage.

SPEAKER_01:

So exactly. That's exactly it. And it is I jokingly say I'm more of a therapist than a mortgage lady.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I'm sure you are. I'm sure you get everybody going, oh, but that that one late credit card payment, it didn't really mean anything. And I just, you know, I'm sure that you've got plenty of stories that we will dive into here. But before we get started in that, because we're gonna go deep, deep here in this in this podcast, tell us first and foremost what's your business, what's your specialty, and a little bit about um Annie Mac.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Um, so my name is Katie Weldon. I also go by Katie the Mortgage Lady. So I have a cute little logo of me holding a house with some money flying out of it and everything. Um, and I've been doing mortgages for this year, we'll make 13 years.

SPEAKER_02:

Lucky number 13.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So it's been it's been a journey. I kind of showed up by accident a little bit. They created a position for me because I had a background in uh real estate. I was a realtor with my father up north, and then I was in restaurants and worked for Xerox in sales. So they loved that combination. So I love having that combination because it's given me all the tools I need to help take a really consultative approach for my clients. We specialize in working with first-time buyers, but because we've been doing it for a while, we have gotten a lot of repeat clients, and it's not hard to find what people have to say about me online. I have over 900 reviews online, which is great for myself. I know, I can really work on that, don't you think, Mike?

SPEAKER_02:

We've got to get a few more, we've got to get over the thousand, the thousand mark.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'll be there before I know it for sure. And that's what's funny is I actually lost like almost 300 reviews when I left an old company uh seven years ago. So I would be way over that. So we gotta.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, let me ask you this question then. So is that why you kind of brand, you know, Katie, Katie, the mortgage lady, as opposed to specifically the business?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely, because it's I'm 100% commissioned. So very similar to a real estate agent. And it's really me that you're getting more than the company I align with, but the company is important too. Um, so that's really why my brand is the way it is. And it's the team Katie brand now that I have a team behind me because there's a certain skill set that I'm great at and other things that I don't want to have to deal with. So right.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen, listen, and I will tell you, I deal with small to medium-sized business owners every day. And one of the biggest shortcomings to the entrepreneur mentality, it's a pro and it's a con. Entrepreneurs think, you know, I got to do it all. But really, a good entrepreneur, the best ones that I see are the ones that say, hey, look, this is my lane. I'm good at this lane, I'm gonna stick to this lane. And when they have the resources available, bring in the people to do the things that they're not good at because all that does is detract you from revenue generating activity. And why would you want to do that? So, a couple of great things as a marketer, as someone who's been doing this for 15 years, the branding of you know, Katie the mortgage lady, or you know, or team Katie, or however you're doing that, absolutely brilliant. I love that. And then, you know, you know, diversifying or or delegating, if you will, the the services there. That's great as well. So I'm thinking of the timing, 13 years, that's like around 2012. So you came oh, you know what?

SPEAKER_01:

Then it's 12 years. I'm way off. It was 2013.

SPEAKER_02:

2013. Even that though, but you still kind of you didn't you came into you were probably doing real estate around the time. I mean, it could be the episode of why you switched, but the real estate market is crashing 2008, 9, 10. Yep, and then you didn't have to deal with any of that from the mortgage side, but you you know, you kind of came in after that. So, what has been the biggest and you so you're from we won't talk about you being from Boston and that I'm a Giants fan and you're probably a Patriots fan. We won't get into any of that.

SPEAKER_01:

At least you married up. At least you married drives the Jeep, so you love him.

SPEAKER_02:

He goes to the Jeep, and he's a Giants fan. You guys are not like the best friend you didn't even know it yet. Sounds like a great guy. So, um, so how long have you actually been here? You started doing this in 2013. Have you been here the whole time doing this?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I moved down from Massachusetts almost two years ago, uh, a little over two years ago. I was in West. Yep, and I moved on a whim. I just was like, Florida, I feel like I'm meant to be in Florida, which is kind of crazy because all of my business was up north. So I just said I'm gonna do it. I work remotely. Most of my clients since COVID, I didn't really meet with them in person. Right. So I've spent the last couple years really focusing on maintaining my business there. And now I'm ready to get out in the community because I was very involved up there, and I really love being involved in the local community where my clients are. And so I do loans in Florida and I have um for a while. It's just I'm building more of my presence here because up north everybody knows and trusts me already.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, completely understand that. I mean, one of the if there is positive things out of a pandemic and you know, all I mean, things like this conversation via Zoom, Zoomed wasn't a thing, StreamYard wasn't a thing. Uh being, I think the world realized that the world's a lot smaller than we used to make it out to be, that you can live anywhere, do anything from a spot and communicate with people. And it's such a it's such a a better, um, there's such a better highway, not to use the branding highway pun, but there is a highway of communication that occurs where you don't need to be in Massachusetts anymore. You don't need to fight the winter anymore. You can enjoy living in Apollo Beach or, you know, in South Shore area and still be able to service those clients. And now in the process, building up your client base here, so it'll start to it'll start to kind of double dip. Do you um, you know, do you you moved down here? Was it like, was there uh like a light bulb? Like, was it just like, you know what? This like for me, when I moved to Atlanta, I got I got tired of shoveling snow in New Jersey. And I think at one point, like a child, I threw the shovel down and stomped my feet, went back in the house, and so I'm just not doing this anymore. And within three months, I was gone. Was there anything like my temper tantrum?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh not a temper tantrum. What happened was I was attending some trainings down here in Clearwater and I was down in Florida like three times in one year, and I just I came back one time and I just said to my husband, I think we're supposed to move to Florida. And he was kind of like, Yeah, okay, sure. Um, like, count me in, you know. And he's from upstate New York and we lived in Massachusetts, and I was in Massachusetts for 40 years, right? So it's not like I lived in different places and I was used to traveling around. My parents were there, my sisters were there, my friends were there, my business was there. It literally was just a poll, and there's so many things that came from the move to Florida that I never would have even embarked on. I'll give a couple examples. I was um at the Tampa Improv, which is called the Funny Bone now, but I was on stage, I did a 12-minute comedy set through this, it was like an entrepreneur challenge, which was really cool. I've always wanted to go on stage and do comedy, not not permanently, not open-minded. No, no, there was more clean jokes, but nothing crazy. More about alligators or my husband. Yeah, it wasn't anything crazy. But um, but I was on the on stage at the Tampa Improv, which I never would have proto I never would have participated in had I been up north. I did it because it was near me, and I was like, you know what, this is something I wanted to do. Um, so that was really cool.

SPEAKER_02:

So wait, like not to get not to get into your shrink, into a shrink mode here, but do you think the fact that you're in this new city, you don't know anybody, you're not gonna stumble into your neighbor's cousin where you're up on stage, do you think that part of it plays into it? Like, look, I'm in this new place, nobody knows me. What do I care? I'm just gonna go do my thing. Was that kind of part of it?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I didn't think about that because actually I was part of a group called Board of Advisors, which was a high-level mastermind here. And so I actually had a lot of people come and watch me. So it's a good group, probably probably like seven or eight of them. And I say that's a good group because that's a lot of people to watch.

SPEAKER_02:

But I don't think I talked to other than doing a podcast in business. If I'm not doing business, I don't talk. I talked to my dog, I talked to Norman as the only person I talked to.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, so I did have people come, but it was it was just organic. Like I felt the poll to move here and then all this chain of events. Um, I attended an event here that made me embark on other journeys too, which was just really interesting. So it just really was a poll. I just was like, I'm supposed to be here, and I don't know why. And so we moved to Wesley Chapel for a year, and then we ended up in Ruskin and bought a house here last January.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so I live in Wesley Chapel, I record from Wesley Chapel. So what made you go from Wesley Chapel to Ruskin?

SPEAKER_01:

A couple things. I go down to Sarasota a lot with a group that I'm part of. So I liked the Ruskin area specifically because it was in between Tampa and Sarasota, and I was going to both of those places. Right. Still very accessible for Orlando for flights. I was traveling a lot. Um, and the prices couldn't be beat. I mean, we got a six-bedroom house with a pool for under 500. Right. And I was like, sold, this is awesome. Um, and so it just it just worked out really well, and we really like it here.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so yeah, because that is one of the things. Wesley Chapel is beautiful. I love it here. Um, it's just getting even, I mean, it's crowded, it's crowded down there. I mean, but it's getting super crowded here, and the prices of real estate are going up, and like from a commercial real estate standpoint, there's no real mom and pop places up here because Pesco County, it's just really, really expensive for commercial real estate per square foot. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes on. It's very, it's very cookie cutter. Um, but I I do like it. I mean, anything and everything I could possibly want is within a few.

SPEAKER_01:

And we we loved Wesley Chapel. Um, it it really was just the accessibility of where I was going all the time to make it easier. Um, you know, access to that all the airports because there's St. Pete and then Lakeland. And it's just it just felt like such a great center spot. So we really focused our our search around here. So it it worked out really well. We really like it. And like I said, could not be the price of the house with what we got.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so then speaking of that, well, first question before I get to that. So I'm assuming your dad still does real estate up in in Massachusetts or is he starting to travel?

SPEAKER_01:

I haven't I haven't gotten him down here yet.

SPEAKER_02:

You haven't got the trickle down yet? You haven't got me returned yet? You will don't worry. They're gonna come in like November and like March, and they're gonna be like last week.

SPEAKER_01:

He was here last week.

SPEAKER_02:

They're gonna be like, oh, this isn't so bad. Uh you know, so you'll get that. But um the other question I have is six-bedroom house. I mean, you and your husband have what? Uh a soccer team.

SPEAKER_01:

No, so we have um we have two girls, we have a 10-year-old and a four-year-old. Okay, and then we have an au pair who lives with us. She's from Brazil, so she helps take care of them. She is fantastic, and then we have a home office um because I was working out of my house up until August. So I because I wanted to figure out where I wanted an office and everything, and and now it's a guest room too. And then we have a playroom for the girls too. So we were looking for a five-bedroom.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, okay. So you have an au pair. I'll have to get more details on that. When you and you and your husband and I hang out, we'll have to get the details. Um, so where is she?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, don't go by his search criteria, okay? Let me tell you. Yeah, I can't go by his search criteria. She's gorgeous, by the way. Our au pair's gorgeous. She's the best. We love her. All right, all right.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know where her credentials are, buddy. I don't know if I'm willing to take on that kind of extra smoke in uh in and around where I live. So uh, and I'm I'm just fine with that. I it's not, I don't know if it's worth the smoke, but bravo to him. I mean, I I'll give him um now. What is what does he do for a living?

SPEAKER_01:

So he actually just so he worked for maintenance at a community for assisted living, and he just left his job about a month ago and came to work with me.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, so he's gonna be going into business development. The business is going well. So um, so let me ask you this the office, your office location, because I was just driving back. I play basketball at Wells Spring on Monday nights, and I was just driving back uh yesterday. There's so much construction on 41 that's going on. Are you in in in and around that area or whereabouts?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm right um, I'm right near Apollo Beach. Well, I'm on Apollo Beach Boulevard. Like if you're going um to like there's some restaurants, fins, circles that are really oh, you're down that way. Yeah, I'm right there. So I'm right off of 41. Very accessible.

SPEAKER_02:

So we we have a running joke in our house, is one night I I said, Hey, you my girlfriend and her son, I said, You want to get a pizza? And she said, Oh, yeah, there's the best pizza, it's the best place. I said, Okay, and she said it's called uh Apollo, Apollo Pizza, like right there down by Finn's and whatever. I said, Great. You know, her son's like, Yeah, I'm down with that. Let's get that. She calls and orders a pizza, and we go to pick it up and we walk in and we're like, Hey, we're here to pick up a pizza for Mike. The guy looked at us like I had five heads, and I'm like, No, you know, large. So I call her. I said, Where did you order the pizza from? And she starts looking up the number. She had ordered a pizza from Riverview Pizza, which was like 20 minutes away. It had been sitting there forever. So we laugh and we go. So now, whenever we have pizza, we call Apollo Pizza, Riverview Pizza that we're getting Riverview Pizza. So it is a running joke every time we go down Apollo Beach Boulevard to get something to eat. That is the that is the recurring joke.

SPEAKER_01:

They have a really fun. I don't know if you've ever been to Apollo Pizza on their bingo night.

SPEAKER_02:

Bingo night.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so fun. A local realtor hosts it, um, and she's hysterical. And it's it's music bingo, so they play songs and you kind of like boogie a little bit, and then you just daub away the songs and then give up.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not like trivia or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01:

No, they do trivia as well, but this is bingo, so you get a bingo card with all the songs, and when the song plays, oh oh, okay, I got it.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so it is kind of like trivia. You gotta know the music to get it to you gotta have the tells you what the name of the song is.

SPEAKER_01:

So I have the other ones like that, and I'm like, I don't know the name of this song, like that I would fail at, but she's like, Oh, this is running man from this person, and oh my god, it makes it really easy.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll tell you, it's funny. I I'm a I'm a board member in the Wesley Chapel Rotary Club, and we play music every week. We play these songs, and everybody kind of sings along with the songs, and there's it's 80s, like the theme of our year for rotary is 80s, so they're playing 80s music. They're playing now. Look, I'm an idiot savant when it comes to like movies and like lines from movies, and like I'm so dumb with that. I wish I I could have been a lawyer had I been able to retain the amount of useless information in my brain on sports and movies and music. If I would have just applied it to law, I would be like, I would be like the top litigator. But we're singing these songs and the lyrics are up there. I'm like, I don't know the lyrics to any of these songs, like it's so bad. Like, I'm and I have the microphone. I'm like, somebody else here, somebody else take this microphone. It's terrible, but that's cool. We're we're gonna get one night. What night is that over there at Riverview Pink?

SPEAKER_01:

It's on Tuesday nights, Tuesday nights.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll have to check that out. I check that out for sure. So you're are you heading there a little behind the fourth wall here?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I'm actually doing a finance class with Wellspring right now. So they had a finance 101.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, you're are you teaching some of that as well? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I wanted to see kind of their perspective on financials because obviously I'm on a different side of it, right? And so I was really curious to see what they had to say.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, so so let's get into some of the stuff here. Like right now, you know, having I deal with a lot of realtors, I deal with a lot of mortgage people. There's a lot of that stuff going on. The big, the big snag, if you will, you know, it with mortgages from where I see it, and I'm gonna let you debunk, you know, misconceptions of this is real or not, is the majority of the people that are in their home pre-2022 have a zero to three percent, four percent interest rate. I mean, if you got a mortgage, if you refinance during COVID, it was like zero, like 0.5, whatever the number was. So, like a lot of those people are sitting there, even though they've got a boatload of equity in their house and they're saying, Look, my my payment is X currently. Yep, the market has gone up. So if I'm gonna get a comparable house at a six and a half to seven percent rate, my monthly payment is gonna go through, you know, an extra$500 to$800 a month. So is that currently still what is bogging down or snagging the market from really getting off the ground?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I definitely see that as an issue. Still, I left a 2.99% interest rate in Massachusetts. I had an$800,000 house and my mortgage was less than it is now. What are you doing? But you know what? It was worth it. And so, and here's the thing what what I see with a lot of people right now is a lot of discretionary debt, credit cards, personal loans. What people are not taking into account is they're spending way more monthly than if they sold their house, cashed out that equity, paid down a lot of their debts, and they can afford the extra money on the mortgage. They they don't even realize they're they're thinking because of all this, I'm pulling money, I'm pulling money, I'm pulling money. The only thing they have is the equity in their home. And a lot of my clients, I really look at so, like I said, I take a very consultative approach. That's not how every lender approaches it, but that's just how I've grown my business and that's how I like to do things. So I'm always looking, I'll have someone come to me and they're like, oh, hey, I want to buy a house, I want to put this amount down, I want to get my mortgage to this. And I'm like, well, let's wait a second here. Have you thought about what it would look like if instead of putting the extra$40,000 down, you put it towards your debt and freed up$2,000 a month. And they're like, can you do that? You absolutely can. So I'm always looking at, and and there's certain times it doesn't make sense, right? A car loan, yeah, it's gonna free you up for a little bit, but not long term. So I'm having those conversations and I'm saying, listen, you this is gonna pay off your car loan, but remember, in five years, you may need a new car. So you can't bank on that.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, but part of the problem on, I mean, we're being real is those people then pay that credit card debt off, it saves them, and then within six months, they're like, Oh, I need to go on vacation, and they put three G's on that, and then it builds back up, and then they're stuck. I mean, I get what you're saying, because look, if I have 20 grand in credit card debt and I'm paying 27 or you know, anywhere from 15 to 30 interest, which is a whole other political discussion we could get into on this kind, you know, in this podcast. But if I paid that off and then I don't have that 20% interest or 15% interest, I'm only paying 7% on that additional money, it still saves you money there. So I get that part of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and a lot of people are in so deep for because they've been relying on it through COVID and for three or four years. So I always have those conversations, right? You know, listen, I've racked up credit card debt more than probably most people. I've been in that situation where I paid it down and with a personal loan and then racked it up again. Now I have a personal loan and a credit card. Card. Yeah, yeah. You know, I had a short sale on my house um years ago, about 15 years ago. So I really like to make sure people know the payment they're getting into, that if we're paying off debt, that they know, listen, I want to set you up for success. What is your plan to avoid using these credit cards in the future? Um, and I make suggestions, right? So one of the suggestions I make, because people don't want to necessarily lose the history or the availability if something comes up, um, like something urgent, but I tell them put something automatic on it. Netflix, some your gym membership, something that's automatically paid, and set each one to pay off the balances every month. So not every credit card allows that, but most of them do. And that's something that's really helped me stay because when you don't see it, you don't think about it. So by setting up the payment of the whole balance every month, I know, oh shoot, I need to make sure I keep this at a certain level, otherwise, I'm gonna be in trouble.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I think the biggest thing for me when I moved to Florida, like look, I lived in New Jersey, taxes are through the roof, as they I'm sure they are in Massachusetts, depending on where you are. Um, like I lived in a house that was built in 1953, it was 1,800 square foot. Now, my view was the New York City skyline, which was very nice. But my taxes were like$14,000 a year, as it, you know, a whole a little over a grand a month just in taxes. And I I wouldn't have, I mean, I don't love that, but it wouldn't have been so bad if I actually had services that correlated to that amount. The services were terrible, the community that you know just wasn't great. But then I moved to Georgia, and Georgia, everything is county structured. So, like, there is no, like kind of here how you have the Hillsborough County police, Pascoe County police, all that stuff, but everything was county driven. So there was no municipality taxes or any of that stuff. So I went from an 1800 square foot with 12,000,$13,000 in taxes to a 3,000 square foot house, and my tax bill was$2,700 a year. So I was like, wow, this is like a totally different world. But I think the thing here that got me was, and I should have known better, like it when you're looking at houses and you're on Zillow or Realtor or Redfin or whatever you're doing, and it's showing you that tax number, that tax number is based on that last sale price, what it was assessed on in that last sale price.

SPEAKER_01:

So if you buy a house from somebody than the previous owner, so I'll give so I'll give you an example ones you're done. I didn't mean to interrupt.

SPEAKER_02:

But that's kind of what I'm getting at. Like, okay, so somebody the I buy the house from this previous owner who's had it for 25 years, they paid 30 grand for it, and now it's worth 500 grand. There's that massive gap. So the number I'm seeing on Zillow, as soon as that first, you know, whatever it is, that adjustment, uh whatever the escrow adjustment is, your payment goes, you know, jacked up.

SPEAKER_01:

And then my payment just went up a thousand dollars. Luckily, I knew. So our our previous owner was a disabled vet, so he was exempt from taxes, only paid the CDD. And I thought I did the calculation right based on the city, but I wasn't adding the CDD, uh, which was like about two grand or something.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's another one. CDD, I mean, so that's kind of the biggest.

SPEAKER_01:

And it literally went up a thousand dollars. And so I have those conversations with my Florida clients because I'm like, listen, like new construction, right? Um, when they have a seller who has lived there for a long time or is a disabled veteran or has any sort of um kind of break on taxes, any veteran really, right? They're going to feel a difference. And so I tell them, listen, call up a town, ask them what your taxes are gonna be based on what the sale is. They'll give you, I can look up the tax rate too and determine it for a client. And I tell them, listen, we're approving you because we're basing this on what it currently is, but in a year, you're going to have this and you need to be prepared. So it's a benefit now because everyone's like, Well, why is my payment gonna go up? I'm like, Well, would you rather just pay it all now?

SPEAKER_02:

You can't, yeah, you can start paying it now, sure.

SPEAKER_01:

And no one wants to do that, of course. But then when they call me in a year, it's like we have the conversation they're like, Oh, yeah, you're right, we're okay, thank you. Um, that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_02:

It is well, that's it's why I it's why I bring it up. I mean, that was probably the biggest thing from a real estate standpoint, like all of a sudden you get your next mortgage payment.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's why I don't like to get licensed in states that I don't do business in because they all have their little quirks, and so that's what I was gonna ask you, too, is and help me understand.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I know you know, look, I know you're Katie, the mortgage lady, and I know you have your brand. Are you specifically only offering mortgage programs through Annie Mac? Or do you like if you someone comes in, like, can you do is there a VA option? Is there an FHA option?

SPEAKER_01:

So Annie Mac is a lender. We have VA, USDA, we do Florida housing. Um, there's certain programs with the city of Tampa that we do, we do conventional loans. Okay. Yeah, we do down payment assistance.

SPEAKER_02:

But if somebody doesn't qualify through Annie Mac, you're that you're kind of stuck. You gotta go, they gotta go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01:

So people who maybe don't show enough income on paper or someone, an investor buying a house who doesn't want yeah, we have we have lots of stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

So we literally just BS'd about Apollo Pizza and Trivia Night and Bingo night for 25 minutes. I want to just get into a little bit really more about you. So when you and your husband aren't, you know, hanging out with your au pair and the girls, do you guys like what do you do for fun? Do you take the top off the Jeep and go off-roading? Do the girls like to play with Barbies? Does your husband like to play with the girls with Barbies? What is going on?

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah, so we I mean we love to get outside when we can. I definitely work a lot, but we're going to the casino this this week. Um Thursday night, we're doing a little overnight at the casino, and I took Friday morning off, and I'm excited.

SPEAKER_02:

Obviously, adults only.

SPEAKER_01:

We're yeah, we're gonna stay overnight.

SPEAKER_02:

What am I talking about?

SPEAKER_01:

Of course, in handy all the time, so we can't get a no pair.

SPEAKER_02:

My girlfriend has a 15-year-old boy. That would just not be that would not be a good situation to have.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like that's bad news.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a bad situation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we love that. Like I love a good farmer's market or flea market. We love now.

SPEAKER_02:

You said you go down to Sarasota and stuff a lot. Have you ever gone down to like debtwilers and all that? Oh, yeah, I love it. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_01:

Because if you like the farmers market and all that kind of stuff, yeah, we have a really great um co-op here called Cypress Creek Co-op, which is uh awesome, and they have these huge boxes. If anyone's listening in local to the era, if you don't know about this, you need to. But we buy this box for like$35, and it's like all these veggies for the entire week, and it's awesome. And everything is locally sourced and fresh. So the boxes change based on what she's getting in, and it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

So I actually give them a plug and then share this podcast with them and tell them they got maybe a couple extra boxes.

SPEAKER_01:

Cypress Creek Co-op, it's awesome. We love it there.

SPEAKER_02:

Cypress Creek Co-op. If you're listening and you're watching this podcast, you owe Katie the mortgage lady a box or two. We'll send this out on the side. So, one of the things I always like to ask, because as an entrepreneur, myself being an entrepreneur and talking to entrepreneurs, there's always that moment where you're like, I don't know if I could do this. Like when it hits the fan and you're thinking to yourself, like, you know, all my all my chips are pushed in. I gotta kind of make a decision. Am I in or am I out? Where has there been a time in your career where you've just said, you know what, I'm not sure if I'm gonna make it? What did you do to kind of turn it around to come out the other side to be where you're at right now?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I would say that was probably like a year or two ago, especially with moving down. It was like, you know, rates were high, business was slowing down because people weren't moving as much. I'm in a new area, not around my business partners. Right. And I was like, okay, what do I want to do? I was doing coaching as well. And so I was like, do I want to coach? Do I want to do mortgages? And turns out I just really love doing mortgages and I love coaching, but I really want to stay in the mortgage segment. Like I was separated from it and I helped some other people in business. And I'm just like, I just love the real estate industry and my knowledge. And I know that I'm not like everybody else. And I'm like, I'm hearing that from my clients again. So when I built a team, I made the mistake of letting my team do a lot of the things that I still really should have been doing. I don't know if you've ever been through that as a business. And you're like, oh, I shouldn't have outsourced that. Yeah. Um, so when I left my previous company, they had all my clients. And because my team had contact with them, you know, they were able to get a lot of my clients to stay with them or go forward with them on new loans. And I realized, like, oh my gosh, I did myself and my clients a disservice, right? Um, and like I'm really happy for the guy who stayed there and he has great relationships and stuff, but it was tough at the time, right? It was it was a struggle, and this this was a few months ago too, but this all kind of led up with moving down here. And I had to ask myself, okay, what do I want to do in my business? What's gonna make me successful? How can I help my clients? And I've really focused in on that over the last couple of months because I am at a newer company, and my client reviews are like back to where they were before, right? You know, and it's just like people really feel people are asking me, where can I leave you a review? Where I had to like beg people for I'm like, Can you leave a leave a review? Don't forget. People are busy.

SPEAKER_02:

It was no offense, it's just wow now that they want to leave reviews when they want to complain.

SPEAKER_01:

Most of the time, I know, but that's that's what's crazy.

SPEAKER_02:

Human nature, right?

SPEAKER_01:

People are begging me right now over the past three months, they're like, Where can I leave your review? How can I help you? I'm like, tell all your friends.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, honestly, Katie, that is the one thing that I think you know is hardest for people to grasp. Like, okay, so unless I'm giving away gold bars, like if that's my product and I'm giving away gold bars, hey, look, you know, or if I was a drug dealer, like one of those two things, like having clients line up to for the product, it that's that, right? But nine times out of ten, people are lining up for you. They're lining up for your personality. Now you got to have a skill set, you got to bring value, you know, all that stuff. And and most of the entrepreneurs I talk to, I mean, not everybody, let's be honest. Not everybody thinks they have a skill set that they might not necessarily have, but the majority of them do. They have an offering that they provide, but people are buying people. People that you had said it earlier in the conversation about using that consultative approach. That should really be the only approach. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And listen, I'm with you there. I will say in mortgages, it's just not as common. You know, I'll have people come to me. They've talked to, I had one guy, he literally applied with eight different lenders, and he's like, Katie, I think I should become a mortgage lender because they're awful, and you're the only good one I found out of the eight. And I'm like, Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Like making somebody, it's such a silly thing. Making somebody not feel like a number, yep, it changes the entire dynamic. And that's you talked about it. I mean, I get business from people, like I literally waiting to jump on with you today. I get a text message from somebody saying, Hey, one of your clients said you really helped them. I am trying to do this. Can you help me? Now, word of mouth is great. Now, I'm an advertiser, so I'm gonna tell you the benefits of why advertising is better than word of mouth. Um, not better. It's there's differences to why advertising is different from networking, but you know, having that confidence where you know you're you know you're good at what you do, you convey that, and people gravitate towards it and they want to be a part of your sphere. They want to be in your circle because they're like, this lady knows what she's talking about, and you have an advantage because of the real estate background, you get to see both sides of it, you know, and and a lot like I there's a really good mortgage lady here that I know from an old networking group, great lady. She did real estate for 15 years and was kind of like I'm getting burnt out on this, I want to shift to this, but it's a knowledge base that you just can't create, you have to actually live it to have it, right?

SPEAKER_01:

And I've I've done so many loans, so I've done well over 2,000 loans. So the thing is with mortgages, every loan is different. And yeah, sure, you're gonna get a cookie cutter. Yeah, oh, you have 800 credit score, you want to put 20% down, and you have defensive. Yeah, where are those things? Right, okay, send me all those. That's not very common, right? Right, you know. Um, and I have some clients I've worked with for a month or two months just to get them to qualify. And they're like, our other lender ghosted us. And I'm like, Yeah, I know why it got hard. Too much work, too much work, and they're just like moving on to the next thing, and that's fine. Um, but like I love a good challenge, I love loan takeovers. So I always tell realtors right now, do not let a deal die. Don't let a deal die in this market. And people are just letting them die. Someone's approved with Rocket Mortgage, they get denied, they just move on. It's like, do not let the deal die. There's no downside to having someone check it out. Everybody involved wants the transaction to happen, and I have all the information. I can tell you if this is good or not, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and that's the other part, you know, like doing media buying and brokering. I'm on two sides of a transaction. I'm on a client side and then I'm on a vendor side, whatever, if it's a TV station, radio station, etc. You're in that same boat, even though it's Annie Mac, I get that part of it, but you're on the side of the getting the loan for somebody, but also needing the relationships with underwriting to be able to have the conversations that need to have happen that if you're taking it over from a rocket or whoever else and kind of let it go. So that's that's a big thing. So, with that being said, as we start to wrap this up, what people that are listening and people that are gonna see this and hear this, what's the one thing they need to know about working with Katie, the mortgage lady, over whoever else is out there? What separates you from everybody else?

SPEAKER_01:

There's no surprises. We really do our best to minimize the surprises. So I send all of my clients a cash to close estimate with a sample monthly payment of what it would be based on a property. I always have them give me an actual property so that I can base it on numbers and say this is what we're looking at for this particular property, and here's why. Because people need to see things. You can tell them over the phone, hey, your payment's gonna be$2,400, but then they get scared, right? They get an offer accepted. You're like, Austin, your payment's$2,400. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what? It's like, yeah, that's the payment we went over in the beginning. So I see I send everything in writing. Um, just covers you too.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, that's smart, it's a smart business. It covers you too. Because then in three, you know, in in 30 days, when you're getting close to the finish line, they can't say, You never told me it was gonna be people start to freak out.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm like, this is the document signed, this is what I sent on this date. And I try to be very transparent, and I will say, in my opinion, not all lenders are. They're just like, Oh, well, let's focus on the payment versus the rate, or it, you know, and maybe you're paying high closing costs. Like, I are there reasons you should pay high closing costs to get a better rate sometimes, sure, but not always. So I'm explaining that to people. I'll ask them questions. Hey, what's more important for you? A lower monthly payment or lower closing costs? Because then I can kind of figure out based on what your needs are, what this what we do, both, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Both. Different, right? Yeah, I want no closing costs and I want no payment. Exactly. No problem. I talk to people about this all the time. If it's if it's cheap, it's not good. And if it's not good, it's generally cheap. And you have to pick which one you want.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I tell people like everything has a cost, right? So there's a cost to a lower rate. If it's a local bank that maybe doesn't do mortgages all the time, it's gonna cost you probably sanity. I can tell you, I worked with a local bank to refinance in 2019 before I because I was switching companies. I was like, I'm just gonna do this with my bank. It was brutal. It took like three and a half months, and I'm a mortgage loan officer. I know all the documents you need, and it was brutal. And it wasn't their fault, it's just how they did business. And so I always tell clients, listen, what's it gonna cost you? Is it gonna cost you time? Is it gonna cost you money, or is it gonna cost you energy? But chances are a low, low rate is gonna cost something.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Yeah, I mean, listen, that's that's the conversation I have every day is like, look, as a small to medium-sized business owner, you do HVAC for a living. Yeah, um, do you know how to do marketing? Do you really know how to do marketing? I mean, no, well, I I do I go on social media. Well, that's not marketing. I go to networking event. Well, that's really not marketing. I mean, it's a form of marketing, but it's not advertising. Do you want how many hours do you have in the day? How much time do you want to spend pounding your head against the wall? We talked about this earlier in this conversation. Finding the things that you do well and sticking to the things that you do well, and you pay for people to do the things that you don't do well so they do them well to help your business globally grow. The the hardest thing for me on my end from this is really getting business owners to understand that while you pay, like just like paying your mortgage payment, it's an expense. When you pay for marketing, you're paying for it. Yes, it's an expense in your monthly budget, but you really need that expense and need to look at it as an investment in your business if you truly want to grow. And and that's that's usually the biggest obstacle. I would think the same thing with you. When people see that payment, like they see that house and they're like, it's got every bell and it's got every whistle and it's got everything I want. Oh, but 2400. I mean, but every bell and every whistle is probably closer to 3400 at this point. But you know, okay, well, which bell and which whistle do you want me to take off to get you down to here? Or do you want to pony up some cash? It's got to be one of the two. Absolutely. So I'm listening to this conversation with you, and I'm like, you know what? I just need to go out and get a mortgage. How do I contact you to get started?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so people can go to my website, which is teamkatie.com. It's T-E-A-M, K-A-T-I-E dot com. And that brings you to book a call with me. Uh, you can call me on my cell phone, which is listed on there, or you can do an application. Um, depending on the situation, we also do soft credit pools so we can just peek into people's situation. If they're like, I kind of want to sell, but I don't know where that puts me. No problem. We can peek in and just see what their options are. Um, or they can text or call anytime.

SPEAKER_02:

And what would that number be, Katie? You gotta get it. That would be helpful.

SPEAKER_01:

I would help you would need that. 978-751-1934.

SPEAKER_02:

So, folks, if you're listening to this, the thing you need to know about Katie, the mortgage lady, is she's got attention to detail. She is gonna have a consultative approach with you regarding your finances because you need to know what you're in for. It is it's the single largest investment you're gonna make throughout your life. Now, if you're like my girlfriend, you'll buy one every three years and move around and keep moving companies in business, or it'll be the place that you know, grow your family, get an au pair, and do everything that you need to do in that one spot. If you need that, you need to go to teamkatie.com or call 978-751-1934. Katie the mortgage lady, thank you for taking a ride down the branding highway with us today. I hope this was enjoyable for you. It certainly was for me, and we'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome. Thank you so much. We hope you enjoy your ride down the branding highway. This has been 16W Media Group Production. Don't forget to take the next exit at 16w. Visit 16w media group.com. If you want to be part of the journey, reach out to info at sixteen w mediagroup.com.