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She Turned Mortgage Confusion Into Clarity | Nicole Hamilton
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“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room – Welcome to The Right Room”
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She Turned Mortgage Confusion Into Clarity
Know Before Closing
The Right Room is a business and leadership podcast where founders and entrepreneurs share real stories, profit strategies, and practical lessons for building successful companies.
In this episode of The Right Room, Jane Parmel and Celeste DeCamps speak with Nicole Hamilton, founder of Homeownering and mortgage professional. Nicole shares the pivotal moment that shaped her work, the strategic shift that helped her build a more transparent and client-centered business, and the key lessons other entrepreneurs can apply when simplifying complex services for their customers.
Nicole began her career in technology and strategy, but the housing crisis led her to a deeper question: how can people make one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives with more clarity and confidence? That question led her to build tools, companies, and a business model designed to help homebuyers understand the mortgage process, avoid surprises, and move toward homeownership with a real plan.
This episode is about more than mortgages. It is about customer experience, listening well, translating complexity, and designing a process that truly serves people.
What You’ll Learn:
✅ How Nicole turned a complex industry into a more human experience
✅ Why transparency matters in high-stakes decisions
✅ How to simplify complicated information for clients
✅ The difference between selling features and solving problems
✅ Why listening is one of the most valuable business skills
✅ What business owners can learn from a better customer journey
✅ How process and education build trust
Room Service:
This week, ask yourself:
Are you explaining your process in a way your clients can actually understand?
Choose one part of your customer journey and make it simpler, clearer, and more reassuring.
About Our Guest:
Nicole Hamilton is the founder of Homeownering, where she helps new homebuyers find the clearest and most efficient path to homeownership. With a background in technology, strategy, and mortgage education, she combines expertise and empathy to help clients make smart financial decisions with confidence.
🌐 Website: homeownering.com
🔎 Social handles: @homeownering
💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nicoleh
About The Right Room Podcast:
The Right Room is a business and leadership podcast focused on growth, communication, entrepreneurship, and the strategies that help leaders navigate challenges and build stronger businesses.
Subscribe for new episodes weekly.
#BusinessPodcast #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #TheRightRoom #Homeownership #MortgageAdvice #CustomerExperience #SalesStrategy
#CommunicationSkills #SalesCommunication #ClientExperience
You you don't get a mortgage often, right? And not everybody knows what a high quality of service looks like. And to be honest, when I bought my first home, my loan officer just sort of grunted out a couple of numbers, and I felt grateful that I was even getting, you know, that's the James James.
SPEAKER_01And today we have something very special. I know as well as Jane does, as we talk to so many new business owners and people who have been in business for a while, of how daunting it is to always trust your process. And how do you scale? What does that look like? What does that even mean? And how do you do it in a way that's manageable without feeling so overwhelmed and almost willing to give up because it's so hard to figure out how to put a system into place. So today we're going to tackle that.
SPEAKER_02I hope so.
SPEAKER_01And we have a wonderful guest joining us now, Nicole Hamilton. Welcome.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much, you guys. It's a pleasure to be here. Cool. Well, listen, every episode of The Right Room is looking to deliver a story, a strategy, and a step. So, like the moment that that really mattered to you, the movement that you made to change everything. And then what we'd like you to do is to leave our listeners with an action step that they can take in the next 48 hours or the next week so that they can start to move themselves, their businesses in the right direction and get more business for themselves. We're really glad to do that.
SPEAKER_01Let's start off about what you do, Nicole.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So what I do is I help uh new new home buyers find their perfect path to home ownership. And that means the most efficient way that they can get in the door of homeownership because I'm a I'm a big believer in building intergenerational wealth through home ownership. And I think especially at this time where so many people feel that it is very hard to achieve, I love to provide a path that they know they can achieve and get there.
SPEAKER_01And and that's uh commendable because yes, there are so many people that are afraid of the process and where to start. I have a question.
SPEAKER_02I have a question. When you hear somebody that says they wanna they want to become a homeowner, I know the first thing that they usually think of is I gotta get a mortgage. Um and and I don't know. Sometimes I think, of course, people some people put the cart before the horse and they've got the house picked out and they're all set to go and then they don't qualify. You said something very um very distinct that I don't hear when people talk about mortgages. You said get getting the right path to home ownership. I like the way that sounds better than you know, this package thing of a mortgage. But what's the difference between that when you say getting on the right path to home ownership?
SPEAKER_00Sure. And and that's really true, is is you know, buying a home is an emotional thing. You you think of your dream home, it's where you're spending most of your time. Um, but the reality of the process is that obviously you have to, there's a huge financial component and not just on your monthly payment that you're comfortable with and the closing costs, but also, you know, making the whole thing make sense for your future, right? And um also on top of that, there's so many ways to become a homeowner these days in terms of reducing the amount down, um, you know, thinking strategically about how much you want to have as a monthly payment, um, getting thinking bigger or you know, smaller or adding people to the mix so that you can buy more home. You know, people don't consider, you know, partnerships or multifamily properties. There's just a lot of a lot of options that if you just go and look at Zillow, you have no idea uh the range of things that you might be able to do. And so I like to open the aperture, but in the process, make sure that the end result is fabulous, you know, that that it fits all your needs. So it's it doesn't take long, it's like a 15-minute conversation because they have all the stuff set up, but it's just a way to achieve your dream of homeownership, open the aperture, and arrive at the place that you want to be, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning about taking those steps, because even if uh somebody is not looking to buy a home, you're still talking about a process. Because starting a business, or like I said, even being in the middle of developing and increasing your business, it can be overwhelming. So when you started this, uh what was your background and how did you come to do this business specifically?
SPEAKER_00That's well, it's it was an interesting journey for sure. I was in technology for many years. I was the vice president of strategy at an enterprise uh company. And then in the Great Recession, we heard all about the homeownership, you know, crisis where people got loans that they couldn't afford and they adjusted. And, you know, it was this very uh period of turmoil and a lot of people lost their homes, which was tragic. And I felt it really deep inside me, this, you know, this um loss, you know, and and I thought, I know all this about technology. Maybe I can help solve this problem where people can understand mortgages so that they are confident and they they understand where they'll end up. So I started a company called Tactile Finance that made visualization software for mortgages and sold it to banks and nonprofits. So it was a B2B business, but the end user was the client, you know, who you know was getting the mortgage, and it just provided this level of like sophistication and transparency that was it, but it ended up in these two completely different places, which is high net worth individuals who are really wonky and like this level of detail, and then nonprofits, which you know, sort of for brand new home buyers, you know, sort of the educational counseling component, but there is no middle market. So as I was on the venture, you know, path to raising money, it's just you can't really continue to raise money on like this completely bifurcated market. So then I started a company called homeownering, which I still have today. It's basically um, you know, dedicated to helping people get into homeownership. And then I got my mortgage license. And so my primary, well, my entirety, the entirety of my business is sort of what I should have probably been doing from the beginning, except that the it wouldn't have been nearly as interesting, and I would have wouldn't have nearly the expertise had I gone straight there, right? It's funny how life goes. Um, so all of those experiences with banks and the mortgage industry and nonprofits and the all the levels of clients from one end to the other really informed sort of my approach now as you know, mortgage professional ultimately. But I have a unique take on it because I use technology in my work with my clients to make things clearer. And um, you know, just I'm doing actually what I what I really intended to do is change lives through, you know, sort of breaking down that professional barrier and understanding the information and getting a good result.
SPEAKER_02So so what I'm hearing is is you as you've built this really niche market, I mean, uh you you serve a bigger um swath of of the population because you know, everybody's looking to be well, a lot of people are looking to be homeowners. Uh I hear that there's more of an educational thing, like you're really trying to empower the people that are homeowners to make smart decisions and you lead them on that that that path, like you said, is to make the smart decisions based on the financials, what they can afford, what is out there, the the different um grant programs and things that might be available to them. Am I right on that?
SPEAKER_00Or yeah. Okay. Well, I would say that um also I often say to my clients, I work for you, right? Like I'm not here to tell you what your, you know, your ultimate thing is. You tell me what you want to do, and I'm gonna help you achieve that.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm gonna help you get to where you want to go and understand. And my favorite thing is someone who closes on their home and they are completely confident at the closing because I already I already explained everything to them, they understand all of the financial component and they're completely bought in, you know, and and that's such a good place to be when you when you get your first home.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but that in itself has to be an art form to distill so much information to where it's understandable because again, we go back to it's got to be a feeling of so much information and being overwhelmed by it. How do you get them to see the process in in a way that not only makes sense to them, but that they do understand how you are presenting it so that they have that journey with you?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's yeah, that so that's was a lot of thought put into it, which is there's the industry way of qualifying someone, which I can explain visually, because I built this tool where you can like put things in and see how it works. It's like debt-to-income ratio, it's a very standard thing in all across all mortgages. So that's one component that's fairly easy to explain with the things that I made. Um, the other thing is, you know, the local the local component, which is you know, the local taxes, the local closing costs, and all those things. In New York City, it's formidable. You know, we have a, you know, because we're in New York. We have we have everything. Number one. Exactly. So, you know, that's a big component. It's a learning curve, but it's just it's just explaining, you know, how it works. Um, and then the other one is really the financial, what are you comfortable with for a monthly payment? And I usually go over those things with them on Zoom. And from the very beginning, they have a they have a sense of the closing costs and they have a sense of you know everything, how it works, you know, so that when you're heading towards the closing, they already, you know, have you ever have either of you ever closed on a home? Yes. Yeah. So you get to the closing table, and all of a sudden there's all these checks you have to write, and like no one ever prepared you for that. It's ridiculous, right? Like, how could that happen? So it's very easy actually to prevent that from happening.
SPEAKER_02And so, you know, yes, just tell them it would be nice. I think, I think uh, people that I've dealt with, you know, I've I've done it myself, and I've I know, you know, nieces and nephews and brother-in-laws and everybody that's done it gets this surprise. And I think that like when you're saying home a path to home ownership, do you mean you mean you would actually be clear and tell us all the steps on the way there? Wow, that to me is refreshing because it has never happened. It's not not to me, it's the surprise list of checks, it's the surprise things at the end that walking into a closing, I equate to having a root canal now because it's not something I want to do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, nobody wants that experience, yet it is very common. It's a very common experience. And part of that is you you don't get a mortgage often, right? And not everybody knows what a high quality of service looks like. And to be honest, when I bought my first home, my loan officer just sort of grunted out a couple of numbers, and I felt grateful that I was even getting, you know, that exactly. Um, so it was like, you know, sort of on your own to try to do this. And that's that's not why I got into the business. You know, I got into the business too as a you know, a personal passion for home ownership. So I have that always sort of as a as a guide to, you know, how I run my own day, how I run my business, and you know, what I want my clients to experience.
SPEAKER_02Right. Cool. Cool. That's exactly that's what I mean. To be honest with you, like I said, it's it's a stressful experience. It's one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. And and to know that you would be able to provide clarity for a new homeowner, uh, uh somebody that's already been through the process that may not have had the best um experience, that is, that is game-changing. And it would be so refreshing to have that that power behind you as a homeowner, as a home purchaser, uh, you know, know to actually know what's going on, that's amazing. And you break it down into steps for people, that's that's awesome.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. And so for the business owners that are out there and hearing about this type of process and breaking steps down, I would assume that that would be something that not only the business owners should understand in what they're doing and what they're providing, but are they also distilling this information down to their customers? Because I would have to imagine that this type of system and tool would be invaluable for anybody, no matter what a service or product that they're purchasing, to know what they're getting into and what the outcome would be. So is this something that you already knew how to develop? Was it because of your own experiences that you realized that that was so important to utilize an actual process to make something work?
SPEAKER_00You know, uh, so when I had my software company, the interesting thing about that was that, you know, we were on a shoestring budget for a while until certainly we got our first, you know, outside investment. And so I wrote all the specifications myself for that software. So I had to learn um how loans work. Like I had to learn how all the upfront fees, the loan structure, what happens when they when an arm, an adjustable rate mortgage adjusts, you know, all those sort of details. And through that, I kind of learned all the complexity, and then, you know, all of the sort of the bits and pieces. And at the same time, I learned what my customers didn't know. So my customers, a lot of them were loan officers, like at Bank of America and places, you know, other places. Um, and basically one of the things I found was that they didn't get trained in equity. So, you know, you know, how do you make money with a with a home? You know, you pay down your mortgage and you have more equity and also through appreciation. But the fact that equity wasn't a component in like a loan officer's training, right? Because they're not actually financial, they're not trained to be financial advisors. You when you get your loan officer license, you have to learn so much. So there's a highly regulated field. So you have to learn all about the regulations, lots and lots about loans themselves, make sure, you know, that you're following all the rules. So it's it's not like you don't have a lot of training, but you don't really, you're not really taught about it as a wealth-building, you know, sort of investor type thing. Um, and so I always had that knowledge because, you know, in my software, the software that we built, you could really see all those components, you know, in there. So I kind of had um, you know, trial by fire, you know, I had to learn all these little details that I wouldn't have been exposed to had I not needed to, you know, by necessity, you know, write all the specifications for the software.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, that's really quite incredible and impressive to take because that's a lot of time, patience, and discipline, but it really paid off for you to be able to take that knowledge and be able to break it down for your clients to understand and know exactly what they're getting into and be able to see the whole picture without feeling overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think that that's you know, if you you if you look at the customer experience, and this is true in software industry as well, you know, there's a lot of industries that are similar, um, you know, anything with complexity, right? Where you're taking a client from their first, you know, sort of exposure to you know becoming more confident. And so, you know, all of that is you have to, this guy once said, you know, I think this is pretty standard, but um, I used to go to this church a long time ago, and this guy in it would say, you know, is he would always say, you have to, you know, you you learn by listening. It's not what you're saying, it's what they're hearing. Essentially, it was like that kind of a thing. And that is if I could rewind my life back, especially in terms of sales, right? Because I love sales. Um, I love the whole thing about because everything is sales, really. Being a CEO is sales, you know, um, product manager is sales, but that effectively that that core thing, it's not what you're saying, it's what they're hearing. Because for a lot of my life in technology, you know, it's so complicated and you become so in engaged in the complexity and you become so sort of obsessed with it because you've got to figure it out and it's always changing. And so you have all this knowledge, but when you meet someone who's not in your world, you know, your tendency is just to start telling them all these things, like getting them up to speed on your journey, right? But they don't need to know all those things about your journey. You have to get in their mind, you know, where what do they need to know? What do they know now? What do they want to know? You know, where do they want to be? It's not where you want them to be.
SPEAKER_02You don't so that that acts, excuse me. I that actually brings us to a perfect segue into what a part of our podcast that we call room service. So as you're going there, let me just like direct it a little bit. You're you're saying that um what what is one thing that people should, if they're listening to to this podcast, what should they be doing in terms of either as a business owner or a per perspective homeowner? What can you what do you think that they should do? Listening, you was one thing that you pointed out, but what's one step that they can take in this next week coming up that they might be able to move their business along, move the process of homeownership along, or or anything, you know, uh remotely in that in that range?
SPEAKER_00Well, I would just uh maybe break it into alliance or books. questions quickly as a business owner you you want to obviously listen to the customer you know you know there's the the standard you don't want to tell them all the benefit you know tell them all the features you have right it doesn't matter what you built in terms of features what how many doodads you you made it's what the benefits are to them what problem does it solve so it's I guess that's similar in in mortgages it's not you know I have 50 000 different loan types of links and and you know stuff it's like what is the thing that you want to feel you know what do you want to achieve what do you where do you want you know what is the the end goal for yourself right and then then then I respond to that I'm not forcing you to look at a 10 one arm or you know a this or a that I'm trying to trying to solve your you know trying to solve your problem by listening and then my knowledge can help open the aperture so if I you know so I can find solutions that are gonna expand your knowledge but you know it's not about making a lot of things and then making someone try to appreciate those things that you made I guess does that make sense because again it it really comes down to solving that problem but you won't know exactly until you really hear it until you're able to ask the right questions and get them to really be able to reveal what their worries are you know what the fear is uh and that you're going to be there to walk them through that I think there's there's a reassurance there that you're offering because you are taking the time to listen and to be able to address those concerns. So if somebody is you know um working on their business and working on their business plan how do you think that they should approach it in terms of setting up is it a to-do list is it just um uh a list of things that they know that they need to have in place so when they are making their presentations that they're hitting the right mark what could you tell them to think about in terms of creating their own system to help somebody along with the process that of their product or service yeah so that's I think you're talking really about sales right whether you're selling to an investor or you're selling to a company with a 12 month sales cycle or you're selling to a consumer with you know a one month you know sort of window in which they're gonna do it it's really about honing in on what's meaningful to that person or that entity you know what is it what is it that that they need as their role you know if you're a CEO if you're a CFO and you're buying technology or if you're a person buying a home what are the specific things that you're gonna need to and then that's really an investigation I think you know I love sales I love salespeople I think it's you know if you're starting a business it's worth you know just learning about sales you know find find the best salesperson that you know um and learn everything you can from them that's you know when I ran this accelerator for women led businesses in the emerging uh emerging um technology field I met this woman and she was just a primo salesperson and it was just like you know I I just it was like a sponge you just want to absorb everything in this process you know because really sales is about one person and another person and you know the value that you're you that you've created that you're giving to them to solve their problem so it's that's that's a whole nother segment I guess but all right well but that would be a good step though that would be at least one thing that somebody could take if they are not that knowledgeable about the sales process.
SPEAKER_01So that I think in itself is something that if you are a little lost about where you're beginning or what you need to level up, I think you really hit it. I think see what your sales pitch is and really find out how to hone it and so that it resonates with with the people that you're pitching to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and I always tried to find the very best person you know even if I didn't know them try email them or you know like find someone who knows them and just learn everything you can wherever you want to be what you know if that's you know find that person who knows the most of anyone that you know and just learn from them and you just level up so much more quickly that way.
SPEAKER_02Which I think she just answered my next question was what does being in the right room mean to you personally I think that that you basically just said that you know being learning from someone um if that's if that's what I'm getting from you know you saying find a mentor or find somebody that knows more than you do or or something else than than you know that up your that ups your game um so that you can give more to your clients right well I also thought when I what I think about when I hear the right room is this quote that this uh guy Mike Rankin who used to work work for him in my last job and he was talking about how you know you can plant seeds on rocky soil or you can plant them on you know more fertile soil and and the right room to me is going where you know my passion leads me what I know I'm good at that I want to do and where I find people who also sort of share that you know that similar you know um appreciation of excellence and appreciation of learning and you know just want to be doing right for their clients you know that that to me is the right room cool that's nice I like that me too sounds good that's very good well thank you so much um there's just so much information I know that you have more I know we're gonna have to have you back on but I I like the fact that you talk about how much research and your own investigations into understanding the processes whether it's your software company or understanding mortgages and then being able to take people by the hand through the whole process I mean I would imagine you are just gold to anybody who finds you and can work with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I mean I try my best you know it really is something that I try to go the extra mile for my clients I I'm available all the time pretty much which is sounds terrible but to me it's I love my work. So I'm happy to be available um and that the one thing I want is for them to have a great experience as as the you know new home buyer. Nicole where can people find you what's the best next step if they want to become honour become a homeowner how can they get in touch with you we're going to link everything in our show notes but uh yeah I mean the best way is I have um my website which is homeownering so it's homeowner with an ing at the end dot com and then a lot of my social media is also homeownering and LinkedIn it's Nicole H. Very good that's right yeah thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you such a pleasure all right well Nicole thanks for being in the right room and we'll hope to see you again back in the right room and
