From Bartender to CEO: Greg Whitmire's Unconventional Journey to Real Estate Mastery

Tommy 

So obviously I know your background already, but if you want to go ahead and lay out kind of how you got into the industry, where you started, where you're at, and just kind of give us the 411, the background there.

Greg 

Sure, got in the industry in 2003, so almost 21 years ago, from a buddy that was a financial planner and he kinda did loans on the side. And so basically what he would do is all of his clients, it was obviously early good refi boom then, so he would just do refis for his clients… Actually, he'd have other people that worked at this brokerage do refis for his clients. Back then no one needed to be licensed, so all you had to do was be employed by the broker and you could put your name on an application so there wasn't a whole lot of things that needed to be done.

He was from Orange County. He'd come out to Lake Havasu all the time and that's how I met him. He's like, dude, you know everybody in this town and you're outgoing and you speak to everybody. You should do loans. I was bartending and roofing at the time. Making 1500 bucks on a loan was a lot of money compared to 80, 100 hours of roofing in 120-degree weather.

Wow, did you get any formal training, how did you go about getting your business early on?

He gave me a notebook with a bunch of username and passwords in it for a bunch of lenders and a bunch of contacts for account executives, rented me an office above a title company. I just started to go down there and talk to those ladies and ask them how to do loans and where to get loans.

That's how I started. Did that for a little while. Went to Countrywide, worked for Countrywide for a couple of years until it got bought out and told myself when I went to work for Countrywide, that I hadn't done anything for a very long period of time ever.

I learn how to sell tires, become the best tire salesman, and then go like, this is boring. Go sell meat door to door and be like, okay, this is, you're the best door to door meat salesman. This is boring. Mortgage loans I liked because they were kind of ever changing.

I imagine when the marked crashed in 08 everything changed for you.

Yea, the market crashed, and everything got more intricate, learning more guidelines, figuring out income, doing that stuff. I really started to like it. I told myself before the crash that I would do five years, no matter what. I was gonna do five years. That was my goal.

Probably to my detriment, I stayed at Countrywide, bought out by Bank of America, and I stayed literally until the day of five years. On that day, I put in my two weeks, quit, went to a small broker banker with a buddy of mine that I worked with at Countrywide and did that for a couple of years, I want to say like close to five years there.

Now when we first met, you were at Summerlin Financial, how did that come about and what’s your status there now.

In 2016, we opened Summerlin Financial. This is a mortgage banker broker or a mini correspondent. We have our own warehouse line. We fund a lot of the stuff in our name. About three years into building this company, I was asked to take over some of the title agency as well. I became the president and CEO of that, managing, overseeing trying to help build and grow that.

Fast forward and as of January 1st, of this year, I have bought out my business partners, I'm now 100% owner of both Summerland Title Agency and Summerland Financial.

Congratulations! I know you must have worked hard to get that done… Running one company is challenging but now you have two… What's the hardest part juggling both a title and mortgage company?

Mindsets. We have company values, which can be aligned with any mindset. But title and escrow, guys and gals, are usually in title and escrow for a reason. And salespeople do sales for a reason.

Trying to get salespeople to be a little more communicative and a little more detailed, maybe like an escrow officer is, or getting an escrow officer to be a little more salesy like a salesperson is, that's going to be, always for me, the constant battle.

I think right now, with the way everything has changed, you know, with social media and how everything is very media first, that you have to be a marketing company first, then whatever it is that you do on top of that afterwards, whether that's in mortgage or insurance or, you know, title and escrow.

Yeah 100%, like Coca-Cola is a marketing company that sells soda. It's. It's just the way it is now. Aa big part of my job is helping them, you know, kind of build out a personal brand.

I know you're big with personal development and coaching. What are the main platforms or who are you using right now? You know, who's in your corner?

My buddy Dustin, he's been my coach for almost 11 years, he takes care of the weekly stuff that I need. I meet with him once a week, and then I'm also in growth only coaching. That's more of a loan officer based coaching. I had realized that although personal development for me is one thing, I needed to get around some guys and gals that are really big in the loan industry. I think that could help my people. It could help me. So I did that and it was literally hands down the best thing I did.

I am also in Forward Academy, which is a content creation mastermind. And then they also have the NCA Accelerator, which is smaller. Understanding that personal branding was going to be something that I really needed to learn, one, so that I could do for our company itself.

I've gotten really big into copywriting with the newsletter the last couple of months, and they say the best thing to do is to just take your favorite authors and literally just copy their book line by line. Over time, just from you emulating them and their style, it's, it's going to help you. So, kind of the same thing with social media, just seeing what's working and doing what they're doing, is I can see it's helped you a ton.

I realized with my brand that I have to be nice and follow other people. And which has been great too, because I get to learn a lot from them as well. I was a little closed-minded thinking that I could only watch Gary V, David Goggins, Ed Milette, you know, and that's all I really needed. But it's not, there's some, good stuff from just ordinary people, I’m learning every day.

What was it like getting back into loan production and what drove that? Was it just everyone else kind of dropping off or?

Too many months of negative profit and loss. [chuckles] No. So I looked at it a couple different ways. One, yes, like everything shrank and it shrank quickly. And so...

I'm loyal to a fault, right? We designed a commission plan that worked really well for an independent loan officer. And I tried to hold onto that as long as I could. Then the volume like got cut in like three quarters, right? 25%. Well, those numbers still don't work, but I didn't want to take it away. What if I, as I'm building out this personal branding, I'm starting to get more deals anyway, which I used to hand off, right? I was like, okay, well, what if I could just do three deals a month of my own, which I know for some people that sounds like a lot as a loan officer. When I was fully in production, I was doing 10 to 12. So, three to me in my mind, and my brain was like, okay, if you could get three loans a month for the company, we would always be solvent.

I don't have to lower commission and everybody can be happy. That's how it started.

So you limited yourself to just 3 loans per month?

No. What happens if I get 10 loans? Right. Because I'm a relationship guy. Like all my deals come from just adding value and relationships. So. As I started to get deals, I was like, OK, I really have to just be part of who I am.

But that was the catalyst of getting back in. And honestly, like it's, you know, Melinda always teases me if I'm taking a nap at home or something, I get off the phone and she's like, that's just, this is just what you were born to do. Like you just make people feel so comfortable. You build such good rapport with them.

Now getting back into production in a high-rate market like we’re in now… What’s that like?

I always get teased cause I don't talk about rate a lot. Everyone’s always asking, how do you not talk about it? I'm like, I don't know. Cause I don't, I don't, I'm not hyper-focused on it. Now does it come up, oh a hundred percent. But I'm not hyper-focused on it. I'm hyper-focused on their goals, their family, why they're buying, all of those things, and then a payment that they're comfortable with, or a price range that they think they're comfortable with. And if I meet all those needs, like rate may come up, it may not. Yeah, Tommy, you're good. You can buy a house at 450,000 and you're gonna have a $2,800 payment. Does that sound great? You're like, oh, that sounds amazing.

Yeah. Well, like you said, I think far too many people focus on rate, you know, instead of, you know, the payment, what they can afford and how that's really going to affect their life. And they see rate is just this number that's that they put on a pedestal that doesn't really deserve to be there. 

I don't think so. And we got so into talking about it last year because they got so high that now we're just talking about how they're going to get low. I'm like, man, if we could just, as an industry, be like, hey, is it a good time to buy? I don't know. I got to figure out your situation. I got to figure out what you want. The rate is irrelevant, depending on what your positioning is and what it is that you're trying to accomplish. Now, like in 2023, if your goal was to buy a house,

Well Greg, I always enjoy our conversations, thank you for taking the time out of your day to chat. I appreciate you. If people want to get ahold of Greg, you can follow him on Facebook or Instagram and find them at Summerlin Financial & Summerlin Title Agency

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