The Complete Guide | Top 11 reasons to be a Mortgage Broker | Banker | Commercial or Residential

In the video, Jack shares his top 11 reasons to be in the mortgage business. These include no formal education requirement, a consistent demand for mortgage services, high income potential, and the ability to control one’s earning potential. He also highlights the rewarding aspect of helping people achieve their financial goals and the freedom and flexibility that comes with being in the mortgage business. Ultimately, Jack emphasizes that individuals can shape their own destiny in this field:

Hi, this is Jack Miller at Gelt Financial. I hope you’re having a great day. I’m going to list for you today my top 11 reasons to be in the mortgage business. Whether you’re a mortgage broker or a mortgage banker, whether you do residential or commercial, I think my reasons cross over. I’ve been in the business for 35–but believe it or not, 35 years around. You can see the gray, it’s here in the lack of hair that shows it, but no, it’s been fantastic for me. And I wanted to give you my top 11 reasons. So, let’s jump right into them and tell me if you agree.

For me, a big benefit, number 11, was no formal schooling or education. Meaning, you don’t need any specific degree, any specific education. You can jump into it without any college degree or any education. I was dysle– well, I’m still dyslexic, and going to college was out of the question. So, for people who don’t want to go to college or maybe you do, when you don’t, I know plenty of people who have lawyers who passed the bar in the mortgage business and do they do good. But a big reason for me was no formal education, no formal training. You need a lot of training, you need a lot of education, but you can learn it on the job. So, number 11 was no formal education or skills needed, but again, you need a lot of skills.

Number 10, which could be number one as well, all these are intertwined. I had a hard time figuring out the numbers, but there’s always business out there. Again, I’ve experienced when I started, rates were at 15 and 3/4; now rates are in the twos and threes. There’s always business; it’s a big country, and you can finance it. There are always people who need capital or want capital and need the financing, so it’s never slow. Yes, certain times are slower, and certain times you’re busier, but you can always do deals. There’s never a shortage of people who want your services. In fact, some days you come home and say, “Oh, things are slow,” and I say, “you telling me you can’t find someone who wants to borrow money? There are millions of people who will always want to borrow money, so you’re always in need— or your services are always needed. It’s a never-ending stream of customers who need financing you could help them get it.

Number 9, it’s always challenging; things are not easy. If they seem easy, you’re not hearing the picture. There are always challenging things that happen, and things are always changing in the business. So, the challenge, to me, I don’t look at it as a negative, I look at it as a tremendous positive. Why I like the business because when you can find a challenge and you can overcome that challenge, and the challenge may be on a specific deal or a specific borrower, or it may be an industry-wide challenge because things are always changing, but number nine to me is there’s always challenges in being in the mortgage business, really, in life and anything.
Number 8, high income potential; you can make whatever you want to make. No one is putting a limit on what you make. It comes down to what your goals are, what your desires are, and what your appetite is; how smart and hard you work, but the limit— but there’s no limit on your potential earning. So, if you want to make fifty thousand a year, you can make fifty thousand a year. If you want to make three hundred fifty thousand a year, you can make three hundred and fifty thousand a year or you can make more or you can make less. The reality is a lot of people don’t make it in the mortgage business, but the potential is there, and there’s nothing that’s gonna hold you back except what’s in your head here. That’s the biggest limitation, is what’s on your mind and how you set out your earning power. If you come into this and say, “I want to earn a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand or whatever it may be,” you’ll earn it. If you say you want to earn thirty thousand, you’ll earn that. No limitation on earning potential has to do with how hard and how smart you work.

Number 7, you control your earning potential. There’s not a big company or a big boss or someone who sets a limit, so it’s sort of really my seven and eight are sorted together; there’s high earning potential, and number seven is you control the potential. Nobody controls it but you. Yes, there are certain limits; you have to follow certain guidelines and certain things that set how much you make on a deal, but nobody’s going to control what you want to do. It’s up to you. You’re gonna fail or you’re gonna succeed based on your ability and your skills and your dedication and your hard work. So, number seven is you control your own earning potential. That’s a fantastic, fantastic thing. You know, throughout human history, we haven’t had freedoms that much or there have been limitations on our freedoms, but in the mortgage business, whether you’re a broker or a bank or residential, commercial, there’s no limit, and it’s all controlled by you.

Number 6, things are always changing; you have to reinvent yourself all the time. My company, Gelt Financial, started in 1989. At this point, we’re about 32 years old, give or take— but you could say we’re 32 years old, but you can also say that every three to five years, we’ve had to change. So, you’re always reinventing yourself; you’re always learning. You know, I never thought years ago that, for example, I would know what PPC is (pay- per-click) marketing or all the keyword search engine (SEO) search engine optimization, but today, marketing and internet marketing are a part of the business. You have to know as much about that as you do what qualifies someone for a mortgage. So, you’re always reinventing yourself, you’re always changing, and those who don’t wind up going out of the business. The reality is there’s not a lot of people who have been in the business 10, 15, 20 years because what happens is every time there’s a major gyration in the market, whether the economy or whatever, they don’t reinvent themselves; they leave the business. And that’s fine for them, but to me, a big positive is you’re always changing, and you’re always learning, and you’re always reinventing yourself.

My number 5, which really could be number one, and it’s one of the most rewarding things to me, is you’re helping people meet their goals and their needs. I can’t tell you how warm it is to get positive feedback from borrowers. And at this point, because we’ve been in business so long, we get something almost every day of the week. Or you read something online – Gelt Financial or Jack Miller or one of the people here got help me get a loan ten years ago when no one would lend me money. I got my first investment financing through Gelt; they helped me. We got an email the other day from someone out of the blue who we turned down, but when we turned them down, we told them just because we can’t do it, don’t be discouraged, go out there and get it done, and they got it done through somebody else and they made money on an investment property. So, we are impacting, and we help people, and that’s a tremendous, tremendous feeling to be able to lift somebody up and help them. We bring in light to people’s lives through providing them the capital they want, or they need at a time when they want it. So, helping people is a tremendous benefit; that’s my number five, but it could also be number one. It’s hard to put them in order, for me it was anyway.

Number 4, you create your own schedule, you create your own schedule. It’s not a nine-to-five job. Some people do it; I know a guy who does it; he has a full-time job, and he does it from 4:00 to 8:00 or 9:00 at night. He does very well. You create your own schedule; no one is telling you what to do and when to do it. I know for me, sometimes Saturday evenings or Sunday evenings are very effective for me. You create your own schedule; you can do it whenever you want. If you have kids in school, you want to pick them up, you want to go see them in a play, you want to take a day off, you want to learn karate during the day or a foreign language or whatever your hobby is, you can do it because you create your own schedule.

Number 3, is you are your own boss, even if you work for a company. You are still your own boss when you’re the breadwinner and you bring in the bacon, and you’re the Rainmaker. Ultimately, the Rainmaker makes the rules, so if you’re the Rainmaker and you’re bringing deals, you create your own boss. You don’t have to answer to anyone except for yourself. Some people view that as a negative, but for me, it was always a positive. I was motivated; I love what I do. I wake up every morning as soon as my eyes open up; I can’t wait to get out of bed and get to work, to start being productive today. So, you don’t have to answer anyone; you make your own boss.

Number 2, is freedom. You have the freedom in life to do whatever you want to do, whether you want to go on vacation or want to take time off or, again, whatever your personality is, like sporting events, you have the freedom to do it within the mortgage business. So very few other professions give you the same freedom that you want. You can work two minutes a day and be successful; someone who works ten hours a day—work smart, and you will be successful because you have that freedom that you need.

Number 1, which is sort of the freedom, you control your own destiny. Nobody else controls it. Yes, the economy changes; what worked a year ago doesn’t work now. I’m making this in the middle of the Covid—hopefully, it’s in the middle of the Covid. We’re making it in June; things have changed; things are always changing. You have to go with the flow, but you, it’s up to you, the person looking at this and the person who is reading, watching this. You control your own destiny, and that is a tremendous, tremendous bonus to me. I can do anything I want; I can spend my time on hobbies or with family or other things that interest me. Very few careers afford this.

So, they are my top eleven reasons to be in the mortgage business, whether you’re a mortgage broker, a mortgage banker, residential/commercial—11 great reasons. It’s been a fantastic career for me. I’ve been doing it for 30 something years; I still feel I have another, I can—I think I’ve another 60 years ahead of me. I’ll keep going till I drop; I love it; it’s challenging, it’s hard. Most people didn’t make it, but it gives you things that very few other careers give you. God bless you; I hope you have a great day, and I wish you a lot of success with whatever you’re doing. And remember, check us out; we’re commercial lenders, geltfinancial.com. If we can do anything for you, call us anytime, and when your bank says no, we say yes. Have a great day, and I hope you like my 11 reasons to be in the mortgage business.