"I had a really incompetent agent"

Stacia Weishaar’s (pictured) journey into the mortgage industry was fueled by a frustrating experience – specifically an inept advisor. Speaking to MPA, she said it was this happenstance that led to a burgeoning interest in best practice and client relations.

“When I bought my first home, I had a really incompetent agent, but an even more incompetent loan officer, unfortunately,” she told MPA. This negative encounter led her to research the industry, which soon turned into a passion and career.

“I went into this business just truly to educate myself and it inadvertently became a passion and a career path,” she added. “My background is actually in software and technology – so I bring an interesting perspective to the industry. I’m also a mortgage coach, helping people nationally.”

Weishaar,  who’s now president at Delightful Refuge, has experience spanning from working at Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft to raising capital for small startups, shaping her approach as both a mortgage originator and a national coach for ‘The Defining Difference’, a coaching group. And, for Weishaar, she firmly believes that mortgage professionals really should see themselves as CEOs.

“In the mortgage industry, we’re often taught to just go get loans, be a salesperson,” she told MPA. “But that’s not really what a mortgage person should be focusing on. Instead, they should focus on finance, marketing, sales, operations, technology, and people. When you have that sort of mindset as a CEO, I think you can look down on the business, look at the various conveyor belts of your business, and define what makes you happy.”

Weishaar’s strategy? It’s always centered around the right people.

“It’s all about the people I interact with, and how those pillars stack up - technology, and people,” she said. This includes clients and referral sources like financial advisors, CPAs, real estate agents, and private bankers.

“I never put all my eggs in one basket, as my mom would say,” she added.

Education is a key focus for Weishaar, especially for first-time homebuyers.

“My clients range from first-time homebuyers to investors,” she said. “I try to teach my homebuyers, first-time homebuyers, to become investors. I do think that real estate is a great diversification of building long-term wealth.

“Everybody said getting a mortgage is painful. The mortgage industry is incredibly technology phobic but I think there’s an immense opportunity for artificial intelligence and for other sort of cryptographic technologies, be it blockchain or other things, to emerge in the mortgage world.”

And, having represented the first publicly facing AI company in the United States over two decades ago, Weishaar is positioned better than most in understanding and predicting technology’s impact.

“I have a technical background in that I understand how technology can bring efficiencies,” she added. “I think there’s going to be a lot of disruption in this industry in the coming years. I’m excited for this advancement in technology, how it’s going to change our world. If you can pick up your phone and touch a button and order, you know, anything your heart imagines, with a click of a button, you can use AI. If you feel that this is scary, or you don’t want to embrace it, you will be obsolete.”

Despite her enthusiasm for technology, Weishaar believes human expertise will always be essential.

“Do I think that robots are going to replace humans? No, I don’t,” she told MPA. “People need other humans to give guidance, advisement and guidance.”

Looking ahead, Weishaar predicts significant legislative changes and an increase in investor appetite in the mortgage space. She is, however, concerned about the aging population of mortgage professionals and the need for more young people to enter the industry.

“We have to really respect and appreciate the originator,” she said. “I would like there to be a higher barrier of entry into this industry.”