Who can you trust if not your high school buddy?
Alex Abazid (pictured) attended Wayne State University, intent on going into physical therapy. But when he realized the amount of money his buddy was making at a major wholesale lender, his path suddenly took a turn.
“Obviously we go to school to get educated but also to earn a living,” he told Mortgage Professional America during a telephone interview. “All it took was one of my very good friends who had just started with Rocket Mortgage to show me one paycheck in terms of what he was able to do for himself. That was all I needed to literally just drop everything I was doing and get in this industry.”
As he studied, Abazid found work in sales – which ended up being a useful trait put into play in the mortgage industry. “I was in the salvage business,” he said. “I used to buy and sell vehicles that had been in accidents. I worked in the collision shop getting cars repaired and selling them. So I’ve always had a sales background, so to speak. Sales came to me naturally.”
Show me the money
But it was the lure of a hefty paycheck that ultimately drew him in, he said. “That paycheck did open my eyes but obviously the conversations that came afterwards are what led me to jump into the industry and change my career. I landed my job at Rocket Mortgage, which used to be Quicken Loans.”
His longtime friend, Abe Miri, was leaving Rocket as Abazid, then 24, was just starting his new career in the mortgage industry. “I’ve known Abe since high school,” Abazid said of his pal whose formative years were spent in Detroit like him. “He’s always been a good friend of mine.”
Post-Rocket, brief stints would follow for Abazid at loanDepot and Chase - the latter job in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was particularly impactful, he said, informing his career path in later pivoting to the wholesale channel.
Learn the steps on how to become a mortgage broker in Florida in this article.
“Rocket tends to do a very good job in having something of an assembly line for loan officers where you’d be on the front end and take over the rest,” Abazid said. “When I went to Chase – being the loan officer that now had to get the loan from A to Z – there was a lot more legwork involved on our end. It gave me the knowledge I needed to be where I’m at today. So it was a good experience.”
Yet not good enough to spend longer than the nearly two years he was there: “After Chase, I decided Florida is not for me; I’d rather keep it as a vacation destination. I moved back and went back to Rocket just as COVID happened.”
High school buddy’s influence grows
That’s when Miri’s influence would loom even larger after he convinced Abazid to join him at Swift Home Loans. “After the Rocket transition, I went to Swift because of Abe, who told me wholesale is where it’s at – you have more autonomy, you have more control, etc. So I decided to give it a shot.”
The experience was transformative: “To be quite candid, after starting with Swift Home Loans, it took no more than two months to realize that this is something that I can easily do on my own. So Abe and I had that discussion and, over a year later, here we are.”
Where they are is at Rapid Home Loans, a shop they co-founded in March 2022. Was there any trepidation in launching a company in a post-COVID environment that saw a marked rise in mortgage rates?
“Absolutely,” Abazid said. “Just before we were opened, we had conversations with people who are closest to us. “The people close to me are in the mortgage industry, and all of them were against it due to the volatility in the market. But I’ve always had the mentality that if you can make it in this market, you’re going to thrive in an easier market. I plugged my ears because we already knew this was something we wanted to do, so we kept going.”
Bottom line is that people will always be in need of homes despite the rate, he suggested. “At the end of the day, people are always going to need loans to buy homes,” he said. “Whether the rates is at 10% or 2%, rates don’t determine the need in regard to people wanting to buy or refinance.”
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