Air Force couple mistakenly waited 22 years building up a 20% down payment
In the mortgage industry, there is arguably no greater fulfillment than to help military veterans achieve the American dream of homeownership. And you’ll find few loan officers as committed and devoted to that quest than Matthew Clanton (pictured).
CEO and founder of Project Valor, Clanton was among the panelists speaking before a gathering of mortgage professionals at the recent FUSE conference organized by the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) that took place in Las Vegas earlier this month. The lofty title of the panel discussion – “Serving Heroes: The Benefits of Giving Back to VA Homebuyers” – spoke to the innate nobleness of the endeavor. He was joined by fellow panelists Mike Cox, vice president of education at AIME and Lamont Harris Jr., CEO of Harris Capital Mortgage Group.
During an interview with Mortgage Professional America at the site of the conference, Clanton peppered his answers with lingo associated with battle – appropriate in describing the challenges faced by untold veterans in achieving homeownership. It’s no affectation: Clanton spent a career in the US Marine Corps with multiple tours to Fallujah, Iraq.
Time to get pumped up
“I look at it like rallying the troops,” he told MPA of spreading the message of helping military members. “Same thing I did in the Marine Corps. Before you go into combat or any kind of big training exercise, we get up before our Marines and say ‘hey let’s get pumped up. We’re about to go into this, we’re about to do this.’ Same thing here – let’s get pumped up.”
After being stationed in all corners of the US – moving his family from duty station to duty station along the way – he spent the last years of his military service as a real estate agent focusing on educating VA buyers on their entitlement. He has since distinguished himself as a prominent VA realtor in Southern California, having counseled scores of service members and veterans on maximizing the benefits of their VA home loans throughout the US.
Debunking myths of the VA space
Clanton said he was gratified to have been invited to speak, enabling him to secure a forum to debunk misconceptions surrounding the VA lending space. The same morning he was being interviewed, he received an Instagram message from a couple who had just retired from the US Air force.
“They said ‘hey, we have our down payment. I think it should be around 20%, right?’ I’m like, man. One, you went 22 years in the Air Force and you never used your VA home loan because someone did you an injustice in not approaching you and saying ‘here’s how you should leverage it, here’s why you should do it’. Two, you think that waiting until after is a better way to attack a VA home loan than while you’re still in. And they clearly think they need a 20% down payment on a VA home loan. There couldn’t be anything further from the truth. There are a lot of things these veterans can be taught.”
It’s a tough market all around
Yet in a challenging market – with mortgage rates high and affordability increasingly eroding – it’s challenging for everyone in the mortgage industry, not just those catering to a specific segment like Clanton. The loan officer said mortgage brokers and LOs are having to be more creative in finding additional financial products to sell customers on the ideas of buying property.
“In the mortgage industry this year, it’s been more along the lines of creativity,” he said. “We’re all in this fight together, and there’s a lot of difficulty surrounding the market for buyers, for real estate agents, for lenders, for mortgage brokers, and LOs.”
The twin goals: “Finding ways to keep the customer experience a positive one, and being able to get clients into homes by approaching them the right way,” Clanton said. “It’s going back to the drawing board and coming up with different programs.”
The impetus is on each practitioner to become educated on the full breadth of financial products available in order to stay ahead of the game: “I think for LOs like myself, educating ourselves on all the different programs that these lenders and investors have, understanding that every consumer has a unique position that they’re in and sitting down and understanding that person’s unique situation and being able to coach them through it and finding that product for them, is going to be a game changer.”
Like many in his industry, Clanton is prepared to see an exodus of loan officers as they succumb to financial pressure amid current market challenges. Yet this scenario yields a positive for those who survive – an opportunity to gain market share when it’s most needed.
“A lot of those people are probably retail,” he said of those likely to exit the industry. “There’s going to be some attrition in the broker channel too. I think retail lenders are going to be the ones that fall off first, because of the higher interest rates. I think it’s time for the brokers to step up and exploit our flexibility. ‘Yes’, there are people exiting the industry and, ‘yes’, it’s a different industry. But we have so many options if you dig into the different lenders’ [products]. You can find something that makes your clients happy.”
Rubbing elbows with trailblazers
He credited AIME with providing him with the tools needed to go into figurative combat in an ever-volatile mortgage landscape. He referred to the AIME rank and file as “tip of the spear,” a term commonly used in military operations to describe the first soldiers and sailors to go into combat. In civilian use, the phrase refers to the first to venture into new endeavors – trailblazers, if you will.
“These are the people who actually want to make a difference,” Clanton said. “These are the people who look at this as a career and that want to help people, have meaningful relationships and conversations and do the right thing by people. Rubbing elbows with these people allows me to bounce scenarios off them, to learn of new products, to meet new people. I just feel if you’re not here, you’re missing out.”
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