Broker has taken her motivation to new heights
Dubbed the “most exclusive broker event” of the year, the annual Hall of AIME this past weekend celebrated the mortgage industry’s top producers.
Mortgage Professional America was there to chronicle the event that took place in Naples, Fla., from Jan. 26-28, during which awards were given to top brokers and panel discussions keyed in on topical events impacting the industry.
Among the top brokers honored at the event was Kris Radermacher (pictured), broker-owner at K2K Mortgage based in Tampa, Fla. She took time during the event to speak with MPA about her background and the impact the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME), who put on the event, has had on her throughout her career.
From foreclosures to originating
“I actually started on the back end of the loan and worked my way through,” she said of a career launched in 2007. It wouldn’t be until 2018 that she would get into originating. Before then – as the Great Recession began to rear its ugly head in 2007 – she was something of a real estate grim reaper.
“I did foreclosures at that time, from 2007 to 2010,” she said. “I was nobody’s friend.” Working for one of the top companies on the east coast, she estimated the company did some 500 to 1,000 foreclosures a week at the time of the subprime mortgage meltdown.
“We’d drive past a road, and literally we foreclosed on everything but two houses,” she recalled. “It was insane – sadly insane.”
After so many foreclosures, she longed for a change. “From there, I always kind of knew I wanted to build and learn more. I’ve literally done everything from processing, I’ve sold to the secondary market, I’ve done loan modifications, quality control, loan officer assistant – everything.”
Longing for more
She recalled returning to Florida in 2016. “I was an LOA and got an offer to open a branch for a guy, and I did that for a while.” A personality clash would help propel her on to bigger things: “I won’t lie, we got into it one day and he said, ‘if you don’t like it, go to work for another $4 million producer.’ And I said, ‘why am I not that $4 million producer’.”
Ever since, she’s been working toward the goal, leaving retail for wholesale in 2020. “Literally the week of COVID, I went broker,” she said of her entry into the channel. I was freaking out.”
She needn’t have been. In 2020, she posted $19.3 million in volume, followed by $32 million the following year. Last year, she posted $22 million – a drop from the previous year only because much of the year was focused on opening up her branch, she explained.
Eschewing instant gratification
Radermacher’s approach is something of a rebuke to the tactics of instant gratification, she suggested. “Homeownership should be everybody’s goal,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean it has to be your goal this minute. You’ve got to start laying a foundation. The United States is an amazing place to live – so much opportunity. But we’re not into teaching people financial responsibility. We have this insane demand that we need it right now – the best, the $5 million house out the gate. I want to do the opposite. I want to show people that with slow, steady wealth building, you will be at that point. Your first house is not your end house,” she said, citing a report indicating that for many homeowners, there will be 11 mortgage in a lifetime. “We’re passed being in your house for 30 years,” she added.
Props to AIME
She praised AIME for the support the group has provided throughout her career, and compared the last event the group sponsored named Fuse in October to the Hall of AIME. “I love it, but it’s big,” she said of the former event that took place in Las Vegas. “We’re talking 4,000 people, and a lot of moving parts.” As for Hall of AIME: “This is very small. It’s intimate and the best of the best of the best are here. It’s not cheap to get here, but worth every single penny because the people that I have met or gotten to grow more with are the people who I look up to. You have made a huge mistake if you have not come here.”
That sense of community doesn’t fade between events either, she said. “I have some amazing people on speed dial that I can call and never once do they sit there and think ‘if Kris does better than I do, I lose.’ They actually think if they help, it helps build our community better.”
