Networking, a Leap of Faith and What a Mortgage Broker Does: Christopher Armantrout on The Hub

00:00 Carianne: Hey guys, it's Carianne, your host of The Hub and a founding member of Thrive Hub. Our mission at Thrive Hub is to empower new and inspiring entrepreneurs in our local community by connecting them with experienced business owners. Whether you need guidance on starting your venture, building your network, or tackling business challenges, we're here to help you get up and running.

00:23 Carianne: Good morning, Hubsters. It's Carianne, and I'm here with Chris Armantrout from Valor Mortgage. Chris founded Valor Mortgage in 2019 and has successfully navigated the challenges of COVID while helping families achieve homeownership. I know Chris through our BNI networking group, and we haven't got to spend a lot of time together, Chris, so tell me about yourself and Valor Mortgage.

00:49 Christopher Armantrout: All right, fair enough. My family moved to Robertson County back in 1988, actually, and I grew up in Robertson County. My goal to start my own business started actually when I was younger, but didn't actually happen until I moved back in 2014, got into the mortgage industry in 2015, and then started my own operation in 2019.

01:15 Christopher Armantrout: But yeah, it was a big leap of faith. I actually had more credit card debt than I've ever had in my life, and convinced myself that I could pay that off, and I was going to go on a quick trip to Australia and visit some friends as a reward for success. And it ended up happening that the night that I was going to go to the Australian Open, the host that I was staying with, a friend of mine from high school, their babysitter's daughter was one of the first doctors to receive a COVID case in Australia.

02:00 Carianne: Okay, so you got like a forewarning.

02:04 Christopher Armantrout: Oh yeah, forewarning, but then also starting to get text messages from family, sending me news articles saying, hey, the U.S. is closing their border, would you like to come home now?

02:13 Carianne: Right, so you almost got stuck in Australia.

02:15 Christopher Armantrout: Almost got stuck in Australia. It wouldn't have been a terrible place, but it wouldn't have been my first choice. So yeah, I came home and navigated working through COVID as a business owner. For me during that time, interest rates dropped and business spiked, and I pretty much lived in my office 12 to 14 hours a day. I would go home and come back, and the Depot or any other local restaurant was my kitchen.

02:44 Carianne: Yeah, that was a crazy time.

02:46 Christopher Armantrout: I bought and sold like three houses during COVID. Yeah, life flipped upside down. But no, it's been a whirlwind and a blessing to be able to start a business in my hometown and to be able to live in my hometown. So it's cool.

03:02 Carianne: That's awesome. And my business started during COVID too. I was crazy, starting a party business when people weren't having parties. It took a little while to get it up and running too. But what has helped your business grow? You think moving back home, where you are comfortable and know people? Or what do you think has helped your business grow in Springfield?

03:23 Christopher Armantrout: I think one of the bigger pieces to that has been networking. Networking has been huge, but more so not necessarily understanding where your next lead's coming from. You can't always pinpoint and say, okay, I'm going to focus on this avenue of business coming in. And so it's building relationships with banks, building relationships with real estate agents, building financial planners. And so maintaining relationships and networking has been a huge boost to that. A second wave, I think, would be revamping a website and trying to get more traction online.

04:05 Carianne: Okay, be more appealing as the years change and move. I agree with that. I just revamped my website too, to be more modern. But guys, I just listened to Chris receive a phone call prior to this, and networking really does work. A lady called him that he met probably several months, years ago maybe, that she had a lead for him. And his name stuck with her and his business stuck with her, and she gave him some business just before this podcast. So networking really does work. I had another episode telling you about how to find the right networking group for you, because you want to feel comfortable and fit in. But, Chris, what advice would you give to a new entrepreneur? Obviously, networking probably is at the top of that list, correct?

04:48 Christopher Armantrout: Correct. I would say networking, but I would also suggest building a business family around your business.

05:00 Carianne: I like that.

05:00 Christopher Armantrout: Whether it be joining a networking group that you check out every week, or, an example would be, I've got an insurance guy, Zach, with Allstate. He's here in White House. He and I both started our businesses about the same time. I ran into him at a Rotary meeting, and we started bouncing ideas off of each other, and have learned that we kind of both have the same vision for our business and how we want to run our business. And so being able to have that relationship, and be able to refer people back and forth and build that trust over time. So it's not necessarily just mortgage and insurance, but it could be lock and key, or it could be, you know, a real estate agent. So being able to build that family, if you will, around you, to be able to refer people to, can also be a very [inaudible] for your business.

05:59 Carianne: Yeah, because all those things are intertwined in the business world. So it's really great to have those connections. Why are, or what is a mortgage broker? Like, I just thought you would go to a bank and get a mortgage. What's the difference? What's a mortgage broker? Or can you decipher the information for our listeners?

06:19 Christopher Armantrout: So I'd actually broaden it out even more. So there is a bank. The bank's going to give you a product. Like, they have, say, an A-paper file or a cookie-cutter process, if you will. You're going to go to the bank. You're going to tell them, hey, I want to buy a house. They're going to take your information, and the loan officer is going to reach out to you. That loan officer is going to qualify you, and they're going to say, hey, we have X products that we can provide you. And then from that, you're going to presume that you have a relationship with the bank. That's an excellent opportunity. But you may not necessarily have the relationship with the loan officer. You have a relationship with the banker.

07:01 Carianne: Okay.

07:01 Christopher Armantrout: And so at that point, you may become a number. You're just a loan going through the process. But also, with a bank, their risk analysis is going to be a lot more limited than what a mortgage broker or lender might provide. So an example would be if you were to go to a local bank and say, hey, I want to buy a manufactured home. It's on a permanent foundation, and it's a clean house. It was built after 1976.

07:35 Carianne: Yeah.

07:36 Christopher Armantrout: Then, yeah, the bank is going to say, more than likely, you're going to put 20 percent down, if they will do a manufactured home. So flip the tables a little bit: mortgage broker, you're going to work with me. It's me and my processor. There's only two people who will be a part of the entire process.

07:52 Carianne: Talking to you the whole time.

07:54 Christopher Armantrout: Talking to me the whole time, and I'm going to educate you throughout on what to expect. And you're not going to be put on a conveyor belt, if you will. And then, going back to the example of a manufactured home, not that that's the product that I want to sell everyone, but for someone who comes in and says, hey, this is what I need: then, yeah, if you're a veteran, I can do 100 percent financing on a manufactured home.

08:21 Carianne: Wow.

08:22 Christopher Armantrout: If you're not a veteran, then we can do three and a half percent down with an FHA loan. And with that, a bank may say, yeah, we can do a conventional purchase, but your credit score has to be, say, 680 or 640.

08:36 Carianne: There's more parameters, more stipulations. They want it to fit in this box for them to be able to work. You can go outside the box a little more.

08:45 Christopher Armantrout: Yep. I go way outside the box.

08:48 Carianne: Okay.

08:48 Christopher Armantrout: Give you an example. Credit scores: like the call that just came in before we jumped on this call was one of a low credit score. I had a friend of mine last fall reach out to me, because they had moved and they had failed to change their student loan address.

09:09 Carianne: Oh, okay.

09:10 Christopher Armantrout: They missed a few payments. Student loans came back and basically said, hey, look, this has to happen. You have to make payments. They didn't receive the notice, and because they didn't receive the notice, they missed payments. So now their pristine credit went from the 700s down to like 560.

09:25 Carianne: Okay.

09:26 Christopher Armantrout: So they owned a house. They were able to take the equity from their house and use that as the next down payment, so the risk level was lower. With FHA, if you purchase a house with a credit score below 580 and you have 10 percent down, there's a stronger possibility that you could purchase. Not necessarily for sure, but there's a stronger possibility. So they had a substantial down payment, they had a low credit score, and they were able to purchase a home, where others may not have been willing to navigate that field.

10:00 Carianne: Yeah. It's a little more challenging, a little more risky sometimes.

10:03 Christopher Armantrout: So one thing I'd clarify is product mix. A mortgage broker is going to have a lot more options for someone to be able to purchase. They're going to have credit scores, and be willing to jump into the risk that a bank may not want to. And a lender may do the same thing. So there's a bank, a mortgage lender and a mortgage broker. A mortgage lender may be willing to do some of the same risk avenues, but they may not have as many channels to send it through. An example of why that matters: at lunch today, you have many options, right?

10:45 Carianne: Yeah.

10:45 Christopher Armantrout: You could go to Taco Bell, you could go to Jalapeños, you could go to all these places, right? But you have an appetite for different things on different days. So investors also have the same appetite for different things on different days. I'll give you an example. Did you have Taco Bell yesterday? Well, I don't want Taco Bell today.

11:07 Carianne: Yep.

11:07 Christopher Armantrout: So if one particular lender or investor that I'm working with has a glut of one product type, then their pricing may not be as good as the next company. And so if you've applied for a mortgage with a bank or a lender, and that particular product that you fit well for, they have a glut of, well, their underwriters are backlogged. So to slow that volume, they're going to raise their prices or their interest rates to discourage new business, so that they can manage what they have.

11:48 Carianne: Wow.

11:48 Christopher Armantrout: So if you work with a mortgage broker, then they get to shop multiple companies and see, okay, well, this company is being more aggressive for the exact same product. And with that, I'm only pulling your credit once. If you go out and you shop, then you're going to talk to three or four different companies, and each one of those companies is going to want to pull your credit.

12:05 Carianne: So you're doing all the work for me, too.

12:07 Christopher Armantrout: Correct. So it's basically, I'm getting a mortgage for you, and I should be shopping, depending on how many companies that I have a partnership with, all of those companies, to say, okay, where does this fit the best? And within those companies, they may have slightly different products that work better for you. An example: one investor may have a first-time homebuyers program that waives a lot of costs that another company may have for the exact same product. So balancing and figuring out the nuances between programs, it pays to work with someone who has multiple channels and is well versed in the products that those companies have.

12:54 Carianne: Okay. And we can then pick the best product that we want. You share those with all your clients; that's nice. So you're not, like you said, just getting put into that box: here's our product, this is it, go buy your house. You can buy a house with multiple different options out there.

13:10 Christopher Armantrout: Right.

13:10 Carianne: I like that.

13:11 Christopher Armantrout: Yep. It's shopping without shopping.

13:15 Carianne: Okay. If you could go back, and this is, we'll wrap this up, your last question: if you could go back to when you started this business, what is one thing you would tell yourself?

13:24 Christopher Armantrout: I would tell myself to get out and meet more people. It's easy to get inside your own head and to say, you know what, I'm just going to manage what I have. I'm not going to go door-knock. I'm not going to go talk to new people. But to purposely push myself to go find new people to talk to. Because, as you saw earlier this morning, the phone call came through. I don't remember which bank this was.

13:51 Carianne: But you talked to someone and they remembered you.

13:53 Christopher Armantrout: Right. I talked to someone, they remembered me, and they were willing to do business with me. And so, being purposeful to put myself out there, even when I was green and a rookie, to try new things.

14:06 Carianne: I think that's great advice, really great advice. And it's paying off a lot, months, maybe, you don't even remember when you spoke to this one, but years later. So get out there and talk to people. Well, thanks for coming on today, Chris. We're going to have Chris on again in the future, because this was a lot of fun and a lot of information, and we have a lot more questions to ask him. But we'll see you next time on The Hub.

14:29 Carianne: This podcast is intended solely for educational purposes. We do not guarantee that it will result in a successful business, nor is it designed to serve as a step-by-step guide. Please ensure compliance with all applicable city, county, state and federal business regulations.