Well, two bad ones. And one really good one.
When my husband and I bought our first home in early 2013, we met with three lenders. The first pigeonholed us into an FHA loan based on a credit situation I had accidentally caused myself — I paid off old collections that should have been left alone and tanked my husband's score so badly he couldn't be on the loan at all.
The second barely looked at me. He directed every word to my husband.
The third was a woman mortgage broker who listened. She structured an 80-10-10 that worked for our situation and took the time to explain it in a way that actually made sense. When I called her out on a rate that had moved an eighth of a point from Friday to Saturday, she leaned back in her chair, folded her hands, and said:
She let it hang.
And I thought: You're not.
That was the activation point. I knew right then that I would be really good at this. I took my first wedding anniversary off work and sat through six days of licensing classes straight. At the end of every day, I fell more in love. Licensed November 2013. Official April 2014.
I was under 30 when I got my license. Working in Houston, Texas as a young woman trying to be taken seriously in a competitive market. My daughter was born in October 2015. People told me the career was over before it started.
It wasn't.
But my husband went through an 18-month career transition. We got down to less than $2,000 in our bank account with no way to pay bills the following month. I call it my humbling season. I'm grateful for it. It's a beautiful chapter in my story.
Then in August 2017, my father died unexpectedly. The same day Hurricane Harvey hit Houston. I stayed in Louisiana with my daughter for six weeks while two other families sheltered in our home. Grieving. Laying in bed. Scrolling Facebook.
In a large online community full of real estate agents, people were posting every time a lender let them down. I started answering. Showing up. Explaining what I would have done differently.
Before long, I was invited into a private group of top-producing women agents from all over the country — as one of only a couple of lenders in the room. We got real with each other. I built friendships that turned into referral relationships.
I built my own marketing funnel from scratch — and closed a loan for an agent's database several states away without ever setting foot there.
One mega agent tagged me online after getting fed up with her current lender. She moved her business over and sent me a wave of referrals — all before we'd ever met in person.
In 2021, my husband and I were house hunting all over the country. Standing inside an 1883 house in Cincinnati on our third tour when Jonathan looked at me and said: every house we look at reminds me of New Orleans. Why are we not looking there?
And here we are. Three and a half years later. New Orleans. Still building. Scotsman's Guide top producer. Empire Circle member. $22.9M in personal production in 2025 alone.
I retired my husband in March 2020 on the strength of my mortgage production. I built this business from a grief fog, a Facebook group, and a funnel I made myself. And I'm just getting started.
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