In episode 27 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Mike Benton, a mortgage banker and entrepreneur, as he shares his extensive experience in the mortgage industry and offers valuable insights into the home-buying process. Tune in as they delve into the intricacies of the mortgage world and insights that can help you navigate wealth-building strategies.
In episode 27 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Mike Benton, a mortgage banker and entrepreneur, as he shares his extensive experience in the mortgage industry and offers valuable insights into the home-buying process.
Tune in as they delve into the intricacies of the mortgage world and insights that can help you navigate wealth-building strategies.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:56] Mortgage misconceptions for first-time buyers.
[00:04:31] Real estate equity utilization strategies.
[00:08:09] Primary homeownership and wealth building.
[00:12:11] Alcohol-free lifestyle change.
[00:17:04] Consistency in entrepreneurship.
[00:19:07] Living a life of wealth.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Brandon Brittingham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittingham/
Mike Benton
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikegbenton/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikegbenton
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegbenton/
WEBSITE
Brandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/home
Responsive Mortgage: https://www.responsivemortgage.com/
This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham.
Hey, what's up everybody. We are back with another episode of wake up to wealth. And today we actually have someone that is also a sponsor of our show. Um, guy that is really good at what he does. And we're going to be talking about some cool stuff today. My good friend, Mike Benton. Thanks for joining us today, brother.
Brandon Brittingham
Thanks for having me, man. I've been looking forward to it.
Mike Benton
So we're gonna talk about a lot of different things today, but for those that are listening to the show that this may be the first time they've met you or heard of you, tell us a little bit about what you do and a little bit about your background.
Brandon Brittingham
Sure, well, today, day-to-day, I'm a mortgage banker, run a company called Responsive Mortgage, partners with your coach, John Czeplak and Preston Morgan. We're opening up offices, serving real estate teams all over the country, and I'm still originating mortgages in about 40-plus states. So that's my day to day. Quick background. I mean, I started out with my real estate license in 2003 and then got into real estate investing pretty much immediately with fix and flips and whatnot. Rode it through the Great Recession, had about $50 million in properties and got the sledgehammer put on me.
Learn some lessons.
Yeah, I mean, a couple of Harvard educations for sure. And then restructured by hitting the courthouse steps, buying auction properties. and built up a redevelopment company that we sold in 2017 down in Florida to a family office and a mortgage banking ever since. And that's the day to day.
So we're gonna talk a little bit about the mortgage world. It's actually amazes me to this day, like how many people still don't understand, you know, buying a house, the mortgage process, you know, everything. Obviously I'm a believer in owning real estate at a minimum owning your primary residence. I mean, owning a primary residence for me gave me the ability to pull equity out and start basically my investing career. But a lot of people just don't understand, right? So the myth is I gotta have a ton of money. Do you know what I mean? They just don't understand it. So just someone that's out there that's listening, they've never bought a house before. give them some basics of like, you hear a bunch of stuff that's probably not true and it scares people and even starting the process of looking to get a mortgage.
Yeah, I mean, I think the number one misconception and great question is you need so much money down, right? Like the biggest thing today is now more than ever, you need zero money with the market where it stands today with seller concessions, you can truly get into a house with $100 again, which blows people's minds. definitely possible with the primary residence. And let's not even consider VA loans, just talking about, you know, Joe Blow, who is off the street, never purchased a home, as long as he has some income, he has no cash and a credit score of, you know, as low as 580, we're putting them in homes. And that's what we're seeing right now more over the last 12 months, more first time home buyers are getting into the market and having at bats now more than ever.
Yeah. And you know, it's funny. Um, I just had clients that were in my office, uh, three days ago and they rented from me and he came to me when he was renting from me and he said, Brandon, should I buy a house? And I said, yes, absolutely. He went a step further and he bought two houses. He bought a primary, he bought a rental. And when they came in the other night, we sat down and we looked at everything. They got 600, $600,000. in equity in their two properties. They both have W-2 jobs. And I'm helping them deploy that equity into other rental properties. So even if he didn't have that rental property, he's got about $250,000 in equity in his house that he can now go and use. That's the shit that people don't understand.
Oh, 100%. I was working on a refinance on a primary residence just a couple of weeks ago and going through a client of mine's file, notice he's got two investment properties. Those investment properties are sitting at like a 30% loan to value, meaning 70% of equity sitting there. I did an analysis on how long it would take him instead of go ahead and deploy that money, take the cash out and not over leverage, but get to a 60, 70% loan to value, which is not equity stripping by any stretch of the imagination. It literally, by doing that, picking up two to four more properties, it would have taken him 27 years to recoup that. I mean, it's any, so you can pull all that out, go in there, deploy that capital, get appreciation, depreciation, and start to leverage that money as opposed to, I think his return was like $300 a month on that current property if he paid it off.
So if someone is listening to this and like they've never bought a house before, like just give them a simple high level, like what is the process look like? What do they need to be prepared for? What do they need to understand?
Well, we look for three things, credit, first thing, and you don't have to have a perfect credit score, another misconception. I mean, I've done as low as 550 in 2024. So not every circumstance, you don't have to have perfect credit, but credit is your first step. Second step is some sort of income. meaning where you derive your income from, whether it's a W-2 job. Another misconception is, hey, I write everything off. That means I can't get a loan. Well, not true anymore either. There's so many different non-QM products, bank statement loans, 1099, a lot of different ways to verify income. And again, we're not talking about no income, no docs. Although there are some community lending programs out there with lower loan to values that can be done. But that being said, as long as you have some sort of income that we can find, which we can, nine times out of 10, we can find it. That's the second piece, right? So you got income, you got credit, and then we went over the assets earlier, right? So most loan programs, even us, we have multiple 100% financing options in most states. And then there's quite a few states out there today that have a lot of different incentives for first-time homebuyers and folks. And that's someone who hasn't owned a home in three years as well. So those folks who have been out of the market waiting for things to drop or whatever the case may be. Hey, they can they can be eligible for those programs too.
Yeah. And, and I just want to say, you know, there's all kinds of gurus out there that, that say you shouldn't buy a primary residence. I will 100% go on record and say that I completely disagree with that. Um, you know, because when you buy a rent or when you live in a rental property, yes, do you have freedom, uh, that you don't own it, but also you're basically paying a hundred percent interest every month. Rent's not gonna go down. And again, for me personally, the primary residence that I live in today, I bought four years ago and I paid 380 for it and it's worth almost 800. And my house is paid off and I've been able to take the equity out of that property and invest it into other properties and get a large return. The first house that I bought doubled and was able to use that to invest in real estate. So I will go out on a limb and say, I don't agree with people that say that.
Yeah. We don't have to bring his name up, but yeah, there's, there are some, some gurus out there that say, Hey, like, you know, build a cashflow portfolio as opposed to buying your primary. So I look at a primary as, as twofold. Number one, I've been married for 21 years and, We have lived in 14 homes in 21 years, 14 primaries. We've won 13 out of 14 times in multiple seven figures, by the way, on just our primaries and helping us build wealth through other real estate properties, buying other assets, and also living a great life in the meantime as well. I'm like Dana White in regards to, hey, man, yeah, I'm all about building assets, but you know, none of us are promised tomorrow, I want to have some fun as well. So I've lived a pretty good life. And, you know, again, I'm all about that thing, but you got to live too. So it's been cool. But, you know, the other side of the coin with a primary is, you know, building a legacy and family values. And, you know, the sense of owning your own home, it gives your children and your family a place to call home and people feel that and it's real energy and you build roots and roots give you consistency in school and a community. So I think all those things play a big role and I find that people are just happier when they own their own home as opposed to just the feeling of renting.
Yeah, absolutely. So besides like, you know, someone can come and get a loan from you to buy a house, buy an investment property, whatever the case is. You mentioned at the front that you also have kind of this program where you can partner with people like me, big teams, big agents to essentially kind of help them figure out bringing mortgage into the fold as one of their businesses. Right.
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think with, you know, it's just like whether Zillow Home Loans or other other big guys being able to take advantage of, you know, the revenue produced from mortgage. And there's a legal way. There's multiple ways to allocate funds and participate in the mortgage business. And I think that, you know, if your team is big enough and you have the right systems in place, which, you know, most of the teams that we're partnering with are coached by John directly. So to say they have systems in place would be an understatement. So we plug right into their CRM and we operate. It gives the team more transparency. It gives the client a better experience. And I call it the circle of life. We're able to reinvest in each other's businesses, therefore taking some more market share, hopefully.
Yeah. So if you're listening to this, not only can he help you with the mortgage, but if you're a big real estate team or a big hitting agent in your market, they can actually solve the mortgage solution with you, which I can tell you from personal experience is not easy. And it's certainly not easy for you to go out and figure it out on your own. So this is another resource for all of you guys out there that are listening to this. Yeah.
It's difficult, man. Like it's, We're their second or third try, meaning that fail, you know, all of us are entrepreneurs that most of us in this group and, you know, every swing we take is not necessarily a home run. So you strike out every now and again and, you know, we're developing and getting better every day with a better solution, in my opinion.
Yeah. So obviously you're, you're an entrepreneur. Um, you've done a lot of cool things. Um, one of the things that, uh, we were just in a room in Tahoe together the other weekend, and I thought it was really cool that you brought this up because, you know, I'm a big believer of your health and wellness affects everything. And you talked about your journey, which I thought was very remarkable. And anybody that listens to them, to this show, we usually touch on the health and wellness in almost every episode. So, if you wouldn't mind, because I was inspired listening to you, like, talk to my audience about what you went through and what you changed, because dude, you're freaking ripped now.
Thanks, man. Well, you know, for me, you know, john says it all the time, there's one thing that'll change everything for you. And it's that one thing may look different to each of us. And as I started to get into some of those rooms, I knew, you know, what my one thing was, because, you know, growing up in a family that My parents had gin and tonics every night and they smoked cigarettes. Granted, my dad has always been an entrepreneur. He's been pretty successful, but they drank a lot growing up. So when I went to college, I mean, played tennis, but man, I knew I could have been a better tennis player if I hadn't drank so much. And then when you get into business and real estate and you're out at these events, you're just... alcohol's there and it's, and man, and it became such a big part of my life. And I think I'd be in a different place today financially if, you know, had I made the decision I made over a year ago to, you know, remove alcohol from my life permanently. So that I knew like when I was in those rooms, John would always say it, right? Like I knew that one thing that would change everything is just give it up forever. I'm not the type of guy that can just go one drink or two drinks. I wasn't either. I'll drink the bottle of wine and eat the cork and then ask for another. So yeah, I mean, it changed my mindset. Then I coached with his son as well, Alec, and I think how you do anything is how you do everything and started to dial in my diet. Granted, I've gotten off track here or there over the last 60, 90 days, but I'm pretty much you know, it's pretty consistent. And man, I went from like 214 pounds to 190. I never did a body fat, but I was, I was pretty, pretty lean in the best shape of my life at 45 years old.
Which is remarkable, by the way, that's commendable.
And I'm running, you know, I'm running like 5 a.m. to, you know, last night I was done at like 10 p.m. and not losing energy and just excited about life again. My relationship with my wife's better than it's ever been. My daughter's will be 18 next week. She'll get her commercial pilot's license at some point next week or the following week, depending on weather down here. And those things would not be possible if I had chosen to continue down that same path because it's, It can be a bad path.
Yeah. You know, and what's so remarkable about that is, you know, about two weeks ago, we were in the same room together with, you know, probably one hundred and eighty two hundred of the top people in real estate. And nobody in that room was drinking alcohol. You know what I mean? And it was it was funny because I brought two people that I'm business partners with, my business partners at Acruity, and they go to different conferences all the time. And they said, hey, nobody in here drinks alcohol. And they were like, you know, that's pretty cool. And it's just remarkable. And then also being in those rooms and seeing the people that I used to see that did drink and didn't care about their health. And then you see them in there, how much younger they look like they're starting to age, they're aging in reverse. And it is remarkable what it does when you remove it from your life and you make health a priority because you can have a thousand problems. If you don't have your health, you got one problem.
hundred percent. No, I couldn't agree more. I mean, it's a, it's remarkable how those, I mean, you say you're part of the, you know, you're, you kind of attract those people that you surround the five people, right. You become who the five people, but it's also the five people who they're around. Right. And I think it goes that one level deeper. And I can just tell you that the people that I associate with today are a lot of them are in that group or either associated with that group. And, you know, it's the, it's the integrity that they have. Right. And that's why I knew I could never coach with John until I, yeah. So I said, Hey, no, no more. And have been coaching with them ever since. And then had the opportunity earlier in the year to partner with them. And obviously, if alcohol is a part of my life, John, he would have, he would have ever been like, Hey, yeah, let's go to mortgage company together. Yeah.
Yeah. So you've done a lot of different things, you know, being an entrepreneur for, for a long time, you've been, you've been blessed to be in these great rooms. Obviously you've got a great, a business that you're running now. You know, what would you give, you know, if you could give just one really good piece of advice that you've learned through your journey as being an entrepreneur to our listeners, and now I'm putting you on the spot, asking you this, but if you could share one, what do you think it would be?
I think if I could share one, it would be consistency, meaning pick a path. I think that, you know, looking at my path, I have done a lot of cool stuff and it's led me to where I am today. I wouldn't be as strong of a mortgage banker and entrepreneur if I hadn't followed that path. But I do think that a lot of people have the shiny object syndrome and I had it, you know, went from real estate agent to investor to mortgage banker in the past 20 years. I think if you stick to one path and see it through. I think the 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 hour rule really catches up and it catches up fast. Luckily, I stayed in the same industry for the last 20 years. That's been a blessing, but consistency is the key. People get bored too easily these days. There's something that's easier, faster, better versus you know, we say it all the time, right? Hard work works, picking up the phone works, building solid relationships, they work and it's all consistency. And you got to get through a lot of no's to get to the right yeses. So that's the piece of advice that I think would serve folks the best right now.
Yeah, the funny thing about that and in general is I think people don't understand how simple it actually is. we tend to overcomplicate it, but simplicity is what works and what'll get you there. And, you know, it's so funny, it's... I coach a lot of entrepreneurs on teaching them how to build the investment side like we do. And a lot of times they're like, I knew all this stuff. I just didn't connect the dots. And what you taught us is so simple. I thought it was going to be so much more complicated. And it's like, no, because simple scales, dude. And a lot of people look at people like me and people like you, it's so true. And they're like, they're, they get in a room and you know, they give each other the secret. He just gave it to you. And that's real shit. Yeah. So, one thing we always end the show with, I ask everybody the same question, and it is whatever it is to you. We call the show Waking Up to Wealth. What is Waking Up to Wealth to you?
I'm living it today. I mean, I live in a, I live in Siesta Key Barrier Island off of Sarasota, which just got recently hit by the hurricane, but it's still, still paradise to me, you know, with my wife of 21 years, which she could have left me probably 20, 30, 40 times. So that's, and then having a daughter that is pursuing her passion and something that she loves, And I get to support that by paying for a plane for her and paying for private lessons and letting her pursue that career in aviation that she's always wanted to do. And so I feel like I'm living it today, to be honest. I just feel, and being sober is the best gift.
That's awesome, man. Well, like I said in the beginning of the show, Mike is not a guest today. He's he's also a sponsor and you guys know me. I will not just let someone be a sponsor that I don't believe in. That's not vetted. He comes from, you know, working directly and partnering with. a guy that I've coached with for eight plus years who absolutely changed my life, John Czeplak. So we're going to put his information out there consistently. You're going to see them in commercials on the show and shout outs on the show. But if you're out there and you need help with a mortgage, he's the guy to talk to. Or if you're out there running a big team, You're an agent doing a ton of business and you want to figure out the mortgage side of your business. And trust me on this, because I've done it and failed. Don't try to do this shit on your own. Go get somebody that's ahead of you, like Mike and his crew, and get it figured out. And with all that being said, I just want to say thank you so much, brother, for coming on the show today, pouring into my audience. And I really appreciate you being a guest.
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. It was awesome. I appreciate it.
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of wake up to wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show, wherever you consume podcast. This way we'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple podcast and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us until next time.