Building AFC Mortgage Group (2801) | Second generation and run it with my brother! | Bridge Lender | Student Rental Investor 🇺🇸
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The sign went up today. Post Road, downtown Fairfield.
We're opening a new office, and the sales team is moving down to it. Monroe stays exactly where it is — that isn't going anywhere. But we wanted the sales floor somewhere with more happening around it.
More foot traffic. More walk-ins. Somebody can stop in off Post Road, ask what they came to ask, and get an answer while they're standing there. That's the whole idea.
And it puts us back where we started. Fairfield Prep is a few minutes up the road. Coming back down here to open a door with our name on it means so much.
Inside is still a construction site — framing's up, plumbing and electrical are roughed in, sprinklers go in next week. But you can walk it now and see the rooms instead of imagining them.
Give it a few weeks. Then come find us on Post Road. We can't wait to see you at the Grand Opening!
AFC Mortgage Group | NMLS #2801 | Equal Housing Lender
BREAKING: AFC Mortgage Group now has two undefeated professional runners.
Trevor and Vito made history at the Colony 5K this morning, crossing the finish line in a dead heat.
Neither has agreed to a rematch. Both are reportedly considering retirement at the top of their game.
Back to mortgages on Monday.
🤖 Made with AI
What happens when you find the perfect property to buy, but selling your current one right now could cost you thousands?
We just had a client reach out who found an investment property she really wants to purchase.
The problem?
Her current property has a tenant living in it, and she knows she could potentially get a much better price if she waits until the tenant moves out before listing it.
But she doesn’t want to miss out on the new property while she’s waiting.
Our solution? A bridge loan.
We can help her purchase the new property now, without forcing her to sell the existing one before she’s ready.
She can move quickly, make a competitive offer, and sell her current property when it makes the most financial sense.
Why sacrifice equity in one property just to buy another?
That’s exactly the problem our bridge loan program is designed to solve.
If you’ve found a property you want to buy but aren’t ready to sell your current one, let’s talk.
Vito and I were invited to the Sacred Heart University Horizons Gala last night. Really great event supporting an even better cause. Grateful we got to be part of it.
We ended up bidding on (and winning) a private movie night at the Sacred Heart University Theatre in downtown Fairfield. We get the entire theater to ourselves for a night and can pick whatever movie we want.
Naturally, our first thought was to put on Goodfellas and invite all our friends. 🤣
Then we figured maybe we should do something a little more family-friendly and invite our AFC Mortgage Group clients, friends, and families instead.
Although I’m sure there are plenty of parents who would rather leave the kids home for a night and watch Goodfellas.
Help us decide:
1. Goodfellas — Adults-only movie night.
2. Family Movie Night — Bring the kids.
3. Write-In Vote — Suggest a movie in the comments.
Either way, excited to bring some people together in downtown Fairfield for a fun night.
Her husband's lender told them they could do a bridge loan. They couldn't. The lender didn't offer one.
They'd already found the next house, with a closing set for December 1, and their current home wasn't sold.
She called Nick. He spent 50 minutes laying out a real plan: borrow against the house they own, close on the new one, sell the old one, then move into a regular 30-year mortgage. In his words: "We wanna make sure there's a clean exit strategy out of the bridge loan."
Then the inspection on the new house came back, and they walked away. For them, that was the right call.
Here's a little secret about this business: plenty of lenders say "we can do that" on the first call. Fewer can show you the terms.
If your plan depends on a bridge loan, get it in writing before you write the offer. The product, the exit, and who actually funds it.
Three people last week told us the same thing: an AI sent them.
A realtor in Guilford said she got my number from ChatGPT. A buyer looking at a bridge loan found us the same way. A lead in Massachusetts told Brendan, "I went to one of those AI things, and it came up."
Nobody clicked an ad. Nobody saw a billboard.
Here's what I've learned: these tools don't recommend the loudest company. They recommend the one that explained the thing clearly, in public, over and over.
So we keep answering the questions our clients ask us on the phone, out loud, where anyone can find them.
That's not marketing. That's showing your work.
If you run a business, write down the ten questions your customers ask most. Answer every one in public. Then do it again next month.
Same day, two of our loan officers talked clients out of the bigger loan.
Trevor was working with a buyer in Connecticut who had her mind set on a bridge for the full price of her next house. He showed her a second option: a smaller bridge that covers just the down payment.
Her answer: "I think that's the better option of the two."
Nick was on the phone with a buyer moving to Vermont who's selling two properties. He ran her numbers live and laid out two structures side by side. She played it back to him: one was cheaper, the other was easier.
Then the choice was hers.
Here's a little secret about this business: the biggest loan is rarely the best one. It's just the easiest one to sell.
Show people two real options in dollars and let them pick.
They usually pick right.
The deed came back describing a different lot, in a different town.
A client had just closed on her new house with a bridge loan. Before the deed was recorded, it came back to us for review. The legal description, the paragraph that says exactly which piece of land you own, pointed to someone else's lot.
Most people never read that paragraph. Most people assume somebody else did.
My answer was simple: "We are not accepting the deed as is."
A corrected deed was ordered before anything went on record. She's moved in, and her next step is listing her old house.
Here's what I've learned: the closing isn't the finish line. The recording is.
Ask to see the legal description on your deed. It takes two minutes to read.
Gaetano Ciambriello retweeted
Only taxpayers should be allowed to vote.
Anyone on welfare benefits should forfeit their right to vote until they are off of government assistance.
Gaetano Ciambriello retweeted
This is what the beginning of the surveillance state looks like in America
Americans in Connecticut received a bill for additional taxes on their car because cameras spotted it in a different city
A private company called Municipal Tax Service (MTS) is hired by cities to drive around and use automatic license plate readers on cars parked in different cities
It then makes connections if that car lives in that area and sends the owner a bill for new taxes on that vehicle for being in the city
The owner of this vehicle says she doesn’t live in that city, provided proof and says her car was only in a different city because her kid drives there for school
MTS didn’t care and said that the proof didn’t matter and they had to pay it. They appealed to the city, the city said they had to deal with MTS
But here’s the problem, MTS gets paid 38% commission on tax revenue they recover + $50 per vehicle billed to the owner. They made $9 million in commission in just one year from sending people additional tax bills
So this company has no incentive to ever help you and just deny you, which they did
Only after the mainstream media got involved would the city drop this one new tax bill which was false to begin with
In America we now literally have private companies driving around scamming our license plates to tax us more money
This is insanity and it needs to end
He paid off his bridge loan fifteen days after we funded it.
John wanted to buy his next house in Manchester before his current one sold. The usual advice is to sell first, or to write an offer that says you have to.
We funded his bridge on October 8. He bought the new house first. Then he sold the old one, and on October 23 he paid the bridge off in full.
On a call with Trevor along the way, his description of the whole thing was three words: "It was easy."
Here's a little secret about this business: a bridge loan isn't supposed to stick around. It's supposed to get you from one house to the next without asking a seller to wait on you.
The best bridge is the one you barely remember having.
AFC’s cash offer program is turning clients into cash offers using our cash.
You do not have to sell your home first, and you do not need to use your own cash, especially if you do not have it.
Could your home equity help fund your next move? Selling in Westbrook, Old Saybrook, Clinton, Madison or Guilford could mean a smaller mortgage, or buying with cash. DM me “EQUITY” for a personalized home value assessment. #CTRealEstate #CTShoreline
Your business, in its best light.
AFC Media Group: films, podcasts and photography for local businesses and real estate agents, New York to Boston.
See the work: afcmediagroup.com
ALT AFC Media Group logo with the line: Your business, in its best light.
We did almost as much bridge lending in September as regular mortgages.
A couple of years ago I wouldn't have believed that sentence.
September: 12 traditional loans, $4,996,200. 9 bridge loans, $4,570,000.
Here's what I'm seeing. The buyer shopping on monthly payment backs off when rates move. The buyer who already owns a house doesn't have that luxury. They still need to move. They just can't wait for the old house to sell before they buy the next one.
That buyer isn't rate sensitive. They're timing sensitive.
Buy before you sell. Move once. Sell an empty house on your own schedule.
Most lenders built their business around the first buyer. The second one is the one calling us right now.
If your next move is stuck behind the house you live in, the rate isn't your problem. The order is.
Every extra hour of recruiting saves you ten hours of management.
That line came up on a call last week and I haven't stopped thinking about it.
I learned it the expensive way. We lost four loan officers in about a year.
When you hire fast because you're busy, you spend the next year managing the gap between who you needed and who you got. Coaching what should have been there on day one. Having the same conversation for the third time.
So we slowed down at the front. More conversations before anyone joins. More honesty about how we actually work.
We have another loan officer joining in early November, and we're hiring for a bilingual role right now.
Hiring is the one part of management you only do once per person.
Do it slowly.
"I was like, this isn't happening. I just need to let it go."
That's what a first-time buyer told Trevor last week.
She had opened her Loan Estimate, found the line that says cash to close, and read it as money she needed on top of her down payment.
It isn't. Cash to close already includes your down payment. It's the total you bring to the closing table after your deposit and any credits come off.
She was about to walk away from her first house over a number she was reading wrong.
Trevor stayed on the phone with her for 14 minutes and went through it line by line. By the end she said, "That makes a lot more sense. That makes me feel a lot better."
Here's a little secret about this business: the Loan Estimate is a standard federal form, and almost nobody sits down and explains it.
If a number on yours scares you, don't let it go. Make someone walk you through it.
"ChatGPT found you for me."
That's how a call with Nick started last week.
She was calling about a house in Tennessee. Her mom had tried to buy that same house a year ago, and lost it. The offer was contingent on selling her current home first.
Her description of her mom: "she has some, I don't know, contingency sale based trauma."
This time, she called a bridge lender first.
Here's how it works. You borrow against the house you own, buy the next one without a sale contingency, then sell the old one on your own schedule.
They're early in the process. Nothing is decided yet.
But think about what a sale contingency actually says to a seller. Please take your house off the market and wait while I try to sell mine.
A sale contingency asks the seller to wait. Sellers don't like to wait.
Gaetano Ciambriello retweeted
Premise:
Incentives drive all human behavior.
The corollary:
How to destroy a country:
A vast social security and support system that serves as a magnet for those who would rather not work.
An open immigration policy that does not screen immigrants to determine their ability and willingness to provide for themselves and their families.
An open immigration policy that does not screen for political and/or religious ideologies that are a threat to the country.
Economic incentives large enough to incentivize immigrants on the state dole to have large numbers of children, but insufficient for educated and economically productive mothers to be able to quit to raise a family.
The declining fertility of the most educated and productive women due to their delay to begin a family as a result of their desire and/or need to advance their careers, among other reasons, to live a life they deem consistent with their educational achievements and/or to repay their student debts.
Amnesty programs that give citizenship and voting power to illegal immigrants without consideration of their economic productivity or their threat to the country due to their religious or political ideologies.
The changing demographics and increased population due to the above factors.
The state responding to protests by increasing social support.
The continued failure to punish and hold accountable violent and looting rioters.
Government managed by a massive and growing unelected bureaucracy.
Government fraud, waste, and abuse contributed to ballooning budgets.
Anti-business legislation that makes it difficult for businesses to compete in a global marketplace being disrupted by AI, including restrictions on firing even poorly performing employees.
Overly burdensome, globally uncompetitive, corporate taxation.
Continuous increases in personal taxes to raise funds to provide for the rapidly growing welfare state.
The substantial majority of the tax burden levied on a small percentage of the population.
A growing percentage of the electorate paying no taxes and receiving welfare.
The introduction or threat of a wealth tax including the taxation of unrealized gains, i.e., taxes on paper wealth.
The flight of the most productive business builders and highest taxpayers to lower tax countries with lesser security concerns.
A growing percentage of the electorate voting for candidates that support increased welfare and laws favorable to, and/or that match the cultural and ideological needs and desires of a growing unproductive immigrant population.
The rapid rise in anti-semitism and inadequate efforts to address this hatred.
Increased borrowing by the state to fund the growing social burden.
Higher sovereign interest rates due to all of the above.
The resulting need to reduce expenditures to make the math work.
Increasingly violent protests that make life less livable for the productive and law abiding citizens leading to their accelerated departure.
And so on…
A family found their dream house. It doesn't have a certificate of occupancy.
Gutted to the studs. Mechanicals in, roof done, siding done. No kitchen, no bathrooms, no finished floors. On paper, that's a house a conventional lender won't touch.
Here's the truth nobody says out loud: a house without a CO isn't unfinanceable. It's just financed differently.
We're structuring a bridge — sell their current home, buy the shell with the equity, finish it on their timeline, then refinance into a normal mortgage once it has a CO.
Most buyers walk away from a house like this because their lender tells them no. Ours don't have to.
I walked into Starbucks today and ordered an iced coffee.
Nothing crazy. Just ice and coffee.
8 minutes later, I’m still standing there watching the baristas perform open-heart surgery on a Venti Triple Mocha Loca Frappuccino with almond milk, oat foam, caramel drizzle, two pumps of unicorn tears, and a splash of paprika.
Meanwhile, they’re making 46 drinks for people who aren’t even physically in the building.
Apparently, everyone in a 12-mile radius gets their coffee before the idiot who actually walked into the store.
Then they finally call my name.
14 seconds later, my iced coffee is ready.
EIGHT MINUTES OF WAITING. FOURTEEN SECONDS OF LABOR.
I think I could’ve grown the coffee beans faster. 😂
