Here is a transcript of the interview:
– Welcome in to NFM TV. I’m your host, Greg Sher, and I’m delighted to be joined by our newest branch manager out of the Miami area, although he’s here at corporate today, Christian Mourra. Thank you being with us. How are you doing?
– I’m doing well, glad to be here, Greg.
– We’re so excited. It was not a quick decision. NFM courted you about 18 months ago. It took you all of 18 months to make the decision to finally come to NFM. Why now?
– Timing right now makes a lot of sense for us. After seeing everything that you do, your marketing, your technology department, everything’s up to par. Everything made sense. It took me a little while to really feel comfortable for it, but we made the move, and I think everyone on the team is extremely happy.
– We’re so excited to have you here, and I should mention that you plan on closing roughly 100 million in volume in 2019. Certainly not a small number, so congratulations on being able to even dream that big. Your background is interesting. So you were an appraiser, you were a realtor, obviously you’ve been a lender now for quite some time, since 2000, so you go way, way back. How does that experience help you in your day-to-day as an LL?
– I think the biggest advantage we have is knowing how to structure contracts and the legalities behind it. In our market, it gets pretty complicated with different property types, so a lot of times I consider that we can be a resource to our referral partners and customers, so this is one of the perks I offer to everyone on my team. So I’m always available to help them out when it comes to property issues or sales contract addendums and extensions.
– I’m sure it comes in really handy, and I just want to mention that you are from Haiti originally, and what a story. I mean, the country where you were born and raised went through devastation in 2010, January 12 to be exact, where over 100,000 people perished as a result of that horrendous earthquake. You made a decision to leave the mortgage business and go back and serve your homeland. Talk to us about what went into that decision, what you learned from it, and how the country’s doing now. It’s kind of a three parter.
– Decision to leave, it was extremely difficult for me to continue and not be able to help out. You know, I wanted to go home and see if we can be of some kind of help and rebuild the country. My family and I were there for about five years. We decided to move, and we made the best of it. We got involved in food distribution and construction. Decided to come back in 2015 because the political situation just wasn’t getting better, so for me, it made more sense to come back. And honestly, I kind of missed the mortgage business. I couldn’t do it over there.
– Well, I’m sure that people from your country really appreciate you–
– Definitely.
– Making that kind of a sacrifice. How are things there now?
– It’s still very bad. There’s a lot of work to do. Right now there’s a political unrest, and I believe there’s a good chance that we might see a change very soon.
– Well, we see a change here. Just a perfect segue. Change NFM, it’s on the wall. We’re so excited to have you here. Welcome to you and your team.
– Same here.
– And we can’t wait to accomplish great things together.
– Same here, thank you Greg. Thanks for having me.
– All right. That’s Christian Mourra, our newest branch manager out of the Miami area. I’m Greg Sher, so long.