Full Transcript is Below:
– Welcome to Home Run: Great Client Experiences, a podcast by NFM TV. I’m your host Greg Sher. I’m really happy to have with us three very special guests. We have client, Medjhy Doirin and also loan originator, David McLaughlin our of NFM’s Sarasota branch, and realtor, Nadine Duval from Lokation Real Estate. Thank the three of you for being with us, we really appreciate it.
– Thank you for having us.
– Yeah, we’re so happy to have you. We’re gonna start off by talking to the most important person. It’s not me, it’s not David, it’s not Nadine, so that only leaves one person. It’s Medjhy Doirin, the client. Thank you for being with us, thank you for your business. Talk to us about the experience you had with both David and also Nadine.
– Well, this was my first time, well my husband and I it was our first time, right, our first home. So it was an amazing process. I’m working along with Nadine and also David. We originally did not start with David, we started off with another lender. Things did not go well. Her attitude was very disrespectful, her tone of voice. Every time I ever called her. It was always like “I’ll call you back,” and never called me back, she would not email me. And we just had some questions, my husband and I had questions. We wanted some answers, we couldn’t get answers so I remember going back and forth with Nadine, I said “Nadine I don’t want to have to lose the money that I already started giving out, so if you know someone else, I can trust your process. I trust you in this. I’ve never done this before so you lead us and we’re just gonna follow.” And I remember her telling me, “don’t worry, gimme a few seconds, I’ll call you back.” So she hung up, and went and called David. Before the day was over, I did receive a call from David, and we set out and we met immediately everything was just working so fast. And they were just like, hard to believe, I’m like, wait, “is this really happening?” Because, I was like, “this has to be a dream.” But there was an amazing dream. He worked tirelessly. Never have I known that I would call them, he would be like, “oh I’m too busy.” He was always on, he answers emails, texts. And sometimes I would feel bad calling him late night, I’m like, “please, I’m so sorry, forgive me, it’s just at the moment I had a question.” Now think of the question I’ll call him, I said, “I know it sounds stupid” and he always said, “there is no such thing as a stupid question. Just ask away.” And it was great working with him and his team. He made this process so smooth because moving from New York to Florida, all my families are in New York, and I don’t have much family out here so, it just felt so special to know that both Nadine and David makes this process easy for me.
– Wow, what a story, what a story that is. David, you’re on the stage now, what a compliment. You were just paid the ultimate compliment, really. How are you able to stay so cool and calm and to serve at such a high level in a credit-challenged situation. I know you had to do a rescore and you know, it took a lot of additional steps that you didn’t have to take. Meaning, David, you could just mail it in and wait for somebody that has perfect credit. But that’s not in your character, that’s not who you are. Talk to me about that.
– I think, you know, Nadine and I met, you know, a couple of years ago, and we shared the same value system, you know, we’ve been doing this, I’ve been doing this 26 years. And Nadine’s been doing it a long time. When we align Nadine said, “I’m a big educator, I like to give of myself, everything I have to help people with the American dream, getting into a home, and I felt the same way. So Nadine and I started the work together so when she called me and said I have a special couple, Medjhy and Gethro from New York, and they’re not having a good experience with the homes. Beautiful, beautiful home but they’re having a bad experience. Can you help? So we set up a time to meet. I met with Medjhy and Gethro at Starbucks and we just had a great time. We spoke for an hour, maybe a little longer. And they shared with me, you know, what their fears were, what they wanted, and then from listening to ’em, I was able to use my experience and get them a better interest rate, because the higher the credit score, right, the better interest rate, so I’m all about saving them money over the life of the loan, so rather then taking the easy way out Greg, like you said, it meant a lot that I could get them a better deal by doing that rapid rescore.
– Nadine as a realtor, what kind of confidence does that give you to have a lender like David in your pocket who will go above and beyond to make it work?
– Oh, amazing, you know that’s the ultimate, like whenever you go through the process, like the goal is to get the keys to your client, you know, being able to find the right people ’cause I cannot do it on my own. Being able to find the right people who can help when the problems arise it feels wonderful, it feels wonderful.
– That’s great, how long have you been a realtor?
– Five years now.
– Okay, what’d you do before that?
– I was in insurance.
– Got it, okay, so in an almost related field, right, you’re still dealing with money and finance and people.
– And in a past life I was a medical doctor, I was a pediatrician .
– Oh my goodness, so you’re a jack of all trades
– Yeah you can do it all. I think that kind of speaks to David too, ’cause as we just alluded to, he is the kind of guy that can do it all, he can do the crystal clear 800 credit score, he can also help somebody work up from a score that doesn’t qualify them at the time. Do you mind, Medjhy, if David just goes into what he had to do, kind of what the credit looked like in the beginning and where it ended up, and what kind of steps he took?
– I have no problem, go right in.
– Yes, so Medjhy had good credit, so her score wasn’t bad. Like so many people that are living, they just don’t know. So she had a couple credit cards, she always paid her bills on time, but her utilization, her income level was higher, so what we did was we paid some of her balances down, to 30%. And by paying some of those balances down, it was able to increase the score. But the biggest thing we did, and a lot of people don’t know this, Greg, is student loans. There’s so many people in America today that have these student loans. And most of these student loans are in deferment, meaning they’re not making any payment, or they’re income-based. They’re just making payments based on the income that they make. Well, a lot of times there’s a guideline with use 1% of the balance. So if I would have used 1% of the balance, the loan would not have worked. So what we had to do, and Medjhy was great, she listened, she did an extended standard fixed payment, Greg. And what that is is she called her student loan company, she spent, you know, time on hold. Took time out of her day because she really wanted the house, but she was able to get a lower payment on the student loan. So by getting a lower payment on the student loan, and by doing some of the other credit things, her score went up and we saved her, you know, quite a bit she got about a half to .625% better interest rate for the life of the loan by following those directions.
– That’s incredible teamwork.
– It really was.
– And borrow credit to Medjhy because from a realtor’s perspective, it makes it so much easier when you have a client who educates themself about the process. And Medjhy and Gethro really, they were amazing at this, you know, it’s like we were almost speaking the same language even though, you know, it was something that they were doing for the first time but they really took the time to educate themselves. I don’t know if you felt the same way, David.
– No, I really did, because you know, sometimes people don’t take our advice and our suggestions, and Nadine we’ve both been there with some of our mutual customers, where unfortunately they don’t follow the advice and the outcome’s a little bit different. So this was really a great success story all around.
– Yeah, and even when you’re the barer of bad news they can understand where you’re coming from instead of just getting off and you know, “what are you telling me?” You know, it’s not the news that they wanted to hear. But they could understand where it was coming from, and that was, you know, that was a great thing.
– Isn’t it wild though that the three of you would kind of converge at that critical moment in someone’s life, not even knowing each other?
– Yeah it was, I know Nadine works a lot with her referral base, and I believe Medjhy was a referral to Nadine, and yeah so I was lucky enough to, like as I said, get involved and you know, how does it feel now, ’cause we’re doing the podcast after you got the keys, like Nadine said. How is the new home, right?
– It is coming all along. I’m just waiting for furniture to come in.
– It’s a fabulous home.
– Yes, it is–
– Even the person who was doing your home securities saw a picture of the home, and said “I’m so jealous!”
– Was it the first home you owned, Medjhy, your first home, or have you owned a home before?
– No, this is our first home.
– So what was it like to take that key, to put it in the door, and to turn that knob and walk in for the first time.
– That day, I didn’t feel anything, to be honest, I was numb throughout the process. At the beginning of the process I was happy, I had a lot of emotion, happiness, but as I experienced the negative through my previous lender, so I became so numb. So when I was opening the door, it still didn’t kick in the first day, it was like three days later as I laid down, I was like “wait, this is really our home. This is real”. And I cried, I’m not gonna lie, like I shed a few tears and I was just like so grateful, I was like “God, this is real”. Dreams do happen, you know, and I was just so happy, really.
– I remember the first time when we went to visit, ’cause we went to a few communities, right. And when she decided on that particular home, she made like a little video for upcoming offspring, they don’t have any children yet, but for upcoming offspring. Now this is the dream, this is, you know, that was so cute and so when there was starting getting tougher, and I said “oh my god, I need somebody, I need a warrior who can do this for them.”
– When did you settle on the house? When was the date?
– Oh, we chose June 15.
– 2020, so not long ago.
– Yes
– And how’s your husband doing with everything, was he a believer from the beginning or did he take a little convincing?
– No, he was more a believer than me. Well I was a believer before, but I came to a point where I was going through it numb. But he was just so persistent. He really did trust David, you would have thought that was his best friend, it’s like “I believe in David” . He was like, “I believe in David, I know, I trust him, I just know”. I was like, “okay”. So I just held onto my emotion until recently, I was like “wow, this is really our home”.
– Did you believe it the whole time, though? ’cause I’ve talked to homeowners who’ve been in situations like this and right up until settlement day they wonder is this really gonna happen?
– I kept calling Nadine, I was like “every time David will ask me a paper, I’m like you know what, I know this is not happening”. Especially when we were having problems to pull up my credit, which was another story too, like we were having issues to pull up my credit. I was writing emails, I was calling, non-stop 24 hours I was calling, and I got to the point, I was like you know what, I guess I’m just gonna lose the house. I might as well give up on my dream, and David was like, “don’t worry Medjhy, we’re gonna get it through, trust me. Take my word, we’re gonna get it through.” I’m like “okay, David”. I would say okay just to believe it, but deep down I had a feel like “ugh, I don’t know, I don’t know” and my husband kept saying “I believe David, I know he’s gonna do”. I’m like “okay”
– You’re listening to Home Run: Great Client Experiences, a podcast by NFM TV, I’m your host Greg Sher and we’re continuing a conversation with a very happy client, Medjhy Doirin, and also a great loan officer, David McLaughlin, and, of course, last but not least, an amazing realtor and an appreciative realtor, that’s Nadine Duvol. David, I want to go back to you as the loan originator, and discuss what Medjhy just referred to. She said you guys were trying to get her credit straight to bring the score up. I want people to get a window into what you’re able to do if someone doesn’t qualify now. I know there are lots of tricks to the trade where you can tell if they do X then Y will happen. Can you tell us about that, and how it can impact someone’s ability to purchase a home.
– Yeah, well NFM lending has some great tools, and one of those tools is a credit simulator. And what that is is I can look at the credit report. I’m not a credit repair person, you know, but we have the ability to look at the credit report and make some tweaks and if I make the tweaks, it’ll tell me what the score is. So it takes the guesswork out, and not every lender has that. So that’s a great tool to help these customers because a lot of people do it the old fashioned way. They try to hire credit repair, they dispute everything, but sometimes that doesn’t raise the score. And that’s like rolling dice, it’s a 50/50, you don’t know if that’s gonna work. So we took the guesswork out for Medjhy and Gethro. That’s why it was so positive, and after 26 years and 8,000 plus loans, I knew we could get this across the finish line.
– Wow, that’s pretty remarkable. I suspect that there’s some people listening that feel like they’re down on their luck, like their credit score’s too low, like they’ll never be able to get a home. What do you say to those people?
– I think you have to believe like Medjhy did, and I think it may not have happened immediately, like it did in Medjhy’s case, but if you follow the plan, I can always give somebody a plan. Nadine and I can give them a plan and if they listen, then it’ll work.
– Now that’s the beauty of the work that we do, also. I think the beauty of it is, you know, being able to help people who didn’t even know that they have the capacity to buy.
– So Medjhy, what brought you down to Florida from New York where you were renting, and what made you want to actually buy a home at that time?
– Okay, so, 2018 I had given myself a goal. In two years I wanted to buy a house, not in New York, I wanted to move out of state, but originally I was looking for Georgia. So I worked at a drug court in New York ’cause I was tired of the drug court population and I wanted to transition over to school to work with children, so when I got the opportunity in Florida instead of Georgia, so I said “you know what? I said two years, I did want to switch career chains and move to another state”. So when Florida came on and I took the opportunity, and I said “you know what? I’ll give it a try.” I knew I didn’t want to keep renting, I knew I always wanted to own a home, so I said “this is the perfect place, I’d be able to get my big dream home, that’s not gonna kill my budget, and I’ll be able to handle it,” so that’s why I decided to buy a home in Florida.
– So we’ve reached the end here of our podcast and just wanna know what kind of closing thoughts the three of you have, I’ll start with you, David.
– So for me, I just love stories like this. So, from the first Starbucks meeting to the day she got her keys, I’m glad that you asked her the question about what does it really feel like. ’cause sometimes you forget what does it really feel like when you open the key, put it in the door, open it for the first time and I just love that story, so thank you, Medjhy, for sharing that and for letting me be a part.
– Why don’t you give your contact information, too, David ’cause anybody who’s heard this has heard what kind of originator you are will definitely want to reach out if they’re looking to buy a home.
– Yeah, can reach me at 941-724-7653. 941-724-7653.
– And Nadine, superstar realtor, what are your final words and how can people get a hold of you?
– Well, it’s stories like Medjhy that keep us going. Me personally, it’s the joy of, you know, having a client, you know, really reaching their dreams and their goals. I think that makes it all worthwhile, you know?
– And I know that people can reach you by dialing 941-896-0485, is there a particular area in Florida that you specialize in?
– Sarasota, Bradenton, The whole Tampa area, and Orlando area, also.
– All right, and Medjhy, the star of the show, you get to wrap it up. Final words.
– Well, for those that are in the process of trying to get their first home or their second home, don’t give up. Trust the lenders. Follow the plan that they give you, it may not make sense to you at the moment, but trust me, it will at the end once you get your key. Good luck on everything, don’t give up, reach for the stars.
– What a great story. We really thank you so much the three of you for joining us and sharing this incredible experience. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when everyone’s in sync and on the same page. So thank you, very much.
– Thank you.
– Thank you.
– Thank you. I’m Greg Sher, you’ve been listening to Home Run: Great Client Experiences, a podcast by NFM TV. We’ll see you next time.
– Home Run: Great Client Experiences is a production of NFM TV and NFM Inc. NFM Inc. does business as NFM Lending, NMLS #2893. David McLaughlin’s NMLS is #868815. This podcast is for informational purposes only. NFM Lending is not affiliated with any real estate companies. You are entitled to shop around for the best lender and real-estate company for you. The real estate agent is not a mortgage lender. Contact NFM Lending directly to learn more about their mortgage programs, and your eligibility for such programs. The experiences of clients appearing on this podcast are individual experiences of those who have used our services. NFM Inc. does not provide incentives for testimonials or reviews. NFM Lending is not a credit repair company. You should consult with a credit repair company to determine what may be best for your individual needs. This is not a credit decision, or commitment to lend. Eligibility is subject to completion of an application and verification of home ownership, occupancy, title, income, employment, credit, home value, collateral, and underwriting requirements. NFM Inc. is not affiliated with, or an agent or division of, the governmental agency or depository institution. Copyright 2020.