The Case for a Mortgage Advisor

Shawn Kaplan was raised by a single mother and no one ever taught him about wealth or real estate during that time. In his young adult years, a mentor taught him how to serve realtors and clients. Today, Shawn is a Mortgage Advisor, which he differentiates from a loan officer. He teaches clients how to leverage assets and debt to acquire more assets.

“A mortgage advisor I think helps you build wealth and use mortgages to pay off debt and be wise with it, and I really enjoy doing that,” said Shawn. “I think we helped around 365 families last year, which was amazing and a blessing here in Middle Tennessee.”

“It's not that hard to sell a lot of houses and finance them,” he said. “But now the market’s changing and people are rattled, and they're scared because of the news or whatever they're reading out there. I don't like to go through these times, but it's definitely when I feel most useful because I love educating people and showing them that we do have a sun in the clouds that's parting in the distance.”

Sean helps his clients see the difference between good debt and bad debt and how to leverage good debt to acquire more assets.

“Car payments are crushing America so I don't like car payments,” said Shawn. “I don't like credit cards. But what I do like is good debt and I want as much good as I possibly can get and good debt is real estate that I can leverage.”

“The problem is most Americans have either been taught it the wrong way, which is pay off all your debt. It's a bad thing. Put 20% down, you know, Dave Ramsey's preached it for a long time. And that's their MO,” said Shawn. “Then there's the other side that you don't have to put that much down, and you want to keep more of your cash, and you want to leverage that asset or that debt, because you can go use it elsewhere and make way more than what the bank is charging you for it monthly. And when you take that leverage, and you combine it with appreciation, on a household expense, that you have to pay one way or the other, it's really the secret formula to getting really wealthy.”

Shawn also urges real estate agents to proactively use social media to connect with potential clients.

“As a real estate agent, it is your duty and your obligation to give people an inside look into your life, of who you are as a human being, as a person, what you like to do, where you like to go, because if people know, like, and trust you, they will use you as your real estate agent,” said Shawn. “There's too many secret agents out there.”

“I believe that realtors should show they really want to be a part of a client's life for a longer period of time,” he said. “If you want to be a real estate professional, call your clients up and be transparent and say, ‘Hey, I'm not really that good at this Clients for Life program thing, but I know we're going through a lot of stuff right now. If there are any questions keeping you awake at night about real estate or finance or something I can get you any resources that might help you and your family out.’ Call them.”

Shawn also said that real estate agents need to get better at video.

“I see too many agents that just either are doing zero video or they do it a little bit and they're not good at it,” he said. “So they just quit and you can't do that. You got to start now because if you don't put content out other realtors are, and you know, Betty Buttercup who's brand new from last week comes along and if she has great marketing, great social media, she looks better than you on the internet. Somebody is gonna say that's the realtor I'm gonna use right? You could fake it till you make it almost in the social media world right now. So you've got to put good content out.”

To watch or listen to Dan Lesniak’s full conversation with Shawn Kaplan, check out Episode 392 of the HyperFast Agent podcast.