Derek McGowanLoan Officer / Owner, McGowan Mortgages · Branch Manager & Top-Ranked Mortgage Advisor

Nobody Wants a Mortgage. They Want the House 🏡

1 Sept 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:08

In this monologue, Derek McGowan critiques the mortgage industry’s focus on loan numbers rather than the families behind them. He argues that lenders treat mortgages as abstract dashboard metrics, which leads to impersonal service and missed opportunities to build trust. McGowan emphasizes that borrowers primarily want a home, not the mortgage itself, and that lenders should view themselves as logistical facilitators rather than the central product. He uses a travel‑agent analogy: just as travel agents sell the experience of sunshine and vacation while handling the behind‑the‑scenes details, mortgage providers should streamline the paperwork so families can enjoy moving into their new homes. By shifting perspective to see families behind the numbers, McGowan claims lenders can better serve clients, earn trust, and help thousands achieve homeownership.

Chapters

This is something the mortgage industry gets wrong far too often. So if you were able to see kind of under the hood, behind the scenes of most mortgage lenders, you would just notice it's a dashboard with a bunch of different loan numbers. I learned a long time ago that there are families behind those loan numbers, and that's how it needs to be treated. If we do that, the numbers will pile up. And that's allowed me to help thousands of families over the years gain their trust and take care of them because we understand, you know, I think the important thing is I needed to learn the, you know, the mortgage lender's place in this whole thing, which is people want the home, they might just need the mortgage. I think a lot of mortgage companies haven't figured that one out. We're not as important We might think we are. We're just part of the logistics to get them where they want to be. We need to make that seamless. The best way I've heard it broken down, actually from a travel agent, where travel agents, they're selling sunshine and vacation and having your family on the beach and the waves crashing from the ocean. That's what they're selling. People don't care so much about the logistics and do I have a layover and how many bags can I pack? Yeah, that's important. That needs to be— that's assumed. That should be streamlined. That's the mortgage process. Make the logistics easy so we can sell the sunshine. We can get people in their house. They can enjoy the holidays with their family. That's what it's all about.