EP 603: Navigating the Mortgage Industry’s Ups and Downs: Lessons from Jonathan Spurr

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Welcome back to the Habit Based Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Jesse Yule. Today we got a very special guest on the show, Jonathan Spurr, who is the owner of Inspired Life Mortgage down in Tucson, Arizona. Jonathan, thanks for joining the show today. Thank you for having me. Hey man, can you tell us a little bit just about what got you started in the mortgage industry and just how long you've been doing it?

This is my 32nd year and basically I hated high school. I didn't want to be there. I was too smart for it. And they had this class called Cooperative Office Education which was the last two periods of the day and they would place you in an office to work. And they placed me in the mortgage department at Tucson Federal Credit Union. And in my junior year in high school, I found out I was really good at doing mortgage loans and really good at numbers and the rest is history.

Nice. So when did, how long did it take you to close your first loan?

It was probably about six months in and I brokered my first transaction.

And you know, what did you make doing that?

Oh, I was hourly. A good grief was probably like 8, 25 an hour if I was lucky.

Okay.

It was a while ago. Yeah, I mean, 1991.

Nice. I mean I always hear stories, right, that guys, you know, they get that first paycheck and they see the commission they made or something like that. But that doesn't sound like you got that quite yet.

No. What's funny is I, I, I worked part time doing mortgage lending and was going to the U of A. And you know, towards the end of your junior year at the U of A, they start putting you in front of potential employers and you figure out what you're going to make. And so now we're talking, what is this 9495 and they're showing me what I can make in my career with my degree and I'm already making double that doing mortgage loans part time. Like yeah, forget this. And I didn't even finish my senior year. I just went full time. At that time was a Countrywide home loans just went full time at Countrywide and, and I know, gosh, by the time I was 22, I was getting six figure paychecks.

Wow, that's amazing man. So like talk a little bit about, I'm sure 2007, 2008, you know, you probably had something happen at that point. It seems like everybody in the real estate industry had something happen around then. Talk a little bit about that.

0708, I was working as a wholesale account executive. So we're buying closed loans for mortgage companies is what my job was with a company called Franklin American Mortgage who later on sold to Citizens bank and then Citizens closed them down and the, the market just fell out from under us about October, November of 08. I mean I went from, I went from 50 to 60 million dollars a month in transactions to like 2 million dollars a month.

Wow.

In almost overnight. And so you kind of, that, that's kind of where you find a second career or just come up with something. And I, for three year period I did mortgages and I was also a moving estimator for North American van lines. I go into people's houses and estimate moving and that's what I did to supplement my income while we waited for mortgage to come back around.

Yeah. So you, you've obviously been through a couple cycles of, you know, the big mortgage crisis, 07, 08, you know, and then some of them are, are talking about now that hey, mortgage rates are much higher than they were, you know, four or five years ago or three years ago. You know, what's, what's kind of some of the trends you're now seeing today, man?

Oh gosh. From, from 2020 to 2022, life was great. 2022 rates started going up and I saw about half of my production go away. 2023, I saw that half get cut by two thirds and you know, that was left over to 2024, which got cut in half again. You know, so I, I went from 40, 50 transactions a month to five in a three year period and even a couple goose egg months, which I've never had in my life. And so it was, you know, a big change. One of the other things that happened during that Covid time is up until Covid you'd still go out and meet and greet and shake hands and talk to real estate agents and whatnot and post Covid. Unless you figure out how to get a hold of them on social media or have, have a good social media presence, you're host.

So, you know, let me ask you this man. Like, what's, what's made mortgage in the last couple years difficult, you know, for you as a, as a mortgage professional? And we'll kind of start there and just like, what, what are people in the mortgage industry battling with and struggling with right now?

To, for me and a lot of my cohorts in crime in the industry, the, the demographic of who's buying houses has changed in, in how we, how they communicate versus how us old guys communicate. Right. I've been doing this for 32 years. I have a lot of friends that have been doing for 20, 30 years. We like to get on the phone and talk to people, like to sit across the desk from them. And that's just not what's happening today. And this transition in the industry this time around I think has been more difficult for me than figuring out how to survive. You know, 0808 through 2010, now it was a crash and there wasn't any business. But the way business was done didn't change between 2020 and 2024. The way we do business is completely different. I don't, I used to, I used to sit across the desk from every single borrower. I haven't had a borrower in my office in nine months.

Wow.

But I've closed, I've closed almost 40 transactions in that time frame.

Wow. Okay. That's crazy. I mean, you know, let's be honest, man. The last four years has radically changed every industry. And in communication, number one, how you communicate, number two, how you do business is not the same, you know, two, three years ago as it is today. And so it's, it's just created a whole different like, way to do things. Let me ask you this, man. You came into, you know, habit based lifestyle for what specific reason?

I knew that I was failing at social media and I knew that the people in my marketplace that were succeeding had a very good social media presence. And I've honestly been following you for what, two years?

Yeah.

Mainly because my, my, you know, my wife's a chiropractor and a lot of people that follow you or chiropractors, they show up on my feed. And I just, I finally went to my wife and I said, look, you know, I've, I've tried these Other coaches, I've tried this, other marketing, so on and so forth. Jesse seems to have something that works. I want to do this. And she said, then do it. So. And I don't know, here we are, what, four months later. And, I mean, I think I've had. I'm happy with the results I've had. I think I've had phenomenal results.

Yeah. I mean, you know, what's. What's crazy is that I've actually worked with mortgage people a few years ago. Haven't really worked with anybody because we've done more chiropractic work. But what's cool is that, you know, we've actually seen you get results, you know, because of the work that you're doing, you know, but what's amazing is that, you know, I know when you first came in, you're kind of like, hey, man, I want to revive my business. And, you know, what we've been able to do in the last four months is really watch you do that, but, like, do it in a. Almost like taking the way you used to do business and putting it into kind of like this format of today and then really being able to accelerate that. So, like, what was this, like, first coming into here and, like, implementing this into your business?

For me, there wasn't anything that was really uncomfortable. It was more of a, you know, light bulb going off. Oh, my gosh. This is. It made perfect sense to me. Right. I think we had that conversation a couple times early on that it just. What you were doing made complete perfect sense, and I understood why it worked. So I don't think it was hard for me to implement the. The portions that I needed to. The other part of it, that was nice. I was finally able to, what I call, reach out to what I call chickens. Right? You know, tax attorneys, cpa, so on and so forth. And those were people I was having a very hard time getting to. And I can't put a monetary value on those because they're just. They're going to be a continual source of business. But I've, you know, I've ended up with a couple new CPAs and one divorce attorney. And, as you know, next week I have a meeting with the largest tax attorney in the state. And, you know, that was. That was something that was huge for me because I used to be able to just walk into those office, shake hands, set up meetings, and that just wasn't happening. So I was having a hard time finding access to those people.

That's amazing. So, you know, you've been it took you about 30 days to kind of get up and going. What has been, you know, a tangible result, like money made back and then what has been maybe an even bigger result because like this keeps going, it doesn't just stop, you know, today. You know what I mean? So.

Oh, I mean, I, I have eight transactions total that are, are a direct result of HBL of the ones that have closed, but I've brought in the 17,500 bucks and I have three transactions pending. They should all close and it'll give me a total of $29,500 in just over a 90 day period on about a quarter of the investment I would have had to spend to generate that in mailers or anything else that I used to do.

Right. Yeah. That's amazing. So, you know, knowing that going forward and just knowing the relationships you're building and the community you're building, what are other people in the industry that are in your circle saying to you that are seeing you doing this stuff.

Again? It's funny to get a lot of people like, wow, you redid your Facebook page. It looks like you're being coached. And I'm well, yeah, I am. And they'll ask how's it going? And I tell them the results and they're well, that's, that's, that's amazing. We don't get those type of results. It's, they start asking me, you know, the amount of effort, the time they put into it and so on and so forth and, and you know, then we find out which people are lazy and which ones aren't, but they actually express interest in it. And I enjoy talking to them about the success that I've had because I just don't get that success and they're not getting that success in what they're doing. I talked to a guy the other day that spent a ridiculous amount of money on Internet leads and the majority of them were just trash leads that were just never going to go anywhere. Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit about the quality of person you're getting, you know, from this, like let's say 8 out of, or let's say 1 is very low quality, 10 is the highest quality. Where would you say the quality of, of lead you're getting from this actual system?

Is it, it's at least an 8, if not higher. But it's because I get the way you've developed it and in the way that I've kind of developed my marketing within it, I'm able to go after the people that I want and I'm able to ask for the people I want as opposed to just casting a net and hoping somebody shows up.

Yeah. So, you know, the way I look at it is like, hey, somebody might pay for leads, right? And you might get a thousand, but like, the quality of them is like less than 1%. Where this, you know, you might get 10, 80% of them are qualified to work with you. Right. And so, you know, kind of think of it. This is like always about quality, not about quantity. And this is really about you building a relationship with people versus just, you know, calling as many people as fast as you can. But dude, you've been able to build some strategic relationships not only with attorneys, but also, you know, real estate people, people that have maybe bought from you.

Before.

To where now you're kind of like on everybody's radar, where before, you know, you really weren't that. So, like, what is that done for you as far as confidence and as far as other people wanting to send you more business?

It's been great. I, I think we talked about this a couple days ago. A real estate agent that I probably had contact with in two or three years, just randomly out of the blue saw one of my posts and because I started to show up on our feed again, set up a time to meet, is interested in the down payment assistance programs we have. It's, it's just getting me seen again on social media by just the network of people. I already have made a huge difference. I had people say, oh, we thought you just got out of mortgage. Literally just said, oh, we just didn't think you were a mortgage anymore. And so that it's, it's been a great program and it, it, there's been significant success both in just monetary and like you said, reconnecting and connecting with, you know, strategic partners.

Yeah, that's amazing. So let's talk a little bit about like, implementation and just like some of the coaching that you've gotten. Like, what is the coaching been like for you, man, in this program? And just how it's like shifted the way you maybe think or the way.

You do business, the being around everybody that's just in this group. Um, and I think you put it best that when we're talking about this in my group, my circle of people on the big dog on the porch, and so I'm just, you know, competing with myself. But as soon as I got into your group, you know, I'm like, like a puppy learning. Right. And I actually had, I was able to, I don't want to say compete because not. It's not competitory in any way, shape or form, but to see other people having amazing success and posting about it daily, you know, gave me something to shoot for and attain in and help drive me to go and do more. It's. It's part of this is the community that. That you get to get into. And, and the people in this group are full of some serious badasses that want to go and bring money in.

Yeah. And I always think of, like, you know, sometimes there's two types of competition, right? There's the competition of just competing with what other people are. Other people are winning, so it makes you naturally want to win, right? Then there's obviously the comparison of competing that it's like, hey, you know, someone's doing this. I need to do that. But I think it's all. I think what it is is it creates a culture of you and the client in there wanting to win because you see other people winning. And that's, you know, that's really the culture that we. We have in our program. What's been maybe the. The most unexpected result, man, you got from this program?

I mean, it's. It's outside of business. It's. It's been the community in the group, and.

And.

I needed something like this just because I don't have it here. Right. I'm. I'm. I'm the head of my five businesses, and it's, you know, my wife and I at home, the kids are all grown. I didn't have a community where we can talk about things and we can grow and we can watch people grow. And so that was more of a surprise to me than anything, what I got out of it from that aspect, as opposed to growing the business and growing revenue.

That's awesome, man. Well, you know, we appreciate, man, the work you put in. Any last words for anybody that might be on the fence of whether or not, you know, hey, is this going to work for me? You know.

Take one from Nike. Just do it.

Nice. I like, I like that. Well, I mean, here's the thing, man, is, you know what's crazy is if you're listening to this, Jonathan's wife, well, they both own a chiropractic clinic. She's the chiropractor. But that's originally how I met him. We talked about bringing this into the chiropractic clinic. And he's like, hey, I mean, I'd love to do this at some point, but I really want to do it for myself. And he Jumped in, in the mortgage, which I haven't really done a whole lot with anybody in mortgage for probably a year. But just how fast you kind of pick this up and you know, we applied it into mortgage and then all of a sudden you started getting results and so now we're like, hey, let's, let's hit the mortgage industry and, and see what we got going on. But it's, it's kind of cool to think you came in originally because, you know, I talked to your wife and, and you guys were thinking about maybe doing this with your chiropractic clinic, but you applied it to the mortgage and you know, you've been able to be really successful with it.

Yeah, no, and I, I extraordinarily happy and glad that, you know, we found you or you found us or however it happened and that I, you know, pulled the trigger and, and finally did it. It's, it's, it's been the best thing I spent Money on in 2024. Well, except for my buggy. I really like my buggy.

Yeah.

And you're.

Well, this just helps you get more buggies. Right?

Right. Exactly.

Nice. So. Well, hey, man, we, we really appreciate you and you know, the results you're getting excited to see, you know, what's to come in the next, you know, four months. How do people get in contact with you if maybe they're looking for a mortgage, they need a mortgage guy or they are a mortgage guy and they're looking for some help just on figuring out what you're doing.

John J O N at Inspired Life Mortgage or go to my website webpage.

Inspiredlifemortgage.Com and you guys can also go to his Facebook profile or Facebook.

Yeah, that one too. It's a good one.

All right, guys, if you want to be, if you want to be part of our habit based lifestyle community and family, feel free to go to the show notes. Check out our habit based lifestyle and business secrets Facebook group where we help you learn about life and business habits. It'll take you to the next level. Until next episode. Have a great day.

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life you've always dreamed of. This. This is the habit based lifestyle podcast with Jesse.