- 2 days ago
In this episode of Power House, Zeb Lowe sits down with Matt Weaver to discuss his unconventional path from high school dropout to top-performing real estate agent and mortgage originator.
Matt shares how an early mentorship opportunity set his career in motion and the lessons that shaped his approach to serving clients and building relationships. At the center of the conversation is one of his defining philosophies: understanding who your real customer is—and why, in many cases, it’s the real estate agent.
The discussion explores how treating agents as customers, building clear processes, and maintaining consistent communication can transform performance in both real estate and mortgage sales.
For originators and agents looking to build durable, high-performing businesses, this episode offers practical insight rooted in real-world experience.
Zeb Lowe’s LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zebulon-lowe-a02353a4/
Matt Weaver's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattweaverspeaks/
Cross Country Mortgage
https://crosscountrymortgage.com/boca-raton-fl-3733/matthew-weaver/
Matt Weaver Team
https://winningwithweaver.com/
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire’s Zeb Lowe every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Matt shares how an early mentorship opportunity set his career in motion and the lessons that shaped his approach to serving clients and building relationships. At the center of the conversation is one of his defining philosophies: understanding who your real customer is—and why, in many cases, it’s the real estate agent.
The discussion explores how treating agents as customers, building clear processes, and maintaining consistent communication can transform performance in both real estate and mortgage sales.
For originators and agents looking to build durable, high-performing businesses, this episode offers practical insight rooted in real-world experience.
Zeb Lowe’s LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zebulon-lowe-a02353a4/
Matt Weaver's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattweaverspeaks/
Cross Country Mortgage
https://crosscountrymortgage.com/boca-raton-fl-3733/matthew-weaver/
Matt Weaver Team
https://winningwithweaver.com/
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire’s Zeb Lowe every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The mortgage industry lost well over a third of its origination volume between 2021 and 2023.
00:06Rates tripled. Transaction counts collapsed.
00:09And then there's Matt Weaver.
00:11While the rest of the industry was doing triage, Matt was closing more loans.
00:16In 2024, he closed more loans than any other individual originator in the country.
00:21And he's been number one in Florida every year since 2020.
00:24So the question this episode is here to answer is how?
00:28How? The answer isn't a rate story or a market story.
00:32It's a process story, a mindset story.
00:36The story of a guy who decided he was going to be number one, built a system around that decision,
00:42and has been executing against it ever since, regardless of what the market is doing.
00:47This year, he'll be on stage at The Gathering in Austin, Texas, April 28th through the 30th,
00:52speaking to attendees about thinking differently and using tested and proven systems to win.
01:09Matt, thank you for joining me.
01:11Oh, Zeb, always a pleasure.
01:12Thank you for having me.
01:14For sure.
01:14It's really good seeing you again, man.
01:16I enjoyed our last conversation at the F-13 Summit last year, which you were kind enough to invite me
01:22to.
01:22And I've really been I've been looking forward to having another conversation with you ever since.
01:26Oh, likewise.
01:27It's always a pleasure.
01:28I appreciate you again.
01:30Sure.
01:30Well, so let's start the last time that we spoke.
01:33I didn't get to dig in much to your your your origin story.
01:37And I've said this a lot about the industry and about originators.
01:41This certainly was the case with me that people just sort of they fall into this world.
01:47And there's a commonality to originator origin stories in that almost everyone has a very unique,
01:54very specific one, which in and of itself is the makes it kind of common in a way.
01:59But I want to know your origin story.
02:01How did you how did you get into the industry?
02:03Sure.
02:04And thank you again.
02:05So interestingly enough, I'm not saying I'm so proud of this, but I dropped out of high school at age
02:1015.
02:11My father, may he rest in peace, was not very happy or pleased with that.
02:16But school and I just didn't get along.
02:19So it was really at the beginning of ninth grade where it was clear that I should be exiting school.
02:25Anyhow, my father owned a restaurant at the time.
02:27And he said to me that if this is going to be the case, then you have to mirror the
02:32same hours.
02:33OK, that you have at school in the back of the house, which is the kitchen.
02:37That's code word for kitchen at the in the restaurant industry.
02:40So I ended up working at my father's restaurant, 730 a.m.
02:44to about 5 p.m.
02:46Every day, Monday through Friday, about a year and a half, almost two years into it, there was a gentleman
02:52that would come in every single day.
02:54I mean, this guy, he looked like a million bucks.
02:57He'd have a great suit on, very professional.
03:00And I would make him lunch every single day.
03:03Now, remember, my destiny.
03:05OK, my mother was born in Greece and came from Greece.
03:08So my destiny really was to be in the restaurant industry.
03:11That's just what most aspired to, at least in my demographic and based on my background.
03:17Let me ask you, what kind of restaurant was this?
03:19So this was a deli, OK, restaurant.
03:24He owned several different concepts, also in the five o'clock bar, et cetera, 5 a.m. bar.
03:28But this was a deli that I was working at and high traffic, high busy, et cetera.
03:35Anyhow, so there was a gentleman that would come in every day.
03:38He looked like a million bucks.
03:40I mean, suits freshly pressed.
03:42His energy was just magnetic.
03:44So finally, after making him lunch every single day for probably six months, I dug up the courage to actually
03:51take the lunch to him rather than the server.
03:53And I sat down with him and I said, sir, may I ask you a question?
03:57He said, yes.
03:58I said, what do you do for work?
04:00And he jumps up and he says, my name is Mike Kanan.
04:04I'm with Prudential Florida Realty.
04:06Do you know anyone who's looking to buy or sell real estate?
04:09And he does this big smile and these veneers are popping out.
04:12And I mean, he just looked incredible.
04:14And I got to know Mike.
04:16He was Broward County.
04:17Okay.
04:17Which if you know, South Florida, Broward County is a large county.
04:21He was Broward County's number one real estate producer.
04:25And Mike convinced me to go get my real estate license.
04:28Now I was 16 and a half, close to 17 years old.
04:32Okay.
04:32So I had to time it to where I was going to go get my real estate license, but you
04:36couldn't do it till you were 18.
04:38But there was another catch.
04:39You had to get your GED.
04:42So I went back to night school and I got my GED and I went to go take the test
04:47for real estate.
04:48Now I only failed three times.
04:51Okay.
04:52But they say the fourth time is a charm.
04:54Do we agree?
04:55So I got my real estate license and I started with Caldwell Banker in Boca Raton, Federal Highway and Palmetto
05:02Park Road.
05:03Okay.
05:0418 year old kid living in the third bedroom of his parents' home.
05:07All right.
05:08Who's going to sell, you know, their home with me?
05:11There was a mortgage guy that would come in every week and present and I carefully listened to him.
05:17He would talk about 1% down payment programs.
05:20How simple it was to get financing.
05:23Now this is 1996, 97, 98, I should say.
05:29And automatically it kind of gravitated to the fact that if you could buy a townhome, this is back then
05:34now, for $900 down and $700 a month.
05:38This is wild.
05:39So I turned around and I would take classifieds ads out and I would market all the listings in a
05:45certain neighborhood, but I would market it through payment and price or payment and terms.
05:50And so I would, anyhow, long story short is I became Caldwell Banker's number one most buyer-controlled sales salesperson
05:58in the Boca Raton location.
06:00My second year in real estate, what ended up happening was the mortgage individual that would come in and present
06:07really sat down with me, had a long conversation with me and converted me to leaving my real estate practice
06:15at age 21.
06:16I'm 47 today and I converted into the mortgage side of the industry and I retired my real estate license.
06:23So that's how I got into the industry, Zed.
06:26So I'm going to talk to you about this in a little more detail later on in our conversation, but
06:32one of the things that I've talked to you in the past about that I find interesting with originators, there's
06:40kind of two paths for identifying your client or identifying your customer.
06:45And there's a school of thought or there's a methodology around pursuing the borrower as your primary client versus the
06:52agent as your primary client.
06:54And you're on the agent side, which you've been very outspoken about and you train around.
06:59And I'm curious as to, you know, when you, you, as an agent, you having that originator come and having
07:05that first experience with him, do you think that that might be where the seeds of that identifying your client
07:12as an agent, did it spring from there?
07:16Or was that something that maybe popped up later on?
07:17I think you're a hundred percent correct because it was very clear that if I make this transition to the
07:23mortgage side of the business, then my customer should be the agent, the real estate agent that sells real estate
07:29because ultimately it's their customer.
07:32Cause here, watch, when we think about it, okay, yes, there are consumer direct models in mortgage, but by and
07:38large as originators, that's not the model that we operate under, which then would mean, okay.
07:43Our customer then would be the agent that is our customer.
07:46And then their customer ultimately becomes our second customer.
07:51Now, if we were consumer direct, then the home buyer directly is our customer.
07:56Do we agree?
07:57Right.
07:58Okay.
07:58But if we're a, um, if we're not consumer direct in terms of, um, the way we are methodology of
08:05doing business and we are an originator, probably I'd say 90% of originators like myself, then we have to
08:11really view our customer as the real estate agent.
08:14If that's in fact who we want to serve, because you see, I say all the times that my greatest
08:20competitive advantage is I know who my customer is.
08:25And so when people hear me say that sometimes, I think it really doesn't resonate too well because someone would
08:31say, well, yeah, I work with real estate agents.
08:33That's not what I'm saying.
08:34I'm saying they're my customer.
08:36So meaning, um, the way we communicate with a customer is different than the way we communicate with a friend.
08:44Yeah.
08:45Most people refer to them as their, their partners, referral partners.
08:49And that is a, that is an entirely different approach for relationship than an actual customer.
08:53Sure.
08:53A hundred percent.
08:54So the way that I view our agents are as customers.
08:58So we go into customer mode, the way that we communicate with them.
09:02So I give a story when I speak to originators, I say, okay, I'll think about this.
09:05You go to a restaurant tonight.
09:07Let's call it Capitol grill.
09:08You're with your spouse.
09:10Server comes over.
09:11Would you want the server to speak to you like a friend, a pal, or would you like them to
09:15speak to you as a customer?
09:17What is the difference between the two?
09:18Server walks over to your table.
09:20Would you like water?
09:23Or hello, my name is Eric.
09:25I'll be your server tonight.
09:26Can I start you off with some water?
09:27You say, yes.
09:29Flatter, sparkling, sparkling.
09:30Wonderful.
09:31I'll go ahead and get the sparkling water.
09:32I'll come back and tell you tonight's specials.
09:35See, he's communicating to you like a customer.
09:39That's how we communicate to our real estate agents.
09:41So when we look at them as a customer, number one, our choice of words and our vocabulary and our
09:46mannerisms are different because they're a customer.
09:50Number two, we're always thinking about how we can serve the customer better.
09:55So my second greatest advantage after knowing who my customer is, is I think about how I can help my
10:02customer.
10:03What do I mean by that?
10:04How can I help them sell more real estate?
10:06How can I help them do that one extra transaction?
10:10How can I take the heavy lifting off of them?
10:13So all of it is connected by knowing who your customer is.
10:18And since you knew that early on and you actually were formally your customer, you were an agent, did that
10:25allow you to transition into origination relatively smoothly and get up and running shortly in short order?
10:32Or were there some early years where there were traditional struggles that a lot of originators face?
10:39Well, interestingly enough, so when I made that transition over, I was a mortgage broker.
10:44I was working at a small mortgage brokerage shop.
10:48And at the time, it was primarily a major refinance market.
10:53This is 2002, 2003, 2004, et cetera.
10:57So that was my practice for a while in transitioning into the mortgage side of the industry.
11:03And then 2008 came about.
11:06We all, or not all of us, I guess, but a lot of us remember those times.
11:10And Florida, the South Florida market probably got hit the hardest.
11:14Okay.
11:15And wildly enough, I was this close.
11:19I want the originators to hear this.
11:21I was this close to actually exiting the industry in 2009.
11:26So true story.
11:28Okay.
11:29Mortgages were virtually finished in the South Florida market.
11:32I mean, virtually no one was buying.
11:35Okay.
11:36And a friend of mine wanted me to explore or get into the life insurance industry.
11:42So it was in 2009 that I was going to go to speak with Northwestern Mutual Insurance Agents,
11:51which is a very well-respected company.
11:53They haven't really dialed in and figured out.
11:55So I'm driving down Congress Avenue, okay, in Boca Raton, and I get to a light, all right,
12:02on my way to Northwestern Mutual.
12:05And to the left of me is a mortgage company, a mortgage lender that has been there for years.
12:10They were trying to recruit me for years called WCS Lending.
12:13They were like the big game in town.
12:15And as I'm sitting at the light, I turn over and I say to myself, gosh, they must be in
12:20the
12:20same position that I'm in.
12:22Okay.
12:23But obviously a massive office.
12:25So I can't imagine the, you know, the level of stress they must have because there's no
12:29business to be had.
12:30And Seb, as I turn over, I see a brand new Porsche 911 being delivered in front of the building.
12:37I'm thinking to myself, who's getting a Porsche at this day and age with the way the mortgage
12:42market is in.
12:43So instead of going to Northwestern Mutual, I made a U-turn.
12:46I pulled into WCS Lending headquarters.
12:50I didn't realize how big they were at the time.
12:53Get to the third floor.
12:54And I'd say, I'd like to speak to the owner of the company.
12:57Receptionist says, do you mean Eric Wahlberg?
12:59I said, I guess if that's his name.
13:01She says, you need to make an appointment to see a man like him.
13:04I said, well, listen, I can be his top guy.
13:06I see you guys are doing well.
13:08She says, you got to make an appointment.
13:10So I said, okay, whatever.
13:11And I turned around and I started walking towards the elevator to leave.
13:13Now, Eric was an aggressive guy.
13:15He runs out.
13:16He must have overheard or she must have called him.
13:18He runs out with his headset on his head.
13:20And he says, you want a job here?
13:22I said, are you hiring?
13:24He says, why don't you come back into my office?
13:25And he tells me what he's doing, which was so genius at the time.
13:30Long story short, and my debt of gratitude is to Eric to this day.
13:34He saved me in the industries because I was this close of exiting.
13:38So my story in terms of my team structure dates back to 2010, because as I was working with WCS
13:47Lending and Eric, there was another originator at the time.
13:51He said, you know, a lot of the company business that Eric is furnishing to you, it can end any
13:56time.
13:57So when are you going to start thinking about building your own brand and your own business?
14:02So it was in 2010 that I decided to make the agent my sole focus.
14:09And what I decided to do was build value propositions around the agent's sales cycle from beginning to end so
14:16I can serve them to a high level, which is my four pillars of value, which are 16 years old
14:22today.
14:23Actually, I wanted to talk to you a bit about this.
14:25And I spoke to you about this in our previous conversation.
14:30I want to look at it from a little bit different angle, though, around your scripted process.
14:36As a matter of fact, I was going to text you about this.
14:38I was doing I wanted to get caught up on what you've been up to recently over this past week
14:44since I knew we were going to be talking.
14:45And I saw I saw a clip, actually, that you had posted online where you referenced our conversation where I'd
14:50asked you about your scripted process.
14:52And so so you've you've you've built out a scripted process and it was from from beginning to end.
14:58And I'm curious to know how you approach how you go about thinking, wrapping your mind around best the best
15:07possible process about efficient systems.
15:10How do you approach that?
15:11Well, so if we think about it, OK, for most originators, I'll at least speak for myself.
15:17It is extremely hard to let go.
15:21OK, so delegation is the biggest challenge loan originators have.
15:27Period. End of story. It's their biggest challenge.
15:29It was my biggest challenge.
15:31OK, so in order to scale, you have to delegate.
15:34So it's this catch 22 that you can't scale production without delegating.
15:39But most originators won't delegate because they don't trust who they're delegating to.
15:46So the way I was able to combat that was I first said to myself, OK, what is my process?
15:53What do I want my process to look like?
15:55And then most importantly, what are my standards within the process that are wrapped around the process?
16:02So what do I mean by that?
16:03OK, I probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of about 75 to 85 standards in my practice.
16:10So what do I mean by standards?
16:11OK, standard number one, we operate seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., 364 days a
16:16year.
16:16That's a standard.
16:18OK, standard number two, all homebuyers go to application.
16:22We never pre-diagnose anyone.
16:25That's a standard.
16:27OK, so to just give you two of those.
16:29So what happens is, is that it becomes a lot easier to lead and delegate when you have a set
16:36process flow that the team member can adhere to and standards wrapped around that process.
16:42So, for example, my pre-approval process, which I've been saying to originators for years that the pre-approval process
16:50is the foundation to an originator's business.
16:53How we interact with the customer, OK, from the onset of, hi, I'd like to get pre-approved, through to
17:01contract execution is the entire foundation to your business.
17:06So, side note for the originators that's listening.
17:11From inquiry, hi, I'd like to get pre-approved, to credit pool, you should be over 90%, period, end of
17:18story.
17:19I would say to you, Zeb, that the industry average is probably about 65% to 68%.
17:25And the reason for that is because too many originators are pre-diagnosing before taking the buyer through the appropriate
17:33pre-approval application and process.
17:36And that equates to a lot of numbers and a lot of units that are not being closed at the
17:42end of the year for that originator.
17:45So, let's get back to the process for a moment.
17:47So, my pre-approval process is a scripted process from beginning to end, OK?
17:52All calls are answered live, seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
17:56That's a standard that we operate at.
17:58Let me ask you that.
17:59How do you sustain that?
18:02OK, so watch.
18:03We all have to build.
18:06We all have to build our process.
18:08So, in 2010, OK, I had a vision of what paradise could look like and would look like to me.
18:16So, what I say to originators, OK, so you're aware of our program, F13, OK?
18:23It's a consulting program.
18:24We consult virtually some of the best in the industry across the nation.
18:28And what I explain to them, OK, is we have to paint paradise first.
18:33So, in 2010, I said, could you imagine, Seb, a pre-approval process where a home buyer could call seven
18:39days a week, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., 364 days a year, where the team was answering live
18:46and taking them right to pre-approval application?
18:48Could you imagine how amazing that would be?
18:51So, that was the vision.
18:53Now, what I had to do was back into it, OK, and work my way to get into that space.
18:59So, for example, in 2010, it was we operate seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 9 p
19:05.m.
19:05OK, if a home buyer called, we would return the call, let's just call it, in two hours.
19:10Then my goal was to get to where we're returning a call within an hour and a half.
19:14Then my goal as the building process, perhaps in 2011, was to get to less than an hour.
19:19You see all that?
19:20So, you're constantly working to improve yourself and your system.
19:24But if you don't paint paradise, what are you shooting for?
19:28So, it took me till about 2014, close to 2015, to get to the point where all calls were being
19:36answered live seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., 364 days a year.
19:41Does that make sense?
19:42Yeah, totally.
19:43OK, so when we go back to it, all right, our team understands what the process is from the onset
19:51of high, I'd like to get pre-approved, taking them directly through to application, over to document gathering, over to
19:57document review, over to home buyer consultation.
20:00We never skip a step in the process.
20:03But when we're loosey-goosey about it, and we don't have a formalized process, as most originators don't, then we
20:10can't delegate, or don't want to delegate, I should say.
20:13And if we don't want to delegate, then we can't scale.
20:16So, it's this double-edged sword.
20:18So, here's what I would say.
20:20It's a bold statement.
20:21I don't mean to offend anyone.
20:23But if you're not delegating, it's not the team that has the problem.
20:27It's the leader that's the problem.
20:30Because they don't have a set process or standards wrapped around their process.
20:34Thanks for listening to part one of this interview.
20:36On Thursday, we'll be back with part two.
Comments