Episode 4 - Sarah's Origin Story

Sarah, the host of Success with Sarah podcast, shares her personal story of how she got into the mortgage industry. She moved from Arizona to Texas with her family for better opportunities. Initially, she wanted to be a writer but ended up working as a receptionist for a mortgage company. She grew in her passion for helping families and became a processor. Sarah emphasizes the importance of connection and serving the community, especially first-time homebuyers and Spanish-speaking clients. She believes in providing sustainable homeownership for all. Sarah is proud to be a part of the industry and grateful for her family's support and their leap of faith. Hi friends, thank you so much for joining me for another episode here at Success with Sarah. And I wanted to record this podcast episode just to tell you a little bit about myself and why I'm in the mortgage world, what possessed me to get into the mortgage world, right? And just share a little bit about my story. So I am a mom, as my podcast has the subscription, there it goes. I am a mom, I have two daughters. My husband is Koi and he and I have been married for almost 15 years. It'll be our 15th anniversary, August 13th, and we met here in Texas. I am originally from Arizona, was born and raised in Tucson. And you know, one of the things that just prompted me to move to Texas were just the amazing relationships and connections that I had in church. We were at a church together, myself and then my husband's, some people that my husband knew. So anyway, kind of long story short, I connected with the church that my husband was going to at the time and I decided I was going to make the giant leap of faith, right? And so I moved to Texas in 99. I was going to go by myself, but as the story goes, I mentioned to my parents that I was looking at making a move and coming to Texas and man, I'll tell you, being the youngest in a family, especially Hispanic, maybe, I don't know, anyone else can relate with that. My family said, you know what? We will go with you. So everybody came with me to Texas. It would be my sister, Tamara, my brother, Rafael, and then my mom and my dad. And you know, as hard and as challenging of a season as that was to leave everything that we ever knew, my mom was born and raised in Tucson and my dad originally is from Mexico City. But you know, when we made the change, it was ultimately because, for me at least, it was because I just felt like there were going to be more opportunities in a bigger state. I didn't know what Texas would hold for me. I actually had this heart and desire to be a writer, to be a journalist. I had written some articles as a teenager for a local newspaper in Tucson and I loved it. I wanted to continue to pursue that world for myself, but I didn't really know where to begin. Right? So as a result, I kind of just did, I just worked, right? When I came to Texas, I just tried to find jobs, tried to find a path for myself and I was so young. I was 17. And when I landed a job, eventually along the path, I landed a job working for a property tax consultant downtown Fort Worth and I got a call off of my resume from Monster.com and my, the other person on the other line was a mortgage broker. I didn't really even know what a mortgage broker was and they just said, hey, we'd love to meet you for an interview and it's for a receptionist position and little did I know, that was back in 2002, that that would be the rest of the history, right? I had no idea that working at a mortgage company would end up getting me into this amazing industry that I've been loving for so long and yes, we have our ups and downs and yes, we have the challenges that we've experienced throughout the industry, but it definitely doesn't take away at all from the value and the joy that I have found. You know, I think what I've learned in this industry and honestly, in all industries that you find passion about, whether it's your real estate agent or if you're a teacher, a doctor, whatever it is that why that propels you is always going to be the thing that brings you to a point where you say, you know what, this doesn't work anymore. Like this isn't a job, I don't feel like I'm doing, like I have to do this and you know, every time I found myself investing into that vision, it increased my commitment to that vision, right? It increased my heart behind wanting to help families and so for the time that I was a receptionist, I loved what I was doing as a receptionist, I loved helping families, I loved greeting them as they came in, I loved being a part of what, you know, the loan officers and processors were doing, but what I learned was that it helped me grow in my why, it helped me grow in my reasons behind doing that and it continued to grow into a passion. I became a processor, I did that for several years and you know, what I learned is that if I had done everything all at one time, right, it would never, I wouldn't have stuck with it, but I learned that it was helping me grow to the next level rather than just going to the next level. I found myself wanting to learn more and really truly becoming a student of the industry and being a student of this industry, for me, what that means is always applying myself to the next, you know, lessons, the next steps, the next guideline, the next program, product, the next offering for first-time homebuyers, for veterans, you know, there's so many things that are, there's so many misconceptions out there and there's so many things out there that people believe to be the truth just because they saw it online or they watched an influencer post about it or a friend of theirs, you know, might have told them and the reality is, is that everyone's story is different, everyone's situation's different. Now after almost 23 years of being in this business, I've never seen two loans that look alike and I've learned that it has helped me open up my eyes to not, there's so many little things I've learned along the way, but it's opened up my eyes for me to not assume some situations, you know, not make an assumption about somebody's creditworthiness or somebody's ability to excel at their job as a real estate agent or someone's passion for getting into the industry when they've never done it before because, you know, in our world and in our industry, it's about connection, you know, and that's what I love. It's an amazing quote from John Maxwell and he says that in communication, we aren't looking for perfection, we're looking for connection and that's why I started this podcast is to create that connectivity, right, so that we can connect on a deeper level. You guys can hear my story and where I come from and as a result, hopefully we'll be able to get to know each other on a personal level. So, you know, being in the industry this long and being in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, like I said, my husband and my daughters, you know, we're all here in the North Fort Worth side of things and we love it. We love our community. We love the people that we do life with. We have an amazing community of friends that just live in the immediate neighborhood but also in this area and, you know, what I think is so powerful is that these connections are what make us relatable. It's what makes us approachable and I've also learned that it's not about me finding success. Success begins with we, not me and finding to raise up others. I think Zig Ziglar said, when you give other people what they want, you get what you want and I don't think that's the intent behind us doing it but what we realize is that when we can find opportunities to serve our community, serve the world around us, for me, I love working with first-time homebuyers. They are just such a big part of what I can resonate with, you know. I was actually just telling this story earlier today and it was about the story of our family when we first moved to Texas and how we came here, gosh, with, man, I think maybe $400 and a prayer, you know, and we moved here with the hope of a better future for our family and we came here hoping for just something. We didn't, again, didn't really know what that looked like and we ended up moving into like an efficiency, you know, there's weekly, you know, hotel budget stay type places and we lived there for a little while as we grew in our career, grew in our job, really we didn't work much of a career, right? I mean, we were, I was 17, 18 years old but then we were able to find an apartment as a family and then from the apartment, we found a home and we lived in that home and it was just so amazing to see the transformation for our family, what it was like going from efficiencies, apartments into a home and I'll never forget that feeling, right? And most people, if you've been in a situation like that, you won't ever forget what it felt like to have a place where you could call your own, where you didn't think, you know, gosh, tomorrow, I don't know if we're going to be able to stay here anymore or maybe we can't, you know, change the color of the paint on this wall or whatever. It changes who you are as an individual and that's what we do, that's what I do as a real estate professional and when I remember that feeling and when I got the call for the job as a receptionist for a mortgage company, I knew what that experience was like. I knew what it was like to not have a home, not have a place to live and so, yeah, we'd had a place to live but, you know, not an actual home and that is what gave me my why and I do speak Spanish fluently so there's this whole segment of families that I can help, not just the first-time home buyers, not just those trying to get into a home but then my Spanish-speaking clients, I'll probably work with, you know, 30% to 40% who only speak Spanish and that's huge, that's a huge demographic in the United States and the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Texas, all over the place, you know, that language is just so predominant and the fact that, wow, if we can help that other segment of families, more power to us, right? I mean, that's huge for me, for my real estate agent partners to be able to help provide sustainable home ownership for all, not just for those who've been here for X number of years or days or whatever but for all and I think that that's really powerful and I'm so proud to be a part of it. I'm so thankful for my family, for my dad's family, for my mom's family who both took the leap of faith, right? We took a leap of faith going from Arizona to Texas but the leap of faith for me, I always look back on this and I remind my girls this, is the leap of faith that my grandparents took moving from Mexico to the United States because, again, without them making that choice and that determination to step out and say, we want a better future for our future generations, for the legacy behind us or in front of us, going before us, you know, in the future, man, where would we be and I'm just so thankful, again, for, you know, obviously, I feel like it would be fine either way, you know, but just so thankful for the opportunity that we have to be in this great country and to serve the families that we've had the families, you know, presented and I always say this often is that I truly believe that the people that I'm going to connect with are the people that God sent my way and in a lot of ways, I feel like this isn't just a job, it's a calling and for those of you who feel the same, for those of you who may be a real estate agent, title partner, insurance agent or in the business, stager, whoever you are and if you're not, if you're a homeowner and you're listening to this message and it resonates with you as well, I would love the opportunity to connect and just hear your story, hear what brought you to this point of pursuing homeownership, pursuing real estate, pursuing mortgage funding, you know, whatever this looks like for you and I hope that this story touched you, I hope that we can connect on a deeper level and you can schedule time to meet up with me at meetupwithsara.com. If you're a homeowner and you would love to see some opportunities of what you could qualify for to purchase a home, I have a very similar story, I'm happy to share my story further in detail and go over that with you but you can go to applywithsara.com to fill out an application online and until next time, if you can, just like, share, subscribe to this podcast so we can grow our community and then of course, if you found value in what you heard, share it with a friend, family, co-worker, somebody who you think could value from this information as well and until next time, I will see you guys here with Success With Sara. Thanks for listening. Goodbye. you