How Emerging Star Kyle Johnson Became a Top VA Loan Officer

Bridget: Welcome to CCM Talks. I am Bridget Linton and today I am joined by branch manager Kyle Johnson. Now, Kyle, you are so successful. You’ve earned a lot of top awards over the years, including top emerging stars.

And this year, I heard you were a number seven when it comes to top VA loan officers in the U.S. So first of all, congratulations. What an incredible accomplishment. What motivates you to stay on top?

Kyle: Gosh, you know, I just I, I want to be the best version of myself. And that’s it’s definitely like an internal battle for me is just to be the better version. I want to be better than I was yesterday. And honestly, just take great care of my clients. Working with a great team, working with great partners. So for me, it’s just it’s just that internal game for myself. How can I push myself? How can I be better?

Bridget: And it seems like you’re. It might be a little competitive, too. Just a little bit. So next, next year we’ll be talking about you being in top five.

Kyle: That would be awesome. I would love that.

Bridget: We’re setting the goal now. There we go. We’ll manifest it for you.

Well talk to me a little bit more about CrossCountry Mortgage. What brought you to CCM?

Kyle: I joined, CCM kind of, out of lucky circumstances, but it’s really more so about why I stayed. You know, to be honest. So what keeps me at CrossCountry is there’s so many different benefits with the VA, which I know we’ll dive into, but honestly, CrossCountry Mortgage allows me to really run my business and run my branch and serve the client at the very, very highest level. But also, I also have such great support from the operations staff and HQ.

So having both, you know, the support when I need it, but also like the freedom and flexibility to run my business branch, are the main reasons why I’m staying.

Bridget: Can you talk to me a little bit more about your journey from when you started to now?

Kyle: Yeah. So I got in the mortgage business in 2012, and I started as a receptionist.

So I started as a receptionist. I was a loan processor loan coordinator. So I did that for about seven years. And then in 2019 is when I joined CCM. And that’s when I kind of decided to test sales. And the rest is kind of been history.

But since 2019, since joining CCM, been able to build my branch. Now, I have about 28 people on my team. And so, so yeah, it’s been a pretty, pretty wild and crazy journey.

Bridget: Oh, I love that. What is it about CCM culture that you love?

Kyle: I love the culture of CCM. It’s about winning and it’s about taking great care of the client. But it’s about winning, too.

And, you know, Ron’s very competitive as well. And, I love that meeting different people within CCM. The humility that I found from the people at the top, they just want to serve the client. They want to serve the team, and they want to serve all the people. And so, I love that that resonates with me.

Bridget: At CCM, we do we work together as a team. Everyone wants to help one another. But something else that CCM is great about is giving back and doing things in the community. I know that you’re very passionate about helping the Military. Why is that?

Kyle: You know, I what got me into working with the Military is I ended up working with some partners that, do a lot of VA business. And, you know, I’m not Military myself, but, definitely passionate about serving the Military. And, have I’ve always done that kind of through the course of my career. But, working with Veterans, being able to assist from duty station to duty station because we’re able to lend in all 50 states, just being that level of continuity so that when they do get PCS orders, when they are relocating, they know that they can call me and my team and we can assist them every step of the way.

And really just helping, helping Veterans use what is arguably one of their greatest benefits, which is the VA home loan, leveraging that to build wealth through real estate. It’s just it definitely aligns with my core purpose and my core value and our team. So those are some of the reasons why, we love serving and working with the Military.

Bridget: It’s so amazing. And we appreciate all you do. And going back to more about the products that CCM offers, how do they stand out when it comes to VA loans?

Kyle: Yeah. So I feel like I say this all the time, but one of the coolest things that CCM does for VA is they have no overlays, which, you know, just what that means is they don’t restrict the VA loan and the VA benefits. And so I love to be able to say that, hey, like if, if we can’t do it, no one else can. But being able to also assist a client that was maybe previously denied by, another lender, like just today we just closed a loan in Montana, and, he was denied by his lender two weeks in, two weeks before closing.

So the agent calls me up and we’re able to jump in, and the VA allowed that loan to close. But the lender had additional restrictions that ultimately denied it. So, I would say that’s a big one. Is just being able to, be able to do the loan, for people who earned the benefit, and meet the qualifications, but not having that restriction based on the lender.

Yeah, that’s a big one. The other big one is, I would say the custom construction loan. So the VA one-time close product is an amazing product. Being able to buy land and build with your VA benefits zero down, is pretty incredible. We love helping Veterans do that as well.

Bridget: And when it comes to mortgages, I know that you’re big on buyer consults. Why are they so important to you?

Kyle: Yeah. So the buyer consult, really is something that I’ve kind of grown over time. For me, financial literacy and making sure that our clients, like, understand the best use of their money. Really looking at whole picture. So I think a lot of lenders, they just focus on the mortgage.

And so what I try and do with my team is we take a step back, we look at the whole financial picture and what kind of guidance, what kind of steps, what kind of ways can we set the client up for more financial success while also dreaming and planning for their financial goals? So it’s not just this step in real estate. It’s also where do you want to be in 5 or 10 years? Do you want to own rentals? And that actually plays into what strategies we implement for the purchase today.

So just looking at the whole picture, looking at different debt payoff strategies, I think is one of the things that really separates my team and I, is we, we focus on the whole view, the whole picture. And I found that a lot of clients who maybe thought they couldn’t make that purchase through a little bit of a debt consolidation, restructure their finances and really showing them their budget. They’ve realized that they’re actually, you know, able to make that purchase. And so that’s really cool.

There’s no there’s no greater win than taking a client who says, I can’t make this purchase the dream home, but it feels out of reach and then be able to, you know, show them through looking at their finances, through looking at the big picture, the hey, like, we can make this work.

Bridget: Yes. You know, Kyle, I love talking to you because you’re so enthusiastic about your career and you’re helping people. How do you effectively communicate when it comes to your clients and agents?

Kyle: I, I’ve like all on the phone. So like I, I’m going to call everyone.

Bridget: You’re not a texting guy? You’re calling them.

Kyle: I mean, I’ll text too. But yeah, I’m like the you know, I’m like, what they joke about, you know, people that call you when you send a text message.

Bridget: Oh, you’re one of those?

Kyle: I’m one of those. I’m one of those. So, so, you know, I, I think that communication is key. It’s also relational, too, you know, for sure. Here’s the thing is, like, things are going to go sideways in real estate.

That’s just how real estate transactions go. But if I have, I call it relationship capital. So if I relationship capital with a client or real estate agent, being able to pick up the phone and be like, hey, I need your help with this. Like, whatever it is, if there’s a last minute condition that we need from the client, or we need the real estate agent to help with something, or we need to smooth over a delay that’s maybe even out of our control.

Doing that over the phone as people appreciate it. You know, people don’t want to get bad news over, email like my team knows, we do not deliver bad news over email. So it’s a lot of face to face. It’s zoom. It’s phone calls. And obviously like email summaries too, but I think I think it allows us to listen better.

So my encouragement really to anyone that’s in the mortgage business is like, pick up the phone. You know, every time you, you send a text message or send an email, instead of picking up the phone, then you’re making it more transactional instead of relational. So for me, it’s I want to make it a relationship with the client, with the real estate agent, with all the partners that are part of the transaction. And, picking up the phone is definitely one of the ways to do that.

Bridget: All right. I love that piece of advice. I’m more of a texter/emailer, but I’m going to take Kyle’s advice. I’ll start picking up the phone a little bit more.

Kyle: See where it takes you.

Bridget: I want to know a little bit more about Kyle before we wrap this up. Do you have a fun fact that you can share with us?

Kyle: Oh my goodness.

Bridget: I feel like you’ve got a lot of fun facts.

Kyle: Yeah, I mean, I could give you so many, let’s see, I could do the splits through like elementary school and middle school so that’s a fun fact. My dad was a cheerleader so flexibility runs in the family.

Bridget: That’s genetics, I guess.

Kyle: I’m a lefty. I cold plunge every day. So, you know, I’ve got all sorts of weird. I tell my wife, I’m a freak. Yeah, I just kind of like, I’m a freak. I’ve become more of a freak over time.

But, but no, I, I don’t know, I love life, I’m super passionate about, pretty much everything that I commit myself to.

Bridget: Yes, I can see that.

Kyle: Love what I do love who I do it with. Love who we get to serve. And so I just feel very, very fortunate to, to do all the things.

Bridget: And that’s why we love having you across CrossCountry Mortgage, too. You’re a man of many talents. Thank you so much for joining us.

And if you would like to learn more about joining CCM and careers, make sure you visit CCM.com. We hope to see you on our next episode of CCM Talks.