Dustin Rosenberg had a plan, and he stuck to it. He and business partner Jonathan Yoo were both working for a lending company in San Diego when they saw potential for growth in one particular segment of the mortgage market. That led them to co-found Convoy Home Loans some three and a half years ago and pouncing on the opportunity to capitalize.
“The biggest thing that I wanted to do when starting Convoy Home Loans was focusing on the investor community,” said Rosenberg, Convoy’s CEO. “It was pretty obvious to me that if there’s one underserved part of the mortgage industry, it isn’t first-time homebuyers. They got everything rolled out the door for them. It’s not government loans. The government can do everything possible to make sure that a VA or FHA client can get any access to any loan product possible.
“The biggest thing that I wanted to do when starting Convoy Home Loans was focusing on the investor community.”
“But for investors, they make it real difficult, especially over the last two or three years with the way that they underwrite you, the way that they look at the tax returns. So, I wanted to go and start a company that focused mainly on investors.”
So far, so good for Rosenberg, who Scotsman Guide named one of its featured Top Emerging Stars just last year when he leapt into the Top 100 of the Top Dollar Volume rankings. Just a year later, Rosenberg jumped from 52nd in Top Dollar Volume to 16th this year. And he did it with refinances comprising 62% of his volume, a refi share virtually unheard of in the current high mortgage rate environment.
“This wasn’t like me refinancing a bunch of people from 8% to 7.5%,” explained Rosenberg. “Nobody’s doing that, right?”
Instead, Convoy focuses on clients who are doing bridge loans for a fix-and-flip or buying a property to rent and hold. He said many of these investor clients will refinance two, three or four times each year as they take out money to buy the next property. A few of the investor clients will do as many as 20 loans in a year.
“There’s just a different dynamic, and knock on wood, I don’t think it’s going anywhere,” Rosenberg said. “Investors are definitely less rate sensitive than the first-time homebuyer, because the first-time homebuyer’s got to make sure they can afford [the property]. Investors just have to make sure they can get it leased at the new mortgage payment or higher.”
Not that it’s been a primrose path the whole way for Convoy and Rosenberg, who admitted to “a lot of sleepless nights to get it started.” But for him and his Convoy colleagues, the opportunity to strike out on their own was just too tantalizing and the rewards too great not to give it a try.
“We really wanted to work with investors,” he said. “It just seemed like such an untapped part of the community. It’s something that [Yoo] and I both do in terms of real estate investing. So, we decided to spread our wings and see what we could do. And ultimately, through a lot of hard work and making the connections in the investor world, we’re here today.”
It was tempting at first to switch gears and abandon the original plan for the company, Rosenberg said. But it was important for them to have faith in their blueprint, build a proper foundation and press on.
“When we started, the first three to six months, rates were still like COVID rates — they were still like 2.25% on your VA refinance. They were still 3% on your conventional. … We were looking at our colleagues like, dang. For them, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. It was hard for us to be like, ‘Let’s stick the course.’ “That’s the most rewarding part now, as crazy as it sounds,” he continued. “We saw that our plan worked, because investors aren’t as dependent on rates. Sure, transactions are down, but they’re not out there saying, ‘OK, I’m not buying anything now,’ right? As investors, they’re still looking.”
