Joshua Burruss, executive vice president and chief lending officer at Intercoastal Mortgage, knows two things: lending and hockey. The Virginia native, a lifelong Washington Capitals fan, attended Virginia Tech and played hockey for the university.
Now a father of three, he remains connected to the game by coaching his son’s travel hockey team, imparting the wisdom he learned during his on-ice time to a new generation.
He also, quite literally, grew up in the mortgage business, with many in his family paving the way for him to join the lending sphere as an intern at age 18.
“My father was with PMI Mortgage Insurance for years and then worked for Freddie,” Burruss recalled. “My grandmother actually hired my current president into the mortgage business at a very young age. My stepfather was a branch manager. I’ve been in it my whole life.
“I cut my teeth in the back end of this business, which really, I think, was a great setup for me understanding and developing product later on in my career.”
That strong foundation is evident in Burruss’ numbers last year. He reached No. 65 in Scotsman Guide’s Top Dollar Volume ranking, originating 345 loans for more than $156 million in total loan volume. Sixty-five percent of Burruss’ total volume came via refi loans — no small feat in the current high-interest market.
That achievement, according to Burruss, was, in many ways, a matter of perseverance, a virtue he learned while lacing up the skates.
“I’m not a tall guy,” Burruss laughed. “So, me playing hockey, I got, you know, hit a lot. I’m used to taking shots, and … it just kind of gives you a good temperament of learning to roll with it, get right back up, and find a way. Well, in the real estate world, you catch plenty of shots that you’re not expecting. And that includes the market we’ve kind of been seeing lately. But we just keep showing up and finding a way.”
Burrus was particular in emphasizing the “we” in that sentence in praise of his entire team, another takeaway from his hockey days. “A sport like hockey, you need to be a bit on the tougher side, but you also need to rely on your teammates in order to succeed…,” he said. “I’ve been able to surround myself with people who do different parts of the job better than I can do myself. I’ve seen the growth in my team, and they have far surpassed any expectations that I could have had of them. In hockey in particular, that’s a sport where you become family with people pretty quickly, and [at Intercoastal] we’ve really become a family.”
Key for Burruss, not just within that family dynamic but also in the larger mortgage world as a whole, is the openness to both teach and learn every day.
“When I first came into the business, there was this culture of originators that were kind of out for each other’s throats. And I’m not saying it’s not like that anymore, because there’s still very much an aspect of it. It’s a competitive business. …
“I thoroughly enjoy learning how to improve my craft and I don’t care where the information comes from. I always attend the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference. I always attend the secondary conference because I want to know everything that’s going on so I can help direct my team in the most appropriate way.”
With mortgage rates on the move and the lending landscape changing rapidly of late, gathering information and making adjustments is more important than ever, Burruss said.
“I think the most important thing that we can do as originators right now is double down on forward-value adding,” he said. “What I mean by that is not being reactionary to a moment, making sure that we’ve been speaking to our past client database and really giving them a lot of love all along the process after closing so that, as these rates come down, we can help them best maximize their homeownership to produce the most amount of wealth for them.”
He said there are too many people in the mortgage industry who will only call their clients when they need a refinance. He wants his team to do things differently. “We want to really kind of change the way that that’s done and make sure we’re proactively engaging our past client database so we know what’s going on in their life,” Burruss said. “So, if there’s ever a time that makes sense for them to do something with their mortgage to further advance themselves, we’re guiding them through it. If our people can be a lighthouse in the middle of a storm when the market’s going crazy or there’s a lot of fear in the market, that’s what we want to be.”
