Matt Weaver lives his life playing offense, not defense. He wakes up early, gets ahead of his tasks and tries to learn something new every day. He loves to challenge the status quo and embraces unorthodox methods in both business and life — he calls it “13 thinking,” harnessing an unlucky number as a symbol of that unconventional approach.
“Everything I do is unorthodox, it’s untraditional,” Weaver said. “I live by the school of do the direct opposite of what others do, and you’ll typically never make a mistake.”
Weaver’s methods appear to be working, because he closed 1,188 loans in 2023 — more than anyone else in this year’s Scotsman Guide rankings. Believe it or not, he did it without junior loan officers on his team. Instead, he built an operational infrastructure to support his personal production.
Weaver didn’t snub other business models but is deeply proud of his; he said he wants this ranking to “serve as proof to the single originator out there that you too can succeed at the highest level without having to hire loan officers to go out and get business for you.”
When he’s not busy closing three loans a day, Weaver speaks at events all over Florida. He spoke at 60 hospitals, 35 civic centers and 45 schools last year to share his knowledge and extend his services to potential homebuyers. While homebuyer relationships are critical, he focuses even more energy on referral partner relationships.
“The customer for us is the real estate agent,” Weaver said. “It’s probably my biggest competitive advantage, that I know exactly who my customer is.”
He also does about 140 events for agents per year, from luncheons to seminars. He said he keeps agents engaged for hours by tailoring high-level training sessions to current market problems. When inventory was at historic lows, he trained agents to win in multiple-offer situations. When rates started rising, he trained them to negotiate better terms and more concessions/credits from sellers. In April, he started a series covering the recent National Association of Realtors settlement and how agents can convey their value and win the business of buyers in a changing real estate environment.
He understands real estate agents and their needs so well partially because he started his career as one. Weaver decided the traditional school route wasn’t for him and dropped out of high school, instead working at his family’s restaurant in his teens. He had a regular lunch customer who would “come in with a fresh-pressed suit on, a big smile and all this energy,” he said. “He just looked like a million bucks.”
One day, Weaver struck up a conversation with the man and learned he was a top-producing real estate agent in his county. He convinced Weaver to try out real estate, and Weaver studied hard, passing the exam on his fourth try at just 18 years old. He worked as an agent for three years, but was fascinated by financing and sold to his clients based on their mortgage payments; he even had an amortization chart on his business card. When the chance to try out the mortgage side of the business presented itself, Weaver took it.
“I got into the industry thinking that everybody wanted to close as many transactions as possible, and the reality is that if you take 1,000 people in our industry, that would be true for about nine of them,” he said. “Not everyone wants that, and that’s OK. Everyone has their own roadmap, their own definition of success. Not everyone wants to be No. 1.”
But Weaver does. His desire to not only close as many loans as possible, but the most loans, started over a decade ago in 2010 when he and his wife Nadia welcomed their firstborn.
“I wanted to prove to both my son and my daughter, Alexander and Stella, that you can choose anything you want in this world, and you can take it to the highest level,” he said.
He’s not ready to slow down. He recently started mentoring a small group of originators and hopes to create his own future competition. He believes there’s always room for improvement — part of his “13 thinking” philosophy is embracing his impostor syndrome, which drives him to prove himself but also keeps him grounded.
“We don’t use the rear-view mirror,” Weaver said of himself and his team. “You’ll never hear us talk about the good old days — the good days are ahead of us.” ●
Tips of the Trade
There’s a famous Earl Nightingale quote: ‘Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.’ If you want to increase your rewards, you simply increase your service to your customer, always adding value. And get a mentor, somebody who you admire, and try to learn from them. Mentorship has played a big role in my life. As Isaac Newton said, ‘If I have seen further, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.’ If you want to be No. 1, make sure you find someone who has done it themselves. There are many fraudulent people out there that are trying to sell you a get-rich-quick scheme or a magic pill.
