Michael Rankin President of ClearPath Mortgage Solutions

Michael Rankin is a second generation mortgage broker and president of ClearPath Mortgage Solutions. His business philosophy is to improve lives, one transaction at a time. His goal is to educate clients with consultant level service, so they can make the best financial decisions for their individual needs. His constant consideration of education, communication and personalized service is motivated by the desire to make your transaction the best possible experience in lending.

Michael Rankin attended Shaker High School.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's stuck Gounty and Igot another CEO. You should know.
Mike Rankin is the owner in presidentof Clear Path Mortgage Solutions. The morning,
Mike on and thanks for having metoday. The mortgage business a tricky
one with lots of ups, lotsof downs, lots of changes. Tell
me why this is the path you'vechosen. You know, I believe at

(00:21):
the very core people deserve a guidewhen it comes to buying a home.
A statistic came out recently that seventypercent of homeowners regret their home purchase.
They either felt pressured, hidden costs, hidden fees. And I just think
that's just not okay, it's notright. You're a guy with Capitol Region
roots. I think you went toShaker High if if my background in US,

(00:42):
but right, you went from ShakerHigh to the West Coast. But
then said, you know what,it's time to grow up. I gotta
do a business, and I wantto do it in the Capital Region.
Why here, you know, myfamily was here in upstate New York.
My dad's been in the mortgage businessfor over thirty years. So my wife
was present preaking with our first son, Jordan, and we thought, Hey,
this would be the right time tomove back, be close to family

(01:03):
and you know, and dive intomortgages. I love the complexity of mortgages,
but I love that it's a peopleoriented business. You're dealing people and
numbers. It just was a perfectfit for me. I think most people's
perception is that you guys are coldhearted snakes who are just looking at numbers
and figures and trying to squeeze everylast dollar out of people. Is that

(01:25):
what Clear Path Mortgage Solutions is about? Because I haven't feeling it isn't absolutely
not. I mean, but you'reright though, I mean, you gotch
the movie The Big Short. Somuch of people in the financial industry and
mortgagees specifically, just don't care aboutpeople. And that's where we saw the
opportunity. Is people really want aguide, they just didn't know how to
say it. I want help.I want someone to guide me. Getting

(01:47):
a mortgage should be so easy andsimple and enjoyable. It's just it's just
not. People often have so muchanxiety buying a home, and we're going
to remove that from the process.They can enjoy the process of buying a
home. It's such a big thingthough for most people it is, you
know, their biggest transaction and it'ssuch a gambles the wrong word, but
oh my god, there's so muchfaith and trust they got to put in

(02:08):
you. A lot of responsibility comeswith that. Yeah, we don't.
We often remind people heylos. Mortgagesare complicated. There's so many options.
It's hard to know who and whatto trust, whether it's unskilled professionals or
unscrupulous professionals. We believe three ingredientsget you what's called a perfect mortgage.
So perfect mortgage is a mortgage withno regrets. If you have no regrets,

(02:31):
then you made the right decision.Three ingredients, strategy, guidance,
and expertise. And that's what wefocus on. If we can dominate the
client experience, provide strategy, guidanceand expertise, then homeowners I can get
a perfect mortgage for a home theylove. And that's really how we became
the number one Google review mortgage companyin the Capital region was just being really

(02:51):
client focused on treating everyone the waywe would want to be treated. You've
been doing this for I think adozen years now. How has things I
mean, obviously, within the lasttwelve minutes mortgage rates have changed, I
think, but in the last twelveyears, how has the business changed since
you've gotten into it. You know, when I got into business, it
was very regulation heavy, underriding guidelines. We just came out of the crash.

(03:14):
I'm a post crash mortgage broker.In fact, mortgage brokers got named
really the scapegoat of the entire industrywas if you're a mortgage broker, you're
you're the snake selling snake oil,you know. And so we saw over
the last decade, last twelve years, mortgage brokers really beginning to grow in
their market share. Because mortgage brokerson average save consumers ten thousand dollars per

(03:37):
transaction for immigrants and nine thousand dollarsfor your average person. This is a
huge thing for saving money we shoparound for consumers. But we've seen rates,
really, they've been decreasing, decreasing, decreasing for the last ten years.
COVID they hit the total bottom mosteveryone. You know, ninety percent
of people have a rate under fivepercent right now. And now we're seeing
rates for the first time begin tojump up faster than we've seen in a

(04:00):
century. And so it's definitely anew dynamic for people who are trying to
buy a home. This has beenthe most interesting waters to navigate for the
entire time I've been in the business. You mentioned snakes. Those snakes in
Albany are always changing rules and regulations. I'm sure your business isn't immune to
it. How has it changed politicallyover the last few years? You know,

(04:23):
for us, we found that thedepartment we work in a lot with
the Department of Financial Services, andI've got to give a shout out to
Roll the Rickets. She's been anamazing job of really working with mortgage brokers
to level the playing field. Forthe longest time, mortgage brokers we had
less of a voice on Capitol Hill, less of a voice with the Banking
Department and mortgage bankers and banks.They tended to make all the rules.

(04:44):
And so we've seen the playing fieldleveling and what that does. That makes
it better for consumers. Consumers canget a better mortgage when the playing fields
level. I always say, whenlenders compete, consumers win. When your
father first said to you, hey, I think this is a field you
may want to go, and withwhat he was talking about versus what this
business is now, tell me alittle bit about that chasm. That was

(05:06):
a bit of a salesman and hetold me that I could make six figures
and work part time. That wasnot true. I made half that and
work twice as much. And soI really you had to you had to
learn how to you know, growingup business. We've got seventeen team members.
It's taken a lot of having totrust people. Everyone in my organization
has been trained from the ground up. We didn't bring on just into the

(05:29):
recent few months. We hadn't broughtin anyone with experience because I found if
I could just find the right peoplewith the right guts, the right values,
the right the right passion that Iin my personality, then we could
teach them how to take care ofpeople on mortgages. Mortgages are easy.
It's caring for people that is hardto find. And that's interesting because I
think a lot of people have thisperception of a you know, a guy
with a visor who's been doing thisfor thirty years and studies tables and all

(05:55):
that stuff. You actually want togo to the other route. That's exactly
right. Of Transparency is one ofour core values. So everything for us
is transparent. Every meeting is onzoom because consumers they don't, I mean
not many people can really understand numbersover the phone. People are visual learners.
They want to talk it through.We want to see with their eyes

(06:15):
and want to hear with their ears, So either an in person or a
zoom meeting. But most mortgage professionalsdo everything over the phone, and that
is not in the best interest ofconsumers. So for us, transparency is
key. Showing clients here, I'mgoing to pull back the iron curtain.
Here's how this whole game of mortgagesworks. And if I'm not the right
fit at the end of the day, that's okay. Then I did my
job. I'm gonna help you getto where you need to go. And

(06:36):
that's a big difference is I'm willingto walk away from a transaction so a
consumer can get a better loan,a better product. I never want to
stand in the way of a consumergetting the right loan. So transparency is
key. But a lot of mortgagecompanies it is that it's the guy behind
the phone. He's wheeling and dealingbecause most mortgage professionals are paid on commission,

(06:56):
so they're always trying to sell youthe one you need thing about clear
path. My loan officers are allon salary. No one is trying to
sell you anything because they don't getpaid more if you move forward. If
you need five minutes, you getfive minutes. If you need two hours
of their time, you get twohours. And they could be a true
fiduciary because their compensation isn't tied totheir loan transaction, which is no one
does that. And I just cameback from a conference with Tony Robbins and

(07:18):
a mortgage conference in Michigan, sixthousand mortgage professionals. No one there had
our model, but I believe init to the core. That's best for
the consumer. Listen, trust iseverything. You're handling a lot of money
and a lot of people's livelihoods.If you don't have trust, you have
nothing. It's exactly right. Iremember the day when I had a client

(07:39):
buying a new construction home as alocal business owner, and he had put
down a thirty five thousand dollar deposit. I was literally one year into the
business and I realized through the frontof the underwriter that I made a mistake
on this transaction and that this guy'sthirty five thousand dollars deposit on his new
construction home was going to go upin smokes. I went on my back
porch. I sobbed my eyes out, thinking I just cost this guy five

(08:00):
thousand. I'm gonna go get itfrom my savings account. I'm gonna pay
him back no matter what, becauseI believe it. Always doing it's right.
I want to go to bed atnight and know that I do it's
right by every single consumer. Ithink that's the best way to live our
lives. Listen, you're a Capitolregion guy. You care about this community.
You want people to succeed. Whenthey succeed, you succeed, and
they know where to find you ifthey don't. Right that soy Ryan,

(08:22):
and for me, I got twoclients. Every transaction or realtors a client
and the homebuyers a client. Idon't win less the clients win. They
have to win. So everything wedo is about how do we help the
client win. We do a lotof things to go above and beyond.
We do a lot for veterans,and one of our big focuses on the
VA loan. VA loan is notjust a loan, it's a benefit and
less than four and a half percentof veterans are using their VA benefit In

(08:43):
the state of New York, we'reless than half of the national average of
veterans using their benefits. A bigthing we're doing is educating realtors, educating
veterans on their VA homeland benefits,so more veterans. You we believe every
veteran deserves the reward their courageous servicesearned them. So that's a big focus
we have as a company, isin powering veterans, educating them, educating
realtors, and is wanting to youknow, the community to grow when everybody

(09:05):
to succeed, Are there causes nearand dear to clear path heart that that
sort of this is what I wantto be a part of. This is
what I want to support here inthe Campitell region. Absolutely, we say
without community or just a commodity.So we want to be invested in our
community, whether that's a backpack programin Schenectady, or whether that's working with
Veterans Housing Coalition up in Boston,SPA who's helping serve you know, homeless

(09:30):
veterans or homeless female veterans who havechildren, Like they just built a first
home called the Feverli home where wheremoms who are veterans, who are homeless
can bring their kids with them.They used to have to separate from their
kids. So if it has todo with you know, homeownership, first
generation homeownership, making it accessible,we believe that, you know, generational
wealth starts with homeownership. We believethat families can build off of homeownership and

(09:52):
it's one of the life's greatest joys. But getting a mortgage is one of
life's greatest accomplishments, especially when yourfirst generations. So anything we can do
the education front, financial literacy,helping with the equality of homeownership, We're
like, sign us up, We'llget behind you, and we can put
our time towards that is some mooryfocused on. So I know what you've
done in twelve years, twelve yearsfrom now, tell me about clear Path

(10:16):
mortgage solutions. I wouldn't be andyou wouldn't be surprised if I heard that
we were the number one mortgage brokerin the state of New York, and
we'll be in multiple states at thatpoint, because I believe this need that
consumers want a guide, someone thatcan trust, who's competent, who's going
to do it's right by them.It sounds so simple, just treat others
the way you want to be treated, but it's but it's not being practiced

(10:37):
across the country. So I thinkwe could take what we're doing and really
begin to serve homeowners and homebuyers acrossthe country. That's Mike Rankin. He's
the owner and president of Clear PathMortgage Solutions. I'm Doug goudy In.
That is the CEO. You shouldknow