The NY Mortgage Market With Brian Scott Cohen of Guaranteed Rate Affinity Mortgage

Posted by Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty on Friday, November 18th, 2022 at 1:33pm

 

Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty’s new mortgage partner Brian Scott Cohen of Guaranteed Rate Affinity Mortgage helps buyers find the right mortgage product Upstate and in New York City. He sat down with CEO Guy Barretta last week to discuss rates, the difference between the mortgage markets in New York City and Upstate. and his Upstate roots.

 


 

Guy: So, Brian, tell me a little bit about yourself and your history in the mortgage business – this will be shared on Village Green’s website and maybe in some newsletters we send clients who are interested in what’s happening with mortgages.

 

Brian: Absolutely! I'm from New York, I grew up in Westchester County, I have three kids, a dog and a wife. We currently live in the West Village and spend some of our weekends at my family's home Upstate. I've been in residential lending for just about 19 years now. I serve (we do a lot of financing) the New York City market, Westchester, Dutchess County, Orange County, UIster County, Greenwich, Connecticut, the Hamptons – we’re licensed in 9 states.

 

Guy: What were you doing before?

 

Brian: Before mortgage? Oh, good question! So I got into mortgages as my second job out of college. I graduated from SUNY Oneonta in 2002 (a very exciting school near Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame) and started working at a law firm. I was basically a paralegal. I was punching holes in things, running errands, I was knocking on people's doors - giving them subpoenas.

 

Guy: You were the subpoena guy?!!

 

Brian: *laughing* I was THE guy, I was THAT guy for a good six months. And it was a nine-to-five job and I just felt like I had no growth when I was there and I wanted to do something else, but I wasn't sure what that something was. I had a friend that I went to college with, Scott, who graduated before I did who started a mortgage business up in Dutchess County; he lived in Hopewell Junction and they opened a company that was called Ameriquest Mortgage at the time he worked with them. And I was living in Manhattan at the same time. He called me and said, "I'm coming down to the city and we're gonna go out and I'm taking a limo.” And I was like...a limo?!! THIS guy? He was not the guy you thought was going to be in a limo after college. I was making $26,000 a year at the law firm and he was probably making 50,000 at the time. I thought he was the richest person in the world and I needed to understand how he was doing it - what mortgage was. I was so young. I was like, “What is a mortgage? Is it illegal?” How was he doing this? So I learned. They opened an Ameriquest office in Brooklyn, Scott got me an interview and even though I knew nothing about mortgages at the time, the rest is history. 19 years later, mortgages are what I know about.

 

Guy: Is your friend still in mortgages?

 

Brian: No, he passed away. He was a great guy. He got me started in the business. It’s such a different business now than it was 19 years ago. Those kinds of companies don't really exist anymore. So many went down in the subprime crash. I was at Ameriquest for two years and then in 2006 I transitioned to Wells Fargo where I was for 15 years.

 

Guy: So many of us don't know what we're going to do when we leave college and then somehow we end up somewhere we're supposed to be.

So, everyone's talking about the current mortgage rates, and so many of our clients at Coldwell Banker Village Green are connected to both Upstate and New York City, so it’s nice to be able to talk mortgages with you because you work in both areas. How is the change in rates affecting the mortgage market in your experience?

 

Brian: Rate is ALWAYS a hot topic. Interest rates have doubled for the first time in my 19 years doing this - in such a short amount of time. We've seen a big decline in overall demand for people getting pre-approved, for people refinancing; refinancing is down 88% year-over-year which is a very big decline. There’s definitely still activity in the market though. There's a lot more cash in the market than we've ever seen. We're also seeing a light at the end of the tunnel; we think that rates are going to become more stable again and return to what we all think of as more "normal" levels. I would say we're probably six to nine months out from that.

 

Guy: Are the changes affecting the city market any differently than you're seeing in the Upstate market?

 

Brian: Yeah, so while the change in rates has had real national impact there are also geographic pockets that are less impacted. New York City is one of those pockets - the number of transactions is down, but there's always strong demand in the city because there's only one New York City. People from all over the place want to buy New York City real estate including international buyers and people buying second homes. Upstate I would say you're seeing less demand on second homes than there has been. I think part of the reason for that is mortgage costs have gone up on second homes. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sent an update to the mortgage world earlier this year that they're increasing their adjusters for people buying second homes. So, prior to that announcement primary rates (first home) and secondary rates (additional homes) for purchasing were very similar. Now there's a pretty good-size spread, half a point or more, between primary and second homes, which I think has put a small dent in demand Upstate.

 

Guy: Do you think consumers know about the rate difference between primary and secondary home loans?

 

Brian: No, I think they're not learning about it until they inquire - you're not seeing it out there in the news. The adjustment is on conforming loans (loans that are backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). If you go to a big bank website or any lender's website, they're posting primary rate mortgages only. You're not seeing the investment home or second home rates. So buyers are doing their math and saying, "Oh, I'm going to get this rate because I saw it online." Well that rate doesn't always apply. Hopefully when buyers discuss pre-approval they've got a good loan officer that's explaining all of this to them the first time they speak.

 

Guy: So the refinance market has dropped off. Where do you think the rates need to be to see the refinance market pick back up again?

 

Brian: That’s a great question. So refinancing is, again, down 88% year-over-year. It used to be 30 to 50% of my business, and right now it's 0% of my business. I think to see another mini-refinance boom the rates would have to return to the upper fours, in the 4.75 range. That would create an incentive for some buyers who bought in the last 12 months to refinance. I don't know if we're ever going to see the type of big refinance boom that we saw during the height of the pandemic when rates were in the 2's again.

 

Guy: You're tremendously successful at what you do and you could work anywhere for any company. So what attracted you to Guaranteed Rate Affinity?

 

Brian: The biggest attraction for me to Guaranteed Rate Affinity was product availability and diversity. We have over 150 loan programs, which is a lot - we have a lot of different partners. I came from a big bank - an amazing bank, a great company, and I was there for 15 years and it was awesome. But, while I was there I had one option, I had one product, if he bank said no to a buyer, I was stuck. Coming to Guaranteed Rate Affinity allowed me to say, "yes," more times. I tell people all the time - I like to say yes. Here we have the opportunity to help more clients with different products, different down payments. And we're really good at what we do – we’re really efficient. We have great technology that helps us close really quickly. And I really believe that the company cares about not just making a loan, but about the individual buying the home. And that was really important to me.

 

Guy: Understood. A totally unrelated question... what's the last good book that you read?

 

Brian: That's a good one. So yeah, the last book I read... I do listen to books sometimes when I go to the gym and on long drives, but the last book I read was actually about mortgages - each state has laws and regulations for mortgages - I read a book on compliance - it wasn't terrible.

 


 

Equal Housing Lender. NMLS 410025, Guaranteed Rate Affinity, LLC: NMLS #1598647. For licensing information visit nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Operating in the state of New York as GR Affinity, LLC in lieu of the legal name Guaranteed Rate Affinity, L LC share common ownership and because of this relationship the brokerage may receive a financial or other benefit. You are not required to use Guaranteed Rate Affinity, LLC as a condition of purchase or sale of any real estate.

 


 

Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty

Leave A Comment

Format example: yourwebsitename.com