{"id":17230,"date":"2023-05-26T04:57:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T11:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/?p=17230"},"modified":"2024-03-27T11:43:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T18:43:37","slug":"brokerage-co-founder-triumphs-after-leaving-militant-environment-at-lender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/brokerage-co-founder-triumphs-after-leaving-militant-environment-at-lender\/","title":{"rendered":"Brokerage co-founder triumphs after leaving “militant environment” at lender"},"content":{"rendered":"
“I spoke up a little too much at meetings and it didn\u2019t work out for me”<\/strong><\/h5>\n
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Danny Iskander (pictured) was supposed to be a doctor or lawyer before being led into the mortgage industry. Today, he helps lead West Capital Lending Inc., the Irvine, California-based brokerage shop he co-founded two years ago \u2013 this after a tumultuous period at loanDepot where he felt it was \u201cmy way or the highway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pivoting from law school to mortgages<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cI come from a family of physicians,\u201d he told Mortgage Professional America during a telephone interview. \u201cBoth my parents are physicians \u2013 my dad is a physician and an attorney. It was always the path \u2013 you were either going to be a physician or attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he was prepared to go to law school before visiting with his older brother. \u201cHe got my head around this idea of being a loan officer, and he told me about all the money that was in the mortgage industry at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Find out if\u00a0being a mortgage loan officer a stressful job<\/a>\u00a0with this article.<\/p>\n

Right after graduation, he would land at Home Loan Center as a production assistant in a call center environment. before being transferred to retail loan officer some eight weeks later. \u201cAnd that\u2019s how I got started,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

From there he would go to Lending Tree, where he worked from 2004-09. By then married \u2013 to a physician no less \u2013 his wife accepted a medical residency in Ann Arbor, Mich. \u201cAnd I\u2019m here dealing with a financial crisis,\u201d he said, referring to the Great Recession then well underway. \u201cI had bought a house in California and was about $300,000 to $400,000 upside down on and had a wife moving to Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n

He opted to follow his wife off to Michigan, where he continued to excel. \u201cI decided to move to Michigan after being a California guy my whole life,\u201d he said. There, he would take a job at as a retail loan officer at Lending Tree. \u201cI ended up being on the top team,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

Once his wife ended her residency, the couple would move back to California where their families were. He would find work at Green Light, which later became Nationstar Mortgage. \u201cI ran a team for 18 months and then moved to loanDepot where I ran a specialized division \u2013 redistribution and retention, a top-producing team, for 14 months, and I got promoted to vice president of sales in direct lending.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then things took take a turn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c2018 happened, and we lost about 25% of our sales staff and our top producers,\u201d Iskander recalled. \u201cWe had three cost cuts and things really changed. loanDepot was challenged and the environment became very difficult for loan officers \u2013 the hours, the expectations. It just became a very strict, militant-type environment that I didn\u2019t really appreciate. So I spoke up a little too much in meetings, and it didn\u2019t really work out too well for me \u2013 they ended up demoting me. I believe I called it like I saw it, but that doesn\u2019t work too well at loanDepot, where it\u2019s \u2018our way or the highway.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He was given the option of running a developing region, but he thought of his growing family. \u201cWe had just had our third child, and the time requirement of that position would\u2019ve been even worse. So I debated it and decided to go to the independent side at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting over<\/strong><\/h2>\n

He got his license sponsored by E Mortgage Capital. \u201cThat was the pedestal that I needed to start working again,\u201d he recalled. It would also prove to be the launching pad to start his own business after teaming up with Eric Hines, a friend and colleague, who would create\u00a0West Capital Lending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe literally locked ourselves in an office, licensed up that company and started onboarding our agents \u2013 50 or 60 people \u2013 and from there we ramped up until the end of the year.\u201d Inside of five months, the fledgling firm would post some $2 billion in volume, making it the top firm tied to\u00a0Rocket Mortgage<\/a>, he said. The next year they would top $2 billion in volume, working with 90 different lenders as a non-delegated correspondent lender as well. \u201cThat\u2019s the wave we\u2019ve been on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Having been through the good and the bad, Iskander is now in a position to dispense advice to those just entering the field: \u201cIgnore the noise,\u201d he said in the way of a suggestion. \u201cYou might be entering a market where rates are 7%, and that\u2019s very, very difficult. It\u2019s a roller coaster ride, and you have to focus on your process and building relationships and focus on taking care of your clients. The noise can be distracting \u2013 the challenges, the market, the rates, economy \u2013 and those just entering the industry can fall prey to this mentality. You have to\u00a0 have mental toughness, grit and tenacity to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Want to make your inbox flourish with mortgage-focused news content? Get exclusive interviews, breaking news, industry events in your inbox, and always be the first to know by\u00a0subscribing to our FREE daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I spoke up a little too much at meetings and it didn\u2019t work out for me” Danny Iskander (pictured) was supposed to be a doctor or lawyer before being led into the mortgage industry. Today, he helps lead West Capital Lending Inc., the Irvine, California-based brokerage shop he co-founded two years ago \u2013 this after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17231,"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230\/revisions\/17231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcapitallending.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}