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December 23, 2024 • 14 mins

What if a simple conversation with a relative could reshape your entire career path? Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as we chat with Delaney Besecker, a dynamic mortgage lender and loan officer with CrossCountry in the Charlotte metro area. Delaney takes us on her journey from the world of corporate banking, where she catered to high-net-worth clients, to finding her passion in mortgage lending. She shares how her desire for deeper, personal connections fueled her transition and how a pivotal chat led her to realize her true calling. Discover why Delaney finds immense joy in guiding her clients through the home-buying process, one of the most monumental steps in life.

Delaney also opens up about her decision to join CrossCountry, a leading national retail lender known for its extensive product range. With licenses stretching from Virginia to Georgia, she emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships, particularly with her North Carolina clients. We touch on the misconceptions often faced by homebuyers regarding realtors and lenders, offering valuable insights and advice. Whether you're looking to understand the intricacies of the mortgage industry or seeking tips for your home-buying journey, this episode promises to broaden your perspective and equip you with practical knowledge.


CrossCountry Mortgage
Delaney Besecker
19620 W Catawba Ave, Suite 202 & 210
Cornelius, NC 28031
Mobile (404) 310-5055
Tel (704) 365-7643
Delaney.Besecker@ccm.com
crosscountrymortgage.com

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Regina League.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, hello everybody and welcome to today's Good
Neighbor Podcast broadcastinghere out of South Charlotte, and
I'm super excited today to talkto a friend, a gal that I've
known now for a few years andI've been trying to get her on
the show.
So I'm welcoming DelaneyBesecker.
She is a mortgage lender, loanofficer with CrossC ountry here

(00:33):
in the Charlotte metro area.
Welcome, delaney.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Thanks, regina.
It's great to see you hear yourvoice.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I wish our audience could have the visual, but they
don't no-transcript has been alittle atypical of most loan

(01:10):
officers, I think.
So I started in corporatebanking, which is a totally
different field, totallydifferent clientele base.
We were working with largecompanies.
We did some work withindividuals with a net worth of
at least $10 million or more, sovery different from just
general residential real estatewhere you have people of all

(01:32):
walks of life.
So I really enjoyed the clientservice side of what I was doing
in corporate banking and Idecided during COVID that I
didn't like working from homeBanking really.
Just, I don't even know ifthey're back full time yet or

(01:54):
not, I think that they're stilldoing kind of like a hybrid
schedule, but I wanted somethingwhere I could talk to people
and help people and be out infront of people every day, and
so that's how I found mortgagelending.
I was kind of thinking aboutwhat I might want to do that
would allow me that type ofcontact with people and I
thought about real estate first.
I really liked real estate.
I had just purchased my firsthouse and I took the real estate

(02:17):
agency class and I was talkingto a relative of mine who said
you know, delaney, if you thinkabout real estate and you like
real estate with your background.
Have you ever consideredmortgage lending?
And this light bulb went offand I was like, oh my gosh, I'd
never thought of that andimmediately I dropped all the
real estate stuff and just wentstraight into mortgage lending

(02:39):
and it's been great.
I really love what I do.
I love helping people.
I love being part of one of themost enjoyable and exciting
processes of anyone's life,which is buying a house.
It's a big milestone and it'sreally great to be a part of
that every day.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
So I've always wondered you know, because
there's so many brands out there, why did you choose Cross
Country?

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Great question.
You know I really enjoy CrossCountry's presence.
I had worked at a couple otherinstitutions prior to moving
over to Cross Country and it wasa name that I kept running into
and ultimately Cross Country isthe largest national retail
lender in the country.
So we have a very large productbase.

(03:26):
For the most part, if it exists, we have it, and that allows me
to offer the largest suite ofproducts to my clientele, if
possible.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
So where are you licensed to actually work?

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I'm licensed Virginia through Georgia, so Virginia,
north and South Carolina andGeorgia.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Wow, and are you primarily?
You know what's your sweet spotfor working.
What kind of clients do youtypically work with?

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah, most of my clientele is in North Carolina.
I think this is a relationshipbased business.
You know, to do it the rightway, you have to be able to meet
with your people and get toknow them and develop a
relationship withbased business.
To do it the right way, youhave to be able to meet with
your people and get to know themand develop a relationship with
your clients.
And so it's more difficult forme to do business in Georgia and
Virginia.
But I retain those licensesbecause I used to live in each

(04:17):
of those states so I have familyand friends there.
But in general, you know, Ireally can't boil down my type
of clientele to any cohort ofperson or income bracket.
It really just comes down tolocation and because I'm in
Charlotte I'm in Cornelius nowbut local to Charlotte I do a
lot of business in NorthCarolina and then down into

(04:39):
North South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
North South Carolina, would you say.
It's a misconception that whenpeople are buying a home, they
assume that the realtor steersthem towards the lender.
I mean, what is the?

Speaker 3 (04:53):
process.
I think it depends on the realestate agent that you work with.
Some real estate agents, I wouldsay the more experienced real
estate agents are going to havea referral for you, a direct
referral, where they will say Itrust this person, you should
talk to this lender, I know thatthey'll do a good job for you.

(05:13):
There are some agents that Iknow that take the approach of
just handing a few names andsaying call these people, see
who you like, who you want towork with.
I think that that boils down toa preference of how they run
their book of business and alsogeneral experience in the
lending field.
Because even if you don't workin the lending field as a real

(05:34):
estate agent, you haveexperience with lenders.
You have different clients whobring different lenders to you.
You have an experience withthat lender and then ultimately
you decide whether or not youwould refer more of your client
base to that individual.
So it depends on how an agentdecides to run their business.
I think that those you know, ifyou work with someone who is an

(05:57):
experienced agent, real estateagent, they're going to have at
least a name to share with you.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
What do you wish people listening knew about you?
Because you know it is.
That's a difficult decision andI guess it probably has sprung
on you.
Even though you know it'scoming, you think okay, and you
may make a quick decision.
So how, as a consumer, whatshould we look for?

Speaker 3 (06:22):
And that's a great question.
That's a really great questionand I think that most people,
especially in the elevated rateenvironment that we are in, the
first thing they look for islowest interest rate, and I
would love for the public toknow that that that can
oftentimes be a big mistake, andI know that everybody has kind

(06:45):
of heard of the saying you getwhat you pay for Institutions
generally that have rock bottominterest rates.
There's a reason that theinterest rates are so low and
the reason that they will tellyou is that they keep low
overhead, they don't have thesefancy offices and they don't
have a lot of expenses to cover.

(07:06):
But the reality of thesituation is they don't have
high overhead but the costcutting spills over from just
the nice to have office spaceand better technology into the
support systems that thosecompanies hire.

(07:26):
So you will have maybe they'renot hiring the most experienced
underwriters, or maybe they'renot hiring the most experienced
processing team, and these arepeople that are imperative to
the success of your mortgageapplication that you don't talk
to, but they're a huge part ofgetting to the closing table.
So it's dangerous sometimes tosearch around for the absolute

(07:51):
lowest interest rate.
You might run into a situationwhere you just don't have the
best team behind you to supportthe biggest purchase of your
life, which is buying a house,and the average purchase price
in Charlotte, where I do most ofmy business, I think made it up
to $430,000 or $420,000.
So you're spending quite a bitof money.

(08:11):
You want to be able to trustthe people who are going to take
you from the contract to theclosing table, and that includes
your real estate agent.
It includes your lender.
Your lender is a huge part ofit.
You really want to make surethat your lender is equipped
with the right people, the rightteam to support them and the
right product suite to make surethat they're offering you the

(08:34):
best product to get you to theclosing table in the most
effective, efficient andbeneficial way possible.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
So that process.
What makes you stand out?
Then?
The feedback.
I've read your reviews.
They're amazing.
So brag about yourself for alittle bit and share what sets
you apart.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Absolutely.
My process is very, verydifferent from most lenders and
it stems from a poor lendingexperience that I had buying my
first house my first house.
I got a call from my lender,who was very helpful, and then
she called me like two daysbefore closing and was like oh,
today's my last day, I'm notgoing to be at your closing, and

(09:17):
that was interesting.
And then also my real estateagent.
I've met my real estate agentat the closing table and he was
like a half an hour late, soeverything was pretty much done
at that point.
So it's a funny story and foranybody who wants to hear more
about how that all happened, I'dbe happy to share it.
But at the time I was not inmortgage lending.
So when I got into mortgagelending, I thought about the

(09:39):
experience that I had and theways that I would have changed
it to make it better, or what Ireally wanted as a consumer on
the consumer side, and I thoughtabout I really wish people
would have been more transparentwith me about my options and
the different interest ratesthat were available and the
different programs that wereavailable, because ultimately,

(10:02):
what I saw when I went intomortgage lending was there is no
one size fits all mortgageproduct and when you get on the
phone and you talk to a lenderand the lender says your rate is
X, that lender has chosen aninterest rate for you.
In reality, there's tons ofinterest rates that apply.
You can pick, and all of thoseinterest rates affect your

(10:22):
closing costs, affect how muchmoney you have to bring to the
table.
Sometimes there's a lot ofdifferent ways to structure a
mortgage for every individual,so my process is based on
helping the client find the bestor the optimal mortgage
structure for them.
There's a lot of mortgagestrategy that I do, a lot of

(10:44):
face-to-face interaction with myclients, whether it's in person
, truly in person, or overMicrosoft Teams, and when I do
that, I share the loan systemwith my client and we look at
how am I getting to your finalmonthly payment that we're
looking at?
How am I arriving at the cashto close calculation, what do
those numbers even mean?
What's in your monthly payment?

(11:05):
Here are all the programs thatare available to you and all the
interest rates that areavailable under these programs.
We're going to talk about theconcept of discount points, how
they work for and against you,how you can utilize them to
change your monthly payment orhow you can leverage seller
credits to cover some of thesecosts.
It's a whole overview ofmortgage strategy.

(11:26):
It becomes a little bit complex, especially for someone who
doesn't like numbers, and that'swhy I request the in-person
meeting to go over those details, because I think that it's
easier to retain when you cansee it and you can be with the
person that's explaining it toyou.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
That's amazing.
You just kind of I had a lightbulb moment because you know,
like you said earlier, not manyof us do this several times in
our lifetime.
So there is no warm up, there'sno practice, you know, you just
get out there and do it.
But it sounds to me likefinding the right personality,
someone you trust who will dothe hard work for you.
I can see that.

(12:03):
I was in your office one timeand saw you writing notes.
I was in your office one timeand saw you writing notes.
So tell our audience theprocess and how you carry on
with your customers after theclosing.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Oh, it was probably thank you.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Notes that you saw.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
So you know, after all of these in-person meetings
that I have with my clients, andI attend their closing and it
just we become friends and therelationship doesn't stop there.
I also call to make sure thatmy clients know where the first
payment is going.
And you know, make sure they'vegot all that set up, because
you're in the middle of a move,things get lost, you just it

(12:42):
slips your mind and it'scomplicated.
So I do, I keep in touch withmy clients.
I just.
I think that gratitude is areally important thing in life
in general and not enough of itis shown in business.
I think that mortgage lendingas an industry has become very
transactional and it's sounfortunate because, like I said

(13:04):
at the very beginning of this,you are a part of the biggest
purchase of someone's life andso to just say thanks for the
paycheck and I never call again,I think is a real shame.
So I do, I keep in touch withmy clients, I do.
I like to write a lot of thankyou cards for just miscellaneous
things.
I like to write birthday cards,I like to write cards just to

(13:33):
keep in touch because it's niceto receive something other than
a

Speaker 2 (13:35):
bill from your mortgage lender, especially when
it's probably a big bill.
Yeah, true, I know somethingabout your personal life.
I don't know if you're willingto share some recent big news.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Oh, my marriage.
Yeah, I got married onSeptember 14th.
It was a great day.
We had an outdoor wedding.
I was a little nervous aboutthat because every other outdoor
wedding I've been to it eitherrained or was super cold.
So we had perfect weather andthe sun was out.
It was just an absolute,absolutely beautiful day.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Well, congratulations , delaney.
You're such a wonderful personto know.
Your professionalism.
Your work ethic is unmatched,so I appreciate you being on our
show today and I can't wait tosee you next time, for lunch
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Thank you, regina.
I really appreciate being here.
Absolutely, I'll talk to youvery soon.
Talk soon.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor
Podcast.
Appreciate being here,absolutely.
I'll talk to you very soon.
Talk soon.
Thank you for listening to theGood Neighbor Podcast.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses to be featured on
the show, go toGNPSouthCharlotte.
com.
That's GNPSouthCharlotte.
com, or call 980-351-5719.
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