The question is, how did Weaver remain at the top even as the housing market changed so drastically, and so quickly?
To understand his methods and the reasoning behind them, you have to know their origins.
Weaver began his career in the housing industry by getting his real estate license around the same time he graduated high school at 18 years old.
His desire to be an agent was formed as a kid.
Started In Real Estate
“Real estate agents … would send postcards to my parents’ house, and when I was age 10, 11, 12, I would collect the cards,” he said. “I thought they were like celebrities.”
At 16, he worked at a deli in Pompano Beach — one of several restaurants owned by his parents, Les and Maria Weaver — where he would regularly serve lunch to a top-producing real estate agent named Mike Canaan. “He convinced me to go out and get my real estate license,” Weaver said.
He worked for Coldwell Banker for four years, and quickly learned what motivates people to buy.
“I understood at a young age that monthly payments, mortgage financing, the amount of money you need to buy — [that’s what] motivates people to buy,” he said. “I also recognized during that time that most people were unaware of just how simple it was to buy.”
Weaver said a mortgage advisor made weekly presentations at his real estate office, which soon made him realize that mortgage lending was a better fit for him. He began studying for his licenses. “It was just a natural move for me,” he said. “So when I was 21, I was no longer in real estate.”
He became a loan originator.
And Then … 2008
He spent most of his initial time in his new career originating refinance loans, he said.
“And then 2008 came,” Weaver said. “We all know the story. That actually became an opportunity for me, because we ended up transitioning to a full documentation lending environment.”
Instead of just handing mortgages to anyone with a heartbeat, which ultimately crashed the housing market, lenders now had to award loans based on fully documented income and credit histories.
“I just knew there had to be a better system,” Weaver said. “I said to myself, loan originators are not going to gather the appropriate documents from buyers and properly pre-approve them in order to buy a home, because every originator in the country was used to writing a loan for anyone that existed.”
Weaver also knew that a lack of documentation effort on the part of loan originators would frustrate real estate agents, because he had experience on both sides.
“I immediately said I want to specialize in working with real estate agents, and I’m an ‘all-in’ person,” he said. “When I go in one direction, I’m going to go that direction all the way.”
He decided to develop his own system for documenting and pre-approving borrowers. “I said to myself, I want to develop a system that’s accountable, that’s thorough, that serves the real estate agent to the highest and best.”