Broker helped her father run his business until buying him out in 2019
Often in talking to those in the mortgage industry, their career was not their first choice but a pivot after someone else suggested they might be good at the work. Shelbi Lusk (pictured) is an exception, learning the profession at her father’s side.
“I actually entered the mortgage space because my father was a loan officer when I was a little girl,” the mortgage broker told Mortgage Professional America during a telephone interview. “So I spent my weekends at the office with him and then I got into the business because of that family connection. I actually started as a loan processor for him and just worked my way up the company until I finally bought him out in 2019.”
Wanting to carve out her own identity, she renamed the company Link Mortgage after buying FirstTrust Financial from her father, Dominic Lusk, who had launched the business in 2006. “Fresh new look, right?” she said of her Kansas City, Mo.-based firm that employs five people.
Her dad has hardly faded away or anything like that, even though he’s left the mortgage industry. “My father is a serial entrepreneur,” she reported. “He’s in other endeavors at this point.”
Undeterred by economic shifts
Launching Link Mortgage as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold, she is undeterred by current market challenges exacerbated by inflation and rising rates. Instead, she simply prefers not to focus on the negative, she told MPA.
“I’ve always had the philosophy that people always have a need for housing, no matter what rates are, what the market is,” she said. “There are always opportunities for individuals to purchase homes and to reach their goal of homeownership. So even in markets such as now, we still have the capacity to help people into a home and to find creative solutions to do so.”
Needless to say, Lusk took to the industry right off the bat, she suggested. “I was somebody who was ready to dive in the moment I walked into the office,” she said. “I got a lot of hands-on experience early on, and I’ve always been someone that likes to know all there is to know. So I really spent my first few years studying guidelines, going through some more difficult files to know all the hurdles that would need to be cleared in order to help get someone into a home.”
Deriving rewards beyond those driven by profit motive
It’s widely known that being a mortgage broker is not too shabby of a living, but Lusk instead described the intangible rewards she derives from her work. “Homeownership is something that everyone strives for, and to be able to show up at a closing and to be a part of that experience and make a real difference in someone’s life is really the reason I keep doing it,” she said.
She provided a recent example of that fulfillment: “I was at a loan closing just this morning with a single mother and her four-year-old son,” she said. “With all the things she’s gone through to get to this point, to be a part of that really means a lot. We’re really making an impact on people’s lives and giving them that opportunity to own a home and invest in themselves.”
Other than her father, Lusk also credited her membership in the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) with providing consistent support and a sense of community. She contrasted that with past years when brokers were more competitive with each other – a far cry from the collegiality seen today at the association’s various events.
“Really watching AIME grow over the course of the last few years has really been a big inspiration for me,” she said. “When I first started in this industry, mortgage brokers weren’t always friendly toward one another; we were all competitors. AIME has really brought independent mortgage experts together. Because of that, we’ve been able to achieve so much more as far as different product options for the broker’s side, as far as communication across the board, sponsorships, support from our wholesale partners. It’s created a community that did not exist in the space previously.”
She’s experienced the esprit de corps firsthand: “AIME has an entire team of individuals that are there to assist you if you need assistance with a file or are having difficulty getting something done,” Lusk said. “They’re there to support you with recommendations for different software or things you might need in your business. They’re great in connecting you with other like-minded mortgage brokers so we can collab and discuss best practices.”
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