A family brokerage that started in a spare room in the North Valley
Rafael started originating on his own in 2011. Elena joined in 2015 after eleven years reading files from the underwriting side. The rule from day one has not changed: nobody gets a rate quote before somebody has read their paystubs.
- Founded
- 2011
- Panel lenders
- 24 wholesale
- Rating
- 4.9 from 312 reviews
- Languages
- English and Spanish
Fifteen years, one rule
- 2011
A spare room in the North Valley
Rafael started originating on his own after the lender he worked for closed its Albuquerque branch. Three lender relationships, one laptop, and a rule that nobody gets a rate quote before somebody has read their paystubs.
- 2015
Elena leaves underwriting
After eleven years reading files for a regional lender, Elena joined and turned the operation into a brokerage. The panel went from three lenders to eleven in eighteen months.
- 2018
The Saturday workshops start
A library community room, forty chairs and no sales pitch. We have run them in English and Spanish every month since, and they are still free.
- 2021
Menaul Boulevard office
A real office with a real conference table, because some conversations about money should not happen over a video call.
- 2026
Twenty-four lenders on the panel
Six of them serve one narrow purpose each. That is the point of a panel: you do not need every lender to be good at everything.
How we actually work
Six commitments. Every one of them is something a client can hold us to.
We are brokers, and we say so
We do not lend our own money and we do not make the credit decision. Our job is to know which lender says yes to your file and what that yes costs.
Nobody gets a rate before we read the file
A quote based on stated income is a guess. We read paystubs, returns and statements first, which is why our pre-approvals survive underwriting.
Written comparisons, not verbal ones
Three to five lenders, same scenario, same morning, on one page. If a builder's lender beats us, that goes on the page too.
Status every Tuesday and Friday
Whether or not anything changed. Silence during a mortgage is the thing clients hate most, and it is entirely avoidable.
Se habla español, genuinely
Four of us work in Spanish, disclosures are walked through in Spanish, and the Saturday workshop runs in Spanish every other month.
We will tell you to wait
Sometimes the right advice is ninety days of credit work and a larger deposit. We would rather close you later than badly.
The people who will actually answer
Four licensed originators and two support staff. You get one originator from first call to closing, not a handoff to a processing center.
Elena Garza
Broker and owner
Elena spent eleven years underwriting for a regional lender before opening the brokerage, which is why her first question is always what the file looks like from the other side of the desk. She handles the complicated income cases personally.
Self-employed and non-QM files
Rafael Garza
Co-founder and senior loan originator
Rafael ran the family's first office out of a spare room in the North Valley in 2011. He teaches the Saturday workshops, sits on the Kirtland family support calendar, and knows the VA entitlement rules better than most VA underwriters.
VA, FHA and first-time buyers
Nadia Okonkwo
Loan originator
Nadia came from private client banking in Denver and handles the files where reserves and appraisal strategy decide the outcome. She is the person who tells you which jumbo investor orders two appraisals and at what loan amount.
Jumbo, Santa Fe and second homes
Trent Begay
Loan originator
Trent grew up in Valencia County and has closed more USDA files than anyone else on the team. He is the reason we check the eligibility map by address in the first conversation rather than the fourth.
USDA, rural and East Mountains
Marisol Duran
Processing manager
Marisol runs the condition list and the appraisal calendar. If you get a Tuesday or Friday status note from this office, she wrote it, and she wrote it whether or not anything changed that week.
Conditions, appraisals and closing coordination
Chris Hollenbeck
Client coordinator
Chris is the first person most clients speak to. He builds the document checklist that matches your employment type and chases the pieces so an originator does not have to.
Documents, the portal and workshop bookings
Licensing and credentials
All identifiers on this website are placeholders. A real brokerage would show its live NMLS numbers here and link to the NMLS Consumer Access register.
- Independent brokerage
- Not a lender, not a bank
- Wholesale relationships
- 24 lenders on panel
- Licensing
- NMLS #0000000 (placeholder)
- Fair housing
- Equal Housing Opportunity
- Language
- Se habla español
- Association
- AAMB member (demo)
- State license
- New Mexico Mortgage Loan Company License #00000 (placeholder)
- Company NMLS
- NMLS #0000000 (placeholder)
About working with a brokerage
Not covered here? Call (505) 555-0135 or send us a note. Se habla español.
A bank can only offer you its own products and measure you against its own guidelines. We are an independent brokerage with 24 wholesale lender relationships, so the same file can be measured against 24 sets of guidelines. When one lender's overlay blocks your file, we move it rather than decline you.
Either the lender pays us out of the pricing on your loan, or you pay us directly at closing. Which arrangement applies is disclosed in dollars on your Loan Estimate, and federal rules prevent us from taking both on the same loan. We will tell you which structure we are using before you choose a lender.
No. Mortgage inquiries inside a shopping window are treated as one inquiry by the scoring models. We also use a single credit pull for every panel quote, so you are not pulled repeatedly.
Yes, and we do it regularly with builder preferred lenders in Rio Rancho. We put their estimate next to ours over a four-year hold and let the totals speak.