The Biggest Homebuying Mistakes (According to That Mortgage Guy)
Scott Betley: ...are you funny? Are you off the wall? Are you silly? Do you like to tell stories? Like, what are your strengths? Because you need to lean into that when it comes to the content and pour that, like, your authentic self into it. It has to be that way.
Glennda Baker: And I think that that's really the critical piece of content creation is: does the... does the audience, does the person watching it feel like, "Oh, wait a minute, he's talking to me"?
Scott Betley: ...does your wife, is she like, "Oh, my gosh, my husband is TikTok famous"? We've literally driven through like Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru and I pull up to pay for our coffee and we get to the window and the cashier's like, "The person in front of you told me to tell you, tell that mortgage guy to have a great day," and they paid for my coffee. And I'm like, like what? Like, this is crazy.
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Glennda Baker: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Glennda Baker, I'm a real estate agent in Atlanta, Georgia, and today I am joined by the one and only That Mortgage Guy, Scott Betley. Scott, I am so excited to have you here. We met, oh my stars and stripes, maybe I feel like it's been four or five years ago. We were both relatively new on TikTok and we were at a meeting in Dallas, and I hadn't met you before, I had been following you. And I mean, how's it been going for the last few years?
Scott Betley: It's been going great. The brand has led me in so many directions, business is good, things are good. How about you?
Glennda Baker: Well, you know, things are great, but I... I got to tell you, I remember when we were there, you know, you were the quiet observer. You were in a room with a bunch of very talkative real estate agents, if my memory serves me correctly. You might have been seated just to the left of the most talkative one in the room. And... and I really learned a lot about you, because you had a form, and like, it just said, "Click here to work with me," correct?
Scott Betley: Yeah, it was really basic. You guys had all these funnels and link trees, and I'm like, yeah, I got this little link.
Glennda Baker: You guys are like, "What?" Yeah, I think it was a Google Link, actually, wasn't it?
Scott Betley: Well, it was a landing page.
Glennda Baker: A landing page, that's right. A simple form.
Scott Betley: Yeah, yeah. A simple form thing.
Glennda Baker: And so here we all are talking about this strategy and this funnel and this link tree and this is what you got to do, and somebody turned around and said, "So, you know, how many leads are you getting?" And you're like, "A zillion." And I was like, "What?" And you were like, "And how are you getting all those leads? How many funnels and how many paper clicks?" And you were like, "Yeah, there's a link in my bio that says 'Work with me,'" and it's like, holy cow, I couldn't believe it. But you really started the mortgage education, in my opinion, on social media. You really were one of the very first people who talked very direct and very succinct to consumers giving mortgage age advice. So how did you get started and where's it taken you? I remember you had gotten a big offer when we were there and you had said, "Glennda, somebody offered me whatever, and you know, I'm just not exactly sure what to do." So I want to catch up. How's it going?
Scott Betley: It's going really well. Yeah, over the last like three or four years, the brand has kind of taken me more toward leadership roles and building companies and divisions and teams. And now I'm building my own team separately and kind of taking the blueprint and giving it to other loan officers on how to leverage social media, both with live streaming and curating content to get business. Right now, the lower-hanging fruit is live streaming, and the guys that I'm coaching, within 30 to 60 days, they're getting leads every single day from TikTok Live. It's... it's crazy. So it's going really well, no complaints.
GlenndaBaker: I love that. Now, do you... how many TikTok lives do you do a week?
Scott Betley: I personally... I was doing about one a day for an hour a day. Over the course of the last month, I had to dial back because I had over like a thousand leads over the last 30 days and my head was spinning. And I had to bring in more teammates, and I'm bringing in more loan officers right now to kind of help with the lead flow. But it gets overwhelming, so I actually had to pull back. Over the last three weeks, I haven't gone live a single time because the lead flow has been so much that I can't handle it all, so...
Glennda Baker: Wow. And you go live for like an hour?
Scott Betley: Yeah, I'll go live for an hour. And the last time I went live, I had over a thousand concurrent viewers in there. Giuliano Mazzarelli jumped in there, we had like some really big names that were jumping in live. And for whatever reason, TikTok right now is really pushing live. You look overseas and what's going on with like platforms outside of the US, they're very much focused on live, and I think that's going to be the next wave of content in the world of AI and, you know, scripted fake content. Like, being able to have someone real and tangible in front of you that you can touch and ask questions, you know, is strong, and I think that's where it's going.
Glennda Baker: Is your live content on TikTok to consumers? Is it to other loan officers? Is it to real estate agents? What is it?
Scott Betley: Yeah, it's specifically for consumers. So when I go on there, we're doing like budget talks, we're doing home buying Q&As, you know, all sorts of stuff. One of the hottest things that I do is focusing on like debt-to-income ratios and what your budget would be on a home, where people come in and they comment their household income, their current debt load, their credit score, and then I unpack their budget and like what that would look like for them. And that... that's a really hot one, and it translates to leads too, because people don't understand like what it takes, you know, what's going to put you in a position where you're house-poor or, you know, a comfortable level, and kind of unpacking that for them is super helpful.
Glennda Baker: That's awesome. And so, you know, it's funny, because there is a guy here in Atlanta, and he's an attorney, and he takes a little sign that says "Ask the Attorney," and I saw that, and he puts it on the BeltLine, and he stands there in his shorts and his t-shirt because he's walking on the BeltLine, and he stands there and he... you just come up and you ask any question that you want. And you know what, I think you make such an amazing point, is that unless you are live, people think that it's AI-generated content.
Scott Betley: It's true.
Glennda Baker: ...or some scripted version of yourself that isn't you, you know? And they want the real, raw, authentic self. You know, so that's... that's definitely where I think it's going. What are you most excited about in social media? I mean, besides TikTok live, like... like where... I mean, how has your business... let's first start with: how has your business grown? Like, you said that you were in more leadership, because when I met you, you were that mortgage guy. You were just the mortgage guy, and you were pretty crazy at that point, just doing mortgages, right?
Scott Betley: Yeah, it... it really transformed my life and my business and my financial status for my family. You know, I was in the mortgage industry, I got in when I was like 22, and it wasn't until 2019 when socials really blew up, and for the better part of, you know, almost 10 years in the beginning portion of my career, I really struggled. Like, as a young 20-year-old going out to real estate agencies trying to build relationships and pound pavement with literature and donuts, like it was really difficult. And then TikTok came along, and in 2019 my business went from 7 to 10 million a year in purchase volume to 50 to 75 million a year in volume to upwards of over 100 million a year, you know, with just the business that I refer out as well. So it really changed the course of where I was, and... yeah, it's... it's the biggest impact.
Glennda Baker: And you know, were you always like good at social media?
Scott Betley: I was... I wouldn't say I was always good. I had another business that I ran where I was really exposed to like how to build a brand locally here in Maryland. It was a magazine that I built, and I learned like firsthand running that business, starting that business-that was the first business I ever ran on my own and like created from scratch-and that two-year period like really helped me understand what it took to build a brand and like providing value and education. And so that was like what dovetailed into That Mortgage Guy. When that business fell apart in 2018, I turned around and created That Mortgage Guy, got back into mortgages full-time, because I was kind of doing that part-time and mortgages on the side while I was building that business. And that was how it all... it all started. It was all because of Gary Vee, too. You know, Gary Vaynerchuk was ranting about the organic reach on TikTok on his podcast in 2019. I jumped on in like December of 2019 and had like my 20th video that went viral, and it was like, "Oh, my god, this is crazy." So that was how it all started.
Glennda Baker: I love it. And so do you do a lot of trending videos, or you just stick to value and education?
Scott Betley: In the beginning, I hung my hat on like hyper short-form content, kind of like what you saw three, four, five years ago. It was a lot of the trends, trending sounds, like skits. Over the course of the last two to three years, I almost had to reinvent myself within the brand to do more talking head content, green screen videos, green screen reaction videos, you know, talking skits as opposed to like doing a skit to a sound. And so it's just like it speaks to the evolution of socials and how it's continuing to change, you know, with just the evolution of styles of content and effects and all the things. But... but yeah, I had to reinvent myself, because I was like so focused on short-form for so long, and I'm like, "Oh, my god, I need to pivot here, because this is not working as well as it used to."
Glennda Baker: Yeah. And... and I would... I would agree with you. My... my engagement on TikTok has changed significantly, because... TikTok has really become a... a marketplace. I mean, I can't tell you how many tubes of lipstick that I have bought because somebody was doing a video on lipstick. So... and it really has become like this... social media, this Amazon social media thing. So I... I really have... kind of struggled myself to... to get the engagement that I once had, because it has changed so much.
Scott Betley: It has, yeah. And it feels like Instagram and Facebook and YouTube are pushing the videos more than what we used to see, and like the videos that I'm creating on TikTok that get 30,000 to 100,000 views now are getting like millions of views on the other platforms. And the organic reach just wasn't what it used to be. So anyone who's watching, you guys got to get on it, like this organic reach is only going to be here for so long. You've got to get in and take advantage of it ASAP.
Glennda Baker: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So... you're building out your team, you're working on your social media, do you have like a staff that helps you? How do you record all the stuff? Do you edit all the stuff? Like, what... what does your back end look like, I guess?
Scott Betley: Yeah, in terms of content, it's all me. Um, I also run like a coaching community around content, a live coaching ecosystem with a bunch of other creators that are practitioners in the trenches, because you know as well as I do, it's not a one-size-fits-all. There's like so many different ways to go about it, and there's not a right or wrong way, but understanding these different strategies and how different people do it is important. But yeah, it's all me. I... I do all of it. I more so have a team on the back end that's helping me manage the transactions and like referrals that are going out and the transactional flow. But on the content side and the branding side, it's all me.
Glennda Baker: And you love it that much, or you're that much of a control freak?
Scott Betley: I'm that much of a control freak, yeah, basically. Yeah.
Glennda Baker: And what would... I mean, what would you say to other lenders or real estate agents that... you know, what... what is the secret sauce of social media?
Scott Betley: There are so many parts to it. I think at the end of the day, being your authentic self is an important piece, but providing education and value and entertainment all packaged together is really the recipe. That's kind of what I've tried to focus on. But then also showcasing like who you are and your authentic self. You do an incredible job with this with storytelling, and I know, I think you told me your grandfather or somebody in your family used to tell you stories when you were younger, and that shines through in your content as like a passion and something that you focus on. And so that's part of like the discussion that I go through with my teammates, is like, are you funny? Are you off the wall? Are you silly? Do you like to tell stories? Like, what are your strengths? Because you need to lean into that when it comes to the content and pour that like your authentic self into it. It has to be that way.
Glennda Baker: Yeah, I love watching your stuff because when you talk, especially when you talk about education and mortgage information, it's number one, it's not boring, but number two, I actually really feel like I can take what you're saying and I can apply it to myself. Oh, I... I can do that, like, oh, I learn, okay, that's what he's saying to do. Okay, I can... I can see that. I can see how I could do that. And I think that that's really the critical piece of... of content creation, is does the... does the audience, does the person watching it feel like, "Oh, wait a minute, he's talking to me"?
Scott Betley: Yeah, 100%. Well, I'm just dumbing it down in layman's terms. Like, I feel like this is all something we should be taught in school and we're not. And the reality is, like our niche, the American dream, what we serve, like everybody wants to achieve the American dream at some point. So that's like what I've tried to focus on, is the fact that like everybody wants this at some point and they need to understand the different aspects of it. And I just try to dumb it down in a way that they can understand it.
Glennda Baker: And have you ever gotten backlash? Have you... do you have haters?
Scott Betley: I... I've had people that get a little nasty with some of the posts that I put out where I'm like more opinionated in one way or another, but not necessarily haters, just like, you know, keyboard warriors in the comments, I would say. I'm sure you see that too.
Glennda Baker: So, yeah. I heard something yesterday or maybe the day before that those are called "thumb thugs."
Scott Betley: I haven't heard that one, I like that one.
Glennda Baker: Well, you know, I'm in Atlanta, so we've all... we've always got our own little vernacular here where we... where we call people stuff. And... and somebody said that, because I was talking about some backlash I had had a couple of years ago from some real estate agents, and then just recently I had posted a video about active under contract, and you know, it was really interesting, the powers that be were not happy with me at all. So I thought that was really interesting. And it's so... people always say to me like, "Does Zillow hate you? Like, do they call you and tell you how much they hate you? Do they send you like hate mail?" And I'm like, "Actually, they don't." But I will say this: I did Google my name, and typically, I mean, everything comes up, and typically Zillow comes up close to the top, and I did notice that Zillow didn't come up. So I wonder if they've throttled the search on Glennda, if they didn't...
Scott Betley: Oh, my gosh, they blacklisted you! I'm going to have to go back and check into that just a little bit more.
Glennda Baker: So... so what's next for you? Where are you going? What are you doing? What... what is the next era?
Scott Betley: Yeah, I mean, my goal right now, I really am focused on building a big team. I want to do a billion a year in loan volume with my team, and that's like my overall goal. And building a team of 100 to 200 loan officers nationwide and being able to go out and leverage the leads that I get, and a lot of the other big creators and influencers that I'm bringing onto my team right now that have hundreds of thousands of followers and have the same pain points, you know, with leads that come in all across the country and states that they can or cannot service. So that's what I'm focused on: building that nationwide team. With the platform I'm under now, we service 49 states, and I want to be able to go out and really take over socials. That's my goal, not only with content, but with live streaming and giving my entire team the blueprint. And what's crazy is I have dozens of examples of folks that have followed that blueprint, and within 30 to 60 days they are generating leads. One guy who was on my team about three months ago who left the prior brokerage I was at before I came to where I am now, he's closing eight loans this month from TikTok Live, and he was not on TikTok four or five months ago. He wasn't even in the mortgage industry six months ago. So that's like the power of it: if you follow it and you're consistent, it's just a matter of time. It really is.
Glennda Baker: That is awesome. So, let me ask you a question. Like, I... I mean, I go live on Instagram, but I... and I talk a lot, you know, but I... I couldn't imagine going live for an hour.
Scott Betley: It's hard. It's almost like a muscle that you've got to work. Like, in the beginning, it's very difficult to stay live for a whole hour. You've got to like develop this scripting and like cadence around, you know, this loop of information that you circulate through, because you've got like fresh people getting pumped into that live like every two to three minutes. But... but yeah, it's... it's wild. It works so well, even if you have like under a thousand followers. Like these guys that are on my team that are getting leads, they have a thousand to 2,000 followers and they're getting five to 10 leads a day in an hour live. So it's...
Glennda Baker: Oh, my gosh, that is... I love that. And so you think that that's like a... like that that's a magic shot, like going live for an hour on TikTok? I mean, I'm sitting here, I'm thinking like, damn, I need to be doing that.
Scott Betley: Well, the only thing is with your structure, I think it's difficult because you don't have like a... I mean, you could refer the business out on the real estate side, but you can only make maybe like 25%, so you're making 1% of the sale. Like on our side, with our platform, I can refer that business out and make 2% on the loan side of the loan amount, you know, even just referring it out. So it's a little more... little more monetization. But I just set up a JV company on the real estate side to also refer that business out, because like 90% of the business we get, they don't have realtors, so we're able to kind of get both sides of that.
Glennda Baker: Oh, that's awesome. I love that, amazing. Now remind me, I want to say you live in Maryland or Baltimore or the DMV. Am I... am I right, or am I just imagining that?
Scott Betley: Yeah, we're on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, like 45 minutes from the coast of the United States.
Glennda Baker: Okay, so I... I didn't make that up in my head.
Scott Betley: No, you didn't. Nope, we're out here. Yeah. And you've always been there? Yeah, we bounced around. We lived on the other side of Maryland, and now we're like on the Eastern Shore of the coast. So we have like a homestead out here, we homeschool the kids, and we have the chickens and the animals and all the things, so...
Glennda Baker: Wow, that's so cool. How many kids do you have?
Scott Betley: We have three boys, two, five, and eight.
Glennda Baker: And what does your wife think about this? Does... does your wife, is she like, "Oh, my gosh, my husband is TikTok famous"?
Scott Betley: It's wild, yeah. There's been so many instances where we're like stopped in public and like people will come up to us and like, "Are you... are you That Mortgage Guy?" And we've literally driven through like Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru and I pull up to pay for our coffee and we get to the window and the cashier's like, "The person in front of you told me to tell you, tell That Mortgage Guy to have a great day," and they paid for my coffee. And I'm like, like what? Like, this is crazy. It's wild, that's the power of socials. You just... you never know. And I'm the most awkward person when people come up to me. I'm like... I'm just an introvert, so like I don't know, just weird.
Glennda Baker: But do you... and I will attest to that, because I... I literally... I was thinking to myself, "Well, this guy, he's not really like talking very much. Like, who... like what... why is, you know, why isn't he talking more?" And I was thinking to myself, "You were such an observer." And... and it... it was... it was so interesting to watch. And it's... and but for me, I love watching your videos just because when I'm watching them, I feel like that you're talking to me. I feel... you're not... I don't want to say that you dumb it down, but you make the information in these bite-sized pieces that are very easy to... to take. And I... and I love that, I think that's one of the great things about your content.
Scott Betley: ChatGPT has been helping me so much with the scripting, I'll tell you that. And it's not... and it's not like I go directly off a ChatGPT script, but like it helps get the wheels turning, like giving me 20 different hook ideas. And it might be like a mixture of one and seven with my own spin on it, but it gives me the framework and kind of gets the wheels turning, and then gives you other angles and things that you might not be thinking of. So I love that. I love that.
Glennda Baker: Well, let's do some rapid fire. So... what's the most overrated mortgage advice you hear?
Scott Betley: The most overrated mortgage advice that I hear... I would probably say down payment assistance programs. That is talked about so widely on the internet, and they're really not that great of options when it comes to first-time homebuyers. Like, there's such financial disadvantages to them. And I'm... I'm like torn, because like I used that to buy my first home like 14 years ago, and it like has a warm place in my heart because it helped make that happen for us. But at the end of the day, you know, it... it has some real financial downsides as well.
Glennda Baker: I have a client right now, and I'm selling their property, and they did a first-time buyer... or a homebuyer assistance program, and if she doesn't stay in the house for X number of years, she owes $25,000.
Scott Betley: Yeah, yep. And it depends on the program you go with, like some of them have a repayable second, some of them are forgiven after a certain period of time. You know, you have to be careful, because there's all sorts of different DPAs out there.
Glennda Baker: I love that. I love that. Okay, so the biggest mistake first-time buyers make?
Scott Betley: The biggest mistake first-time buyers make, I would say, is thinking that they need perfect credit and a significant down payment to buy a house. You know, it's... that's just not the case. There are really flexible options out there. I've got clients that are buying homes with no credit scores to, you know, 580 scores, you know, with 3% down. You know, that's a common misconception that I see.
Glennda Baker: You know... I was one of those people that had bad credit. I had filed bankruptcy, I had my electricity cut off, I had terrible credit. And I was so ashamed of having bad credit that... and I didn't want to tell anybody. I didn't want anybody to find out that I... and had I reached out to a trusted lender and said, "Hey, look at my stuff and tell me what I need to do to buy a house," I probably could have bought a house long before I bought a house, if I had just not had so much shame, if I had had the nerve to go to somebody and say, "How can you help me?"
Scott Betley: Yeah, I was in the same boat. Now, that's why I'm passionate about it. When I was 18, 19 years old, I almost died at the Jersey Shore. I had like a serious cardiac event. There was like ambulances and cardiac teams that had to come revive me, and I had Blue Cross Blue Shield at the time, and they hit me with over $100,000 in medical collections, because I was out of state in New Jersey, and there was like an ambulance fee and special cardiac team fees and all these things. And I was like 18, 19 years old on my mom's Blue Cross Blue Shield, like I don't have $100,000. So that sat on my credit for the better part of 10 years, and I didn't think I was going to be able to buy a home in my early 20s. And I was able to with FHA financing with a 587 credit score at the time. And you know, that since that's all fallen off and is in the past, but... but yeah, that's what people think: you need a 700 score, and that's just... that's just not the case.
Glennda Baker: Yeah. And now medical collections aren't even on your credit report anymore.
Scott Betley: Exactly, yeah. Which is a... a nice benefit. I'm... I'm glad they did that, yeah, absolutely.
Glennda Baker: So, renting or buying in today's market?
Scott Betley: That's so tough. Renting is clearly cheaper, but in the long run, I think obviously homeownership is the answer. You look at the fact that the average net worth of homeowners are... what is it, like 50 times or 100 times of a renter? I mean, it speaks for itself. I mean, I don't think renting forever and owning nothing is the answer, but I do understand that the affordability crisis is a real hurdle for most, you know? So I try to shine a light on that consistently. But there are strategies and things that you can tap into, like house hacking and getting creative to get your foot in the door and start establishing equity for yourself to get to that next point, or that... and using that as a stepping stone. But it's tough out there for a lot of people.
Glennda Baker: It is. What's your biggest house hack?
Scott Betley: Biggest house hack, I would say, is probably amulti-unit purchase... house hacking, you know? Everybody's familiar with that. You can use an FHA loan to buy up a... buy up to a four-unit property as your primary residence, live in one of them, and then rent out the other units to... to cover the mortgage or, you know, almost live mortgage-free. I have a client that's doing that right now that's actually building a two-unit property in Baltimore-I think it's in Baltimore County, Maryland-with his VA loan. I don't know if you've heard of the VA one-time close before, but... I hadn't heard of it prior to the company I'm at, but they... these one-time close programs, they allow you to finance the lot and the construction cost all under one loan. And with VA, it's no money down; FHA is 3.5% down. But it's just an incredible program, and you can do it on a multi-unit property as well.
Glennda Baker: One financial habit every future homeowner should develop?
Scott Betley: One financial habit, I would say, you know, auditing your mortgage at the end of the year and taking a look at your... your escrow account and insurance, and making sure that you're not getting raked over the coals. And also watching, you know, if you... if you own a primary residence, file that homestead property tax credit. But if you own a home, you need to watch this closely, because these insurance companies are getting crazy, and they will try to switch up your premium overnight without you even realizing. And then all of a sudden your payment's 200, $300, $700 more a month. So I would watch that.
Glennda Baker: We ran into that two and a half years ago, where our insurance provider... we had a... a storm that ripped off almost like a third of our roof, and we had filed the first claim in 14 years of being homeowners, and we got a letter the next month that stated our insurance premium was going from like $3,600 to almost 8 grand for the following year. And I was like, this is... this is insane, just because we used our insurance that we've never used in our... our lives, paid for that... you pay for for that reason.
Scott Betley: Yeah, so you... you got to watch these companies, that's what I would say.
Glennda Baker: Yeah. I... I recently moved my primary into a trust and notified my homeowners insurance, and... they sent me an email and they said, "We need you to sign this document." And the document says that... that the roof is new. And I said, "But the roof is not new. The roof was six years old when I bought it, so now it's 10 years old." And they're like, "Uh, if you don't replace the roof, we're going to cancel your insurance." What? It's a 10-year-old... there's nothing wrong with it. I've never had a claim. I've never, ever had a claim with this insurance company. I haven't had a claim since 2004. So what? 22 years? I haven't had a homeowners insurance claim. I've only had one, I haven't had one in 22 years, and the insurance company wants me to replace the 10-year-old roof or else they're going to cancel me, and there's nothing wrong with the roof.
Scott Betley: That's insane.
Glennda Baker: That's insane, no. And... and I'm not changing my policy. I literally put my home into a trust for my children.
Scott Betley: That's insane, yeah. I mean, it's just... it's so... every time I think about insurance, it makes my head spin around.
Glennda Baker: It's not flying my nose. Okay. Um, the mortgage trend you're paying the closest attention to?
Scott Betley: I would say, just because marketing is my jam, live streaming on social media, that's like where my attention and focus is right now. The strategy behind it, like different angles and... and things that people are doing, that's... that's my jam, like marketing and social. So that's my focus right now.
Glennda Baker: And... what is a belief that you hold about homeownership that most people disagree with?
Scott Betley: Um, I mean, I guess it depends on who you talk to, but my number one belief with it is that it's one of the best forced savings, you know, that you can have in this... in this world. You look at the fact that, you know, Wall Street is coming after the one of the only remaining wealth pools left in the middle class, like through these equity companies where they're going out and giving people loans for a percentage of their appreciation in their property where they don't even have to pay on that loan that they're giving them, and they're coming after people's equity. But I think that it's just such a great form of forced savings. Like, for me, I bought my first home 20... not 20, 14 years ago, and now we're millionaires, you know, through the properties that we bought and the equity that we built. And I never thought that I would get to this point in my life, but it's... it's such a great form of forced savings. I genuinely believe that.
Glennda Baker: It is. And you know, people say to me all the time, you know, "Glennda, stocks are a much better investment than your home." And my response to that is always the same: I can't live in a stock. I can't put 3% down and have the same asset. Last time I checked, Blockbuster is not worth the paper that it's written on.
Scott Betley: Yeah, it's true. I mean, every time that people want to come at me with that stock thing, I'm like, I just... I know houses, and I know for a fact, in a worst-case scenario, one of my rental properties is not rented, it's still there, it's appreciating, somebody else is paying down the mortgage. And if I needed to sell it today, I could sell it, right?
Scott Betley: That's what people come to me all the time with cryptos and this. I... I just could never get behind it. It's too volatile. It's... it's scary to me, to be honest.
Glennda Baker: Who are you following on social media? Who is your inspiration? Who do you think is doing a great job on social media?
Scott Betley: Well, you, for sure. You're one of them. Um, I'm trying to think... like, I really love Zachary Faust. He does a really good job. He's kind of gone more so off of like his personal passions and he's like focused more on top-of-funnel, like conspiracy-type stuff. Braden Shaw in our space does a really great job. One thing that's like really interesting with a lot of the folks that are at the higher level is they don't really post as much lead generation type content; it's more so top-of-funnel, like virality, focusing on headlines, affordability crisis, like general valuable information. And that's something I've been watching, because like I try to mix my cadence up and... and do a lot of top-of-funnel, but then sprinkle in the bottom-of-funnel as well, and that's like where I get my leads. But there's something to say about that top-of-funnel content, it brings in so much attention, and... and that is just so important. So those are some of the guys I follow.
Glennda Baker: I... I got to tell you, um, I... I hear what you're saying, but you have made a truckload of money making mortgage information educational and interesting and... and applicable to... to people's everyday life. And you are... you have... you have created a formula that is pretty damn good. I don't know that I would... uh mess with it too much, because... the top-of-funnel stuff, the virality... I talk to agents all the time, it's not about vanity and virality, it's about value and visibility.
Scott Betley: It's true. Well, and so many people just get focused on that and the clicks and the views, and they... they forget about like why we're actually here. You've... you've got to sprinkle in middle-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel content where you're generating leads. Like, there... there's no way around it. So, yeah, that's the whole point of it.
Glennda Baker: Somebody sent me a video the other day, and it was a great video, and it had like 5 million views that a real estate agent had posted. I think it had maybe 50,000 likes and tons of comments, and you know, somebody sent it to me and said, "What do you think about this video?" I said, "I think it's a great video. I think it's a great viral video." And obviously, it went viral. But my question is: that house didn't sell.
Scott Betley: Yeah.
Glennda Baker: What did it actually do for your business, right? And you know, it's not like that... that person, you know, I don't know if they... if they got clients off of it, they didn't get a ton of followers, and they didn't sell the house. So what was the purpose of the video? And so I always tell agents, you know, "What is your purpose for posting, and why are you posting it, and who do you want it to reach?" And that's really what...
Glennda Baker: ...focus on. Now, let me ask you a question. I want... I'm going to ask you one more question, because I meant to ask this earlier: if you do a live video on TikTok, do you... does it record, like can you save it? Like on Instagram, if I do a live video, I can download it. Can you do that on TikTok too?
Scott Betley: Yeah, you can do that on TikTok. And then what's really cool about TikTok in the analytics section after the live, you can go back and see every single person that joined the live, every comment that came through. So like after the live, you can deploy a VA or yourself into the analytics and start scrubbing that list and soliciting all those folks, like, "Hey, thanks for jumping in my live. If you're looking for more help, would love to connect. You know, here's my calendar or whatever it is." But those are like ripe leads for the picking, and I get like almost half of the leads I get from live are from that follow-up and going back into the system and soliciting those folks that were in there asking questions about a specific program or their budget or whatever it is. And that's... that's a lead right there.
Glennda Baker: Oh, so... so if I joined your live, it would say, "Glennda Baker joined your live," and it would say... it would show the question that I asked about, you know, "What's the best first-time home buyer program?" And then you actually can DM me and say, "Hey, Glennda, if you want more information about first-time home buyer products, I'd love to chat with you"?
Scott Betley: Exactly. And after the live, you get all those analytics where all the comments are there, you know what every person was asking, you know, referencing. So you've got that in real time to like send them a message right then.
Glennda Baker: That is so awesome. When I was thinking about chatting with you, I was like, which direction do I want to go? Do I want to talk about mortgages, or do I want to talk about social media? I think that your expertise with mortgages is self-evident, and I think that what you have done with social media is probably one of the best-normal, just regular person who gives great advice about something that they're passionate about and has just really helped people realize their dream of homeownership. So I... I'm excited that I had the opportunity to chat with you today.
Scott Betley: Likewise. Thank you, Glennda, and same for you. You have done an incredible job.
Glennda Baker: Be really happy. I'm... I'm trying. So where can my... where can my folks find you?
Scott Betley: Yeah, anywhere on socials if you search "That Mortgage Guy," you'll find me. There's a lot of like spam accounts out there that... it's some of these pages have like 200,000 followers, Glennda, I'm like... and I keep reporting them. I'm like, "What is going on?" But it... hopefully you find the real That Mortgage Guy page, but there's a lot of them out there, I will say.
Glennda Baker: Well, we will definitely hook it into or link it in our comments. So, and I appreciate you being here. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Glennda Baker, I'm a real estate agent in Atlanta, Georgia, and today I had the opportunity to speak with Scott Betley, the... That Mortgage Guy. That Mortgage Guy! And I will tell you, if you want to do anything on social media, follow him. He is a great example for our industry and for social media. So Scott, thank you so much for being here.
Scott Betley: Thank you, Glennda. Thanks, guys. Thanks.