Brooke Benson – mortgage

How it started, how it’s going

For me, mortgage lending has always been linked to divorce.  I had worked in marketing and public relations until my first child was born.  I was very fortunate to quit my full time work to stay home with my baby … although I continued to do project work.  Most projects were the first-ever websites launched by my clients in various industries – home building, waste management, a county medical society.  My job was writing the copy for websites in a world where most businesses were still printing brochures.

Fast forward to 2007.  I was divorced and raising three small children.  On my way to a third round of interviews with a university in San Antonio (for the job Director of Marketing & PR), a close friend suggested I go into mortgage.  I laughed and said, “I can barely manage a checkbook!”

But the opportunity to learn an entirely new industry was irresistible!  Wells Fargo trained me and I could work from home.  I agreed to call on all the banks in Spanish-speaking areas with my non-native Spanish accent.  I left the company to raise funds for a non-profit but eventually went back … and I was working for Wells Fargo Private Mortgage Banking when I married again.  

In 2016 I left mortgage to work in my family business and that’s what I was doing when my “Remarried at age 40-something” situation ended.  Covid 19 showed up to hammer my family business … and now I’m back in mortgage lending with a specialty in lending to clients experiencing divorce.  Of course, I also do regular refinance and purchase loans, too.  But when one of my early clients thanked me for helping him “keep the only home the kids have ever known.” I knew I was hooked.

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