Dive into the world of mortgage brokering in this illuminating episode of the Best of Johnston County Podcast. Join Jonathan Breeden as he chats with seasoned mortgage broker, Bart Poynor, to bring you inside tips and personal perspectives on life in Johnston County.

Bart Poynor: County? Gosh, that's a great question. You know, there's lots of things. You can't, you gotta like some of the barbecue uh, some of the there's always somebody cooking a hog somewhere.

I can't beat that part of Johnston County. I, you know, I also see it as it's the perfect community. You know, it's got that rural vibe to it. There's always something kind of fun to do. But you're close enough to Raleigh, the big city the sports the colleges, the education, and of course, right down the road, just in our backyard is the beaches the beautiful coast of North Carolina, it's right here, just a hop, skip and a jump away, sometimes literally a hop over some water on 40, right? Yeah, no, you're right about that. It's not far. You know, there's always something going on here in Johnson County, right? It's close enough that we can see the Raleigh skyline,

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: right? Well, what would you like to see more of? What if you had to.

What would you like to see more of in Johnston County?

Bart Poynor: I think outdoor recreation opportunities is probably the one thing that uh, we're kind of missing.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden, and today as a guest, we have a friend of mine that goes back 20 some odd years, Bart Poynter, who is a mortgage broker.

With United Community Bank, which used to be Four Oaks Bank, and he's going to talk to us about some of the things he does and why he loves Johnson County as much as I do. Welcome,

Bart Poynor: Bart. Thank you, Jonathan. I appreciate it. So glad to be out here. I thank you for this opportunity. I think this is a great thing you're doing for the community and bring valid attention to the Johnson County community.

I don't think that would go over too well in some of the neighborhoods in Raleigh.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: No, I don't know that. I don't know that the city of Raleigh is big old chickens in the yard but out here in Johnston County, you can have chickens. So depending on, you know, there's some subdivisions that have covenants against that.

So, I guess tell us a little bit about. I was just asking you this, like, I mean, where are you from?

Bart Poynor: Where'd you grow up? So originally I was born in in California. My father was military and spent most of my childhood growing up in in Texas west tech or Dallas and spent a lot of summers out in west Texas.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: So

Bart Poynor: where'd you go to college?

UNC Greensboro in a business school.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: Okay. All right. And how did you end up in the mortgage business?

Bart Poynor: So great question. I was taking a I didn't like college. I was not a big fan of school. Not if you, if. You see my handwriting on the intake form you'll realize probably not the best academics but I was taking a real estate finance course and ready just to kind of say the heck with college and I'm not one of those smart people like your attorney.

And so I took a real estate finance course and I was like, wow, this is kind of fun. I like this and kind of changed my whole outlook on how I saw academics in school. And the finance professor at UNCG had a connections with some of the mortgage brokers in Greensboro. I said, Hey, this is what I want to do.

And it's provided me a good, successful career. It has been good to me.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: Well, yeah. Well, I mean, you've been in the mortgage business for a really long time, so you've seen a lot of things and The when did you when did you, I know you're United Community Bank now, when did you go to work with them?

Bart Poynor: So I'm almost at the three year mark UCB, and I actually really love it here as a home, it's a small bank that really does take to his namesake and is very involved and committed to the communities that we have a presence in. And we're actively present in these communities and it's a good place.

And a lot of us were worried, like would they be as committed to the community? as four oaks bank was and I've seen, they have been

Bart Poynor: that? Yes, that is, you k is taking cus with my values, core value I run my business is do w customer, take care of th else kind of falls into p That core value of service and taking care of the customer 100%.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: Right. Are there any I mean, you've worked for several different mortgage brokers. Are there any products that United community offers that are maybe more unique or maybe a little easier to get funded? That's always the question with people, you know, with the debt to income ratios and maybe their credit score is not perfect.

Have you noticed any of that?

seven products that offer 100 percent financing opportunities to prospective home buyers. Phenomenal. That's just kind of the tip of the iceberg of some of our niche products that our competitors don't have. And actually give myself a, an advantage, a competitive advantage in this current market environment where offers are extremely competitive.

Sellers aren't paying the closing costs the way they have in years past. So it helps us overcome one of those limiting. Limited beliefs that maybe folks don't believe they can buy a house. Our path loan, for instance, Which is a united community bank product that we actually make available in our bank footprint.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: So, man, that's great. I mean, that's great.

I mean, given everything's going on now. Well, I mean, United communities, definitely they got offices in Wake County and Johnston County and Harnett County. They still have the one in Harnett

Bart Poynor: County. So actually we do not have that. Okay. the one of the forums had one and done anymore on branch actually closed about a year and a half ago.

But incidentally, we still do offer the path loan in Harnett County.

Bart Poynor: So actually, they actually ran me out of there afforded me a, another phenomenal opportunity.

So I actually cover The Smithfield to the Smithfield branches. I covered the Benson branch and the four Oaks branch. So I'm actually no longer in that branch, which is kind of a, we don't really do promotions in my world. I'm a one officer mortgage originator. There's a million names for what I do, but we don't actually get promotions in my world, but in for lack of a better word, it's kind of a great opportunity or promotion because it allowed me to cover more.

Of the area in johnson county. So instead of coming here and just limiting this one branch I now cover four branches and have the opportunity to build those relationships with those other branches Vicki is vicki weaver is a branch manager there. She does a phenomenal job of being involved in Taking care of the clients but they moved me on and it's kind of a level of opportunity for

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: me.

She, Chad Magi, and anybody else there? Definitely call Bart Pointer if you're, if you might need a mortgage. And see some of these products with a hundred percent financing. We've, you know, the interest rates. I mean, you've been in this business a long time. I mean, you come into the business and they're seven or eight, and then you see 'em go to two or three, and now they're seven, eight, or nine.

So, talk about that adventure.

Bart Poynor: So I, people always ask what, what are rates gonna do? And I always say. I know what rates are going to do without a doubt. They're going to go up, down, or stay the same.

Mortgage rates are actually determined by the MBS market or mortgage backed securities markets that are traded. And typically by hedge funds or the buyers of these mortgage backed securities and the demand for those and mortgage backed securities are influenced by multitude of factors. What the Fed does, they tend to run in line with the 10 year treasury bill, but also geopolitical and socioeconomic things going home.

Room for risk. And so we see that flock back to a safe haven investment. The fed manipulate the markets and changing the federal funds rate does have an effect on rates, but it's more of an indirect effect. For instance, I've seen in my career where the feds actually lowered the rate or raise it, risen the rates to combat inflation and slow down the economy.

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: okay Huh, that's interesting.

Bart Poynor: The figure, yes, that is coming into play. I wish I had the data available, but the cost of a, the cost of a home today, a 300, 000 home today. It's significantly more than it was two, three years ago. Right. When rates are less than half of what they are now. Right. The payments on a 30 year fixed mortgage are on a $300,000 loan are up at least 30 40% from where they were.

So when that ratio goes up, it cuts some of those folks out of those

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: products. You're absolutely right. So yeah I've seen that over the years, that's for sure. In doing divorces, we often have people. In our office who need to refinance to be able to possibly pull cash out to pay the equity to the other spouse as they're separating or divorcing and that's becoming harder and harder because the, a lot of our clients are running into the debt to income ratio issue with their house payment is going to go up significantly because in the refinance, they're going to refinance into 7 1/2.

It's hurting people. There's, you know, people's incomes are, you know, are not always keeping up with inflation and what they're spending at the grocery store. And that makes it difficult in any situation. And of course, at this point, they can't maybe buy as much house as they were able to buy a couple of years ago.

But some of these people, you know, if they drop down in price, they can still buy a house. They just maybe can't buy as much house. Is that what you've seen? Thank you.

Bart Poynor: So, all great points and you really are a student of of your industry and your career and as much respect for that. What I am seeing the trend that I'm seeing now is that while rates are high.

But one thing about this area this area was always a great value for home prices and it finally is catching up to some of those other markets, Atlanta, Dallas, Miami. I won't quite compare it to Southern California or Northern California, but we were always lagging behind in the value of houses. So houses are almost correcting themselves to the, where their natural value should have been a few years ago.

If you think of the price, is it. We would have paid three, four or five years ago for a house. Some of that's just the market correcting to the demand that we're seeing in this

But several years ago, they said they're going to change it and now they're going to do it. Thank you. In 6 years, and they're going to do it in 4 years so that they can get back some of the appreciation into the tax coffers so they can get money for more money for schools and the sheriff and stuff like that.

And so you're going to see I think it might be next year. There's going to be another reevaluation of the properties here in Johnson County. And I mean, there's, I mean, they're saying that there could be as much as. 30 percent increase by just doing this reevaluation in the value of the property for tax purposes in this county since the last time they did the evaluation a few years ago.

You can't take the equity in the house and go to Disney world. Like, like, like it's nice, but you might be better off with the cash versus having 100, 150 in equity in a house that you're having to stretch to refinance to buy somebody out of, you know, when you might have just been better off with the cash where you could have taken some of that cash, put a down payment on a different house and had the other cash to help you live.

So, you know, we talk to clients about that sometimes here too.

Have family law questions? Need guidance to navigate legal challenges? The compassionate team at Breeden Law Office is here to help. Visit us at www. breedenfirm. com for practical advice, resources, or to book a consultation. Remember, when life gets messy, you don't have to face it alone.

Bart Poynor: County? Gosh, that's a great question. You know, there's lots of things. You can't, you gotta like some of the barbecue uh, some of the there's always somebody cooking a hog somewhere.

I can't beat that part of Johnston County. I, you know, I also see it as it's the perfect community. You know, it's got that rural vibe to it. There's always something kind of fun to do. But you're close enough to Raleigh, the big city the sports the colleges, the education, and of course, right down the road, just in our backyard is the beaches the beautiful coast of North Carolina, it's right here, just a hop, skip and a jump away, sometimes literally a hop over some water on 40, right? Yeah, no, you're right about that. It's not far. You know, there's always something going on here in Johnson County, right? It's close enough that we can see the Raleigh skyline,

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: right? Well, what would you like to see more of? What if you had to.

What would you like to see more of in Johnston County?

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: Well, and the county's looking at maybe doing a park out here in Cleveland over the next five to 10 years.

They have the land there. They're going to redo the main greater Cleveland Athletic Association campus there behind the old school across from the fire department where our kids play all the time. And now they have the land back behind the fire department at polenta. You know, right there at the corner of Palena and Matthews where they've got that 80 acres that they can they've got a plan now to maybe build some fields and walking trails and stuff like that.

So, so I think the county is headed that way. They've hired a parks and rec director Adrian O'Neill a few years ago. We've never had a parks and rec department in the county. So, I think we have the mountains to the sea trail. That they continue to expand around Clayton and going towards Smithfield.

And I think they're coming around to it. The question really will be, you know, how quickly can the commissioners Either get grants or sell bonds or decide to a lot, you know, what could be 30 to 50M to build a park, you know, in the Cleveland community. I mean, we'll have to see, but I think you got a good point there.

The you know, if there was 1 thing that the people. that you would want the people of Johnson County to know about you or your business with United Community Bank. What would that be?

Bart Poynor: Great question again. You know, I think the number one thing for me is I fell into this business at the right time and the right place for me.

We've got you know The full mix of everything but just taking care of the customer and sometimes that means hey My buddy, my consensual over another company has a great product that actually fits your needs better. Sometimes it means that sometimes it means being a resource of, Hey, how can I help you find a resource?

I don't do a lot of land loans. Land loans is not my forte. I can refer that business out to somebody who's like, Hey, Jonathan, you want a landloan? That's not my wheelhouse. That's not what I do best. It's not what my expertise are, but I know somebody that they can't help you. And just being a resource, you know, give, get is kind of how I built my practice.

Bart Poynor: You know, the, you know, some folks struggle with growth and I think we all struggle with growth because we came out here for a reason. There's a reason we're here.

There's things we like about it. I think with the growth, there's opportunities for our respective businesses. And I think that's the, that has me excited. I hope it's done well and done the right way, but I think the growth opportunities and new friendships, new relationships, new opportunities for business, new growth, new.

New opportunities and resources that we don't currently have out here. Hopefully some improvement in the schools Those are things that I truly do find exciting about this area. Well, that's

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: awesome. That's awesome well, that's going to be going to wrap up today's episode if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure that you Follow podcast wherever you're seeing it so that you'll be made aware episodes when they come out as we have many more exciting guests coming up in the next few weeks.

information in the show no if you want to get in con I guess I could ask you, is the best way to get in My

Atty. Jonathan Breeden: That's cool. That's cool. So yeah, so make sure you like subscribe, follow this podcast where you get, so you can get the future ones.

If you would be kind enough to leave us a five star review. We're at the bottom where you can review podcasts. It will increase our visibility. So more and more people will find out about the best of Johnson County podcasts that we're doing here. And until next time, I'm Jonathan Breeden. Thanks a lot.

If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.