Hi All!

I’ve been working in finance for a long time. I’ve worked both in (reverse) mortgages and annuity savings. Of course my investment experience isn’t really applicable to home loans, but nonetheless the financial familiarity should hopefully help.

A potential partner and I have been discussing starting a Mortgage Broker business. We’re both driven, hardworking, great communicators and personable. We have the exact same goal, aspirations, and will to succeed. I believe together with our combined skill sets, we can thrive.

My partner has cultivated relationships with loan officers, real estate agents, architects and title companies. He currently writes personal loans for banks but has helped with mortgage loans as well. I possess the knowledge on the processing side of things from my (small amount) of mortgage experience. I’m also a landlord, not that it makes a difference but again we have some familiarity. Foundationally, I think we have the base resources of being a mortgage broker. It’s building on our own skills and building a business that we’re stuck on.

The problem is, I’m not sure where to start. I don’t know how to start a company, but I’m assuming the first step would be obtaining our NMLS licenses. From there, I’m not sure how we begin an LLC(?). Again, we do have resources to emulate their processes, but not sure things like what lenders require for broker agreements, etc…

I’m sure we can each take out business loans if needed, but how much money should I prepare to start this up? $50k? $100k? $500k? How do you “register“ a business?

I’m doing a lot of research to teach myself all the gaps I don’t know. The NMLS is my soon-to-be focus.

Anyone have any experience with starting a business? I admit I feel foolish for sounding so inexperienced. Most things I have been finding online have been related to paying for courses to be taught how to start a business. Which I can do, there’s just so many.

Thoughts?