Press, Articles & Awards
The following articles, press releases, awards and honors have either been written about or have featured MPS since its incorporation in 2000.
Austin, TX
Recently, the Austin Business Journal published their annual list of “Mortgage Heavy Hitters” and a newcomer appeared. Out of nowhere, an independent brokerage jumped to the 4th largest mortgage company in Austin. And that company is Mortgage Portfolio Services, or MPS.
Pete Fajkowski is the rather friendly but very serious founder of MPS. In just a few hours it was clear that Mr. Fajkowski has profound understanding of the needs of American home buyers and home owners after just about five years in the mortgage and real estate industries. Mr. Fajkowski says that he started the firm because of disgust - disgust at how mortgaging was being done in Austin at the end of the prior century. When he entered the industry in 1998, he pretended to be a mortgage client and went around to brokerages, retail banks and other retail lenders and was fairly horrified at how the majority of his soon-to-be competitors were acting in ways that were unscrupulous at best . It is evident after spending an afternoon at MPS that ethical, legal and education-based service is what Fajkowski brings to the mortgage industry here. He feels that customers who entrust MPS with their mortgaging needs are usually entrusting MPS with the largest financial transaction of their lifetimes. So his employees are well dressed, spoken and trained. While we are not experts they answered every question, every call and the emails we were allowed to see with great confidence. No akward pauses, no stammering and no “can you hold for a minute and I’ll ask my manager” were observed. The MPS gang appear to really know their stuff and if they don’t - Fajkowski is teaching them every Tuesday and Thursday evening with a strong emphasis on transparency, ethics and even the most obscure statutory requirements.
We attended a class as well and we were impressed not only with the seriousness with which Mr. Fajkowski approaches his responsibilities, but also with the depth and scope of what he was teaching his young originators. It wasn’t about how to sell or what to say to overcome a sales objection. Fajkowski was teaching loan product guidelines, attributes and how they could help people down to the absolute nitty gritty. It was impressive and frankly, full of humor. But don’t get the wrong idea - these originators were very much aware that they would be tested on every aspect of every loan taught.
MPS is housed at 5929 Balcones Drive, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78731 on the middle floor of a contemporary office building with a breathtaking view of downtown. The front door is at the end of a hall and when you go to open it, you honestly don’t expect much. But once we opened it we were hit by both the beauty of the place and the cheerful receptionist at the same time.
There were couches and plants and art and mirrors all over the place. There was even a big bin of toys for kids. There was a coffee table with two family photo albums on it. But instead of being filled with pictures of Spot playing with the kids decades ago, it sported photos of people in front of their new houses and hand-written letters from those clients happily professing their gratitude for MPS. Clever. And it sure didn’t feel like an office. It felt more like…a hotel - the way it’s a business whose job it is to be a temporary home. We asked about that too and Fajkowski said, “Our job is to blend finance and home, so our physical presence ought to do the same we think.” Again, details. So then we went back to the Heavy Hitter thing. The numbers were impressive for a small firm. It was a lot of clients. A lot of sales. So maybe Fajkowski and crew are just good salespeople, we thought. Maybe the whole ethical, legal, well-thought out, educating staff on Tuesdays and Thursdays was just window dressing.
Climbing the Mortgage Mountain
by John Michael Butler © 2003 Austin American Statesman
Maybe the real magic was just that MPS knows how to sell. Fajkowski sure can. He’s elegant, funny, engaging, smart. It felt irresponsible not to wonder at least. But how could we know for sure? For our answer we decided we only had to know one thing: Did MPS clients get a sense of this high standard of ethics and legality that Fajkowski professes, teaches and identifies as his competitive “secret sauce”? Or did they just get a good rate?
So we chose eleven clients at random and placed and called every one until we spoke to them all. And we were glad we did. Those clients consistently had supremely gratifying experiences at MPS, both personally and financially. They learned a heck of a lot they didn’t know previously, they said. They used words like “ethical”, “honest”, “legal” and “proper”. They spoke highly of everyone with whom they came into contact at MPS - from the receptionist, to the mortgage loan processor, to their loan officer to Fajkowski himself. They even spoke well about the title company staff, who don’t even work at MPS. But this ends up being a detail too. It’s because Fajkowski hand-picks the title companies, trains them and requires all loan officers to both attend and to actually conduct MPS closings. It’s mandatory for closings within three hours of travel time at MPS.
There appears to be very little that Mr. Fajkowski doesn’t iron out beforehand. There is even a charity jar filled with cash in the office that grows every time an employee says “no problem” instead of “my pleasure”. We asked about that and Fajkowski quickly said, “I don’t like clients even hearing the word ‘problem’, regardless of how it is intended. There are no problems at MPS - only solutions or the determination to find one.” Now that’s detail.
were the only client. And rarely did these employees ever give a client even a whiff of how insanely busy they really were.
All that was left to write a truly well-researched piece about MPS was to call some of Mr. Fajkowski’s colleagues, wholesalers and competitors. The reaction to being asked what they thought about MPS was fairly universal. “They take mortgaging very seriously.” was one popular remark. Another was “Pete [Fajkowski] knows more about mortgaging then just about anyone I know.” And lastly, “Pete’s an intense but nice guy. But heaven help you if you get in the way of him closing his client’s loan.” When presented with this last remark, Fajkowski said, “We go to the mat for every client, whether it’s a $100,000 loan or a million dollar loan. And I don’t apologize for that. When dealing with wholesalers that actually make the loan, I’m a hired gun. That’s my job and I don’t apologize for doing it well. So that’s what they said, ‘heaven help you’? Good. That means they’ll think twice before ever doing it.”
Overall these conversations with colleagues made one thing clear: Mr. Fajkowski is extraordinarily well-connected to decision-makers in a vast network of mortgage wholesalers, mortgage attorneys, loan servicers, real estate agencies and Government Sponsered Enterprises including Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. They like him, respect him and are happy to help him. These contacts allow Mr. Fajkowski and MPS to do what most other mortgage originators cannot - to close client loans no matter what unusual charactistic, file complexity or approval obstacles may exist. If it can be done, MPS has the knowledge, the experience, the mortgage products and the network that can apparently get it done.
And it’s important that you know that Mr. Fajkowski refused to be interviewed for this article unless we specifically mentioned that he is Gay or that MPS is a Gay-owned company. He was adamant about it and we didn’t understand why. So we asked him. He explained that if we didn’t mention it, a young Gay kid couldn’t be inspired. He told us that seeing roles models is one way to help Gay youth feel like the are equal members of society and that these feelings could conceivably prevent suicides in that subset of the LGBT community. That was enough for us. When we looked at it that way, we were pleased that we could help in that endeavor and we are pleased to announce that Mr. Fajkowski is not only Gay, but a caring businessman as well.
If Fajkowski and MPS have any other passion besides mortgages and detail - it’s softball. MPS was instrumental this year in starting Gay Softball in Austin and making the league part of the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA). While NAGAAA has been around since 1977 and is the umbrella association for hundreds of Gay softball leagues in U.S. cities nationwide, somehow that movement eluded Austin. So, with a group of 12 other guys, Fajkowski established Softball Austin, a league that gives the LGBT community the ability to socialize through sport. Fajkowski threw the weight of MPS behind the new venture. A softball league requires players, but it also requires sponsors, so Fajkowski sponsored several teams in order to give the league stability. Of all the comments Fajkowski made for this interview, he was equally proud of the fact that his Mortgage Portfolio Closers won the late summer Labor Day classic. Fajkowski is in the front row, second from the left.
But when we looked past the toys and the ficus trees and the comfy couches, we say friendly but serious employees who pleasantly greeted clients as they scurried down the hall to do, check, file or fix something. Upon their successful return there was a genuine smile or a clever comment to a coworker, then back to the focused seriousness that sitting in their chair seemed to create. It was clear they liked their jobs, but it was also clear they took their jobs very, very seriously.
We felt we were in a very empowered atmosphere. MPS seems to not only provide superior mortgages and customer service to clients but also a work ethic that captures the best from executives, managers and all employees.
Mr. Fajkowski, now MPS's Managing Member, utilizes his extraordinary and select group of VP-level reports to manage teams of relocation facilitators, realtors, credit developers, originators and processors who seemed to speak to every client as if they
Austin’s Gay Community has a ‘League of their Own’
October 1, 2004 © 2004 The Texas Triangle
2003 Labor Day Classic
Champions, the MPS Closers.
At the beginning of the century, the Austin Business Journal began listing Austin’s top 25
mortgage companies based on volume. MPS participated until 2008.
Mortgage Heavy Hitters - May, 2004
© 2004 Austin Business Journal
Loan Volume - 2003
$192 Million
Named Austin’s 4th Largest
Mortgage Heavy Hitters - May, 2005
© 2005 Austin Business Journal
Loan Volume - 2004
$136 Million
Named Austin’s 9th Largest
Mortgage Heavy Hitters - May, 2006
© 2006 Austin Business Journal
Loan Volume - 2005
$199 Million
Named Austin’s 9th Largest
Mortgage Heavy Hitters - June, 2008
© 2008 Austin Business Journal
Loan Volume - 2007
$211 Million
Named Austin’s 23rd Largest
In mid-2008 MPS became curious how $211,000,000 in loan volume was only enough to rank us in 23rd place, almost missing
the top 25 for a second year in a row. A little investigation revealed that many Austin mortgage companies were using the list
as a means of marketing and were submitting “generous” numbers for loan volume.
MPS was faced with the decision of either participating in a dishonest game in order to keep what we felt was our rightful place
in the Austin Business Journal’s rankings or decline to participate. So, in 2008 when the 2007 list came out, MPS’s Managing Member
asked a representative of the Austin Business Journal to come to our offices where we informed her that
MPS would no longer be participating in the “competition” and that we did not want the firm mentioned
even if our volume was ascertained in another way.
The American Registry
America’s Most Honored Mortgage Professionals
(The Top 10%) - 2015
In 2015, The American Registry (TAR) conducted a research endeavor into the top originators at the nation’s large and medium-sized mortgage companies.
TAR compiled statistics on volume, default rates, interest rate variations above or below the national average and numerous other data points. TAR also developed a large amount of qualitative information based on colleague interviews, wholesaler interviews and the opinions of mortgage law firms that draw mortgage closing documents. These data were then converted to a score which was then paired with the statistical data. The result of all this work came in late 2015 when TAR announced its list
of America’s Most Honored Professionals representing the “Top 10%” of mortgage professionals in the nation’s mortgage industry. MPS’s Managing Member was among those on the list. This is an enormous honor in and of itself but, to our knowledge, TAR has never compiled the list again, making it a very rare award indeed.
