About Us
Chris Shank - your Mortgage Advocate
NMLS: 2562885
Cell: 513-939-4544
Email: cshank@mortgageadvocacy.com
After a medical loss cut short a decade of service with the United States Marine Corps, Chris moved out to Tennessee to work in the financial sector, alongside his father. At the urging of a friend and client, Chris directed his relentless attention to detail toward the mortgage industry, earning his spot on a national lending team in April of 2024. Since then, his unique approach to "educated lending" has helped residential and commercial clients across the nation. Chris' career was even highlighted as the cover article for November's edition of National Mortgage Professional.
Chris is supported at home by his fiery wife, Sara, and his two awesome children, Jeromey and Cierra. When he's not spending his free time geeking out with clients or teaching mortgage education classes, Chris raises chickens and rabbits with his family.
Chris' life goal is to secure a sizable parcel of land with which to start a farm with his wife. Eventually, both Chris and Sara plan to attend law school together to become lawyers because- come on, how cool would that be?
What is Mortgage Advocacy?
Mortgage Advocacy, Inc. is Chris Shank's own personal brand of... well... mortgage advocation. To advocate for someone is to go out of one's way to ensure that the person they're advocating for has the best opportunities that life can present. Think of it like this- a lawyer advocates for their client by becoming the most knowledgeable professional on the subject of law relevant to that client, and then uses that knowledge in such a way as to give their client the best chance of success in whatever endeavor brought them to a lawyer in the first place.
The world of lending is a wild place, and the relationships between lenders and loan officers can bloom and sour faster than those in a bad 80's high school drama. This isn't simply a joke- there are lenders out there who will refuse to do business with loan officers if that loan officer is found to be working with one of that lender's rivals, or if that loan officer doesn't promote enough of that lender's material.
Rather than subject himself and his clients to the whims of lenders, Chris Shank founded Mortgage Advocacy as a nondenominational approach to lending. Instead of marketing X, Y or Z lender, Chris uses Mortgage Advocacy to educate others in a lender-agnostic fashion.
What is Axen Mortgage?
After the lending industry kind of caused the Crash of '08, the government put more regulations on the mortgage lending sector than you could shake a very big stick at. One of those regulations requires all loan officers to be licensed under a parent mortgage company.
Chris currently represents the Dallas Branch of Axen Mortgage, a kick-butt correspondent lender underneath the umbrella of Nexa Mortgage, the nation's premier mega-brokerage. Axen is the dream solution for lending; underneath Nexa, we have access to more lenders than any other brokerage in the United States. More importantly, however, the Dallas Branch of Axen has The Operations Team.
Contrary to what you may think, most loan officers work alone-- even if they're "part of a team". That loan officer is responsible for taking loan applications, verifying them for accuracy, researching the client's loan needs, interviewing lenders, submitting the file, coordinating with and managing both processing and underwriting teams, and communicating with all relevant parties. If a loan officer is solely responsible for juggling all these responsibilities, it's unfortunately not uncommon that a ball or two gets dropped, which oftentimes results in a substandard loan product for the most expensive purchase a family or business is likely to ever make.
Axen's Operations Team is special, because these expert professionals provide extra oversight over every one of Chris' files to ensure that each loan is processed quickly and effectively. Additionally, with how the Operations Team is structured, when Chris promises to "shop dozens of lenders" for the ideal loan, he and his Operations Team keep that promise by accomplishing a feat that can only be completed with several trained professionals.