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Ray Jones
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I was born and raised in Fresno, California. I have three brothers and the same two parents my whole life. Weird right? I attended Fremont Elementary School, Alexander Hamilton Junior High School, Fresno High School, Bullard High School, Fresno City College and Fresno State University.
I married Patti Ashlock and have 3 super kids, Kalen, Shonda and Kylee. Kalen and Shonda are college graduates and building their careers and families. Since the first two kids where so great, 15 years later, we figured we don't play golf, Bridge or Bingo so what the heck? Let's do it again! Kylee attended Fresno City College then hit the road and has never looked back.
Together, we enjoy travel, camping, games, movies, and eating good food. Myself, I also like SciFi, computer programming, gardening, music, and finance/investment.
Kylee loves music, writing, travel, camping, friends, games, her pets, Nutella, and photography. Shonda has a degree in American Sign Language (ASL) Interpretation. She was living half a world away in New York City but found a great guy named Scott and they moved back to California to raise their first child, Henry William David, who arrived in January 2017 and then we got Georgia Rey June 2019. Kalen has a degree in Lighting Design and is a show technician at the "Happiest Place on Earth." Kalen married Amy Anne and gave us our very first grandchild, Olivia Ann in April 2014 and then Coulson Wayne in August 2016.
Patti and I have each been in the mortgage business for over a 1/4 Century. We have worked for companies from local brokers to mega lenders like Countrywide, Wells Fargo, and CTX. Although we were often colleages at different mortgage companies, we never worked at the same company together until we opened our own mortgage brokerage company Cypress Bay Mortgage in 2006. We survived the Big Crash of 2008 and the 2010 Dodd Frank Reforms but by 2013, loan brokering was fading away and Direct Lenders were gaining the advantage. We merged the office with a much larger Mortgage Lender. This strategic move opened increased funding capacity as well as offering a direct seller servicer plafform to better serve our customer's needs. In August 2015, we made the hard decision to close the big office and concentrate on my own customers rather than managing a team of Loan Officers. We joined with a San Diego Lending Partner to gain the technology, speed, and agility we needed for growth and success into the future. As things go, that road started to narrow and develope pot holes. Patti was heading her own team by then and stayed with the current Lender. In early 2023 I saw that Brokers were once again beating out the direct lenders. I cut my teeth on brokering and really did miss the flexability, rates, and opportunities that gave my clients so I joined up with NEXA Mortgage, the country's largest Mortgage Broker.
Here we are in late 2024 and I'm looking at what are we going to do in retirment? I love what I do and still don't like golf, Bridge, or Bingo and there's no way I'm having another child! Plus, I'm really good at this $#it and really like helping people with this important part of their lives! So, we are thinking the next move will be living in the Motorhome, bouncing between the kids and grandkids while doing mortgage loans. Sounds like a good plan to me!