Meet Aaron Mason. He is the Senior Mortgage Consultant with Prosperity Home Mortgage located off Tates Creek Rd at 1099 Duval St. Suite 250. After attending and playing football at Wake Forest University, Aaron found his way into the banking industry and has been in the business for more than 11 years now. He would love to meet with you if you are interested in purchasing a home or refinancing your current mortgage!
Thank you, Aaron, for your professionalism and helping make families & individuals home buying dreams come true with your guidance.
Q: How long have you lived or worked in Lexington?
A: My whole life. I grew up in Lexington and the only time I’ve moved out of Lexington was for college. I went to Picadome, Beaumont, and Dunbar and then left when I got a great opportunity at Wake Forest. I loved North Carolina but I’m really close to my friends and family. Not being able to be here for things like weddings, the births of children, my mom’s birthday, and Thanksgiving, made me decide to come back after I graduated.
Q: What inspired you or led you to your current career?
A: I was a Biology major for 2 years because I wanted to be a zoo veterinarian that specialized in big cats. But, Biology and Pre-vet at Wake along with playing football was hard. I struggled with the time management aspect of it. I’m a writer so I struggled with lab because my lab reports were too lengthy. My professor would keep handing my reports back asking me to make them shorter. So I ended up switching to a Communication & Sociology major with Psychology minor. Once I graduated I got into finance because it’s a sales position and I can talk to people well. From there I became a personal banker at Fifth Third Bank. My loan officer when I was there happened to be taking a position closer to his home in Northern Kentucky. He and I were super close and is still a great friend of mine. He mentored me and helped me put my business plan together…and here I am.
Q: What would know want people to know about your job or business?
A: My dad told me a long time ago when I was a just a kid, if you treat people right, they will come back. That really instilled a lot of things in me. Not even from necessarily a business standpoint, but how you interact with people on a day to day basis. Treat people right and with respect. I think within our business, that idea has trickled down from the top within Prosperity. Coming from larger banks and being in that atmosphere, you can see the difference even in the emails. Instead of the subject line on the emails being just the loan number, we use the clients name also. Some others aren’t concerned about who the person is, whether of not they have moving trucks lined up, or if they have kids that need to get in school by a certain day. It’s very business and cold at other places. We want to humanize the experience and we care. Caring goes a long way and we’re all on the same page in trying to make the deal happen and hit our target date. We know that it could just as easily be us on the other side of the desk and impacting our life. We want the same respect and empathy to be exuded to all of our clients.
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Lexington?
A: It depends on my mood. If I just don’t care and want to eat pizza, I go to Jet’s or Apollo. I love their pizza, it’s so good. I’d have to say that my favorite restaurant would probably have to be J. Alexander’s. I’ve been there about 6 times and I’ve never been disappointed. I also love Carson’s.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A: I would love go to Africa or Australia. It’s the 2 places that I may die from something eating me. I love animals, so just to be in that element and to see them not behind a glass or in a cage. I would really like to see them in the wild.
Q: What is subject you wish you knew more about?
A: I wish I knew more about the stock market. How to flip money is so interesting to me.
Q: What is a song that you know all the lyrics to?
A: My favorite artist is Ne-Yo. He writes the soundtrack to my life so I could probably sing any of his songs. It wouldn’t be good, but I could can sing it.
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: I am deathly afraid of sharks, but I would love to cage dive with a great white.
Q: Choosing anyone alive and a non-relative, who would you choose to have lunch with.
A: My first thought is Kevin Hart. I’ve followed Kevin’s story from when he first started. I watched his very early comedy before he got huge and I’ve watched him grow. He’s not only funny but he has a hustle and drive like no other. I respect and love that about him. He is not just about making jokes but he is also very serious and business minded. He presents and promotes himself and people around him very well. Whoever his PR person is that took him from doing stand up in hole in the wall places to selling out a football stadium, my gosh, I need to hire them. He’s done amazing.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Lexington?
A: My favorite thing about Lexington is when it’s pretty, it’s beautiful here. During the spring and summer, it’s gorgeous. I love to be able to go for a Sunday drive or ride outside the city and just kind of get lost. Take some random turns and see where you pop out. There are a lot of things to do in the area. I think Lexington has a unique charm in that aspect. Whether it’s paddle boarding or taking a hike somewhere, you don’t have to travel far.
Q: When you have people coming here from out of town that visit you that never been here, what is something you get to take them to do?
A: If they’ve never been here, of course Keeneland is the go to. I think Lexington is really great with food and not having chain restaurants. I think you can go to a lot of different places that are very unique to Lexington and never step foot in a chain restaurant. So if you are a foodie like me, I’ll just go take you to go eat everything.
Q: Where would we find you on your days off?
A: On my days off, if I’m not working out, I’m probably playing flag football on Sundays if it’s spring, summer, or fall. I’ll be the first to admit that we probably take it too seriously. We have a lot of former college athletes so it’s hard to take that competitiveness away from ex-athletes when we’re out there. It’s fun when we are playing but it’s also very much business. I also like motorcycle riding and just taking a ride with no particular place to go. A lot of times I have to turn on the GPS just to figure out how to get home. I love doing that.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: My biggest goal right now is to be debt free outside of my mortgage. That’s a major focus of mine right now. Other than that it is to continuously grow my business to a point that I know where I’m going to be minimum. To be able to almost have like a “salary” with that idea. In the next 5 years I would love to be able to say that I will make X amount of dollars. I would also love to have a more self sustaining business. Getting referrals is something that’s very important to me.
Q: What is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
A: Prior to my football career, I was a gymnast for 3 years. When I was a kid, from the ages 8-11, my mom told me if I did gymnastics, she would let me play football. One of the coolest things though is when I coached track at Dunbar in 2011. The coach, who was my coach when I was at school there, introduced me to the team and of course all of the kids went home that night and Googled my name. So I come to practice the next day and all the kids were asking me about the time that I beat Tyson Gay. To my knowledge, I had never even came close to beating Tyson Gay. It turns out, one year in regionals or state semi-finals, I was running for my life trying to qualify and Tyson was just coasting along to get to the finals before he could blow everyone away. Apparently on that particular day, I ran a faster time than him and it’s on record online. So, once upon a time I ran a faster time than the fastest man in the world.
Q: If you were cast into a major motion picture and had your choice of anyone to be your co-star, who would you choose?
A: Either Denzel Washington or maybe Will Smith. I want to do like a Training Day or Bad Boy kind of movie.
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: Bet on yourself and don’t take for granted how much time that you may have to do it. One of my favorite quotes someone told me was, “The problem is you think you have time.” When you’re in your twenties, you always think you have the next year and then before you know it you’re thirty-five, and then fifty. Something a friend of mine told me when I was telling him that I was thinking of buying my childhood dream car which is the Viper, he said, “You don’t have kids and you don’t have a wife so if you can do it, do it now because when you do have both those in your life, it’s no longer about you. So if you have the means to do it, do it now and don’t wait.”
