From The Ground Up

In this debut episode of Mortgagees Unfiltered, host Nicole Farrugia takes you behind the scenes on her journey into the mortgage world and why she’s launching this podcast. From the Ground Up is all about building a strong foundation—whether it’s your career, your home, or your financial future.

Nicole gets real about the struggles, surprises, and lessons she’s learned along the way, sharing actionable insights to help you navigate real estate and mortgages with confidence. Whether you’re a first-time buyer, seasoned investor, or industry pro, this podcast will give you the tools to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the game.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✔️ Nicole’s unexpected journey into the mortgage industry

✔️ Why building the right foundation is key to long-term success

✔️ What to expect in future episodes—real talk, expert insights, and strategies that actually work

Join the Conversation!

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!

🎙️ Mortgagees Unfiltered: Where we go beyond rates and talk about what really matters.

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Podcast Produced and Distributed by AgentInnovationStudios.com

Creators and Guests

Host

Nicole Farrugia

Hi, I’m Nicole, the creator of the MortgageEase Method. I started this venture with a simple yet powerful vision in mind – to revolutionize the way we approach mortgages and financial education. Inspiration Behind the MortgageEase Method: What inspired the creation of MortgageEase? It was my deep desire for freedom – the freedom to run my business my way, prioritize people, and lead with education and sincerity. I identified an opportunity to break away from the norm and establish a space where individuality and genuine care come first.

What is MortgageEase Unfiltered: Beyond Rates & Real Estate?

MortgageEase Unfiltered: Beyond Rates and Real Estate is the podcast that goes beyond numbers and jargon, tackling the real issues around homeownership, mortgages, and personal finance. Hosted by Nicole, this show digs into the latest mortgage trends, offers down-to-earth financial advice, and explores the ups and downs of real life—from buying your first home to managing the curveballs life throws your way. With expert interviews and practical tips, MortgageEase Unfiltered is your go-to source for understanding how to navigate both the mortgage world and the challenges that come with it. Tune in, get informed, and join the conversation!

You're tuned into Mortgage Ease

Unfiltered, beyond rates in

real estate. Join your host,

Nicole Fruzia. Get ready for real talk

and actionable

insights to help you succeed.

Hey everyone, I'm Nicole Fruzia and this

is Mortgage Ease

Unfiltered. Welcome to my

very first episode of this podcast. And

if you know me, you

know that this was probably

the last thing I expected to do was a

podcast, but I absolutely

love to educate people. And

so to give you a little bit of background

about what this, you

know, the goal of this

podcast is, is literally that it is meant

to educate and be,

just become a resource for

anyone and everyone who wants to hear. So

whether you are a

borrower or realtor or just, you

know, want to tune in on anything

business and life, that is

the goal of this podcast. So

what are you going to hear? You're going

to hear, of course, anything

mortgage and finance related,

real estate related. But as I kind of

mentioned, you know, you're

going to hear about business and

entrepreneurship and mama prenourish ship

and literally everything in

between, because ultimately

it's sort of all-encompassing. And so the

name and the title of

this podcast is Mortgage Ease

Unfiltered. And believe me when I tell

you, I toyed with the

idea of what this should be

entitled. I was real caught up in, you

know, a catchy name and

something fun. And it ultimately

just came down to unfiltered because

that's what I want this to be. I want

this to be completely

raw and real talk, regardless of the

topic. And again, if you're

looking for a resource, I want

it to be a trusted resource. And if we're

going back to, you know,

the business basics and, or

one of them in my opinion, anyway, people

will, you know, do business

with people who they know,

like, and trust. So my goal with this is

to get you to know me and

ultimately, you know, trust and

have this as a trusted resource. So in my

very first episode, I

figured that we would call this

from the ground up and talk about my

journey as a mortgage broker and

entrepreneur and ultimately

how I got here. And so who am I? Well, on

a high level, again, I am

Nicole Fruzia and I am the

founder of Mortgage Ease, which is the

team under Vine group. I've been a

mortgage broker for several

years. And my background before that, I'm

totally aging myself here

for everyone to hear. I spent

about 18, just over 18 years in the legal

field in various roles in

law firms as law clerk to

team leaders and operations, ultimately

to a consultant as well.

And then I ended up in a,

as a mortgage broker. And we'll talk more

about that as I go through my journey.

And I am proud of mom of my best friend

and my little guy Kai,

who is four, actually,

he is turning five in January. So let me

correct myself because he

would be very upset if I didn't

mention that he was close to five. And,

you know, it's again,

I'm a business owner and,

you know, all of that that comes with it.

On the mom side of things,

you know, for the most part,

I am so grateful, you know, my son's

father is in his life and a fabulous

father at that, but I am

separated and I am for the most part, by

all accounts, a single

mom. So a lot of the times,

a lot of my experiences will be talking

about, you know, me balancing business

and entrepreneurship

and mom or prenourorship, as I like to

call it, on my own with my,

my little guy as well. So,

that is me on a high level. But in

keeping with the true tone and rawness

and realness of what

this podcast is supposed to be, I don't

feel that that is very

fitting to just give you the high

level, you know, scope of who I am.

Because if you just listen to that, I

don't really think that

tells you much about me. I mean, you

might know a bit more about me, but I

don't think that that

tells you who I am. And I think it's

important to kind of get the

real inside scoop on who I am,

because ultimately, again, keeping it

unfiltered, who I am as a person

translates to who I am in

business. And ultimately, you know, those

who I, you know, make my clients and

those who I care for

each and every day are impacted by who I

am as a person. And so,

again, wanting to be a resource

and a trusted resource for you, I feel

like it really would be

helpful for you to understand

who I am. So you understand maybe why I,

you know, make certain

decisions the way I do and

just ultimately have a bit more of that

background. So I'm going to

take you back to all the way,

you know, when I when I was a kid. So I

grew up on my own when I

was very young, it was 15.

And so it didn't seem like a big deal

then. But being a mom

now and looking at myself

now and looking back on that, I'm like,

you know, kind of crazy. You

know, you're very young at that.

But, you know, ultimately, that

translated into a lot of positive

experiences for me, because I,

you know, was able to grow up very

independent. But nonetheless, again, I

was on my own when I was

15. And so not really having that safety

net of, you know, parents,

family, all of that, really

shaped who I am in the sense of for a

very long time, and probably

even to an extent still now,

I lived by a very sort of rule or rules

that govern me to want to

always be in a safe space,

right, not to have any risks and things

like that. I was always

just trying to be, you know,

as safe as I could and just, you know,

have myself to rely on. You

know, when I tell you that I was

on my own when I was 15, it really was

such that. So there were

many days where I was fortunate

enough to have like some amazing friends

and best friends and still

friends that I have to this day,

who didn't really know what was going on

in my life. And so I

would leave friends house and,

you know, everybody thought I was, you

know, going home. And there

were many, many nights where I

would sleep in a park. So my house was,

you know, literally the

house that is in your playground.

Or on the nights that it was very, very

cold, I would sneak into,

you know, high rise apartment

building and it would climb up the stairs

and at that, the very,

very, like the rooftop is where

I would sleep a lot of nights. And so,

you know, I say this not to,

again, make this sound like a

sub story by any means. I'm sharing this

to be unfiltered with you

because it's important for me

that you understand that that was my life

for a very long time and for

very many years on and off.

And so when I think about home ownership

and owning a home or even just, I mean, whether it's

even renting, but just having an actual

home and a true roof over

your head, I'm sharing that story

so you understand how much that means to

me. And so when I'm

actually able to impact people,

especially for anybody, but especially

first time home buyers who, you know,

are, didn't think that

something like home ownership was

possible. When I tell you I'm passionate

about it, I'm sharing my

personal story for you so that you can

actually, you know, really see how

important that would be

to me and how much I really, really

truly, you know, I'm inspired by being

able to help people,

you know, kind of come to. So, and again,

kind of, you know,

that was kind of what my

younger days were like. And, you know, I

was able to work. I worked

very, very young. So I was in

school. I stayed in school. I was in high

school and I managed to,

you know, still do quite well

at school. And that's where I started my

legal journey. So I was in,

I'm even what grade it is,

10, 11, something like that. I was about,

I know I was 16 and I had my

first co-op and I, for whatever

reason, always knew I wanted to get into

law or teaching, but I was really

passionate about law.

And so I was basically applied for this

sort of co-op role at a

law firm. And I got in that,

I think it was a couple months, but I

literally harassed this

lawyer that I was working for,

or not working for, I was, I was doing

co-op. When my co-op was

done, I like literally begged

and pleaded with her that I wanted a job.

And she was insistent that I

could not have a job because

I was too young. And I literally took the

bus there every day and

stood outside her office until

she hired me. And so ultimately I was

very persistent, very

annoying. And she got

fed up that she finally hired me. And I

was her like receptionist

basically, did a little bit of,

you know, errands and admin. And anyway,

that was my journey into the

legal world or my foot in the

door, so to speak. So I'm always grateful

to her. And so again, that

was when I was 16. So I spent

much time or many, many years in the

legal field that kind of

expanded into different firms and

then I ultimately grew or went over to a

lot of the big Bay Street firms. I

finished high school,

finished all my college, all that went to

the big Bay Street firms. And that's

where I spent majority

of my career was in the big Bay Street

firms, primarily in

intellectual property, a couple

different other things as well. But I had

a lot of operational

experience too, building teams,

all that kind of thing as well. And then

that's kind of also where

my love and my passion for

boxing in Muay Thai and martial arts. So

anybody who knows me knows

that that was very, very big

part of my life for, I don't know, at

least 15 years, I think I

used to compete and coach and all

that. It holds such a special place in my

heart. It's something that

I'm putting my son in as well.

And if I'm being, again, real with

everything as I am, I think

one of the biggest things with

martial arts that I love the most, it was

that family feeling for

me. So it's not the same as

those commercial gyms where you go in,

you pump some weights, you

do some cardio and you're out.

Again, nothing wrong with that at all.

That was, I think, such a

big part of my life because it

gave me something that I was missing as

well. And so I spent all

those years and then ultimately,

I kind of went up the corporate ladder,

did a lot of different changes, but

stayed in that legal

field for quite some time. I actually

always wanted to be

self-employed, but I was scared.

That's so kind of understanding a little

bit more about me where I

didn't really have family or I

didn't have that fall back, we'll say,

that safety net within my

family anyway. It was always

something that I just felt I had to kind

of play it safe. So I never

believed that I could take

sort of risks. And the thought of just

becoming self-employed was just

non-existent to me because

I was like, absolutely no. No, we got to

have the safety net of a job and you

should just put your

head down, work away and work hard and

all that kind of stuff. And

even in all of my years in the

legal industry, I wasn't as fortunate

enough to go and have all these multiple

degrees and all that

kind of stuff. I just couldn't afford it.

And so my way of working up

that ladder and all that kind

of stuff was just working really, really,

really hard. So that's what

I did for the longest time.

And I dreamed of, of course, buying a

house, but as you can appreciate growing

up the way I did and

just needing to work to make ends meet.

And even just renting at

that time was very difficult.

I had stints of people supporting me

along the way, but ultimately,

it's just the homeownership for me kind

of seemed like a distant

dream. And I am not going to talk

about manifestation and things like that

on this episode, because

this is just an intro episode,

but we will have one down the road about

talking about manifestation

because that is something I

wholeheartedly believe in now. It is not

something I believed in for

many years, actually probably

not until maybe two years ago, probably

was the first time I

started to really believe in that.

Because for me, again, growing up the way

I did, and you guys

understanding that a bit more now,

for me, it was again, just reality,

right? Be realistic. It

didn't really make sense for me

to dream or things like that, because I

just had to just keep my mind

focused and live in reality.

So in terms of wanting to again, oh, and

I just again didn't

think that was going to be

ever something that I could do. So fast

forward several years

later, I actually almost bought a

house and it was just a fabulous bungalow

that had a basement

apartment and it was just such a

such a good deal. And I literally was

getting ready to sign the paperwork and

all that kind of stuff.

Fast forward now, we're actually in...

This is probably when I

was just almost almost 30.

And I was so excited about it. And then

right before last minute, I just

canceled. I was like,

"Nope, can't do it. Too scared." Just the

thought of all of the what

ifs, "What if I lost my job?

I don't have anyone to help me. What if I

was single at the time?"

And it was just me. And I

got so caught up in all of the fears and

all of the what ifs. And

then again, I didn't let myself

take that risk. And even the fact that

that was a very good

opportunity for me, again, it had a

basement rental. It was going to help

offset a lot of that cost for

me. All of the what ifs about,

"What if I don't have a good tenant?" And

just everything you

could possibly think of,

I promise you, I thought of it and 10

times more. So walked away

from that and went back to my day

to day working around and the usual nine

to five hustling, grinding,

all that kind of good stuff.

And my friend was a realtor at that time

who brought me that

opportunity. A couple years later,

just randomly sent me the listing for it

to show me how much it had

now sold for. And I was very

upset. So that was probably a really big

awakening for me where I was

really like, "I am not going to

get ahead if I don't start doing

something more or taking risks and stop

being so afraid to dream

a little bit or think a little bigger."

Baby steps, it was still to this day,

it's baby steps for me.

But that was probably my first little

rude awakening where I

was like, "Okay, Nicole,

you're in your own way here." So that

really propelled me to

think a little bit bigger.

I started doing or getting a second job.

I was really into

fitness at that time, teaching,

coaching, all that kind of stuff as well

while I was in legal. So

that kind of started to propel

again the whole self-employed kind of

mindset running that

fitness business on the side. But

again, there was no way I was going to

quit my full-time job. That

was unheard. But I started doing

that. And so it finally got to a point

where again, several years later, I had

saved up enough for the

absolute minimum down payment with my

side hustle, my fitness job, and I bit

the bullet and I was

going to buy this condo. And so I did it.

And it was a tiny

little condo, perfect for me.

I literally remember with my friend who

was a realtor, just

bawling, literally bawling my eyes

out the very first time. No, sure, no,

nothing. Just sitting in this

condo empty with the keys in

my hand. And even I think about it now

and I get a little

emotional, it was just such a big

accomplishment. And again, I was in my

probably early thirties, I

think it was at this point now.

And it was the biggest accomplishment of

my life. So these little

things combined, again,

albeit years apart, were really starting

to just fuel me to want

more and to just really want to

push myself to kind of go above and

beyond. And again, stop being so scared

to take risks and do

things. So eventually, I finally got the

courage to do the whole

self-employed thing. I was really

tired of the corporate world. And

admittedly, that probably had something

to do with I was with my

son's father at the time. And so having a

little bit of support or at least a

little bit of comfort

was probably what helped fuel me to want

to take that lead. But I

just finally walked away

from the corporate world. Again, I was

really tired of it. And I

finally said, "Okay, enough."

And I went into that whole sort of

consulting space. So I'm

still doing the legal, or that's

what I was doing, but I was doing it as

an independent

contractor. So my first real gig

at self-employed work. And then I

absolutely had zero intention of getting

into finance, like zero.

If I'm again, being honest, because we're

unfiltered here, I

don't even like numbers.

That was the last thing I ever thought

of. But in that whole sort

of consulting space and doing

that as an independent contractor, I

ended up doing some work with a really

good friend of mine,

who is a realtor, mortgage broker, kind

of everything in that

world, and had been doing

it for a very, very long time. And he

kind of wanted to get into

that sort of builder space

and things like that. So I ended up

taking on a role with him to just kind of

do a couple projects,

build that, and do more of the sort of

business operations, all

that kind of stuff. And again,

in all of my legal days, in the legal

world, I had a ton of operations

experience and sort of

business management and all of that. So

that's kind of where my

first sort of introduction to

the mortgage world and the real estate

world really came into play.

And so did that for a while,

had projects built, all that kind of

stuff. And then I ended up

sort of taking on another role

with a previous business partner of mine

in the same mortgage space

as well. And that one was a

little bit different. It was, again, more

of a sort of operations, business

management kind of role.

I didn't really have any intention of

actually being a mortgage

agent at that time or a broker

by any means. It was more of just, again,

the oversight of the

business management and things

like that. But ultimately, things kind of

change. And when you're

overseeing things from a service

perspective and an operations

perspective, sometimes you

naturally just build a referral

base and client base. And it just

happened naturally and

organically. And before I knew

it, rather, several years later, myself

and my previous business

partner had this business that

was booming and successful. And I was

kind of at the top of my

game, so to speak. And so

life was good. And the only thing I was

missing at that time was my son. And so

again, if you do know

me, you know that I often refer to Kai as

my little miracle baby.

For a very, very long time,

I didn't think I was going to be able to

have kids, fertility, all

that kind of fun stuff. And

when I was just kind of starting to

really get into that

whole self-employed world,

my son was born. And at that time,

actually, I was scheduled for IVF, which

was supposed to happen

a year later because I was on one of

those government plans and

things. So I'm a planner.

I'm a control freak, admittedly. And so

everything was planned, was

ready to go. And by grace of God

or some miraculous universe, whatever you

want to call it, I actually

got pregnant naturally. And so

it was crazy to me because I had kind of

put that on hold, but I had the IVF

scheduled, all that kind

of stuff. And I was like, "Okay, well,

this is, I've got a whole

plan to really propel my business

and all that kind of stuff." And then

again, long came. And best thing that

absolutely ever happened

to me, but in full transparency, as much

as I was so excited to be a

mom and all that kind of stuff,

it hit me hard. And when I say it hit me

hard, postpartum was really, really

tough. And I had spent

so many years wanting to become a mom and

just praying and

everything to just be a mom,

that it finally happened. And I had a

very sort of complicated

pregnancy, very complicated sort of

delivery. And you go through almost

losing yourself, right? As

a mom, you're very confused,

we'll say that. And so again, I'm going

to save that whole story for another

episode, but nonetheless,

that is, it really sort of threw me

because you're so excited and you're so

genuinely joyous about

this, but you're still trying to figure

out yourself as a mom. And

let's remind everyone that,

again, as a self-employed individual, you

don't have that leave. And

you don't have any of those

kinds of things. So I was literally doing

deals in my hospital bed. I

don't say that to be proud of

that, that just is what I was doing. And

so it's a lot and you go

through dealing with postpartum

and dealing with all that kind of stuff

while trying to manage and

flourish in business and do

it all. But it's really hard on yourself

as a woman and as a mom

and the mom yelled as a real

thing. That's the other episode we'll

talk about as well. But that was kind of

that journey for me.

So fast forward into kind of being in the

height of my career and what we'll just

classify as happy and successful. My

world took a bit of a turn for me a

couple of years ago. And

I went from, again, being at the height

of my career and happy in

my sort of personal life to

going through personal separation and a

business separation,

literally about six months apart. And

so for being, again, honest here, the

personal separation, you

eventually see that coming.

Even if you don't want to know, you know.

And so that kind of happened.

And all of my focus was like,

okay, you know what, we'll turn and you

put all of your efforts in

or I was going to continue to

pour all my efforts into my business. And

then that changed for me.

And as much as I kind of

saw the personal separation coming

eventually, I did not see the business

separation coming. And

that really, really threw me for a loop.

And so again, your guys are

kind of starting to see my

personality. I like to control things. I

like to be aware of things.

And sort of being blindsided

by that part of my life that I was not

prepared for really forces

you to take a step back and

realize that sometimes in life, you

cannot plan for everything. You cannot be

prepared for everything.

And going back to my, you know, boxing in

Muay Thai and my martial

art days, you'll often hear

me saying that sometimes you just have to

stop and just, you know, reset your

energy and you need to

just roll with the punches. And so I

found myself realizing that I just had to

roll with the punches.

And I went through a period of time where

I didn't know what I was going to do.

And, you know, you just

you try to figure it out. But at the same

time, too, when I was a

kid, and I kind of went through

all that not knowing, you know, what life

was going to look like for

me and all the challenges

they went through as a child the way I

did. When you're an adult and

you're a mom and you're, you

know, you're a parent, not even a mom,

you don't have the luxury of

just being able to chill and

sit back and kick your feet up and be

like, okay, it'll play

out. Let's figure it out.

You have this life and this little human

that you have to care for. And

so there's really no time to,

you know, pause. And so, you know, you're

going through this

journey where you're, you know,

you're healing and you're doing all these

kinds of things, but you

still need to, like in my case,

I had to rebuild literally everything.

And so, again, like it's

never easy, but I think when

you're planning for it, a little bit

easier. When you're not

planning for it, you're like,

what the hell am I going to do now? And

so nonetheless, you

know, that ended up being one

of the best things that ever happened to

me because I learned a

lot about myself and how

I wanted to do business and, you know,

just what my, what I wanted

my future to look like for me.

So, you know, the last couple of years

now I've spent sort of

rebuilding all of that. And that

is now sort of been the rebirth of, for

the birth rather, of

mortgage ease. And, you know, again,

like not expecting to be in the finance

world ever. I look back at

it now and I'm like, I can't

picture myself any other place. And

again, going back to the very early

stories I told you about,

like sleeping in, you know, like parks

and, you know, not having

a real roof over my head.

Again, I can't emphasize enough how much

it means to me when I'm

able to do that for people. So,

I want to leave off with a success story

of, she just, there's so

many that I am so grateful for,

but this is just a more recent one that

is just really, really near

and dear and true to my heart.

And it started off with a realtor

referral who is actually a very, very

dear friend of mine now.

But it was the first time I had ever

actually worked with her.

And she was in the middle of

a really challenging situation. She was

in the last day of a C.O.F., so a

condition of financing

where they had to firm up their offer.

And she had expected that all

was going to go well, only to

hear that the financing wasn't going to

come through. And this

client was an amazing, amazing

family that, I'm not even talking about

it, I'm going to get

emotional. She was a single mom with

two children. Both of the children had

special needs. And she

was a thriving mom for many,

many years up until a few years ago where

she went in for some

routine eye surgery and had,

there was an accident and ultimately she

lost her sight. And I won't

get into the full details of it,

but ultimately she didn't do anything

about it in terms of lawsuits

or anything like that because

she was told she couldn't. She didn't

understand any better. And so for the

last several years now,

she has had a very, very challenging time

even just getting rentals

because of her type of income

and her unique circumstances for both her

and her children. And her

family back home had ultimately

pooled together for several years now to

kind of come up with a large

amount of money to be able to

help them with a down payment in the

hopes that that would be able to help

them purchase and get

out of these really poor living

conditions that she had been in for the

last couple years. And so

ultimately that is the story of the

client. And this came to me on a phone

call, like literally

the afternoon of when they had to firm up

their offer. And thankfully

the realtor that brought me

this was randomly just talking to another

realtor of mine, just

telling them the story and kind of

almost venting and being emotional. And

that realtor said,

"You're cool. We'll fix it and

figure this out and she'll help you." And

so when I got this

call, I literally was like,

my heart just sank because I wanted to do

everything I possibly could to

help, but I literally in full

transparency was like, "What? How do I...

I gotta fix this. I don't

know what I'm gonna do this."

But ultimately I said, "Okay, if you can

go and get me an extension

and you can get me some more,

a few more days to like, you know, just

gather everything and

figure something out here,

I will do everything I possibly can to

help you." And I am so

grateful for my phenomenal team

because we literally worked, you know,

day and night tirelessly

to, you know, put this family

in a home. And I am so excited to say

that they are closing this

coming week and they are going

to be in their first sort of forever home

for her and her family. So

these are the stories that,

again, just touch my heart. And I just...

it's... this is why I do

what I do. And in this cliche,

as it sounds, everything happens for a

reason. And so I've shared my

story with you and, you know,

just sort of been real and vulnerable

about who I am, where I

came from in the hopes that you

understand a little bit more about who I

am and why I am here. I am

here to, you know, share these

stories and educate you and again,

hopefully be that trusted

resource for you. And hopefully,

you know, a little bit more about me and

that kind of helps you

understand where I'm coming

from when I give you all these insights

and my thoughts on all

these different topics. And

I think that's basically a wrap everyone.

So thank you for lending me your ear.

Stay tuned because the next episode is

near. Thanks for

listening to Mortgages Unfiltered.

Hit subscribe and join us as we dive into

mortgages, money, and

the moments that matter.

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