Finding a Friend in the Most Unlikely of Places

As a mortgage business development officer, Christi Gurgis gets to know a lot of people. It’s one of the things she’s best at. You might see her smiling face—she’s always smiling—when you come into our Creedmoor Road branch.

But there was one particular interaction that was really impactful. A young woman came into her office looking for a home loan. “We just hit it off immediately,” Christi says, her voice filling with excitement. “We had so much in common. It was like we had known each other for years.”

But as well as that meeting went, the woman wasn’t quite ready to move forward yet. Still, she and Christi kept in touch. And a couple months later, the woman was ready to move forward.

Christi kept in close contact throughout the entire process and helped  her as much as she could. Finally, closing day came. Christi  arrived at  the attorney’s office with a housewarming gift for her new friend. “I usually give a housewarming gift to my clients. It’s my way of saying thank you for this opportunity,” Christi says.

And that’s when she saw the woman had also gotten her a thank you gift for all the help along the way.

“I guess that just shows how similar we are,” Christi says laughing.

After the closing, the two decided to get together for dinner a couple weeks later and catch up. Since then, there have been several more dinners and talk of possibly taking a trip together.

Asked how she got a new friend out of the deal, Christi is very clear. “For me, it’s more than a transaction. It’s building relationships. When someone does business with me, I want to take the time to get to know them. I want to make a good impression. I want to be memorable.”