About Bernard

I grew up in a restaurant family.

Fine dining, the kind of place where the maître d' remembers your table and the kitchen remembers you don't like cilantro. I didn't end up in the restaurant business, but I never got over the idea that service is something you do on purpose, every time, whether or not anyone is watching. Twenty-some years into mortgage lending, that is still the whole philosophy. Know the guest. Get the details right. Make it look easy from the dining room even when the kitchen is working hard.

Twenty years of loans, most of them in Louisiana.

I started in New Orleans and I've been originating mortgages for more than two decades, through a couple of boom markets, one very bad one, and every rate environment in between. Somewhere along the way I stopped being interested in the easy files and started being interested in the right ones. The self-employed contractor whose tax returns don't tell the real story. The couple who inherited land in Vermilion Parish and want to build on it. The teacher in Amite who was told she needed twenty percent down when she needed zero. Those files taught me that the structure of a loan matters more than the rate on a flyer, and that the borrower almost never hears that from anyone.

Why a New Orleans lender spends half his time in a town of 6,000.

Our second home is on Bayou Teche in Franklin, in St. Mary Parish. I'm based in New Orleans, where my office is, but a lot of my work happens from the back porch there. It's the house on the front page of this site: the porch, the live oak with the moss, the water out back. Franklin is a sugar cane town, the kind of place with a Main Street, a couple of good banks, and people who wave whether they know you or not. Living there taught me something the New Orleans market never could. In a town like Franklin, the bank on Main Street is a good bank. But if you walk in and ask about a Rural Development loan, a construction-to-permanent loan, or financing on a rental, you may be talking to someone who handles that once or twice a year. That is nobody's fault. It's just what small-town banking looks like now. I decided I wanted to be the person those towns could call. Not instead of their bank. Alongside it, for the loans that need a specialist. That's why Borrow Louisiana is statewide, why Rural Development is the specialty, and why the map on our Service Areas page goes all the way to Shreveport.

How I work.

I ask a lot of questions before I quote anything, because the right loan for you depends on things a rate sheet doesn't know: how long you'll keep the house, what your income looks like in two years, whether that bonus is reliable, whether you'd rather have a lower payment or more cash left over after closing. Then I lay out the options plainly, tell you which one I'd pick and why, and let you decide. As a broker with Nexa Lending I'm not tied to one lender's product line, so when the answer is "not this program, that one," I can actually act on it. Once we choose, you'll hear from me, not a processing queue. Text is fine. Most of my clients prefer it.

A few other things.

I served in the 769th Engineer Battalion of the Louisiana Army National Guard, which is part of why VA loans get particular attention around here. I'm licensed in Louisiana and Georgia, NMLS 79676. And if you see me in a guayabera at a closing, that's not casual Friday. It's the uniform. Polished without the pretense, which is about the best description of how I'd like your loan to feel.

Where to find me.

New Orleans and Franklin, and anywhere in Louisiana with a kitchen table. Call or text (504) 214-8402, or start with a rate quote or an RD eligibility check and I'll be in touch.

Bernard Guste, NMLS 79676. Borrow Louisiana is powered by Nexa Lending. Equal Housing Opportunity.