Mortgage lender hosts local elite group of top agents

Tony Trungale embraces Austin’s many sides.

The howls could be heard from the green hills in the west to the blackland prairies in the east.

When the Travis Central Appraisal District revealed a sharp hike in property appraisals last week, neighborhood message boards lit up like Christmas trees.

One group of Austinites could have predicted the unsettling upsurge. Last year, an elite squad of 34 local real estate agents collectively sold more than $1 billion in Central Texas homes.

That’s right, $1 billion in one year. Or more than $29 million in sales apiece. Each agent in the club sold at least six $1 million houses.

Tony Trungale, a branch manager for Prime-Lending mortgage company and host for the misleadingly named Elite 25 — an honorary group of 34 agents who meet once a month to discuss trends over lunch — says that the area’s stratospheric luxury home prices might not mean exactly what we expect.

“I saw a flier that read ‘Old Austin,’ and that was crossed out,” Trungale says. “Then ‘New Austin,’ and that, too, was crossed out. What was left: ‘Our Austin.’ ”

The mortgage guide, who looks like a former football player — he is — recognizes that Austin doesn’t have just one personality.

About the writer Michael Barnes writes about Austin’s people, places, culture and history.

“Things absolutely continue to change,” Trungale, 43, says. “There are things I like about both Old and New Austin. But at the end of the day, people need to be able to adapt and find the good in the new things about Austin that they like, while still cherishing the past. Because change is inevitable here.”

Before real estate

Trungale likes to joke that he could run for statewide office because he’s lived everywhere in Texas but the far West. He was born, however, in Philadelphia, Pa. His father, Joseph “Jay” Trungale, came from an Italian Chicago family and works in the restaurant business.

His mother, Patricia “Pat” Kenny Trungale, whose ancestors were Michigan Irish, served as a top luxury real estate agent in Dallas during the 1980s. What was her trick?

“A lack of fear,” her son says. “She was very direct and honest about her opinions. She was successful because she worked hard and made close friends with her clients over 30 years.”

Luxury real estate must run in the family, because like Tony, his brother, Jim Trungale, is also a Prime-Lending branch manager. Jim’s office is based in West Lake Hills.

Tony was a high-energy kid who couldn’t sit still. He attended the prestigious Dallas Jesuit College Preparatory School, but he was more interested in playing sports and having an active social life. He later graduated from Stephen F. Austin University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

At the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Trungale reformed his lax academic habits.

“When I got to law school, the ability to fake your way through it was out the window,” he says. “I had to know my material or be embarrassed by the professors.”

After clerking for the 14th Court of Appeals, Trungale worked in the Comal County district attorney’s office. Needing to pay off student loans, he moved over to real estate law and worked on the legal end of closings, first in New Braunfels, then in Austin.

He worked for his brother’s firm for a while before realizing that the mortgage business was more lucrative than the independent title business.

Now he heads up the Prime-Lending branch — which handles only residential mortgages — at Hartland Plaza in West Austin.

A changing profession

Mortgage lending has evolved since Trungale entered the field.

“If someone buys a home, it’s the most important financial decision of their lives,” he says. “I help them pick the structure that most fits their plans and goals for their home. It used to be much more about quoting interest rates. Now we are more like financial planners.”

To him, Austin is no longer a developing market, but rather a mature one that includes various strata of ownership.

“The luxury or ‘jumbo’ market (loans over $417,00) has come into favor in the past six months,” he says. “More so than ever before in my career. It’s also more competitive. Used to be Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America were the three main buyers of jumbo loans. Over the course of the past five years, Prime-Lending has attracted about 30 jumbo investors.”

His family recently upgraded its domestic situation as well. Tony and Dusty Trungale and their two children just moved from Tarrytown to West Lake Hills to take advantage of more yard space.

Trungale: “We’re outside pretty much every afternoon playing in the yard or swimming.”

The Elite 25

Until recently, title companies oversaw the highly competitive Elite 25 club of real estate agents, which was started 20 years ago. Trungale took over four years ago, hosting the monthly lunches at prime properties.

Usually, 60 to 70 agents apply. Their applications must include settlement statements that are redacted to remove confidential customer information, but at the same time prove the agents’ sales and show that they earned a minimum 2 percent commis- sion.

“It’s a stack of paper!” Trungale says. “I rank the applicants on a spreadsheet, then take that to an advisory board of lead brokers at the top luxury real estate firms in Austin.”

The advisers receive blind copies of the rankings, so they don’t know which agents might qualify until the announcements are made. Two agents, veterans Laura Gottesman and Michele Turnquist, are the only Elite members who also serve on the advisory board.

“Total production numbers have more than doubled since I started,” Trungale says. “The invitations are hand-delivered by myself, then we throw an announcement party. They usually don’t know who else made the list.”

The monthly networking lunches allow Trungale to note business and social trends. For instance, more and more properties never show up on the multiple listing service, which means appraisers must stay up to date on properties that were sold before public listing.

Also, mortgage companies no longer just preapprove loans, but often pre-underwrite them, because so many people these days are self-employed and lenders must review all their tax returns in advance.

With all the stresses on Austin because of its rapid growth and seeming unaffordability, Trungale treasures aspects of local culture that have been preserved, yet still em- braces some of the dramatic changes, such as the Austin Food and Wine Festival, among his favorite additions to the mix.

“It’s definitely New Austin,” he says. “But it is a great addition to the festival scene and the city of Austin. I saw a funny post on Facebook: ‘Somebody call City Hall! There’s no festival this weekend!’ ”