Greg Toussieng has been on every side of a real estate transaction since 2003 — broker, investor, buyer, seller — personally buying, financing, renovating, and flipping hundreds of homes. And he kept seeing the same problem: the real estate side and the mortgage side of the same deal operated in completely different worlds. Choice Home Mortgage was built to fix that — mortgage and real estate professionals working together, treating every transaction as if their own money and reputation were on the line.
The real story is what happened after they built it. Going into 2022 the company had partners and a team of more than 35. Then rates rose, the mortgage industry changed almost overnight, and like many in the industry they had to downsize dramatically. The partners returned to their previous careers. Greg — who had already worked through the 2008 housing crash — and Esther faced a choice: walk away, or fight for what they had built.
“Choice Home Mortgage isn’t just a company we started. It’s a company we chose to fight for.”
They chose to stay. The company that came out the other side is leaner, more hands-on, and more technology-driven — while keeping the thing that’s hardest to find in this industry: real people who answer the phone, know their clients, and take personal responsibility for getting every file closed.
Before mortgages, Greg was an entrepreneur — in 1996, with no restaurant experience and a few credit cards, he opened the first Mondo Shrimp restaurant in the Northwest, a local critics’ favorite that taught him to build something from nothing and take care of people.
Esther’s road ran through the other side of the transaction. She spent years on the real estate agent side working directly with buyers and sellers — personally buying, renovating, and flipping homes in Texas and Florida, where she still holds real estate licenses. A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Houston, she served as Vice President of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, earned the university’s Outstanding Leader Award, and started her own company after college before expanding into real estate. When she moved into mortgages she found exactly what she was built for — guidelines, numbers, and the details others miss — all of it powered by her belief in the American Dream: that with hard work, the right guidance, and someone truly invested in your success, people can achieve the goals they’ve worked so hard for.
In their own words: Greg sees the opportunity, Esther sees every detail required to get there. Together with their three kids (and Tank, their bulldog), they’re an Orange County family business in the most literal sense.
