Chris Garza

Chris Garza, SVP, Divisional Manager at Stockton Mortgage

Chris Garza is a senior vice president and divisional manager with Stockton Mortgage, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He’s licensed in Arizona, California, Missouri, and Nevada. He builds and leads mortgage branches across those markets, and he works with producing loan officers and branch managers who want to run a real business, not a branch in name only. 

Chris grew up in Southern California, a first-generation American on his mother’s side. She left Costa Rica at 14 and built a real estate career that ran for decades. His father served as a Marine in Vietnam and taught discipline and accountability early. Between them, they set the standard Chris holds himself to — and the one he looks for in the leaders he hires. 

He played college football at Fullerton (Junior) College and Southern Utah University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in business with an accounting emphasis. He started out licensed in securities and insurance, moved into mortgage leadership, and has held senior leadership roles across the industry since. He’s also been a real estate investor since 1999, in single-family and multi-family property. Holding property through more than one cycle changes how a person reads the next one. 

Chris would rather answer hard questions than deliver a recruiting pitch. Mortgage loan officers ask him what operations look like under real volume, how the compensation plan actually works, and who’s still on the phone when the market shifts. He gives the same answers in a slow market that he gives in a good one. Branch managers who join his division run a business with real ownership of the results, and he coaches them like it. 

He stays active across the industry and in his own market. He’s been involved with MORPAC, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s political action committee; the Women’s Council of Realtors; the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals; the National Association of Real Estate Brokers; the Asian Real Estate Association of America; the Veterans Association of Real Estate Professionals; and the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association.

Chris lives in Las Vegas with his family. Outside work he golfs, fly fishes, and gets back to Costa Rica when he can.