Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is season four where every mortgage has a story.
And today's stories will be, I should say, really deep and passionate in a way from someone lifting the spirits of everybody else. And that is Jeremy Davis. I want to welcome our crowd first to the Mike Dupp show. It's the ultimate hub where hidden stories behind the mortgage industry come to life. I'm Michael Kelleher and in every episode we dive into the entrepreneurial spirit, the strategic insights and the breakthrough innovations that built the world's greatest mortgage companies.
So if you're trying to advance your career or scouting for industry leaders or exploring opportunities in fintech and prop tech, I went to the housing Wire conference. I found some of the best of the best. We have one here today, so you're in the right place. Get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage.
Today we are going to dive in with Jeremy Davis, who is nationally recognized as an executive, a cultural strategist and a trusted voice in inclusive lending. Today he's president of mortgage at Southern Bancorp, which is a $3 billion certified community development financial institution, a CDFI which we might dive more into, but I thought I'd give you that acronym. He leads with both margin and mission in mind. And in this environment, margin is important because you can pass it on to the customer. And mission is important because sometimes people feel there might be a little bit of a disconnect between the people in the streets, as we had with our guest Nikki from Fifth Thirds, and those actually in the community and lending. So Jeremy, when you first were in an office whiteboarding, I believe before you were in the banking world, you actually were part of a company that was ahead of its time in bringing these ideas down channel to the community. Can you talk about what it was like in that room or one of those first days?
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Sure. So my involvement in this particular part of mortgage space is long term and it's no great leap, to tell you the truth, Mike, I grew up kind of in a diverse family in a very low income area. In fact, I, I recently was sharing at the gathering with Diego that I spent many of my formative years in public housing and truly understood the power of a community institution coming into our neighborhood, doing things that could lift people up.
I know that had a great impact on my life.
And so that whiteboard really looked like what does it look like for an institution to do that on a much larger scale?
And time after time after time, the result really came down to just a few basic steps of getting into communities and really stopping the kind of the act of talking to communities and really getting into them.
And one of my favorite things that somebody said to me is, oh, you're trying to really kind of be their neighbor, not just a visitor to the neighborhood. Right. And I kind of grabbed onto that. I was like, you're exactly right. The real development of trust starts when you stop being a visitor and start being a neighbor. So that's exactly what that blackboard looks like. It really making as broad a base as you can to expand homeownership to communities who are frankly just left behind.
And there are a lot of reasons for that. Some of them cultural, some of them, as you said, based on marginal. You know, businesses have to make decisions based on where they think their niche is. Their margins can be made.
But, but this, this type of community outreach is, is, is not charity. It is strategic.
It is, it is market growth, it's market share. And it can be done in a way, as you mentioned, that balances margin with mission work. So that's what I love doing every single day. That's where my passion is.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: It's a very authentic niche. You need authenticity or your customers will not feel that. Right. It's very customer centric. I think of three areas that maybe apply to lending, but stick out more. Your background coming from public housing. But it would be trust and then practical and then why me? So we'll start with the trust.
Trusting the banking institutions, trusting lenders.
I would say some that come from well off. It's just inherent, like because they're used to it. It almost skips that step. Right. Like I'm supposed to be in house, I'm guessing. Can you talk a little bit about your background, your neighbors and, and the different, even moving different places you have to rebuild trust. Can you talk about how there is some disenchanted with home ownership because they can't get past the trust part of it?
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Oh, sure.
You know, many underserved communities do have trust concerns, rightfully have trust concerns. If you look back at our history, not just the history of institutions like banks, but the history of the federal government in terms of redlining and moving white families to suburban neighborhoods and keeping underserved communities or brown and black families essentially in public housing, and then the public housing structure that was built to maintain those housing kind of eventually crumbled while those white families that were moved out to suburban America built equity and a resource. Right. So that trust is weak in a lot of communities for really good reason.
So building that trust, really, it's an uphill climb to be Honest, it doesn't happen easily.
And communities, I think underserved communities are not really hard to read, hard to, to, to reach out to. They're not hard to find, but they are really tired of being misread.
I think they, they really understand the difference between authentic engagement, trying to build that trust and you know, performative outreach, if you will.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: You hit on the head what's talked about a lot in our industry advocacy before we go out there. Even the FHFA accelerator for those that meet that do want to lift up not just their own database.
It is the facts that if you were disenchantized, didn't want to buy because you were given bad advice and now haven't, and that was more likely with brown and black communities than the white counterparts. They've really missed out on the equity growth of the last 15 years which, which results in real money like trillions of dollars of a gap between the belts. So. Absolutely couldn't agree more.
So the next one was practical.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: I was going to just jump in where you were talking about missing out. So it's even deeper than that. So not only did they miss out on the equity piece, they don't even, you know, for a lot of communities, if you' ever grown up in a family that owned a home, you don't even know what that means, right? You've, you, you've been a part. I grew up in family. We rented houses for the majority of our time. When I bought my first house, I was very young and I owe mortgage for that. I'm sure we'll get into to how I got into mortgage at some point in this conversation, but I was a teenager when I got into mortgage.
I, I was a kid who would hustle. Coming from an athletic background, that's what I knew is if I worked hard I would succeed. And, and, and, and being in the mortgage business, t.
Okay, I should buy a house. So at a very young age I bought a house, I think I was 21 or 22 bought a house and that completely altered the trajectory of my life. But I didn't know what that looked like prior to that. So I didn't have the education. I didn't know.
You know, we talk about, you know, a thing that we talk about all the time, I talk about this all the time is what are the common barriers to homeownership? When we talk about down payment, we talk about credit barriers. Right. The truth of it is it goes even further than that in some under underserved communities.
And I'm talking about rural communities as well. Because if you live in a rural community and you've lived on the same plot of land that most of your family lives has lived on for generations, then you have no concept of what it means to apply for a mortgage. What you need to know about how to maintain that mortgage and sustain that building of equity over years.
But then to your point, then there's the equity side and what the creation of that equity allows a family to do for generations.
And I'm proud to be a part of this industry because I do believe that what we do in the home lending industry is one of nobility. I think there are very few roles, there are very few industries that can have the type of generational impact in a family's financial future than home lending can that then the united than the American mortgage system has proven to do. I mean we know it's the best in the world, but I think that sometimes we forget the responsibility that comes with that. That's one of the reasons you'll see I'm a Spider man fan. You see him back here looking over my shoulder. He's in my mug because.
And that's there because I do want to always be reminded of the responsibility that we have to making sure that access is expanded as much as possible doing the work of inclusive lending.
Because there is a nobility to what we do every single day. We literally change the trajectory of people's lives every single day. And to your point, you can't overstate the impact that that generational equity has created for the families who had it versus the families who did it.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: And good news is you and we're lucky to have you. It's such an elegant speaker because I was going to lead in with practical, but that was the exact thesis I had.
The difference between the different classes if they think it's practical, if they can buy a home. I think what you touched on is important for loan officers listening and even IMBs when you get caught up in the what of social media and branding and being on TikTok. But the why is that your job is transformational and don't get caught up in making it sound transactional. And Jeremy just gave you exactly why. It's a noble job if you play the long game and are transformational.
So my final one was the why to the consumer, where they can say why me? Right? Because I'm sure as you get more affluent there is almost a arrogant assumption that obviously I'm going to buy a home because it's natural that all my friends bought it's what you do, you know, I look left, I look right, whereas you go down in income level or you get into more diverse areas for different reasons. I bet it's harder to find why me? They get stuck in the renting. They never even talk to the right people.
Can and we will get into the right people with your series on LinkedIn. But can you just talk about how they get stuck on the, the why and can't see past or their environment doesn't let them see past that anybody can buy a home in America. It just takes a pathway to get there and some, maybe some things that break your way. But there's always a pathway.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: There is always a pathway. But listen, the reality in most communities, and if you're not in this life, it's really hard to see it. But the reality for most Americans, not just a few, but most Americans and in most communities they're working hard every day to put food on the table, to pay the rent that continually goes up every year, right?
They're focused on raising their, their children. They're focused on their communities. They're focused on earning a living, putting food on the table. The idea that, that, that communities that have historically not been provided this education of this resource or just experience by nature of being a part of a family who had this opportunity, right?
They don't stop and, and look around and say, hey, what am I going to do to build generational wealth? Right? That's not part of their vernacular. It's not what they can think about every day. They're thinking about working some overtime to make just a little bit more money because they've got an expense coming up.
They're focused on, you know, making sure they don't get sick because of health care costs. I mean, that's what they're thinking about.
So, you know, I talk a lot about my particular belief of market outreach strategies and how, you know, it really starts with going into local community institutions, institutions of trust. And that's one of the reasons that, that, that that philosophy came to be.
Because, you know, I don't think that I can walk down a community, I cannot go to a rural community, walk around farm. If you knew, if you know me at all, the idea of me walking around the farm trying to talk to a farmer and a pair of like your cow pooped boots and like the idea that I would be there doing that is absurd anyway because clearly I have nothing, I have nothing in common with this space and maybe not much in common with, with that, with that man or family, but There are institutions of trust in those communities that I am familiar with and that everybody is familiar with. And regardless of, you know, you know, regardless of background or belief system, you know, we all have certain pieces of our lives that we share.
And, and that's one of the reasons, you know, I know you alluded to it earlier, my series, barber shops, pulpits and core stores, because really that is like something that's, it's multi generational, it's multi income, it's multiracial, like it really is. These institutions exist in almost all communities in our country. So I talk about, you know, the, you know, if they don't understand the why me. And to your point, a lot of communities don't, you know, we go into these, these, these already established institutions of trust and, and, and spend time, get to know the people, get to know the community, ask the questions, invest in that relationship and you'll be able to figure out specifically what that community's why not be is and then hopefully provide it to them.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah, and I was picturing two possible movies. One where you get the suit and you, you step out the $200 shoes and it just goes into the mud on the farm.
Or they, they put you into one of those dirty job. I don't know if you ever seen that show, but all of a sudden I listen.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: At first, doesn't that seem like it might be kind of fun that. And then you, you actually watch the episode, everything that comes up and you're so grateful that you're not doing that job.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw a caged chicken, one that did not look fun at all.
I think one of the fascinating points that you bring out, because you always take it a step deeper from the times I have been able to hear you speak. So we are all in this world where our enterprises give us a CRM and many of us fall behind and it's not used how it's supposed to. And you point out at these pulpits, in corner stores, in barbershops, these human CRMs are actually retaining the 78 Ds of what would even call for a mortgage. But they're really just what's changing in somebody's life that's important is usually what those, those are. Can you talk where you came up with that idea? And I had never heard it before, and the reaction you've been getting when people are like, yeah, that's a good point.
And maybe explain what it is for those that don't know what I'm talking about.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: So this philosophy is really about institutions of Trust who are about building genuine, lasting relationships in communities, Right?
And they're not doing it, they're, they're not doing it specifically to build business. They're doing it because they, they genuinely care. Right? So I, I, I like to tell this story about this aha moment, if you will, where I was getting my haircut. This happened not too long ago, actually, but it did spawn kind of narrowing down this, this series because I was like, you know, I've been saying this stuff for years and years, but this is actually the heart of, of, of what I'm trying to say. And I actually think that maybe I just found a better way of saying it after 20 something years of this type, of this type of ministry, if you will.
But I was getting my haircut and my barber, out of the blue, just asked me about conversations we had had months and months before about a house that I liked that's not too far from his shop and wanted to buy it. And he just out of the blue said, hey, did you buy that house? And I'll tell you what, no, I didn't buy the house. But as he was finishing, you know, trimming up my hair, it just made me realize, like, like he doesn't have a CRM, right? He did not get, he did not get a, a ping this morning. Hey, ask this client about, you know, ask him about their kids. Ask them, ask them if he bought that house down the street, right? He doesn't have that. He genuinely just wanted to know.
And that's the thing I love about Barsha is like, it has, it's based on real, actual relationship, right? Your barber knows you missed work.
He knows your kids getting into college. He knows you're working two jobs. He also knows that you want to get out of the place that you're renting because rent's going up like a 2022 interest rate, right?
But what I kind of circle that around to is, you know, what if lenders listened in communities like barbers do, you know, with time, with trust, genuine interest. And I always like to throw like kind of a straight razor to nonsense. Of course, in my language, it never comes out the word nonsense, you know, the other word I'm using. But we'll keep it clean and say a straight razor to nonsense.
But the church is the same way. I mean, I think, you know, you mentioned something that I think churches specifically teach us and can teach us as lenders. Churches teach us to transform, not transact. Right? You know, churches are, you know, I don't care what generation you Are. I don't care what your racial or ethnic background. I don't care if you're in an urban environment or rural environment. Churches are, you know, community centers. And in many ways they're community centers to build service, to build education, and that includes home buyer education, financial literacy, many. In many communities, the only financial literacy they're ever getting is coming from their church.
So I like to say, you know, if you, if you, if a pastor endorses a product that you have, I always say if he endorses my down payment assistance program from the pulpit, it's not marketing, it's ministry.
But what churches teach us is exactly what we brought up. They teach us to transform. Don't just be investing in a transaction. You got to be there before the transaction, you got to stay after the transaction, and you got to be trying to be transformative in these communities, in all communities, really, but in particular underserved communities. I think, as I mentioned, they can spot you. They know you before you get, they watch you get out of your car. They know you before you get to the door of that expo center that you're about to set up a table in. They already know. So if you're not there before and then after you're trying to sell something, they all know it.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: To keep on this theme, before we hop over to your background, what do you see is changing on the dynamic between grandparent and teenager in, in these communities? And I ask from a perspective of how is it different than 30, 40 years ago with social media even? Yeah, I'll say it. But what is it that tough times make tough men, and then tough men make easy times and easy times make softer easy.
We are going through a little bit of that. It's been a, it's been a great 20 years, right? At least since 08 or 01 for a lot of people. So our. I see it, but I, the more I talk to you, the more I realize I'm. I'm more out of touch than I think. And you can't learn certain things in a conference room. So what are you seeing is that relationship and has it changed? Is it promising?
[00:21:25] Speaker B: You know, I don't think it's changed all that much, to be honest. I think that the image of, of hard or difficult, the level of hard, you know, everybody thinks that their difficulty is the most difficult thing ever. Right? It's kind of human nature. My problems are the biggest problems on, on the planet.
But I think what has changed is just the, the belief of what is or isn't possible because I think our grandparents, you know, t they went through such, you know, I will say struggles that probably many of us hopefully will never know in terms of genuine life struggles. Right.
And then, you know, you know, especially in our country, there has been this incredible build of wealth and power and, and that is a beautiful thing. And so now, you know, their grandkids, not.
Hell, do I have friends who have grandbabies. Maybe I do. They're probably baby babies. But, you know, I don't think that, that it's changed that much. I think, I think the American dream is just as alive and well as it ever was.
I think even for Gen Zers. You know, I see, I read some things that, that skew data in a way. I believe it's being skewed in a way that really makes it look like, like, you know, younger Americans don't want to own a home.
But I believe that if you really dig into that data and some of the sources of the data, I think that what we're really being told is not that they don't want it, I think that they want it at extremely high numbers, as those numbers have always been high, but the belief that it's even possible for them is what is waning and for good reason. I mean, like you said, we've had a great 20 years. The last three to five, we're starting to see things happen where, you know, you know, the cost of insurance, we're having many more natural disasters. So that is going up. Tax bills are going up and it really.
And home prices have been incredible.
The growth rate has been almost unsustainable, really. But the combination of all of those things is really, you know, I think the desire that our grandparents had for their lives and for their families is very similar to the desire that millennials and Gen Z's have for their families. Just the belief that you can and cannot do it has probably waned a little bit. So it's really going to be, it's really up to our industry. And Mike, you're doing great work on your show, but I mean, we got to fight for the American dream, right?
The media is out there. Everybody's telling us how hard it is to own a home.
People are trying to convince us it's not worth it.
But the bottom line is there is no other singular way to build. Well, there is no other mass produced way to build wealth in this country like owning a home. So I still believe it's the best way to create generational wealth. And I'm going to still be out there in the streets fighting to show people, yes, you can't own a home. I don't care about your generation. I don't care about the color of your skin.
I'm going to help you for I'm going to provide access needed to, to make that happen.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's as Elizabeth Warren actually pointed out really well on stage at the advocacy generational opportunities. So elderly can age in place and age in their home if they own the place, they don't get forced to age out where they don't want. And a lot majority, I think like 60% that's a made up number. A lot over 50% of small businesses start with a loan that is somewhat collateralized by their home in some way. We'll put it at that. We are going to learn more about Jeremy Davis, how he got into this industry and who he represents. Now after our commercial break, we're going to jump right into it. And before we do, I just want to point out I do owe Sapiens decisioning. Top client of mine has sent me out. We have a great relationship with Housing Wire. I was able to meet a lot of great people and I'll actually be on a show, Real Talk Fridays which I actually watch religiously with Dr. Rick Rock, Rock Cassidy and Jeremy Potter. I'll be wearing this as well because all of this connection, even Jeremy had to do with being out there at Housing Wire gathering. If you're in the mortgage industry and you're listening, there is no software out there that I believe could be more transformational and give you the ability to transform whatever you would like from better operations to just better outreach because it's owning your own decisioning layer.
And many people in this industry don't have control of their decisions. And their decisions I think is what makes this industry so great. So let's hear about the paid sponsors. And if anybody wants to be a paid sponsor, please reach out to us. It helps our show thrive. And I'll be back with some questions for Jeremy after a brief minute break.
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[00:28:59] Speaker A: All right, thank you again to our sponsors. So in our we just came back from the gathering on the real estate side I noticed sometimes they have leaders that don't even come from real estate. They'll be a franchisee operator from Yum Brands and they'll be taking over a large name in our industry to be heard by the people on the front line. You almost have to earn your chops growing up in this industry or at least have some experience of knowing what it's like to get customers talking to you in some way. Jeremy, before you became president of Southern Bancorp, where did you start this journey? You sort of hinted at it. Everybody's been waiting to hear, how did this journey start? And take us a little bit on the journey on how you got here.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: I know this will surprise you and the audience, but I ended up in mortgage completely accidentally.
Shocker.
Actually. I was looking for a summer job after I graduated high school, and I got a job. It was supposed to be for the summer before my freshman year of college. My official job title was Gopher, and that's exactly what I did. I go for this, go for that. I worked for a mortgage loan officer.
He would give me tasks each morning, just a couple of which were, you know, that I would get back. Then I could take a borrower, cert a bar, bars authorization, walk into a bank branch and walk out with bank statements.
So I would do things like that. I would drive out to a home that he might be considering a refinance transaction on, and I would take a Polaroid. Yes, I'm dating myself severely. I would take a Polaroid and take it back to him so he could look at a picture and see if he thought the client's estimation of value was good. So that's how I got into the business.
I ended up not leaving that job after the summer. The loan officer I worked for, I think he saw that I liked to hustle and followed instructions. I was coachable. So he worked around my school schedule. That first year of my freshman year of college, I came back the next summer, and the loan officer I was working for had become the branch manager. And he asked me if I was going to go to school during the summer.
I did not want to go to school during the summer. To be honest, I was terrible.
I was a good student, but I didn't enjoy school.
I wanted to be. I wanted to go do something. I wanted to be, you know, more active. I wanted to do something I thought was important. And he's like, well, why don't you be a loan officer for the summer? We're busy. We got all these leads. You know, we can hand some of them off to you. We can kind of teach you a little bit more about this business. So he gave me about three weeks of, you know, two hours a week kind of training before the semester ended. And then for the summer, I was a loan officer.
I Made.
I, I don't even know. I don't know. I'm not going to say it out loud. I made about 10 times what I had made the previous summer.
That summer. And let me tell you, when I like for, for a kid who came from the projects and trailer parks and, you know, places where, you know, sometimes we had to pack up in the middle of night get, get out of a place because my mom would not pay the rent. We gotta go, we gotta go.
But for a kid who came from that background to make the money that I did that summer, to be honest with you, I was ready to quit school. I was like, listen, this is what I'm gonna do with my life. I'm gonna do this.
Most of that money was just still sitting in the bank because I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it.
And to his credit, the loan officer I was working at, who is now a branch manager, you know, I told him, I'm not going to go back to school. I'm just going to, this is going to be my career. I'm going to do this. And he, he stopped me and he, he convinced me to go back to school.
And then he graciously, you know, worked with me to work my class schedule around my work schedule, which was unusually easy actually for mortgage, you know, we could do a lot of stuff in the evenings in mortgage.
And so that's how my mortgage career started.
And he continued that generosity. When I graduated college, I, he helped me open a branch of my own on the square in my hometown.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: Wow. You were, you were fast tracked there by somebody that service before self or at least someone else that ended up getting into a life that, that was his mantra.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: He was up, he was hard.
But you, you did not drop the ball on him. He, he came down like, you know, he, he did not like disappointment. But honestly, he taught me a lot about what the real world was going to expect from me.
You know, I was a little bit of an athlete as a, as a, as a, as a youngin.
I was a gymnast.
And gymnastics is a pretty strenuous sport to be in. It's a lot of workouts, it's a, it's a lot of injury and working your way through them and performing anyway.
But I think what I learned from him during those college years is that it works the same way in real life, right? Like you've got to perform anyway. If you got a headache, it doesn't matter. You got to make that presentation, you got to call the borrower back.
But yeah, he had a, he, he did some great things for me. He went on for two other careers in his own life. And I ended up kind of working for some of the biggest banks in the country.
And because I was so young when I first kind of established myself in the business, I was hungry, right?
I literally worked all the time. It was my complete and total identity and that worked well for me. I ended up working for a big bank who was one of those banks in the late 90s where we were just buying another bank every six months or every year.
And because I was young, I had no attachments, no real home life, if you will. I became kind of the guy they sent in to acclimate the new mortgage team and, and learn, learn all the ins and outs about how they functioned and what their culture was like and then merge those cultures.
So they really taught that experience in particular taught me a lot about culture building and, and reaching out. I mean, the funny thing is that is so different from community outreach it seems. But the reality is that's what I was doing then in, in internally is almost exactly the things that I learned that I am now trying to help teams do out and out in the streets.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: What's it like being that young and obviously performing? You were great at just like in gymnastics to be that young and all of a sudden be a coach, be a branch manager. Did you transition really well at giving direction or were you just too nice to people? What was that like? At first?
[00:35:46] Speaker B: No, I think I, I think I transitioned very well.
Most of the people around me, however, did not like this kid trying to tell them what they should be doing. So I very quickly learned how to, very quickly learned how to deliver information to people in ways that they could hear.
And I think this really attributes like meet, meet them where they are kind of chat that we have now. It's, I think that's kind of a hot, like, hot phrase that people talk about now, especially in, in equity spaces like meet them where they are, meet them where they are. But I really learned the hard way that if I didn't meet people where they were, they were, they weren't going to listen to this kid, talk to them about building their business or talk to them about establishing trust and being a trusted advisor to their, to their borrowers.
So it was, it was some hard knocks because, you know, you're young. I remember one time going to. My whole story revolves around going to a barber, Mike. I don't know why this is, but I remember one time going to a barber. I Think it was more like a hair salon because I was too. I was too damn young. And I remember asking the lady that I got sat down with, like, can you give me salt and pepper hair? No, I was probably. I was probably 25 or 26 years old. I sat down in this lady's chair and I said, can you give me salt and pepper hair?
She. She gave it her best.
Of course it was terrible and should. I should have never done. Now I have lots of it. All of my. I've earned, and I've earned every one of them. So now I understand why the salt and pepper hair is a thing, because you earn every streak of it. So. But, yeah, so it was an interesting time. But to be honest, you know, I think in this business, which I'm grateful for, because my entire life this has been. This has been my world.
In this business, if you prove it, if you perform, the people really kind of let go of a lot of.
A lot of the preconceived notions they may have. Now I'll tell you, throughout my entire. My entire career, I was never one of the good old boys. And there were times in the mortgage space where that was a hindrance because, you know, I was, I was not going to be, you know, back in the day, that's what, that's what people did after work, right? You're gonna go out, have a drink, maybe go to a. Go to a club.
And I was not. I was not that guy. I didn't fit into that mold. I probably fit into it a lot more now than I did then. I think I'm doing everything backward at my life.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not the time where back then if you didn't get a little dirt on yourself, you couldn't, you could only go so high, right? But.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah, but I spent years and years and years like, built. You know, I started building, right, Building big teams, really kind of diving into community outreach and, and really new market strategies. So because I was young and because I could travel endlessly, you know, some of the companies I worked with, they were very smart. They sent me into new market territories.
I was not shy. So I would go into new markets, I'd meet community lenders, I would establish relationships with some key performers in the. That were local to those markets. We would borrow from their local credibility and we would build brands off of those. So. So I got really good at new market strategies and then, and, and built some really big teams, which, which was fantastic.
But right around the age of 40, it kind of left me thinking okay, now what? You know, I built these big teams. I was kind of in a coasting mode, if you will.
I wasn't at, at just 40. I really wasn't ready to be a coaster.
And that's really when I talked to a few key members on my team and, and we made the decision that if we want to do this and have it mean something more then, then maybe we should shift a little bit. And, and that's really when I shifted my attention to community development, community lending, diverse market outreach.
And I was very fortunate to have some key executives at some pretty large places give me the opportunity to do the work that I wanted to do. Even though most of them were not ecstatic about it because frankly they just didn't think that this was the face of the person who needed to be doing that work.
So some of that was pretty challenging to get started. But once we got started and, and provided the results again, this business kind of kicked in. Performance matters.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I always say it's the, we've been hearing a little too much lately. It is the why and it's not what you are, but your background certainly says why you are beyond qualified to understand. Is that when you started the Inclusion Mortgage Company, or just slightly before that.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: I think my big like large scale opportunity to do specific, you know, mortgage production work in underserved community spaces and I mean just 100% focused on it was with.
Was as director of mortgage for a bank here in Tennessee based out of Nashville, Tennessee called First Bank. I started, I started an initiative for them called First Bank Forward. And it really was just a kind of an entire mortgage.
It wasn't a separate company of course, but we practically ran like one. An entire separate company specific to increasing underserved community participation, increasing loans to minority communities, low income communities, increasing our first time homebuyer numbers.
And we had a really great Runway. I think we increased those types of originations by about 400% over just a couple of years, which at the time bank was a, was, you know, one of the largest lenders in Tennessee. I think it may have actually become the largest lender in the, in, in Tennessee at one point while we were there.
And so you know, we, we, we kind of cut our teeth on some of the philosophies that, that, that, that we're still talking about today.
A few years later, first bank kind of wanted to pull their mortgage company, which was kind of a separate subsidiary if you will, or affiliate into and under the bank.
And that gave me a wonderful opportunity to kind of do Something on my own, which launched that Inclusion Mortgage, which really was a whole different breed of mortgage company. It was singularly focused on underserved communities.
And we expanded what we thought that really bicked, you know, not only rural Americans, black and brown Americans, but.
But LGBTQ Americans, and specifically addressing cultural issues for all of that. So we pulled in cultural outreach training to make sure that not only do we.
Not only do we serve these communities, but we are these communities. So first and foremost, making sure that we went into the underserved communities that we're trying to help and hired our lenders from within those communities, we needed to do that. Right?
We also needed to make sure that our processors understood the challenges of each individual cultural difference, that our underwriters understood those challenges.
And then that went very well.
And we were acquired by a large IMB who also just focuses on underserved communities nationwide. Made it, you know, that, that, that of course, gave it exposure bigger and broader than what I was ever going to be able to do. So that was a fantastic opportunity.
And then once that ended, once that was kind of wrapped up and finished, it opened up the opportunity for me to join Southern Bancorp, which, let me tell you, I had never worked for a CDFI before, and I kick myself a lot right now wishing that I had done it 10 years earlier.
Yeah.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Can you appreciate you coming on the show here today, Jeremy, as we wrap up, can you tell us about the bank and what makes it such a joy? And actually, if you said you should have started 10 years ago, the reason we have this podcast, the reason after we publish it on LinkedIn for the leaders, is it's really for people that maybe can't make the conferences. I always say, maybe so talented that they don't get sent to the conferences. But somebody listening, you know, your Joe Cocker moment of wish I knew what I knew. Now, what can they learn from? Why should they look on the LinkedIn job board for maybe one of these CDFIs?
[00:44:49] Speaker B: So listen, most of my career doing this work, you know, I was always, in a way, a little bit of a siloed piece of an overall pie, right?
And although it was never intentional, being siloed means you're separate, right?
So in many ways, you know, resources and support, there's always this back and forth. You're almost like fighting for the same resources of the folks who are also serving, you know, wealth, you know, private wealth, people and. And certainly driving a lot more overhead revenue because of, you know, higher loan sizes and things like that, because that's how we make money in this business. But so coming to a company like Southern Bancorp bank and to really a large piece of it is who Southern is as, as an organization, but also as a certified cdfi being specifically chartered to serve underserved communities, putting in their in their business philosophy the balance of margin and mission. So it's not about always just squeezing every dime out of every person that you come into contact with. It really is about habit balance. But you got to make the margin so can complete the mission work. The two don't exist independent of each other.
But I think what makes, what made me, what, what makes me wish that I had been here all along is just the specific way that Southern Bancorp has approached communities.
They approach communities with real investments into relationships. They understand investing in the educa educating ourselves first we need to go into communities. We need to be present in communities. We need to learn the needs, the wants, the desires and then maybe we can create and offer solutions that meet those challenges.
But, but one of the biggest pieces is just Southern Bancorp is determined to make sure communities understand that they're going to be around even when times get tough.
And, and we're currently seeing that in action in many of the communities that we serve.
So I think what we've learned, what I've learned from Southern and from being at a CDFI is the trust isn't really something that you can manufacture with marketing campaigns and flashy brands.
You have to get into the communities.
Don't just speak to them, have a conversation, plan to be there for the longer haul, plan to learn and grow and, and, and, and, and and again I was tied all back to that's really how you move from being a visitor in a neighborhood to a neighbor.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: That's fantastic. So to recap, you have Jeremy Davis who grew up in in the project's hard area and was always an athlete in practice, usually teaches people hard work. Probably worked as hard at practice as he did in the real gymnastic tournaments. Took that hard work right and applied it to looking for a job and happened to run into a great situation because of I'm guessing a mentor but some great person that at least looked out for him throughout the way.
Then he went on to build teams in mortgage which those listening that's the fastest way to grow professionally. If as far as career if you're chasing the imaginary line, it's very rewarding in our industry by the higher ups everywhere. Whether you're building for a sales team or you're building large banked onboarding teams, your Rolodex grows. At some point, he shifted to go more into the community, more into the inclusion.
So knowing all that, we know what drives you, we know what you were. Can you just end maybe today? Jeremy, tell us, who is Jeremy Davis today? If they run into you at one of these conferences, wow.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Oh, that's. That's a funny one.
Who is Jeremy Davis today? Listen, I think Jeremy Davis is a guy who is as determined as he's ever been to make. To make an impact on the way our industry supports and provides resources to diverse markets.
Jeremy Davis is a complete message most days with too much to do and not enough time to do it.
But I'm having a blast.
I love this industry and I'm looking forward to doubling down on all the work that we've been doing.
I'm also an extremely grateful guy.
I have been fortunate in my career to work with some of the people I work with today. My wolf pack, we call ourselves, have worked together for years, some of them decades.
They're out there doing the real hard work. People, you know, people like Robert Wade in Atlanta, Georgia on our team who changes lives every day. People like Katina Robinson in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She would insist that I say roll tie right now.
People like Lydia Smith and Memphis, Tennessee. People like Courtney Bean and Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Listen, we're covering all the most glamorous C across the country, right?
But those are the people who do the on the ground, difficult work every day. Those are the people who really come back and give me the feedback and insight that I need to. To. I call it from the barber shop to the boardroom.
So those are the people who give me what I need to go to a boardroom and fight for the changes, fight for the products, the programs, the solutions that really push. Push our. Our activity forward and, and push generational wealth. I mean, we pride ourselves to be.
This is how. And Jeremy Davis is a wealth builder for everyone, regardless of zip code.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: Beautifully said. Thank you for joining us, Jeremy, and.
[00:50:58] Speaker C: Thank you for joining us on this journey into the heart of mortgage innovation.
Remember, every mortgage has a story and we're here to help you write yours. If you enjoyed today's insights, please subscribe, share with your network and connect with us on social media.
Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and uncovering the stories that drive our industry forward.
