Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to season four of the Mic'd up show, where every mortgage has a story.
We are the ultimate hub of hidden stories behind the mortgage industry.
Through the show, they come to life. I'm Michael Kelleher.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: And good morning. I'm Michael Zao.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: And in every episode together, we dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirit, the strategic insights, the breakthrough innovations that build the world's greatest mortgage companies. So if you're listening and you want to advance your career, you're scouting for industry leaders or exploring opportunities in fintech prop tech, you're in the right place. So get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage. Let's dive in today with Mo Gatling, who is senior vice president of strategic growth and expansion at New American Funding.
She is extremely active and remembers her roots as a loan officer. As we see her active on mortgage coach who was a guest two weeks ago.
Any platform where she's able to speak to loan officers.
And hopefully through this show you will see how she has transcended her role of being a top tier loan officer. Now she has decades of experience. She's brought it into becoming recognized as a woman of influence, multiple years at Housing Wire. She is a dynamic speaker. So you might see a theme on our show. We love to take people from the stage and bring them into your LinkedIn feed or from an audio perspective onto your podcast. She's an author, a business coach, she's shaping the future of the mortgage industry. And I think it's important to know she has been $100 million mortgage lender, so you'll see her on Scotsman's Guide. And I think as somebody that talks to a lot of leaders, they like people that can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
So, Mo, I guess our favorite story or why we really have this show is to show that the next loan officer, branch manager, regional manager, there has been history of them ending up on the stage of Housing Wire or you know, the NBA annual.
And it could be in different roles, could be a mortgage president, could be running the mortgage company like they, they own it.
Like Patty Arviello on our show, in your case, you know, it could be leading initiatives. But do you just want to talk about kind of that maybe like when you receive the phone call for a woman of influence and realizing that you've really transcended beyond just a, a top.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: Tier loan officer, that moment was, it was kind of surreal.
Maybe that sounds a little textbook, but I just thought that, man, I'm just doing the work every day. I'm Originating loans still, but taking that experience and being unapologetic about it when I'm asked, or especially when I'm not asked, to talk about what the consumer needs, how mortgage is evolving, and how I don't want to be the same person that I was 20 years ago in the business. And for me to be the leader that says, well, 20 years ago, when I got in the business, no, no, no, I need to evolve with mortgage, with our consumers, with their buying patterns, their likes and dislikes, to reinvent what I do every single day. And when I started being unapologetic about that path in doing loans and what I'm finding out from my business partners out at the street level, then I became a woman of influence. And the surreal part was like, wow, I'm just speaking my mind and saying exactly what's on my mind and not falling into the status quo of what mortgage has delivered or mortgage might be expected to be.
From the package that I come in all the way to the things that I say and being, you know, outspoken.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: About what I think people like to.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: Put, that is wow.
And I'm thankful for naft. They did not put me in a box, which is, I think, what put me in my mortgage midlife crisis a couple of years ago. You know, you do a lot of loans. You do over a hundred million several years in a row, and then I'm like, okay, what can my kids do with that?
[00:04:46] Speaker D: Right?
[00:04:47] Speaker C: When I retire, I'm no longer here. Is that the story they're going to tell? Or is there. Are there different stories that I can tell about my experience in business to help others that are in the business or. Or maybe change the trajectory of what our business actually looks like? And I think that the title is broad enough because it allows me to be all the things I still originate. I manage a team, I manage a branch, I recruit nationwide.
And here at naft, we are all encouraged to be ourselves and bring all of our personal experiences to the table so we can create, I guess, can I say dope shit? Because that's about what it is. We just get to create dope shit. And that's what my title kind of encompasses, a side of me originating. But I can take those experiences and all of those experiences are welcomed at the executive table so we can be a better company.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Mo One of the things that strikes me about you is that as an originator there, there's a lot of people. I've been. I've been in the mortgage industry for over 25 years, almost 30. However, I would say over half of them. I've been like, for example, 15, over 15 years. I was in the mortgage industry one year, but never changed. However, throughout your career you've had a number of changes. What, what are some of your why moments that, that capitalize change? Whether it was the kids you mentioned, whether it's about diversity movement or whether it's about growth of information. I mean, you've, you've really unpacked an enormous amount of potential whys within your trade.
So what are, so what are some of the catalyst moments that have, that have been a part of your life to create? Why moments of, of growth for you?
[00:06:39] Speaker C: I will say, as someone who actually originates, I didn't see myself in mortgage and real estate marketing.
That was a big like, ooh, this doesn't represent me. Where are diverse people that have a 740 plus credit score, maybe already own one house and maybe have hundreds of thousand dollars of equity?
They make good money, right? I'm $100 million a year producer, but I couldn't. There was nothing at my fingertips that I could actually grab that would market that person.
And being in, in Las Vegas, as we're growing as a city, we have become a huge sports and entertainment capital.
Vegas is thought of as, you know, the, the Rat Pack, the old money Las Vegas. And that's evolving here. So that's evolving. And my clientele is evolving into entertainers and people that are in sports and things like that. And a lot of them look more like me. NBA, wnba, things like that. They look like me. But I, all I could give them was an FHA flyer or a down payment assistance flyer, because that's where diverse people sit. So that really aha moment for me that I didn't want to do that anymore. How can I break that mold so someone like me is represented in what I'm putting forth. I'm not on the struggle bus for credit. I'm not on the struggle bus for income or anything like that. And that's not represented in diverse housing.
Also. Children.
I have a blended family, five children. My oldest is 27. Four years ago she purchased a home and when we went into a new home builder, they instantly went for, hey, we have all these programs that can help you with your down payment.
And she focused so much on that, trying to sell my daughter a house when my daughter has a 710 FICO and she's putting 10% down. She did buy a house, but she didn't buy it from them.
And that might be part of the problem. They're not represent.
The representation wasn't there.
You focused on the wrong things and didn't get to my daughter's needs. Right, because she had the down payment. She wasn't who you thought she was. You didn't take the time to interview her, do an assessment of what her needs and wants were. So that was another aha moment of me wanting to change the way I do business, but also be outspoken, how that doesn't have to be the norm. But my children also bought for much different reasons than I bought. They didn't buy for the struggle. They didn't buy because our ancestors couldn't buy. They, they, they didn't buy. They're, they're too far away from being freedom fighters. But what they wanted is wealth.
So I also found that generational wealth means absolutely nothing to my kids because they've never touched it, smelled it, felt it. They don't know what it is, just like I don't at my age either, but yet we stuck with that term. So that was a term that I wanted to get rid of. And again, just going through these realizations as I'm maybe I'm not going to say I'm getting older, but I'm getting wiser and more seasoned in the business and what I think and feel and naturally just going through those things with my family, you know, my kids growing up and things like that to where I wanted to be part of the change.
And that became more important than me leaving behind a legacy of just doing $100 million a year.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Our industry struggles with change. Not sure if our listeners know that. And it's inherent in the technology, the core, the los, the, the models of which we recruit.
The only way to really I find get any change in this industry is support it with data.
We don't always give shout outs to people that are not sponsors, and we'll be playing our sponsors shortly. But I've been able to hear a couple panels with Laird from I Emergent, who really talks about how.
Same thing you talk about the, the future is majority home ownership. And she does a great job of providing data that proves it.
What are some of the data points that you're finding the leaders are actually listening to be able to, to follow your strategies now of going into the market and like you said, not leading with an FHA flyer. Are you finding this certain data that is resonating with those leaders?
[00:11:12] Speaker C: Yes, there's a lot of data. By the way, I do in fact love Laird and Vard. Super fan over here, met them, talked to them, been around them. They're like my spirit animal. She's my sister from another Mr.
So they do give great data points.
Looking at the average fico, scores of loans that are being done are huge data points. I also wanted to be different, clearly, but I wanted to look at consumer spending habits, not just in mortgage, but really to look at consumer spending at large. Nielsen actually puts out some really great broad reports about economic power and diverse communities. For instance, the black community has about $2 trillion in economic power going into 2026.
So there's money there, right, that dispels everything that we talk about in mortgage in the way that we advertise or try to connect with people.
And typically when I run credit, even if I run a low credit score, that person somehow does not think that they have bad credit or they're financially illiterate or they need education.
They don't. So we're talking about or connecting with words and lifestyles that mean something to consumers to not just put them in the box of what we know for mortgage because those are the only people that apply with us that we can have stats on. What about the people that don't? Where are they putting their money? What do they think? How do they feel?
And kind of combining the two, we know that there is a wealth gap, but the, the huge thing, especially about black home ownership, is it's only increased about 8% in five decades.
So are our efforts really working?
Are our thought patterns really working?
And who stops us from shaking it up and maybe doing something a little bit different to reconnect with that market and especially the ones who are more qualified. It's been a while, but Freddie Mac did a study in 2022 and released a report saying that there was more than 1.7 million mortgage ready black millennials.
So again, I like to advocate and educate and go out in the public, but isn't the low hanging fruit the 1.7 million people, you'd easily do more than $100 million a year if you focused on the ones that were already even mortgage ready. What do they want? What are they doing? Because clearly they are probably financially literate, right? Got some money, maybe got some credit scores that would make them qualify if they're mortgage ready. And how are we meeting them? Where they at? Where they're at? We don't because we always market to the, I guess let's say the lack or I call it projecting poverty on certain diverse types or archetypes because we always assume they don't have money, which was Also interesting to find out that more than 80% of the national Basketball association identifies as black, more than 60% of the NFL. That's a lot of millionaires, right, that happen to be diverse. But we can only give them an FHA flyer, right? And a DPA flyer typically. And I challenge everybody to unsee what I just said because now you'll be paying attention to when people advertise what that looks like and where the diverse people sit in the advertising. It's totally opposite of what we've been doing. And why haven't we changed?
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Let's see if you can unsee my next question. The word. When I. When the word gentrification is used in certain types of neighborhoods, it means that there, there might be blight or there might be lower income and then someone comes in or group or group comes in and gentrifies a neighborhood by improving the physical condition of the real estate itself.
However, in. In regards to your commentary of the. Of the last question, what it sounds like there. That there needs to be an education gentrification in the culture itself or example in the, in. In certain cultures. They might teach you about financial literacy from day one in just the way the culture is being done. However, what I see on social media today, the financial literacy just wanes across the board of the United States. And when you're talking about the information gathering and distribution in the black community, what kind of improvement do you think could be done? We just had Ben Carson as secretary of HUD two administrations ago.
And what have you seen since then that could be even more improved to have more impact within the black community or, or any diverse community for that sake?
[00:16:06] Speaker C: I think part of it is the divide where we aren't meeting people where they are.
Especially if you're talking about our industry. Everything is. Can it's very.
It's fair housing or it's not. Fair housing was in the 60s, 40s to the 60s.
[00:16:23] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: This evolution of fair housing, it just doesn't speak, it still doesn't speak to diverse communities.
So I think gentrifying or modernizing what that looks like from financial literacy standpoint to figure out what the community actually wants, which means you have to engage people from the community.
[00:16:46] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: We can't take what we think is best and it's not necessarily infused with.
We need more people at the table.
[00:16:55] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: It can't be. I'm not developing things definitely for like the Latino community, let's say I can give my, my information things that I have for people I did loans for. But you Know what I want to do? I want to go to the source, I want to sit at their kitchen table. Tell me what it's like around your kitchen table. What do you talk about? How do you talk about it? How do we literally take what we know but have the largest dose of that deployment be on their terms? And I think that we can in fact meet them where they are enough to be able to change how people absorb and take that information to the streets out in life. And we just haven't done that. It's just, it's very canned. Like I said, nobody in my household talks about generational wealth. And I think that if you went to a household that wasn't black or Latino and people don't talk about generational wealth, that's not infused. But this thought process, that it means something to us. It doesn't. So we need to really change how we connect with people and do it on their terms because I feel like they'll absorb it more and they'll be able to deploy it in real life.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: How does that particular mindset over the next couple of years do you think apply towards for a loan officer, their purchase versus refinance mentality? Yeah, because you ask any lender, oh, we're all purchase and like, you know, when the rates are going down, that's not true because they're.
It's like the Powerball was last night. It's up to 1.4 billion. For anybody listening years from. And when I went down to get my ticket, everybody was down there getting their ticket. Didn't matter, you know, who you were, what you look like. So there's obviously at some point there's a carrot that breaks the barrier of getting people to, to do things in. What I'm getting at is for a loan officer, the carrot usually is the faster, you know, deal to close.
What's your mindset on stake plan and purchase versus refinance mentality going forward in 20, 26 and 27?
[00:19:01] Speaker C: I think you should have man business I think is evolved because I think everybody's referral sources have changed. Number one, because your last customer may not be your future customer.
[00:19:12] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: I think you need to have balance in life and maybe not just be purchased and maybe not just be refi. Because those who did a ton of refis didn't have any purchases when rates also went up as well.
So having that good balance between the two and really doing a lot of outreach around how refinancing just doesn't solve one thing. It can be a wealth building tool.
You know, a little bit different thought process to me. And I think the clients that I've done loans for, a lot of them are first time home buyers.
Some of them come from diverse backgrounds that might fear the refi or the 2:1 buy down.
[00:19:53] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Because it sounds really pay option or Amish.
[00:19:56] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: I think that again, that connection with them based on their terms is how I try to phrase more things, to really know who they are and what's important to them because I think that's how my business ends up flowing toward, you know, being more successful. Because I'm just not like, hey, refi rates went down. It's more of, okay, how can this help you? Wealth wise rate went down. But also what, what else can we take care of in this to make you successful?
[00:20:25] Speaker B: What are some of the questions you used in sales mo to teach about change?
When, when you're, when you work with someone that is really kind of set in their, in their ways or they grew up a certain way and then you tell them, oh yeah, we can, instead of just going with a fixed rate and just staying there for 30 years, let's create some investment opportunities.
So what are some of the things that you've used as tools to tell your borrowers, investors, whatever it would be to create the opportunity and opening for change?
[00:21:01] Speaker C: I think that the biggest term that I've used of late, maybe the last year, year and a half, is talking about leverage.
Like that's like the word because there's opportunity. And again, opportunity can vary from person to person. But if you own a home, you can leverage it to meet other wealth goals, Right? If you buy a home, you can leverage it to meet other wealth goals as well, or other goals that you have. And finding out those goals and assessing that with whomever I'm talking to is probably the best thing that I can then label out what their leverage or their vantage point for leverage is. And it works for everybody. If you get to the heart of what makes them tick.
There's a use case for either or buying, refinancing, buying multiple properties.
You know, everybody wants to be able to leverage something to get to that next level. So if you know what that next level is, you can talk or speak to leverage for them.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: One of the things that helps us tick, not why we tick, is our sponsors and some of the tools they bring to the mortgage industry. So we will segue and ask our audience to stand by for about one to two minutes of hearing from our sponsors that allow our show to, to be what it is. And then on the other side, we have some great questions from Mo.
[00:22:27] Speaker E: Verifying income for all your applicants means you need roughly 23 different vendors and waste hours and hours of your team's time.
But with trueork it's just a single place for all your income verification needs so you get the most advanced voie solution. Truer combines all major verification methods into a single easy to use platform to give you a completion rate of 75%, cutting your cost by up to 50% and getting real results for your team. True work your one stop shop for income verification, click Verify Repeat where the.
[00:23:06] Speaker F: Company can do the configurability so we have no code on this so they can go in their settings, they can set it up all the way down to loan officer if they want to. We also have a customer support team that's assigned to each account if they want. They can overhaul everything if they wanted to. They have a new product, especially dynamic apps. With dynamic apps we can fit multiple, we can fit the Fannie Freddy loans, we can new construction one time clothes, HELOCs, you know whatever those workflows are, they can design that workflow for each individual app. Now what's going to take it to the next level is the AI and the OCR piece.
[00:23:44] Speaker G: Cyber and Wire Fraud can you afford the risk? Today's automation and technology based trends demand solutions to fraud threats. Funding Shield provides lenders and investors real time transaction level verification. Certified wire fraud protection to protect loss of funds at closing due to cyber based and other threats. We help improve your bottom line through fraud prevention, risk management and validating the parties and documents involved in mortgage closings. Prevent fraud and theft on your closings.
[00:24:13] Speaker H: Want to take your business to the next level?
As a longtime trusted mortgage service provider, Mortgage Connect works with some of the largest lenders, servicers and institutional investors providing cutting edge solutions for everything from title closing, escrow and default to capital markets and risk solutions.
Mortgage Connect brings it all to the table, redefining mortgage lending with innovative digital solutions that can elevate your bottom line.
[00:24:44] Speaker I: It's time to use AI to revolutionize the way you do marketing in 2025. With ADM Intelligence we have access to 5,000 consumer data points and proprietary AI technology that helps you understand who is in your database. What's the likelihood of people to do a real estate transaction?
Also who they are. So for example, someone who's 50% likely to transact the months, who's a first time home buyer should receive very different content than someone who is let's say not as likely to transact that already owns a home. And of course our content team will provide you with all of that turnkey out of the box to market to everyone in your database.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: So to learn more, come find us.
[00:25:19] Speaker I: At ICE if, if you're there, we're booth number three to seven or go to our website thinkadium.com love to walk you through a custom demo of how AI can supercharge your marketing this year.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: As a former loan officer, I am so excited to have you as a guest mo your background is just the perfect story. I where you, you're just originating loans at a bank.
Some people try to fast forward their life and get some fast lane to where they want to go and you did it the right way. You went in, started at the bank producing more, producing more. Next thing you know you have a hundred million annual in business.
As somebody that has that fantastic story on the front line and goes to the conferences and you're welcome to be careful on how you answer this, but when you hear the leaders and all the energy that you see and all these great ideas and how to make change happen at the conference and then they get it back and maybe have trouble relaying it to the front lines of the people like yourself that are actually then going into the communities and trying to maybe roll out new product, maybe roll out new messaging, set up their CRM differently.
I, I think what do you find is the difference between how you earned the trust of your clients and maybe what deteriorates from all that great energy and then when you get back into the day to day doesn't translate well in, into the street to, to make that final push to where we need to go.
[00:26:59] Speaker C: Well, being at a conference, if you've ever seen me speak, I still speak like I originate loans every day. And that's probably the best part of it. So when you're listening to me, it is a real life. My clients get real life from me and it isn't any facade.
They, we will talk about their goals and I'll ask them. So what you're saying is you don't want to be broke.
You know, it's, it doesn't have to be overdone or dressed up. And I think the authenticity and people knowing who you really are, no matter where you're at or what environment you're at, it in fact helps a ton, you know. So I think that sometimes when I go to conferences, what I hear may not be able to be converted in real life at the street. I think that we all run into that as originators.
[00:27:50] Speaker D: Right.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: Um, not in our own markets, not for who our clientele may be. It doesn't all translate. But I think that going to a conference is always worth it because I do get things that I might be able to switch up or change to be able to deploy at the street level.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: What is the most recent thing that you may have learned from the. From the most recent conferences that you've been able to implement into your business life?
[00:28:16] Speaker C: Uh, let's see. The last conference, I was at a conference a couple weeks ago, I went to Namba in Florida.
And I think talking to other people that were in the business, whether it be real estate or mortgage, it's really learning about their clientele because sometimes we can get laser focused right on who we typically do business with or what our clientele looks like. But there's so much business that's out there, why miss out on a part of it?
So talking to someone about the Latino community a little bit and what they're finding, and I'm like, oh, that's amazing. You know, granted I'm in Las Vegas, there's a huge Latino community.
Is that something I can deploy in my business? So it's getting those best tips and practices from some of everybody that we can all infuse into our business to in fact be able to get more business or, you know, add to what we already have. If you want to be a top producer, if you're looking to increase the business that you have, being around like minded people or people that are like minded but have a different clientele, it is an amazing place to be.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: One area on the conference scene, which is sort of my specialty, but I think one area in mortgage that is not diverse is on the technology side. And I speak to more technology vendors than anybody and I feel there are certain segments of the mortgage that have become diverse and done a great job since I broke in nationally in 2012.
Technology is definitely the laggard in my opinion. With that said, a huge theme in, in conferences right now around technology. I think what everybody is loving to talk about is this new AI voice to call past clients.
Can you say just off the cuff in your opinion, what do you think some positives are and maybe some concerns where you have AI voice built on doing the same structure that's always been versus being able to be authentic and relate? Like, are we heading in maybe in the wrong direction for the sake of scaling in some ways?
[00:30:31] Speaker C: Wow, that is an amazing thing that you bring up because it's one of the Things that I think we brought up here at naf.
I think that we have a. A diverse body of executives based on our background, culture, all the things.
And we've looked at technology and building voices of our leaders as well into some of the technology.
I think that you're right if.
And it's nothing. And I tell people this, sometimes people will ask me about bias and I'm like, you know, let's break down bias. Biases.
You, you bring it to work every day with you if you have it. If you drive past a neighborhood and say, ick, I'd never live there, will you have a problem selling that neighborhood to somebody that wants to live there or people that live there? It's not that maybe you are racist. It's not to say that. It's not to say that you don't like a certain category of people or you don't like people that live there, but you do bring your lived experience with you to work every day. So if somebody with a very narrow lived experience is making the AI that's supposed to be for everybody, you really do need to think about what that does, because you might be. I call it quiet canceling. When consumers hear things that maybe don't relate to them, you don't have very long before they hang up on you or they, they swipe right, they're done. They're not even going to listen to the rest of your advertisement because it's not hitting that. And social media has taught us people will gravitate to people who maybe look like them, talk like them, and even have backgrounds similar to them. So if AI doesn't hit that on the head, it could not just for talking about inclusive nature.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: It is.
[00:32:23] Speaker C: It drives the buying patterns of consumers. Okay, if you don't include me and it doesn't speak to me, I've moved on. I. In everything I do, and that's conferences, it's AI.
If AI is talking in a way that I don't relate to, or it's like, oh, they don't understand me, they're going to move on. So having people with different lived experience, I think just helps the case of anything that you might be creating or building.
And that's something I think that that industry might need to look at, because if you're not building that into it, the different borrowers or archetypes that you have for 47% of the United States is from a diverse background. We add them all together. So that's a huge market segment to only have AI speaking in one way.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Then how does the mortgage company or the independent mortgage banker think differently in hiring, training and promoting people of diversity? Because in order for us to be able to, you know, the majority right now of people in this industry are above 40 years old. So if we're looking for people with like, you know, every single recruiter is looking for a book of business they're looking for, there. There's just the set things they want in order for their business to be successful. However, how do we promote this into a younger generation? Maybe they don't have 50 million in business, but we are looking for more diversity and training for productivity and training for education. So how does an INV or mortgage company think differently in. In promoting diversity?
[00:33:57] Speaker C: For this aspect, I think you need to look at creative ways for hiring people.
Your top producers are going to be people that they can build teams underneath them.
And because they already have the book of business, their team could, could hold that diversity.
[00:34:18] Speaker D: Right.
[00:34:19] Speaker C: I had hired someone about, let's say four years ago, 2020 actually. So during pandemic timing.
And he was 19 years old and fresh in the. No bad habits.
[00:34:34] Speaker D: Okay?
[00:34:35] Speaker C: New in the mortgage business, got out of high school, got licensed immediately, but I had the business to be able to hire him and teach him from the ground up what it means to just take an application, how we evaluate the application, teach him documents. Because he started as more of a loa, an assistant, a licensed loan assistant.
[00:34:56] Speaker D: Right.
[00:34:57] Speaker C: And then within 12 months, he was like, okay, I'm ready to just be on my own. Okay. In over four years, not only did he help on my business and it served the need of my team at that time, but now he gets his own business.
But he has all these great habits and he will be a beast in the industry. He will be the future of the industry.
So it's not always to just hire your friend because I could have hired my friend, right. Maybe we have some of the same background and patterns and things like that, but I had the opportunity to do something a little bit different. But yeah, you should definitely talk to people, find out their background. The more different it is, I feel like it's the better.
[00:35:33] Speaker D: Right.
[00:35:34] Speaker C: I don't speak. I speak one language, period. So anybody I could hire that works for me that speaks different languages would be amazing because it helps me be able to reach more buyers, right. And then it helps me teach them so they can be the force in the business when I'm ready to maybe not originate any longer.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: It's.
[00:35:53] Speaker C: It's the only way to make our business grow Evolve and be relevant and have people that can meet the needs of the consumers. It has to grow that way.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: This is a little off subject, but that's kind of what I do. What was it like getting a picture with Shaquille o'? Neal? And is there any. Is there any background to that picture? Or was it just taking a picture of somebody that's physically larger than life?
[00:36:19] Speaker C: That. Well, the other than the fact that it really illustrates how short I am, it's kind of like I. The photographer was like, if I go too high, he gets my neck. But all of him, you know, from like the waist up, and if you go down too far, you'll cut his head out. The picture.
He. He was actually introduced to me as a client, so he has referred a lot of people to me that work for him or that come in contact with him.
Him and his organization are amazing. And that was at a charity function in town.
I thought it was great that people wanted to, for charity, pay a hundred thousand dollars to play horse with Shaquille o'. Neal. The irony in that, right?
I don't know if that sounded like a quick game to me, but I thought it was great. And he gives back a lot to the communities that he lives and works in. And Las Vegas is one of those communities.
Like I said, it's one of the examples of what I was saying earlier. And, like, what are you advertising to? How can you meet the people that you come in contact with and really do business with if you're advertising your connective tissue of the company doesn't meet or cross a broad spectrum of people?
[00:37:44] Speaker B: That's hilarious. Given Shaquille Neal's lack of history of making free throws. And for. To play horse again, worse.
[00:37:52] Speaker C: 100 grand. Like, it makes you think about what you would spend your money on. I was like, that's interesting.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: So you. So, I mean, if you're playing Shaquille, you're going to have a certain type of strategy. And as an originator, everybody has strategies, whether they're going against a person who's a little bit more diverse in culture or not. What do you think of down payment assistance as a strategy? Is it underutilized or is it under. And is it under educated within our industry?
And what do you think if. If you use it within your own business, what do you think originators could do with it and how do you implement it or if at all, in your current business? Book a business with your team?
[00:38:34] Speaker C: I use it a ton, and I have a different strategy for it in this market. I really do feel it's underutilized. And part of it is because we've, we've spoke to it in a manner is it is for people that are struggling or don't have money.
But in a market where we've seen this kind of flux in the market where people have the ability to buy but they're sitting on the sidelines or contracts are canceling at a higher rate, why aren't we thinking that where down payment assistance is today, in 2025, where you don't necessarily have to have an income threshold, it could be no income limitation, it could be higher ficos. Those people are looking for ways to adapt to things being more expensive.
Okay, if we can all agree on that.
Things outside are more. It's expensive outside, right. Whether you're having a great time or just getting the necessities, every facet of our expenses in everyday life have increased. So there hasn't been anybody that I've talked to that has declined entertaining me comparing them doing a regular purchase or doing a purchase with down payment assistance.
And I've kind of evolved it from being just assistance because that is how we were all trained. It is an assistance program.
It's giving more of a welfare for housing situation.
And we're not leveraging it more as a tool for them to just keep more money in the bank. You don't know what's going to happen in the market. How about I help you leverage a program that helps you keep your money in the bank? So a lot of the people I've done down payment programs for are buying half a million dollar homes, which is our median sales price here is about 4, 76. So it's above the median sales price. But I'm proposing both because it's helping me convert buyers to buy today. Instead of saying I'll just wait until I'm sure everything in life is good there. There's so many households that have people that have kids that need to go to college and they have expenses. Why should they choose from home between home ownership or spending a lot of their money right now when they're unsure about things, whether it's employment expenses, future expenses and things like that. I think the value prop can change on that a little bit so we can get more people into homes and they will be maybe your future refis and things like that. So it's going to keep your business going as an originator and you have to give a couple options to not have them mentally check out on you because they see that figure and I Think that that's what's kind of masked in some of those cancellations that we're seeing those record cancellations of contracts are they're getting down to the brass tax of getting their disclosures and their numbers. And they're like, man, how are we going to do this? And it's keeping them up at night. Provide the solution up front and they know they have it and you get a little bit more stickiness is what I'm finding. And they're making the choice I advise.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: A lot of lenders or help them make decisions specifically in technology. My frustration, I've been doing it long enough, I can finally express my frustration. And I think it's what leaders are actually.
I actually understand how much longer they want to be in, in this game. And are they, are they in it for legacy or are they in it for financial purposes at this point? And a lot of them been in it for 30, 20, like a long time. And the reason I say that is like down payment assistance or dpa, sometimes as. Or any, any buying a home where down payment is a barrier might be a 2, 3, 4, 5 year to get that person to save to get them into the home and do it the right way. And if person we're talking to doesn't know if they're going to be with the company in three or four years, they naturally go for the faster, you know, does the DPA qualify them now? If not, move on. Not. Let me educate them to get there. So I. You're obviously in it for your legacy because you do all of those and your customers know you're, you're going to be here. What do you think the next generation of home ownership looks like, especially with consumer technology? And how do, and like, how do you prepare for it?
[00:42:50] Speaker C: Oh, that's a good one.
I think buyers, they're already trending. We, we talked about technology, of course. I think they're. They're trending for us to have jobs and not to be a doomsdayer, but for us, we have to operate at a high level.
[00:43:08] Speaker D: Right.
[00:43:08] Speaker C: Because there are machines. People are going to, they're either going online on YouTube, right. Because they can. They feel like they're the most educated bunch of people out there right now because they can find a resource that is out there to tell them what they want to know. I'm not saying that the resource that they find is correct.
[00:43:27] Speaker D: Right.
[00:43:28] Speaker C: As a mortgage person, I see so many real estate agents even talking about my side of the fence and how to utilize a program they're not licensed to do it and they may not know the intricacies of a program like we do on the mortgage side, but they definitely have consumers flocking to them for information that they can't even deliver at the level that I can.
[00:43:49] Speaker D: Right.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: So I feel that we're all going to be evolving to try to be at the top of our game and to have many balls in the air. Whereas we used to just have the one.
[00:44:00] Speaker D: Right.
[00:44:01] Speaker C: You stuck with what worked for you. It was easy peasy. And now I feel like you have to have the social media going.
[00:44:08] Speaker D: Right.
[00:44:08] Speaker C: You need to connect with people in a different way or you have to be out there doing events and just meeting people where they're at. You could do it online as well, but I feel like you're going to have to touch more people so your voice is heard and be the source that they're going to look for because they're going to find it on some type of technology platform and then come back to you and want you to deliver those expectations which may not be 100% accurate. So I think that I'm constantly pivoting right now.
Like every week. Like I, you have to pivot. You cannot stick with something for too long and just stick with that one thing. I, it's okay to do two or three things and be. Become excellent at those and deliver those consistently.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: You think that the, the mind shift of how to save versus how to spend has changed as, as far as the use of credit card use because we. The average debt at one point was like 10,000, then it went to 15,000, then it went to 20,000 and, and now especially with the ease of debit or credit cards online versus actually physically going to a store and, and stopping somebody from, from using those cards.
We, when we talk about the next generation of home ownership, what is this next generation of either investors or spenders look like as far as what the, the industry of mortgage can do to teach fiscal literacy on how to utilize the mortgage. Because you've talked about this at the beginning. The mortgage is a tool.
And then either using credit cards as a tool for points or dollars back or whatever versus it's just a secret. Slow poison. The margarine of credit. I call margarine because it's one molecule away from butter, from, from plastic.
[00:46:10] Speaker D: Right?
[00:46:10] Speaker B: And so what, what, what do you think the next generation of spenders or savers or investors could be doing in order for them to be better future homeowners so that we don't have to be talking about Excess debt, but really more excess home ownership.
[00:46:28] Speaker C: Wow, that's. Again, with technology, it's becoming easier to access debt. This Buy now, pay later is just insane. I mean, because you're going to. I think I went to H and M, took my daughter to H M for clothes. And at the register you could check out Buy now, pay Later Walmart on the kiosk, it asks you if you want to charge it.
It's so accessible that yes, because of the ease of use. And you can check out 15. I had someone that I ran into that had 15 buy now, pay later accounts that were open and they. They don't report on credit. You find out because the debit's on their bank statement.
Loan officer, again, I'm going through the, the real life motions here of finding these things out, but it's accessible. And I think that a lot of people are fighting for their lives right now. Consumers, that is to have what they want and also have what they need and have that balance of it not being crazy on the debt side.
So, man, as the. The economy stays in this kind of holding pattern right now and people are a little bit more cautious about spending, they feel that it's the path of least resistance is buying the shoes on Buy now, pay later and not getting the house.
So I feel like us as educators, I feel that all of us out in the business have a good depth of knowledge and experience to be able to talk to people. And if you're talking to people to tell them like that experience of having someone having all those accounts and how it became a problem, those are the stories that we need to tell. Because otherwise they're getting the bright, shiny advertisement like buy these football tickets. Buy tickets to Chris Brown's Breezy bowl and Buy now, pay Later Coachella. I think that they said, what was it? Almost half the tickets bought for Coachella this past year were done on Buy now, pay later.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: Great fact. Yeah.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:29] Speaker C: So everybody wants to live their best life, but they're also fighting for their life to still live that life, but pay bills, keep their job and things like that. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this last year or two when we come out of this what it looks like. But I feel like us as practitioners, we are the mouthpieces to really talk about this. We should be talking about these things and not just home ownership. Because you're right, it all does tie together. And if we just talk about home buy, buy a home, qualify, qualify. The conversation is even get qualified anymore. The qualification is where do you mentally want to be physically want to be in your journey. Do you want wealth or not?
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:49:08] Speaker C: Those habits aren't it like it's point blank.
[00:49:12] Speaker A: Yeah. My final question to sum this up before my guests is you hit it on the head. The way people are looking at consuming how to say buy a home or refinance is changing. At some point there will be a little bit of chat GPT and they can do the research. But when you give the example like you just gave, change is just as hard for them. And so when they become overwhelmed, they're either going to keep pushing against it unless they have a better alternative. And I think you represent that better alternative. You and I share that same phrase of win your zip code. And when you can win, be there on social media, be there in the events and then provide a level of advice that when they hit that wall, they come to you and you take them across the finish line to me. Can, if you could just dive a little bit in for our audience on winning the zip code and why we can't lose, focus on trying to win three zip codes before we win our own.
[00:50:13] Speaker C: Yes, yes. You have to be out in these streets, I call them, I'm out in these mortgage streets every day. And it's not just about mortgage, it is delivering the stories, the knowledge I have, the real use case.
Because if they're getting it from a textbook, let's be honest, mortgage is boring, right? And it sounds arduous. And we still typically advertise it as the long game, right? We advertise it. It sounds like a long time to be, oh, I want a 30 year mortgage. Nobody woke up this morning and said, oh, when I grow up, I want a 30 year mortgage.
[00:50:46] Speaker D: Right?
[00:50:47] Speaker C: And then to pass it on and only have wealth to my kids after I die. Like that's not the exciting part of having a mortgage. It's having wealth and it's everybody's individual journey. And again, how they can leverage it. Even if their plan is having wealth and what a five year plan looks like to buy a house, we have to have those organic conversations, whether it's on social where you're outside with your agent and taking it to the people or organizations that can continue to spread that mantra forward. That mortgage looks different on everybody.
We should no longer make it this one size fits all. We need to give the people what they want. And when they hear those stories, you're right, they're going to quit pushing back on. Maybe I shouldn't buy. There's so many people that are on the sidelines that qualify, that are like, no, that's because we've been shoving down their 30 year mortgage.
Pass it to your family when you die. That's not exciting and it's definitely not sexy for your financial goals. So we have to repurpose that and package it and tell them these stories that we have. We all have them. We all run into the people, we have those, you know, we talk about the most cringe worthy stories we have about getting somebody qualified into the finish line. Tell the stories because it's going to help somebody that's out there and they know that everybody's path looks different.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: I'm going to close this out by asking you, I've asked the last two guests, you know, what are some of the their loss stories thing or failure stories. But I'm not going to ask that question today. I'm going to ask you a little bit different question.
What is, what are one or two of the hardest things that you had to do as an action in order for you to go either at the beginning or middle of your career to say those were really, really hard activities, but I had to do it and it's made me this better person as a result.
[00:52:46] Speaker C: I will say who making the hard, making the hard phone calls.
I and when I say that, it's maybe the person that I don't know, maybe they're going to hang up on me, maybe they're not going to answer, maybe they're going to ghost me. I feel like that was hard for me in the beginning and now I just have, I don't have any care. I don't care because I know that if you tell me no, I'm not going to be any further behind than I already am.
And also being willing to tell people no, I became the queen of no. And that's when my life, I think actually excelled. My business got better.
That's with my clients that can't buy right now it's a no.
Like if I keep it like it's no. But let me talk about that no and what that means for you. So we can get that no into a yes. But I started with the no and less explaining long game. Well, if we do this and we do this and we do this, it helped me have better customer service and also get more referrals because I was willing to say no first it's a no. But let's talk about turning that no into a yes. And I think that when I mastered those two things, it made business flow better.
I became more successful and I also had balance because I wasn't trying to over commit and over promise. I took the lead in my own story, you know, and if, if you tell me no, I'm good, you know, and it was also empowering. So I think that those two things I think are probably really monumental in my personal journey.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: And like we say, every mortgage has a story and Mo took the lead in her story and thank you Mo. We hope you anybody who listened was able to get out all the valuable insights on how they are better off for the encounter of hearing your story today and are on the track that is the purpose of our show.
[00:54:42] Speaker H: 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.
[00:55:07] Speaker C: Sam.
