Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right. Welcome. It's Thursday. It's 02:00 p.m. here on the east coast as we are live across many different platforms. Follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube, like I said, or as we start the show, 02:00 p.m. thursdays, live here on the east coast.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: And of course, it's 11:00 a.m. live here on the west coast of sunny San Diego.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Just got the push notification that it's happening. So if you're on LinkedIn and like we say, you probably a, in the higher leadership level of mortgage, whether you are at the c level at the corporate office or you are a regional branch manager. And we will talk on today's episode how on the retail side, there are multiple layers of leadership. And I think it's important to get into in some ways, there's some rhetoric like how it can be vilified a little bit, like, like it's a bad thing. And then I, I think, as you see in recruiting, it's a good thing in the sense that I hear there's a gap of we're not just finding loan officers that can do like, volume, but we're also looking for in this area.
You know, we're looking for, and we'll get them into more of the near future. But like, we're looking at the data. We would like to put a branch here, and we really don't want just one loan officer. So we're trying to find somebody, you know, with this disc personality that can motivate and run a branch when we're not around all the time. And I'm finding that to be rarer and rare. So just saying, like, oh, we cut out the middle people. Well, then you're cutting out leadership that rallies and motivates people. But we'll get to hear, it's easy for me to tell you what I'm hearing on phone calls. We'll get to hear it straight from the source, from somebody that has worked their way up all those levels and has been at the top and is now at the top of.
Well, it's Chuck Iverson. Mason Mack. Welcome, Chuck.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: Thanks. Thanks for having me, guys. Looking forward to the conversation.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: I had an epiphany not too long ago that I would talk about how long, you know, Mason Mac has been in the industry. I think that talks about staying power, but it also talks about how many of the disruptors that we talk about on the show a lot. I have trouble with the cyclical type of business this is and probably the 80 20, which we'll talk about a little bit on usage, volume, adopting production, that they come in and then they sometimes don't stay. And that's how you get a lot of these well known companies that say, keep coming in here, disruptors, you'll find out compliance rate, whatever it is, it's harder than you think. So do you want to just give us a quick background of maybe Mason Mac or what attracts you to how they're able to take an old school vintage brand of that everybody trusts and how they're going to handle it in the new age?
[00:03:04] Speaker C: You know, it's interesting because we have internal discussions on that. Our owner, who is a dear friend and just such an amazing man, you know, really takes pride in our storied history, as he calls it. And I do think in financial services, especially when you get into rocky markets, that stability, financial capacity, starts to mean something to people. Right? Especially when you see other companies gone rolling up, all the things that have happened over this mortgage depression or in other more liquidity crisis markets and those things. So there's kind of a flight to quality, so to speak.
I will also then counter that with saying that Sears pioneered the mail order delivery.
Kmart was one of the first great low cost stores, but none of us are pining to go back to those stores, worry that Kmart was around before Target or Sears was around before Amazon. So, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think a consumer really cares per se. You know, I mean, obviously they want to know that you can deliver.
And if we're talking about an originator, they want to know that you, you know, what the strategy of the company is now. And, you know, great originators are great business people and they're savvy, and I, they want real talk and real answers. Right? And so, you know, that's really, you know, this word transparency is just means forthright, respectful, you know, not a bunch of fluff. And so, you know, back to kind of the brand thing. Yeah, it is really cool. The actual Mason McDuffie, you know, franchise was a real estate developers here in the Bay Area. And I just was out for a walk and I saw this plaque in this neighborhood, and it was a famous historical neighborhood in Berkeley that they were the developers on. And so that was great. Then they started a mortgage division, and then it's been sold a couple times and restarted and all those things. But greatest storied brand. I just ran into a friend, Craig Davis, who runs a coaching firm, and his dad was the CEO of Mason McDuffie commercial in a crazy small world story. It's kind of cool to see that another friend of mine who's an originator here, top originator for another company, showed me a pre approval letter from our, from the founder of the mortgage division from 1967 that he kept from his mom and dad when they bought their first house. So, you know, that's, that's all cool stuff. But at the end of the day, I'm not engineering this company to rest IR laws. I'm engineering this company for today. But more importantly, 24, 36, I don't know how much farther than 36 months out we can see, but that's really what I think people care about, what consumers are going to care about.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Preston, what should loan officers? And I agree with what you're saying, and I think customers want speed, but I don't think we as an industry have that answer yet on what that speed means. We all went to the light bulb like bugs, that it was like point of sale and instant approval, but that I don't know if that's exactly what the final answer will be.
I do think it's still going to be a big loan officer industry. And obviously people are betting on loan officers. How do you see the role of a loan officer has changed over just the last 24 months? Chuck has it at all, or has specifically with, or we could say 48 months. But slack groups and easier to chat on Facebook groups. It's just their ability to communicate among each other. Has that given them more of a free agent type feel like a sports analogy?
And just socially, you know, the players now seem to have more power than ever in sports. Is that the same coming it appears?
[00:07:22] Speaker C: I don't think so. I mean, I. I mean, I. In terms of loan officer communities out there, I don't know as much about that. You know, I'm not on Facebook, so I couldn't tell you that. I'm on MBS dashboard, and so you see some chats there and some sharing and things like that. And I also think that the movement to broker and the voice that, uh, an identity that was given to brokers has created other kind of user groups in that fashion. And I think that's healthy for the industry. Um, so I. It's out there. Um, I think the better companies also inspire, you know, you know, a collegial professional. How do we raise the bar on each other type of a mentality, you know, and it's very easy, you know, to go down the other way. You don't want a negative spiral. You want a positive spiral while still being real and dealing with the challenges and adversity. The role itself in my viewpoint has not changed dramatically, but I think it's been revealed through this marketplace that anything less than a full out effort to really have a broad set of referral partners has hurt you if you weren't able to do that. And that's easier said than done. So I'm not judging out there, but it takes a lot. There's been a realtor attrition in the realtor base and then at the same time I think there's a growing need for self generation. I'll call social media and creating your own kind of brand, so to speak, is part of that. But I only think that's.
I'll say it's a necessity, but it doesn't get you anywhere without the real disciplines of maintaining your databases, reaching out into your databases, being active in your communities, generating referral sources and really keeping them up. And then underlying it all, you have to have a platform of personal excellence. And I was just talking to this really impressive younger originator, younger to me because I'm old.
And he said his mentor taught him there's just these simple paradigms.
Always call your referral sources and your customers before they call you. I mean it's a simple thing, but that's proactive communications is problem solving all those different things. That's the fundamentals on the whole thing. You know, the speed equation.
You know, people don't move in a day, meaning they're their houses, you know, and there's a, there's certain inspections and appraisals and stuff. So we do have a framework that allows for the process to take a while. But what people want is ease and certainty and they want peace of mind through the process. Right? And I think, you know, I was just uh, talking with strapmore yesterday on their customer, um. Whoops, let me get my camera here. Customer surveys. Um. And you know, it's revealing because there's like seven kind of key disciplines that they measure and get consumer feedback on. And it's kind of like, did they tell me what was needed upfront? Were they proactive in the communications? You know, it's the same blocking and tackling that really take your NP's score way up, to use a fancy term. But in other words, are you going to get referrals or not out of this? And you've got to be, as NP's science says, you've got to be at the very top to actually get referrals. It's like hey, yeah, Mike was great, but that's not a, I'm going to. That dude just rocked it. I've got to tell you to tell everybody I know about it, right. And so all those disciplines there and the companies have to support that. We have to give the technology and tools for database management, a coaching environment and everything. But at the end of the day it's really up to the originator to create all that and it's not for everybody because you're your chief cook and bottle washer in a lot of these things, right? And so that's why, but that's your market value and that's why you make the big bucks, assuming you close the loans.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: So if you're an originator and you're chief cook and bottle washer, the common thread of success in mortgage origination so that you're not commoditized as a retail originator has been really doing what you just said as that younger originator was doing, making the phone calls first, making the meetings first, making the emails first and most importantly, stay in front of that consistently so that you're always first. Right. Because just like inside of any type of race, you can fall behind and get out of first really quickly.
That seems to be the common thread amongst originators. And I want to ask you a question specifically regarding Mason McDuffie because I think what's different about actual independent mortgage companies versus the originator has been in the various interviews that we've had over the course of the last two seasons is that the leaders have been able to define what is their lane of business, whether it's, hey, we're going to specialize in the gubby business. Everybody's going to look for the purchases, but there's just too few and far between for Mason McDuffie. What do you think is your lane of business to the originator so that because every, but because every mortgage company is different in their culture. So what makes your, what is, what is the definition of the Mason Mac culture so that we can make this defined for maybe the originator? Because I've talked to, this is not even an exaggeration. I've talked to about seven originators personally in the last three days from, different, from a, from a broad range of various retail companies. And there's some, there's a lot of discontent. There isn't any brand loyalty or company loyalty and none of them are Mason Mac, FYI, for context. So what do you think is the brand that you're representing at Mason Mac that allows you to stay in your lane.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's a question that we wrestle with all the time because probably, like me, everyone's read marketing books. Create your unique selling proposition, right? It's like, oh, that sounds good, but we're fairly commoditized, let's be honest about it. And I think you have to be real about that. But there's a certain composite of competitiveness that you have to bring and your model kind of. So if it's price, product depth, technology and tools and I, those types of things, you know, where does it kind of sway within that target? And so you could, you know, for example, you could have every single tool, live coaching for folks, business development folks, for their loan officers, you know, on and on and on. But you're not going to be that sharp on your price or you're going to lose a bunch of money. Right. And so that's one, so that maybe that's up in this quadrant, right. So I believe price matters.
And so we have to be as sharp in that as we can. And when I talk to originators, of course, this is a subject of kind of definition, but most people, yeah, they want a fair price. They want a price they can compete with, and they understand that on a given day you're going to get beat on a transaction. And part of that could just be timing. But for us, I think that's really important for us to stay competitive and to stay competitive every single day on prices. We're in the Bay Area, just like your market, Mike in San Diego.
It's really hard for originators if they're a, in these high cost markets because the depositories right now just have product and price. We don't have. It's just the way that it is. And I think as an originator, you got to figure that out.
If you can be in the Bay Area or San Diego and you can get a diverse set of referral sources so that you're getting some, maybe you're going out into the valley a little bit and you're getting some, and some government loans and some of those things that an IB can work for you. Otherwise, like move to the cheese and bite the bullet and go work for b of a, you're going to hate it, but at least you're going to make a living, right? You know? So anyway, for us, that's a component.
I believe that if you're in a purchase market environment, you need to have the high percentage of loan product for you because you cannot say no to referral sources very many times. You can't lose on price. I mean you can have a great relationship and they'll think you're a great relationship but you'll start getting questioned if the second 3rd referral that comes back to them and said God, Mike's, Mike's a great guy, but his price is too high or, you know, I don't have this housing finance program. Well man I can't, you know, give you referrals because of that. You know, so, you know, we, you know, we bite the bullet and we are, you know, in almost, you know, every state that we're, that we have branches, we're doing the high housing finance programs. We're kind of all in on that. We certainly, you know, specialize in all the government lending products. We're a great conforming lender. We'd like more of that. Of course, we skinny down both our, our non QMD. Um, I think some companies look at that like the old all day and they're going to make high margin on that, but it's not really that high a margin product in my viewpoint. There's a lot of jumbo loan amounts in there and there's a lot of broker sources and we have to be, we offer brokering out to our originators, but I price our loans and I look at the broker sources and I try to keep it competitive, to keep it in house, not because you have to, but because it's competitive truly to the consumer. And so, you know, I'm just trying to make sure that we've got good product depth across the board for you to continue to earn and win your business. And yeah, we do want to be a purchase lender because that's at the end of the day and it's so trite, you know, that's your bread and butter and that. But if anything's been proven in this market is like, yep.
Now I think that the company has to, and every company has to prepare to scale and to take advantage of refinance business and hopefully earn back some, some of the capital that we've lost over the last couple of years. But we never want to kind of take the eye off that and we want to maybe use our technology and speed on that stuff. So those are some of the initiatives that we're looking at for there. And then lastly, I'd just say that I'm working to transform the technology as much as possible to be a self serve for originators. So that's scalability. So we're launching and other companies have done this. Our instant response copilot system, which is essentially a chatbot, but trained on all guidelines, all of our investor guidelines, all our knowledge base and all of those things looking at pricing technology that has AI copilots, Internet as well, that can even bounce product and price together because like retail model, you kind of have underwriting and secondary separate. But those things in the loan officers world are together. Right. And so like a wholesale AE would do all that support for a, for a broker. So can we find some technology that will give those first level responses for that? So we're working on those things, you know, even some, you know, other manufacturing, maybe even some offshoring and stuff so that we're ready and scalable as we grow the organization and we can keep our service and speed times there because where the speed does matter is to our originators, like, you know, when, when we have to move a day out on underwriting, it's like a big deal, right. They're counting on that, you know, so we have to do that now kind of backing up. And if I go too far into this question, let me know. I also see companies that are really trying to extend out their product into cash offer and be very innovative. And I appreciate that.
I haven't chosen to go that way because I want to really try to, again, be brilliant on the basics and keep the blocking and tackling. We need product choice, but we need to be competitive and then we need to execute operationally on that.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Well, let me just connect two dots there and then you can ask the question. Mike. This is more of a comment, I think, Chuck, what you said on NP's scores, which are net promoter scores, a very interesting part of it is the nine and the ten count.
And I think it's anything less five or below count. So six, seven and eight. And the way you ask it, actually, I did a lot of this at easy mortgage apps. We had it and the format to ask. It's actually horrible Ui. So in the middle of everything you're required if you're going to do a hit promoter that have those boxes that you see one through ten, if people can you change, it's like not really. That's it, or it doesn't count. Not that people were submitting ours to JD power, but I just find it on your comment about three referral sources in that same context for pricing. It's not even them saying, oh, your pricing is too high or too, too low, I should say like that. Six, seven, eight is just status quo. So when they refer it, if they don't hear, oh, actually chocolate Tom's was the lowest. You know, they hear that three straight times, that's a nine and a ten. And if they hear, oh, it was way too high, that's a four, five and six. So it's very, I guess what I'm getting at very hard to actually win on pricing because you would, you don't get any credit for being competitive in that and you're all going back to the same GSE type pricing. So just wanted to kind of connect your dots there in a great point that the places you are going to win are more on product set and having your loan officers know how to react to realtors and say, we're not going to leave any referrals behind. And we also have very competitive.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I think the referral flywheel is based on quality will say that. Right. So I get a referral at the end of the day, I'm rated on the quality of the experience, especially the end of that experience, and then that gets me more referrals, which I, you know, that's the flywheel effect of the whole thing. The conversion of it is price and product and sales acumen and maybe some upfront technology, too, so that the experience is easy.
I think that mortgage advisor tools like mortgage coach, for example, are important so that you're in that trusted consultant mode as much as you can because you have, some people are like, look, dude, I've done 27 loans in the last four years and I've got my PhD in engineering, so could you just cut that? What's your fees? Right. You know, so you have that whole spectrum of people out there, but, you know, I mean, the quality referral, what gets you the app bats is that experience that you're talking about.
But then you've got to convert when you get a new lead. And so that is price and that is, you know, your skillset to convey your value. And, and then of course, you have to have the product set for and those types of things. So there's, it's kind of those two things, but it all works together in unison on there. And I think that companies need to really look at themselves and how they can get better and be realistic about it. And that includes me because I don't know that the CEO level that many people really like myself, and I'm sure hopefully some of my law officers going to call me right after this dude, let me tell you.
But I try to stay engaged with them because it's really easy to get disconnected from reality on that. But I also think in the loan officer world and loan officers, I'll say this to you with deep respect. It's easy to look at your employer or lender on the results, but you're the key component of quality experience.
And unfortunately, you don't have a mirror in that because your consumers go, oh, thanks, it was great. Right. How did you really do on these things? And that's why we're interested in obviously, getting feedback on our technology and our process and hearing from our loan officers because they're so shy. It's hard to drag out opinions from loan officers on how we're doing. But also, was I proactive? Was I consistent?
Did I meet their expectations? Did I make sure that the fee structure at closing was correct? And did I communicate that to them? And, you know, next level thinking, I did all that. Did I tell my referral partner that I did all that prior to closing too? Like, hey, Mike, just so you know, I've went through and I've made sure everything balances out to what was originally set for expectations. And I told our client that and got their approval on the whole thing. And so, you know, we should have a nice, smooth closing.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: I really appreciate, I know in the middle of what you were talking about seemed like it was long to you, but the part I really genuinely appreciate is the thread of continuity of you as a leader for the Mason Mac brand. Number one, because you're on the west coast and you need to have more product mix because it's so much more competitive for the originator.
The originators in the midwest and on the east coast get 100% of all of the benefit of your leadership, of looking at all those products. Because if you're concentrated solely on price, you're going to lose a lot of times because there's always someone cheaper in the marketplace in any trade, not just mortgage the dedication in your leadership currently, whether it's in the non QM space or whether it's in the Gobi space or whether, and you said you're looking for more conventional. And in the past gobby was always more profitable than conventional. But I think your dedication to looking at various product is, is very good. One of the things that you also mentioned is not only are originators looking at their scores on that strap Moore index, but also you're looking for feedback. I think that the type of, because Mason Mac has met through a few derivations this last half century of ownership and leadership, but not just that, but you can tell the history, oh, look at this pre qual. Oh, and look at the changes that we've had here, you know what? Yes, we've had several owners, but you know what? You don't get several owners or have the, or having other people wanting to buy a product unless there's something to want from it. And I think that from an originator's standpoint, if I was looking to say, you know what, you know, no one's ever told me that, that this company has always been wanted. You know, they're always looking for, well, maybe this XYZ was a subservice or servicer and they're just looking to get bought out again by another institutional FDIC and bank or something like that. But I think that your leadership has shown that you're given to product, you're given to service. And I think that it's not spoken enough at the leadership level of how much dedication is. I think that originators look at it go, oh yeah, they're just talking about themselves. And I think that there's not enough reframing of flipping the script at the leadership level to say, look, this is not about us. We're doing this not just for you, we're also doing this for the consumer. If you're also able to flee flip the script at the same time, then you know what, you're gonna bring more value when you do make those first phone calls. You're going to bring more value when you do make those first emails and those introduction, those meetings. And I think that's what I'm hearing from you. Cause you're not just doing this and looking at product, you're also looking at this when you're talking to support staff. And right now you know where there's a potential of newer or lower interest rates coming. And we don't know if that's gonna bring in more purchase business or more refi business. Cause there's a so little at this past year and a half. But what you're bringing to the table in looking for better profitable outlets for your originators on the west coast can only translate into the same type of better outlets and more profitable outlets also for your originators on the midwest and the east coast. So I'm, I really appreciate that you have to, uh, that you're going down this path of looking at product. How are you doing that? You touched it very briefly in your last comment. How are you doing that at an ops level?
Because there's been a lot of attrition. Greg sure put out in a LinkedIn post earlier this week that he just put something out on LinkedIn instead of hiring a recruiter, it cost him. Instead of paying thousands of dollars, it was like $200. So from an ops level, what are you doing? So that it also translate that internally, so that ops level, whether it's a processor, funder, Doctor R, or whatever, capital markets, so that it translates into the same type of, hey, we're doing this not just for you as originator, but we're bringing aboard more people, or we're changing our culture, or this is what are you doing for Ops so that the originator can feel that internally and that translate into better service so that the originator can also provide that service when they make those first phone calls.
[00:30:19] Speaker C: Well, first, I was very blessed to get this job. It's been three years now, and I wanted to run a company. I mean, I just, it was on my. Is on my path, and I got this opportunity, so I didn't like, you know, come in and that every aspect of this organization, by any means, you know, I met with McKesh, who's our owner, and we just clicked because we first and foremost believe in a foundation of respect.
And so that's kind of our non negotiable. Right. That's our platform, and that's our non negotiable. And I have a very deep definition of that, you know, because to me, that means being accountable, and we have to be accountable to each other because it's not enough just to use the right language. Your actions have to align and be respectful at the deepest level, and that's the culture that we're embracing here. But there was some tremendous folks at this company, and they're still here. And the bulk of our leadership team was already here.
If anything, we've. We've just kind of huddled up together. And, you know, I'm definitely.
We, we firmly have the loan officer and the consumer as ours, our customer and our customer focus, and we're designing our platforms, I believe, kind of platform as a service, as a, as a metaphor. It sounds a little cold, but let's face it, you know, loan officers are portable, right, and meaning they can take their business and they're looking for the best platform. And so that's what we've tried to create. And we have a currently a high touch environment. Like, I mean, stuff's closing.
Stuff's being changed right at the closing table, and our people are scrambling to make it happen. But that's kind of what top producers need, because you start closing 1015 loans a month, you're going to have stuff that changes. And if you look like a hero in all these deals, that's what gets you more. So I don't want to lose that, but we've just kind of really fostered and fanned the flames. But our, our leadership team, our operations leadership, and our operations staff members already want to do those things, and we're doing those things. But I think we've just kind of fine tuned that and evangelized it a little bit and got out of people's ways, too, because there's this other way of this industry works where it's kind of like, it's okay, you have errors. An error happened on a loan, and we're going to make sure that never happens again. So we're going to put 47 checklists on it, I'm going to give somebody a talking to, and then we're going to be fearful, and the originators feel that. And also you pay for it, because now you've added a process on every single loan, on that one loan, that one investor, and I won't throw any investors under the bus, but it could that stepped or made you buy back a loan. So I think that's it. But that's been a great success for us, and we've been able to grow the originator base. And unfortunately, it's just been a really, really challenging market to get here. But I feel we're in a good position. But now it's making sure that we can cost effectively start creating some better customer service experience tools that are scalable for the future.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: You think the lenders have a great answer. We even got a comment. I'm sorry, I got something. My eye. Do you think there's a responsibility to try and create inventory as a lender? Or just like, do you see in the future getting more into some commercial space where you're helping with more multifamily to create that rental flow into single family? Or do you think it'll always be what it is today? Like the one to four unit is, is the mortgage industry.
[00:34:23] Speaker C: We're, we are. You have to know where you are in the food chain, right? And so we're an originator, right? We don't, we don't create secondary markets. We take advantage of actually what, what you could consider to be a socialized secondary market. Fortunately, there's a capitalized distribution system on there. I mean, Stan, no one says, for God's sake, we have, we got 30 year fixed mortgages. Nobody else that's subsidized, nobody else on the planet has that. Right? I. So we have to basically just be as good as we can, within that product set that's out there now, I have a ridge. So we have broker sources, and we have referrals set up for multifamily, five to eight units, fix and flips, and there's some great investors out there that we can partner with. And I'm not doing that so much as a revenue source for our company. But I, I want our originators to be successful. And, you know, I may not care about a five unit deal, but that originator, if they can get a $10,000 paycheck, really cares about it, you know? And as long as I'm not putting my company at undue risk, which I have to really look at that with all these agreements that we have to sign on the whole thing, that I'm all for it, or, you know, my, you know, some of my buddies are in commercial and SBA referrals and stuff like that, so it's, you run into those things as an originator sometimes, and we've had some people get to take advantage of those, so I'll do that. But we don't define markets. We're not going to innovate product per se. We just have to have our eyes open and look to play offense on behalf of our company and our originators as much as we can.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: This is a general question. Do you think there should be more owner occupied loans or more non owner occupied loans given the current state of the market?
[00:36:11] Speaker C: I don't, I know, yeah, I don't, I really don't know. I did see something that, that owner or non owners are way up, but, you know, I think it's a function of, it's just, it's just, it's an economic function, really, in this capital markets and capitalism at work. So if, if rents are up and prices are down in a certain marketplace, then, you know, maybe some of the more of those homes are going to go that way. I don't fundamentally think it, I think that's still shelter for people.
And so I don't view one bad or good.
You know, I mean, you know, people need places to live, you know, and so if it, I, like, I think landlords are demonized, and I think that's just, I think that's horrible. I think it's, I actually think it's, it's horrible. The demonization of business and landlords. Yeah, maybe there's some, you know, some slum lords out there and they've done something bad, but, you know, look, at the end of the day, people putting capital at risk and they're risking getting sued and doing all that so people have a place to live. What's, that's a great product, that's a great service that that business owner is providing. So, you know, now when private equity gets involved in all this, it's a lot easier to, you know, a shame that the mega corporations and all those other things. I won't client on that. It's just, it is what it is, you know, it's. I'm a fan of capitalism. I do think it has to be kept in check. But at the end of the day, that's what makes the world go around. And I'm old enough to remember what the Soviet Union looked like, and it's not pretty.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: To add to that too great status, 50% of all town cities, municipalities, uh, function off of real estate tax. So landlords are still paying that, and that pays for street schools, clean water. Right. And important, like, just, you want great book, Eddie Perez suggests to me, skin in the game. But that really should be a. If you have a landlord that has skin in the game, it's a totally win win scenario. Like you said, if it's a private equity and there's a thousand different owners of the house and nobody actually knows it except that the, the stock ticker symbol, I think that's when the toilet not working for a family of five. Right. But if you're the landlord, you're aware of it, you should fix it, but you're aware of it.
[00:38:46] Speaker C: I mean, I would think that the institutional investors, though, didn't. They've got professional property management and all those other things that are there. So I don't know. You know, I don't want. I probably would be much wealthier if I would have started acquiring real estate when I became a loan officer. But I just never had, never had the desire and, but I've got friends that weren't even in this business, and they just started a blue collar jobs right out of high school, but they started acquiring single families, and they have done incredibly well for themselves, but they worked their ass off for it, excuse my french. They were fixing toilets in the middle of the night and they were doing all the. It's not a sexy job. No.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: And the risk is the highest it's ever been here in this state. Like, you can get the wrong renter that watched a couple of tick tock videos and knows how to stay for. So you need capital to be able to survive and kind of go through it. Just like in this, right now, in this turn, I feel like it will be one of the greater market shifts looking back, and definitely in real estate they're saying, so if something happens with this gnarly, it'll be the greatest shift of whatever you want to call the middle class people closing six to seven a year. Those top agents are really going to get a lot of that displaced activity. And I think in mortgage and maybe this is where the larger IMB and the loan officer will figure it out over the next couple of years and work closer together. And I count Mason Mac larger a and b. I just meant verse like broker small solo.
Is that that referral flywheel you talked about? You see that there is some social aspect to it locally where. And there will be a little bit of a market share where these good producers that went out and spent money and have monthly obligations and just don't have the money to bring twelve real estate agents out to or sponsor that golf tournament that they always sponsored. Right. And make sure they're everywhere like the ones we see. And that requires forward budget. Cause you probably lose the money. Losing money, then close a couple, then, you know. And so I think that's where loan officers need to have a strategy with the parent company. On local branded. Are they gonna stay out there and be seen or are they cutting down to one lunch a week? Because that's not something that attracts people, especially in this. People want to be part of the in crowded.
[00:41:15] Speaker C: You don't have to spend a bunch of money on all that though, I don't think. I think you just have to hustle and you have to be strategic and you have to know your stuff inside out and, and just stay active and you get rewarded for those things. I do see that, you know, somewhat in us, maybe smaller communities, you can, you can get kind of your brand out there where if you're in a metro, it's a little tougher. But you can, you know, in today's world, you know what? You can take advantage of some things. Like there's a guy named Kevin Knievel and I mean, he great, great human and guy. And he's like, this is the best time ever to be in sales.
You have more information about your prospects at your fingertips. Like, you know, I'm a Chico state alumni. I could get on LinkedIn, type in realtor Chico steak and come up with probably 100 prospects. You know, I could zoom it down into my geo. Even though you don't have. This is the other thing. You don't have to only work your own geo anymore as an originator.
I mean, it's not. I had to get, you know, I didn't have my license, and I had to get a license like, like this. And now I've got it in a bunch of states. It's not that hard. It doesn't cost that much money. And so you can virtually start connecting with people outside your area, too. So I think that you just have to really, really be out there. But it's not easy to reinvent yourself and also to have all the disciplines and fire that you had 20 years ago in the business. But that's what's required for you to kind of rebuild. And I do think we have to have to be aware of the shifting, you know, trends for referrals and what's happening with our real estate partners. I don't think that's going away, but some consolidation there and some things. So you have to really work on growing your own brand, I think, or your own community and referral sources and feed that back to your agents as well. And again, that's another flywheel. If you're very good at some self gin and you, you partner with your best agents on that, and they know that, then you guys kind of got a trust there. That's a, you know, that's a flywheel of sorts as well, too. And then there's, you know, I think you can be leveraging, you know, we're partners with, with homebot. Great product that, you know, they're, what used to be their pro features is now standard, which is at the heart of a relationship between you and your referral source. And you can really help them farm and you can, you know, do some things. So there's, there's a million ways to play offense in this business, but it's a long term sales cycle.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember when I first came in the business, it was like, okay, get 310 oh three s a day and talk to, and sometimes you need to talk to 20 people. Sometimes you need to talk to 100 people just to get 310 oh three s. I think that's something, that key performance metric of getting ten oh three s and talking to people, it's not a lost art, but I don't think it's talked enough from leadership down to the originator level.
[00:44:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: Are people picking up cell phones, or do they all have robo block on now? Like, is that even physically when I.
[00:44:37] Speaker C: Originated, too, but I think there's an activity thing there. And we have, I guess he's our number one producer right now, but he, he was associated with some other colleagues that were all top producers and they had their sales meetings. They didn't talk about fundings at all. It was like, how many new appointments did you get? So it says the front end Amazon runs. I'm usually studying Amazon, completely enamored with their leadership principles and how they built that thing. It's the most amazing story from a business perspective, I think, ever. But it's all, they're measuring front end metrics, knowing that the output will come. Now you have to measure your output, too, because there's conversion and there's a.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Science around all that.
[00:45:26] Speaker C: But that front end metrics are important. And it's been one of my kind of love hate relationships with social media because, you know, there's a whole cottage industry, so to speak, in our world that, you know, that really gets ellos feeling like they're, they need to be doing that. They need to be out there, they need to be doing that, investing in it. And of course, there's a whole, I kind of want to do video and all that, and I'm not anti that, but I will tell you, I think it's, it's virtually meaningless if you don't have other, like, true sales activity disciplines on top of it.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. I mean, Mike and I, and we're going to be coming out with this book, not book, just quick PDF to help loan officers so we can connect more with loan officers on how to create a podcast. Like, here's all the secrets that we learned because I think what video does great is people get to know you without actually ever, like, really meeting you. So that then when you meet them in person through these top of the funnel activities and techniques that we were both kind of saying the same thing, but you're either making calls in your niche if you're, you know, if you're active at the local football game, right. And it's. And so doing, like you said, our peers and, like, getting them on these certain type of. I don't know if it works for everybody. I don't know if, if people feel that story when they constantly see you do all these, like, here are rates today, right. It's. But you should have a podcast about the local, regional, whatever, real estate. You should have more videos about just real estate. And, and then when they meet you, you act on that activity, hey, let's get a coffee. Let's get a follow up. I think that would be more. But it comes back to just doing it. That's what our whole thing's going to be about. Like, we've seen more success in week 53 than we ever saw. And when we started tracking or feeling guilty to guests on how many people showed up for the live show, we could have easily gotten our own head. So that's, I guess where you need the Chuck Iverson is whatever you're doing, you just, it's why you shouldn't. Solopreneurship isn't for everybody. Broker isn't for everybody because it works in the moment. But a lot of these don't pay off till week 52. Week 53. And that's where you need that motivator to say, hey, I recognize you've done whatever it is, any activity, 52 weeks, that's not easy. It's going to pay off and you'll know about it. When you walk into a room somewhere and somebody says something you didn't even know, they followed you, watched you, went to the bus that you're on the picture of whatever that is, don't stop anything after week four or you're just going to be wasting your money.
[00:48:16] Speaker C: Yeah. So, I mean, it is hugely important. And I was thinking about Instagram reels and you, these bite size educational things and, you know, certainly with Gen Z, you know, it's, it's a way that they get educated and so you create your brand out there and ultimately that could, can generate leads. But you have to be feeding kind of your referral sources and taking all those activities that I'm talking about as well, too, you know, coming up with, you know, and I don't know what it is anymore. Are you going to open houses? Are you stalking people and asking for virtual coffees and trying to create value to them, bringing new strategies to them. But you have to be talking and actively going after folks. But at the same time, you know, maybe that's just to engage them on your, on your, on your Instagram channel so that they can follow you. And maybe there's that. So it's the marketing we'll call social media and all the strategies around that, whether it's a radio show, whether it's a podcast, whether it's your Instagram feeds, whatever it might be, are there for conversion. So increased conversion. Right. As well as then ultimately more leads. And so again, it all fits into this overall funnel. But this isn't new. I mean, I remember going to a Joe Stump by referral only seminar long, long ago, and he, he really espoused, you know, the underlying hypothesis was, you do such a great job that you only take deals by referral. Right.
But then, you know, he had pillars of your business that you approached, you know, and so you, you know, I don't think anyone's ever really advocated being a kind of a one trick pony, per se. So. Yeah, but you have to work all those different things. And now we have new tools that we can market ourselves as originators without buying billboards and show and displaying our knowledge, our professionalism, our consistency, to your point. And, you know, then use those for conversion and new leads.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: You know, you mentioned Joe Stump, because, I mean, I've been to a number of the main events with Joe Stump as an originator in the past. I remember one of the stories he would say is, you know, if you, if you're taking bread to a park to go feed birds, right? And you say here, birds come and get the bread. And they're like, we don't speak English, right? Birds, birds don't speak human. So, I mean, how are they supposed to know? The only way they know is if they see you doing the action.
And I think with the, with the Nar settlement that's recently happened and not knowing where I, you know, what is the current role, how buyer's agents are getting compensated or who the next newer referral source is going to be. Does that language need to change? And how, and just in a generalized opinion, because a lot of us really don't know what is that language that the, I'm going to use the bird or the consumer needs to hear so that the originator can have the right food, the right language and the right calls to go bring in the birds and as a result bring in the leads.
[00:51:33] Speaker C: I'm not sure I 100% understand the question.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: What is that? What does the originator need to do so that they can have the right bird call? In other words, what, you know, because if they're, if you're chasing after buyers agents today, not knowing how their compensation is really going to be and not knowing if it's going to be more listing agents that you have to chase after now because of the way that our settlement is supposed to not pay out the buyer's agents.
[00:51:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, first I would just say that, you know, it'd be an interesting demographic study to see how many people consider themselves buyers only agents and how many listing agents, because my experience is most agents, you know, they'll deal with buyers and sellers. So I think that's one thing. I would think that the first thing is master your craft and understand how you as an originator can serve all the varieties of buyer agent commissions that can occur and that you can also maybe study the craft of being a real estate agent, you know, attend some of the webinars that are out there that people are putting on how you could help offer maybe some value to those things. So I heard a really good example by an executive of the real estate brand, national brand, and just said, we've been doing listing presentations forever. Right? And so this is the same thing. You should be presenting a buyer presentation to your buyer about services that you're going to offer. But as lenders, we want to support that. Maybe we can even, we could create slides around that, but we can also educate all our referral sources on all the variances, how we handle it, how it works into, you know, seller concessions or not, you know, and take some of the fear out of that and also have a way of saying, I got your back no matter what, and I'm your huckleberry.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: Love it.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: I think in general, the NAR piece is, it's not finished yet, so it's hard for everybody to invest all this time and you don't know the answers yet, but you almost need to like, hey, say, hey, the day this does come out of, we will be meeting at 09:00 a.m. the next day. Right. And no excuses, you're going to almost have to have a doctor's note not to be there because that's when we're going to put the shovel in the ground and we're going to start. And if we spent 5 hours on that day, better use of our time than wasting 35 hours on hypotheticals that never ended up coming out. And I feel like that's where we are right now. And the best thing you can do is just support the buyer's agent. Cause you're not going to win. Um, maybe on our show, because we talk, real talk and some things like that, but you're not really going to win.
Uh, not saying why buyer's agents are needed and why they're, they're a better. The system worked and protected people and it just worked. And um, I get why the new system's out, though. I think Jeremy Potter said it best. It's between title insurance, loan officer, buyer's agent, seller's agent, state government, federal government, everybody's getting a percentage of the actual price that has risen so much. It's not like they're getting fixed fees. And then if people are selling houses every three, four years and this huge commission piece just keeps getting pulled out of it, that, I think that's what they're trying to, it will always try and stop moving forward. Or that's where you'll see problems and that's why everybody's getting picked on a little bit.
[00:55:37] Speaker C: Well these things will shift to depending on the markets, how negotiate. I mean we're all essentially the buyer's commissions have been priced in.
I don't think many people are going to list their house and say, I don't, we won't pay a buyer's commission. I think that if I was a listing agent, I'm going to sit there and I'm going to say, look, we're going to take all offers and some offers may come with a buyer commission and some may not. But what you care about, Mister Seller, is that net bottom line there. So let's not worry about all those things. Let's get the funnel as wide as possible to get the maximum amount of exposure and, and offers to you, you know, and so, you know, what does that look like? I don't know, you know, and some, you know, I think that there are some houses maybe that, you know, are more cookie cutter. You know, my neighborhood, man, I, my buyer's agent was awesome and so, so deeply knowledgeable about all the issues and you know, we're on a hill. I mean there's a lot of different things and I, man, none of that then she negotiated on my behalf and she negotiated harder than I probably would have.
[00:56:55] Speaker A: I think the other shift is that no one's talking about is we've always been in an up and down market. So to over protect one side then there's a crash and the other side happens.
[00:57:05] Speaker C: It's just like the discount brokerages help you sell and all those things you get into extreme sellers, market sellers are tempted to do fizzbuk but, or you know, physical with the co op. Right. You know, so this has all been there. But then, you know, the market softens a little bit, which, you know, I arguably is better for buyers. I'd like to see it where buyers have a better shot at these, these things. You don't have to come in with an all cash offer or whatever it might be then, you know, then there's more negotiation out there. So. But ultimately you can always raise the price. You know, buddy has to appraise to cover costs and do these things. And it's just a negotiation in my viewpoint. And that's why we have to normalize it. We have to be the subject matter experts. As the mortgage lender, we have to understand how contracts are out there. And I think loan officers should be out attending their local, you know, association of realtor meetings. I mean, that's like, they're talking about this all the time. That's where your people are there. And I. The only other quick advice I have is, like, you got to love your customers. I've scratched my edge from day one when I got into this industry and kind of heard negative talk about realtors from loan officers. I'm thinking, whoa, this realtor just calls me all the time. They want to know what's going on with the deal. I'm like, yeah, it's their reputation. It's their mortgage payment.
They care.
And why do they have to call you that?
[00:58:41] Speaker A: That could be more true. It's like when we do these local get together, networking. I was meeting with real, a real estate group or a leader of it. I said, it'd be great to have some agents there. Cause that'll get the loan officers there. And she was like, yeah, as long as they understand that they could talk to us like humans and nothing like we are, they're all going around us for a deal right away, and that's what they look at us as. So it's, you know, both sides looking at each other, and it's a little disconnected because I think both people just want a stable partnership, and.
And I think that gets lost based on whichever side's a little bit more stronger on their biasness towards an altered reality. The reality is they both want to work together because it's hard out there, and it's certainly easier if they're on the same page, sharing time, among other things.
[00:59:33] Speaker C: Yeah. I just think that from a mindset perspective, it's healthier for you to hold a positive image in mind of your target customers.
[00:59:46] Speaker A: Mason Mac. Positive mind. Positive image. Oh, that's a great way. Take us home. Michael Zhao. Appreciate your time here, Chuck.
Yeah, this was great. We didn't even take a breath.
[01:00:01] Speaker B: It was definitely nonstop. I love some of the takeaways I really got from this conversation is knowing the precision that you need to have as an originator and knowing the precision you need to have in the leadership and the company that you're working with if you're a retail originator is not only knowing your product, not only knowing your customer, not only knowing what is the precision of timing so you can remain, you know, if you're going to be telling your realtors, well, this many days in underwriting, and then when you're in the middle of an escrow, well, I'll call you back approximately at 01:00 because you know you're going to be having emails and telephone conversations between ten and twelve. And then that 01:00 conversation which is so uncomfortable is that even throughout the 3 hours of conversation you have no answer yet. But at least you return that phone call and gave that expectation, the precision of providing the type of communication not only to your referral sources and to your customers, because knowing you're still doing all that work in between is going to bring all of what your leadership is doing as far as product knowledge, as far as bringing operations together and keeping pricing sharp. It's your job to make, to make sure as the salesperson, knowing in this conversation that you need to stay in front of the customer, in front of the realtors or your referral sources. And I really appreciate that in this conversation we were to go really deeply on how at least Mason Mac is able to go deep into all of this conversation and pursuing the greatest amount of capacity of success, which in turn translates into higher gross commissionable dollars for you as the salesperson. So I really love this, this conversation. Thank you so much, Chuck, for coming on our show. And of course, we're here every Thursday at 11:00 a.m. pacific. And of course for you, Mike, 02:00 p.m. eastern.
Thank you, Chuck, so much for coming on our show today.
[01:01:57] Speaker C: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks everybody. Be successful. Be well. Have a great day.
