LAURIE GOODMAN
FAITH SCHWARTZ
JODI HALL
JIM GRAY
CHUCK IVERSON
MICHELLE BOYD
FRANK FUENTES
MANAGING EDITOR JAMES KLEIMANN
EDITOR ANGELICA LEICHT
SENIOR MORTGAGE REPORTER BILL CONROY
REAL ESTATE & TITLE REPORTER BROOKLEE HAN
MORTGAGE REPORTER FLÁVIA FURLAN NUNES REPORTERS CONNIE KIM, SARAH MARX
LEAD ANALYST LOGAN MOHTASHAMI
REALTRENDS
VICE PRESIDENT OF REAL ESTATE MARK ADAMS TECHNICAL DIRECTOR KEERI TRAMM
PRESIDENT MIKE SIMONSEN
REVERSE MORTGAGE DAILY EDITOR CHRIS CLOW
CORPORATE
CEO CLAYTON COLLINS
COO DIEGO SANCHEZ
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE ANDREW KEY
DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE AMY BEARD
VICE PRESIDENT OF GROWTH CAREN KARRIS
GRAPHIC DESIGNER BRANDON JOHNSON
VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT HOLDEN PAGE
PRODUCT MANAGER OF MEDIA BO FRIZE
AD OPS COORDINATOR ELIZABETH LEDOUX
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LEADING UP TO THIS ISSUE, I’ve been building the Women of Influence panels for October’s HousingWire Annual in Austin, Texas. One of my biggest takeaways in planning and hosting dedicated Women of Influence sessions at our flagship event is that these sessions are for everyone. And, reading through this year’s esteemed list of women explains why.
I first want to recognize and congratulate those who made the 2023 list. Your achievements and leadership momentum in 2022 and 2023 not only caught our attention, but also the attention of the industry as a whole. You are joining the ranks of women who have gone on to lead housing at the national level , work as CEOs and serve as chairs of associations and boards. These women are leaving a mark in housing. This is also why we’re excited to bring our Women of Influence honorees, and really everyone in
the industry, together for HW Annual on October 10-12. As presidents, CEOs and leaders at some of the biggest organizations, these women wield an incredible amount of advice, insight and knowledge that applies to anyone growing their career or their business. Their talks will focus on the importance of giving yourself permission to not know everything and navigating your career in a down market.
I hope to see you there!
Brena Nath Director, HW+ & Events @BrenaNath
The information contained within should not be construed as a recommendation for any course of action regarding legal, financial or accounting matters. All written materials are disseminated with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal advice or other professional services. HW Media does not guarantee the accuracy of information provided, and is not liable for any damages, losses or other detriment that may result from the use of these materials.
© 2023 by HW Media, LLC • All rights reserved
AIME, MBA, NAHB, NAR and NRMLA share what their organizations are focusing on this fall.
Kudos
94
The Compass Cares Classic is raising money for local charities in its third year.
Reverse mortgage pros share their tips for finding accurate information in a changing industry.
100
Dalila Ramos shares her top five tips for improving minority homeownership.
101
86 House hunters are struggling to find their dream home in the middle of this tight market.
The 1930s were a difficult time economically, so how did that affect the average homeowner?
102
The “America’s Best” real estate agent honorees share their experiences in the real estate industry.
Thank you for joining the HW Media team at Gathering of Eagles. We can’t wait to see you next time!
HW Media is excited to bring together affordable-housing experts to talk about the challenges and solutions that could move the needle on affordable housing initiatives in 2023.
HousingWire’s Marketing Leaders award is recognizing the marketers in housing who represent the brains and creativity behind the growth and success of their organizations.
The following list of 100 honorees includes many examples of exceptional leadership from some of the industry’s most accomplished women.
Appraisals are an important and complex step in the homebuying process. Accuracy is key — but so is speed. Read more about how Jaro is revolutionizing the appraisal process, plus get the inside look at one of the industry’s prominent banks in this month’s company spotlight.
Fort Mill, S.C.-based lender Movement Mortgage appointed Jake Fehling to serve as its new chief marketing officer. Fehling has been with Movement since 2017 and has served in a variety of roles during that time, including as the vice president of content and social strategy; vice president of public relations and communications; and vice president of marketing.
Ewing, N.J.-based mortgage sub-servicer Cenlar FSB appointed Marlon Groen as the company’s chief compliance officer. Groen previously served as chief risk and compliance officer for AHP Servicing and as both head of legal and regulatory affairs and later as chief compliance officer for PHH Mortgage, a division of Ocwen Financial Services. He also served as senior counsel for both Arlington Capital Mortgage and later Sovereign Bank between 2002 and 2011.
Jessica Manna
Columbus, Ohio-based lender Go Mortgage appointed industry veteran Jessica Manna as its new chief marketing officer. Most recently Manna worked a five-year stint in numerous roles at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation. Manna previously served as founder and principal at her own mortgage marketing firm; and as a consultant at Planet Home Lending and CrossCountry Mortgage.
Christine Chandler, the executive vice president, chief credit officer and chief operating officer of M&T Realty Capital Corporation (RCC), has been nominated to serve as the Mortgage Bankers Association’s vice chair for the 2024 membership year. The installation of Chandler took place at the association’s 110th Annual Convention in Philadelphia in June. Chandler brings more than 30 years of experience in commercial real estate finance to the role, having been with M&T since 1991.
New York-based real estate investment trust Rithm Capital — the parent company of NewRez and Caliber Home Loans — appointed Satish Mansukhani as its managing director in investment strategy. Mansukhani comes from an 11-year stint as head of agency MBS research at Merrill Lynch and has previously served as the chief investment officer for Gold Creek Capital Management and as managing director and head of mortgage strategy at Credit Suisse.
Former Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Dana Wade, who served as the final FHA Commissioner during the presidency of Donald Trump, announced on social media that she is returning to politics by acting as senior adviser to the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. After her term as FHA Commissioner, Wade served as the chief production officer for FHA lending at Walker & Dunlop.
Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Bank named Steve Gildersleeve as its syndications lead in the affordable housing group of its secondary markets division. Having previously served at Freddie Mac, Gildersleeve will assist in the sourcing and relationship development for low-income housing tax credits as well as assist in organizing their disbursement. In addition to a previous tenure at Freddie Mac, Gildersleeve also served in several roles at Bank of America.
August 22-24
Cost to attend: $999
Presented by Tom Ferry
Get actionable advice from one of the top leaders and coaches in real estate, Tom Ferry. In its 20th consecutive year, the Tom Ferry Success Summit is for real estate professionals who want to dominate their market, grow their business and achieve success. Top-producing agents will have the chance to learn and network with other high-level professionals. Attendees will get three days of lessons straight from Tom Ferry, an opportunity to learn digital and offline marketing tactics and get the playbooks of other successful agents. Agents who want a next-level experience can purchase VIP tickets for bonus content and opportunities like prime seating. Not able to attend in person? The summit offers live streaming options too.
September 26-28
Cost to attend: Member $625 | Non-member $800
Presented by LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance
Real estate professionals can't miss the only LGBTQ+ conference in the housing and real estate industry. Surround yourself with like-minded professionals to learn, grow and connect. The LGBTQ+ presence in real estate is growing! This year’s speakers include Butch Leiber, Hillary Saunders and Natalie Davis, along with dozens of other leaders and coaches from across the industry. Attendees can learn strategies for selling luxury real estate, strengthening working relationships, improving your social media marketing practices and growing your business. LGBTQ+ icons will take the stage alongside industry leaders so attendees can work hard and play hard at the 2023 Alliance Annual Convention.
In this HousingWire Daily episode, Editor-in-Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami about why home prices have stabilized even as mortgage rates have gone up.
Sarah Wheeler: Even if you're not a housing crash person, most people expected some moderation in pricing in 2023. But, that's not what we've seen. And also, you've been pointing out for the last six months that there is no inventory crash coming. One of the things that has to happen is that there has to be a whole bunch more supply. When in fact, we're at all-time lows.
Logan Mohtashami: New listings data is trending at all-time lows. When demand picks up, it prevents active inventory growth. So that's what occurred in 2023, it was the longest time ever recorded in U.S. history to reach the seasonal bottom. My price forecast said prices can fall in 2023, but it needs mortgage rates to be above 5.875%. And, it needs to kill demand, just like it did in 2022.
This is why I've always highlighted November 9. We have a second half of 2023 to deal with. That's when the seasonality of pricing actually gets weaker. But, we still keep the same principles of following active listings, new listings, 10-year yield and purchase application data. This process has always worked and is not a speculative theory of just throwing it up in the air hoping it sticks. In one of the most violent housing markets in history, just a few moves in the bond yield markets and the forward-looking data can stabilize the biggest crash in home sales ever recorded in history. It can happen.
Scan the code to listen, now!
"I absolutley love collaborating and contributing to great events that move our industry forward. I always come away with deeper connections and new ideas and strive to do the same for others."
- Alec Hanson, chief marketing officer at loanDepot
“Logan Mohtashami on why home prices aren't crashing with higher rates”
Kevin Cooke is a proven professional with over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. He has a specialized focus on business development and client relationship management. At LoanCare, he is responsible for driving new company strategies, expanding business pipelines, establishing mutually beneficial strategic relationships and focusing on the bottom line. Prior to joining LoanCare, Cooke was the senior vice president of strategic partnerships for Auction.com. He lead a team of business development executives focused on securing new business partnerships and identifying client opportunities for increased revenue and portfolio performance.
Below, Cooke answers five questions that give an inside look at his life.
1. My morning routine looks like... I like to start my day early. Three to four times a week I get up around 5 a.m. to exercise with either an early morning boot camp class at the gym or a run around my neighborhood.
2. People would be surprised to know I... was a trader and market maker on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
3. My signature phrase...“Your word is your bond.” This was something I learned and embraced from my time at the NYSE, but also a lesson I have used in all walks of my professional life.
4. The book I can’t stop recommending is...“The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. It is a self-help book with a spiritual message about walking through life more freely.
5. The future is...not something to be fearful of — it’s exciting and full of opportunity.
steve@thekolenogroup.com
820 N. Washington Street, Hinsdale, IL 60521
$1.98 million 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
Steven Koleno is an accomplished and driven adviser, coach, strategist and thought leader with more than 15 years of experience. He specializes in both the institutional-owned single-family rentals and residential segments on both the leasing and sales sides. He is currently the No. 1 ranked agent in Illinois per RealTrends agent rankings.
Koleno believes that in the current post-pandemic era of disruption, established brands, business models and agents can become obsolete if they don’t keep up with changing times.
“I believe that the leading real estate brands of the future will need to be more compelling, highly differentiated and lean into the future,” he said.
The property at North Washington Street in Hinsdale, Illinois, is a piece of local history, designed by the renowned architect Harold R. Zook. The property showcases a blend of mid-century modern and classical architecture, featuring limestone and metal accents that exude elegance and sophistication. The interior’s natural light comes from its stunning floor-to-ceiling windows that provide breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape, and its custom wood floors add warmth and character to each room.
Hinsdale has a reputation as one of the most desirable places to live in the Chicago area, with its real estate consisting mainly of large, luxurious homes, many of which are historic and architecturally significant. The village is known for its tree-lined streets, charming downtown area and meticulously manicured lawns and gardens.
Othello is known for its rich geological history, Basalt formations, stunning views and vibrant arts scene. It is also the city Jesse "Weno" Dominguez, an agent at Imagine Realty Group, calls home. “I absolutely love the Columbia Basin and the reason is that we are a unique market. We are very agricultural so there is a lot of farming but there is also a lot of diversity. It is a growing place,” Dominguez said. The growth of Othello, and Adams County in general, over the past few years has resulted in what Dominguez describes as sporadic market conditions. “It will be slow for a few days and then we’ll get this wave of interest and buyers and then it will slow again, but it keeps picking back up,” he said. Despite these up and down conditions, the median list price of homes in Adams County hovered around $350,000 for the entire month of June, according to data from Altos Research. And while the seven-day moving average for single-family inventory was just 36 homes as of June 2023, it is far better than the 15 homes listed in mid-May of 2023. “Inventory was a huge issue the last few years, but we do have some inventory now across all price points, so at least buyers have choices now,” Dominguez said.
Known as “the heart of the Lake of the Ozarks,” Osage Beach is a popular destination for vacationers and second home buyers. “The Lake of the Ozarks has more shoreline than California,” Wade Covington, a local Century 21 Prestige Real Estate agent, said. “It is the Destin of the Midwest — tons of restaurants on the water, swim up bars. It is just a really good time.” The lifestyle offered by Osage Beach and the Lake of the Ozarks has certainly attracted homebuyers. In June, the median list price of homes in Osage Beach was $626,966, less than $60,000 off the alltime high set in June 2022. “The market here has just skyrocketed over the past few years,” Covington said. Since relocating to the area in 2017, Covington said the local market has gone from a $500 million market to a $1.3 billion market and he expects it to continue to grow. “There are still a lot of buyers, but if the Fed raises interest rates more this year, that might start to cool down,” he said.
Vienna was first settled in the1750s by Colonel Charles Broadwater. It was originally called Ayr Hill, named after the hometown of Broadwater’s sonin-law: Ayr, Scotland. Today, Vienna is known for its top-rated schools, quaint neighborhoods and proximity to the nation’s capital. The combination of these factors has resulted in a hot housing market. According to Altos Research, as of late June, Vienna had a “strong seller’s market” with a Market Action Index score of 47. A score of 30 denotes a balanced market. In addition, homes are sitting on the market a median of just 42 days. “All of the homes that we have sold recently have sold in the first weekend with multiple offers at $50,000 to $100,000 over list price with no home inspection,” Casey Samson, the leader of The Casey Samson Team, said. According to Samson, properties his team lists are getting anywhere from three to 17 offers each. Despite his team’s success, Samson has some worries. “I’m concerned about not having inventory,” he said. “I don’t think people are going to leave 2.5% mortgages to take on a 6% mortgage, so I have been telling my agents to get used to these numbers for a while.”
Developed as a railroad town in the 1870s, Papillion is now the county seat of Sarpy County and is home to many people who commute into Omaha, as well as military families for the Offutt Air Force Base. “About 85% to 90% of our business is military clients and a lot of them choose this area because they want to stay close to the Air Force base,” Brittney LaHayne, an agent for the local Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, said. According to LaHayne, the local housing market is quite different depending on what price point you are looking for.
“I am seeing a slow down for homes listed at $400,000 and above,” she said. “They are still moving, but it is slower — like two weeks. But at the $300,000 and under price points, homes are still flying. I mean like 24 to 48 hours and they are gone.” Altos Research data confirms these trends. Homes with a median list price closer to $300,000 have a median days on market of 35 days, while those with a median price of $453,150 are typically on the market for 133 days. Like other agents, LaHayne is concerned about inventory. “It has been a problem for many years now, but the last two years we have really struggled keeping up with the amount of buyers that we have versus the number of homes we have in our market,” she said. “Even new construction, for the last couple of years, has not been able to keep up with the amount of people that we have coming to the area.”
Social media is inseparable from doing business in the housing industry today. HousingWire has collected some of the most-liked, most informative and must-read posts on all your favorite platforms, below. Follow your colleagues across the industry, and keep up with HW Media on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads and Linkedin. Have a trending post you want us to feature? Reach out to us @HousingWire
Facebook: HousingWire
Instagram: @housingwire
LinkedIn: HousingWire
Twitter: @HousingWire
A special moment being able to get an on-stage BeReal! A leap list moment! That's a wrap on day two of Gathering of Eagles @RealTrends
Welcome to the nerd show
LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance
Thank you to all of our amazing members from coast to coast! Your unwavering support and commitment to our mission is what makes the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance thrive. Together, we're making a difference in the lives of LGBTQ+ people everywhere. #LGBTQRealEstateAlliance #PrideinRealEstate
Have you joined Threads yet?
Housing gurus like Logan are excited to follow, like and interact with you!
@compass
Exciting morning with @robreffkin, our founder and CEO, ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange with our agents and employees.
East TN to feed Tennesseans experiencing hunger and to help engage the community in the fight against hunger.
ServiceLink congratulates Susan Falsetti on being named a 2023 HousingWire Woman of Influence!
Susan Falsetti’s deep industry knowledge, commitment to mentorship and her people-first approach make her worthy of recognition as a 2023 HousingWire Woman of Influence. Thank you, Susan, for all that you do to move the industry forward! ServiceLink congratulates you on this well-deserved honor.
Since 2008, the number of private secondary mortgage providers has reduced dramatically, and those that remain in the market generally purchase jumbo loans from more affluent borrowers.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been under government conservatorship since the beginning of 2008. Ginnie Mae is wholly owned by the federal government. This is important to note because most people believe that the government has no business competing with private enterprises unless it is there to serve segments of the market that are not being adequately served by the private sector. While banks also have the capacity to make loans and hold them on their balance sheets, the majority sell most or all of their loans to secondary providers. They do this to reduce their risk and to free up their capital to process more loans. Independent mortgage bankers use lines of credit to fund all of their loans and therefore must sell them promptly on the secondary mortgage market. The bottom line is that the secondary mortgage market is the platform that powers the entire mortgage ecosystem in the U.S.
a uniform secondary mortgage market is that there isn’t much differentiation in the market. Because mortgage lenders need to underwrite their loans to satisfy either Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae guidelines, every mortgage lender in every market offers much the same products and follows the same underwriting guidelines, making it difficult for mortgage lenders to serve borrowers who fall outside the narrow underwriting box.
“Loans made to minority borrowers tend to be smaller, so the commissions are lower. Essentially, loans made to Hispanic and Black borrowers frequently make less money, cost more to produce and carry more risk.”
Because Hispanic and Black borrowers typically have less wealth and are primarily first-time homebuyers, processing loans for minority borrowers can require more time and work.
The benefit of a system with a robust secondary mortgage market is that borrowers can access competitively priced mortgages in almost every market in the country, and because the secondary market is limited to a handful of providers, the mortgage approval process is widely standardized. In other words, the process and criteria to qualify for a mortgage are very much the same throughout the country. Without a strong secondary mortgage market supported by the federal government, lenders would be able to fund far fewer loans, and would likely flock to the most affluent areas in the country, leaving less-affluent markets with fewer options to finance a home. The drawback to having
Additionally, loans made to first-time buyers with small down payments are considered riskier and have higher rates and fees to compensate for the additional risk. Loans made to minority borrowers also tend to be smaller, so the commissions are lower. Essentially, loans made to Hispanic and Black borrowers frequently make less money, cost more to produce and carry more risk. The financial incentives are simply not there for mortgage companies that want to do more minority lending; therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise that most banks and mortgage lenders do just enough minority lending to stay out of regulatory trouble but secretly have no desire to do much beyond that.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have had affordable lending goals for years, but the impact of closing the minority homeownership gap has not been that significant. If the federal government was serious about closing the minority homeownership gap, they would require Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie Mae to provide financial incentives to lenders that outperform the market in lending to minority, first-time buyers. Today, a handful of companies make a disproportionate percentage of loans to minorities.
They do it despite the financial sacrifices, but their success proves that it can be done. Minority lending goals without financial incentives will continue to have modest outcomes, but if
the financial incentives are aligned with the goals, lenders will respond accordingly and the impact on minority lending would be substantial.
The U.S. is one of the few places in the world where you can get a fixed-rate mortgage amortized over 30 years. It is also a great product that would not be possible without our secondary market. Fixed-rate mortgages provide stability and predictability. The criteria to qualify for a fixedrate mortgage has not changed much in the last 60 years. Lenders use systems called automated underwriting systems (AUS) that are accessed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Income and credit information are inputted into the AUS. Then, it makes a decision based on three primary factors: debt-to-income ratio (DTI), credit score and loan-to-value ratio (LTV). Credit and loan-to-value ratios are fairly easy to determine for most people, but evaluating income is where judgment is sometimes involved. Today, for borrowers who do not get all of their income from fixed wages, their income is averaged over the most recent two-year span, making it more difficult for self-employed and parttime workers to qualify for a mortgage. Latinos and other minorities are almost twice as likely to have self-employment or part-time income as the overall population. The emergence of the “gig economy,” where more people earn their money by working multiple part-time or temporary jobs, presents challenges for underwriters who are bound by a process that was designed when 90% of the population earned a standard paycheck. A borrower’s income should always be evaluated as part of the underwriting process, but closing the minority homeownership gap will require more innovation in determining income and the ability of a borrower to repay a mortgage.
Thin credit, when a borrower does not have enough established credit to generate a dependable credit score, is also an issue that tends to affect minority borrowers more frequently. Recently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have allowed lenders to use rental history to build a credit profile. This is an important development because the data shows that a borrower’s history of paying rent or a previous mortgage is the single best indicator of a borrower’s ability to repay.
For the most part, interest rates for mortgages are determined by market forces; however, risk is also a factor. Ironically, higher interest rates and fees are assigned to the borrowers that can least afford them. This practice is called risk-based pricing. Borrowers with high loan-to-value ratios and lower credit scores are required to pay higher rates
and fees for mortgages. This practice disproportionately affects minority first-time homebuyers. The most prominent exceptions to this practice are FHA and VA loans, in which everyone pays the same price and fees regardless of LTV or credit score. Recently, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, made adjustments to their policies that reduced the pricing for loans that were previously deemed riskier. The policy initially received criticism from people who believed it penalized people with good credit. However, FHFA understands that homeownership rates, especially for minorities, won’t improve without addressing mortgage affordability for first-time buyers.
If the industry was given one silver bullet to reduce the minority homeownership gap, it might be to substantially improve diversity in the mortgage industry. The process of purchasing a home is complicated and intimidating, especially for someone who has no experience with it. Having a mortgage professional who comes from your community, understands the cultural nuances and speaks your preferred language makes a huge difference. The mortgage companies that service the highest percentage of minority borrowers also have the most diverse teams — up and down their organization, from the C-suite to their operations and sales teams. Every year NAHREP surveys the top Latino mortgage originators in the nation. When asked why they chose the company for which they currently work, the No. 1 answer has been, “They understand my borrowers and know how to close my loans.”
Translation: my company employs people who look and sound like my clients and me.
As our nation becomes a majority-minority country, our longterm prosperity depends on our ability to close ethnic wealth and prosperity gaps. Because home equity is the primary source of wealth for most Americans, closing the minority homeownership gap is the first step toward that goal. Closing the homeownership gap will require improving housing affordability, closing knowledge gaps, increasing diversity in the housing industry, and improving access to affordable mortgage credit. The latter can be accomplished by 1) Incentivizing mortgage lenders who originate a high percentage of their loans to minority borrowers, 2) Developing new metrics to determine the ability to repay, 3) Continuing to find solutions for borrowers with thin credit files, 4) Improve loan pricing for first-time homebuyers with average credit scores and small down payments, and 5) Dramatically improving diversity in the mortgage industry.
Gary Acosta is the co-founder and CEO of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.“The mortgage companies that service the highest percentage of minority borrowers also have the most diverse teams...”
Paul Akinmade
Shannon Baldwin ...26
Rosalie Berg
David Bitton
Coleen Bogle
Nadja Brandt ... 27
Vashti Brotherhood
Scott Cange
Kenon Chen
Corin Clement ... 28
Steven Cooley
Whitney Curry
Krish Dhokia
Kristen Durand ...29
Caitlin Green
Sara Holtz
Brian Icenhower
Steve James ... 30
Jennifer Johnson
Prakash Karnani
Matt Kaufman
Rachel Keohan ... 31
David King
Eric Kujala
Amit Kulkarni
Moneek Langston ... 32
Jennifer Leonard
Liz Lilly
Dre Madden
Olivia Mariani ... 33
David Marine
Debbie McGriff
Carolyn Merchant
Corie Meredith ... 34
Darcy Patch
Rivers Pearce
Julie Pierson-Fields
Celia Pinczower ... 35
Courtney Ray
Erica Sachse
Brad Sivert
Jarrett Stanley ... 36
Wayne Stanley
Hadley Stecker
Kara Taylor
Alex Todak ... 37
Anthony Toro
Chelsea Vonder Haar
Mike Wojcik
Amory Wooden ...38
In its third year, HousingWire’s Marketing Leaders award is recognizing the marketers in housing who represent the brains and creativity behind the growth and success of their organizations. Through compelling messaging, content development, strategic campaigns and much more, these leaders are driving meaningful revenue growth for their organizations by engaging audiences and generating brand awareness day in and day out.
This year’s list includes a diverse group of marketing minds who come from many different aspects of housing. However, they all share a common trait of working collaboratively across their organizations to help drive growth and success.
Mike Wojcik, chief marketing officer at Fay Servicing, led the front- and back-end development and implementation of an internal referral program that resulted in an increase in revenue of $40.6 million in 2022. In her first year at Opteon, executive vice president of marketing and communication, Courtney Ray, expanded the company’s brand and industry presence through key media placements, targeted paid advertising campaigns, strategic thought leadership content initiatives, and omnichannel marketing campaigns. Through Ray’s overarching initiatives, marketing drove over 40% of Opteon’s website traffic in 2022.
Head of Marketing Celia Pinczower has helped Endpoint reinvent the settlement experience from the ground up, supporting the launch of Endpoint’s suite of products and evolving its brand as the company expanded its capabilities and service offerings over the past three years. Pinczower orchestrated a brand campaign that included media interviews, industry speaking engagements, a company-sponsored blog, social media content, and other events, alongside launching a new company website.
Like the examples above, each honoree in this year’s list has made major contributions to their organizations and inspired those who are new to the industry to do the same. The following list depicts the hard work and accomplishments of each of the 50 honorees.
Congratulations to the 2023 HousingWire Marketing Leaders!
Paul Akinmade Chief Strategy Officer CMG FinancialPaul Akinmade is the chief strategy officer at CMG Financial. He has been making waves in the mortgage industry for almost a decade with his never-ending drive and never-satisfied mentality. Akinmade keeps pushing CMG to the next level, and he continues to separate us from the competition year after year. The past year has been no exception — in fact, it’s been a standout year for CMG. 2023 has been a year filled with forward-thinking brand transformations, cutting-edge recruiting campaigns, research-driven program launches, big-budget commercial investments and one notable retail acquisition — all strategically led in part or whole by Akinmade. Akinmade’s ability to think differently, solution-oriented drive and forward-thinking vision have been a standout force. He constantly challenges his team to push their creative and strategic limits while pushing himself even harder. He is a key member of the executive management team who still prioritizes building relationships with his marketing team. Akinmade is in the trenches with his team, and he continues to work on projects from the ground up.
Shannon Baldwin Vice President of Marketing Milestones
Shannon Baldwin recently joined Milestones as vice president of marketing to oversee all aspects of marketing within the organization’s new SaaS startup. Her role includes sales enablement, lead generation activities, social media, product marketing, events and much more. Baldwin was previously at Percy where she brought the company’s rebrand vision to life and drove strategic marketing initiatives in the real estate and mortgage technology space. As a marketing powerhouse team of one, Baldwin united the Percy team around a sharpened brand messaging, while rewriting the company’s product positioning playbook and overhauling its marketing-to-sales funnel. Baldwin rolled up her sleeves, devising a comprehensive plan of action to help the firm communicate more effectively with both its customer and external audience. She excels in defining and managing marketing initiatives and implementing new, creative strategies and processes to reach optimal revenue growth. Baldwin understands that when employees know they are valued, they will always take care of the customer.
Rosalie Berg, president of Strategic Vantage Marketing and Public Relations, has grown the agency into one of the largest PR firms in the mortgage and real estate finance industries over the past 20 years. She has assisted over 100 companies in navigating market cycles. Berg constantly implements modern marketing strategies. She revitalizes company images and brings innovative ideas to an industry often mired in tradition. Over the last 12 months, Berg has led her team in creating and executing highly successful marketing and publicity campaigns for a diverse range of clients. Berg takes a holistic approach when helping clients, with a deep understanding of all aspects of marketing, from branding and digital marketing to public relations, content marketing and social media. She strategically evaluates a company’s business, the competitive landscape and its goals. Her work has made a dramatic impact on the futures of countless companies in the mortgage and real estate finance sectors, cementing Strategic Vantage’s position as an undisputed industry leader in marketing and public relations.
David Bitton
David Bitton brings a unique blend of real estate, technology and entrepreneurship expertise to his role as co-founder and chief marketing officer at DoorLoop. In this position, he has effectively utilized his knowledge from previous ventures, such as PracticePanther and NovaPOS, to develop innovative marketing strategies that have positioned DoorLoop as the highest-rated and fastest-growing property management software. His efforts have contributed to raising over $30 million in funding and expanding the software’s user base to hundreds of thousands of units in over 100 countries worldwide. His involvement in volunteer work and trade organizations further showcases his dedication to the real estate and proptech industries. As a best-selling author and legal CLE speaker, he shares his insights and knowledge with industry professionals via webinars, podcasts and written guides. Bitton helps them navigate the ever-evolving landscape of property management and technology. His passion for real estate, his proven track record of success and his philanthropic efforts makes him an indispensable part of the organization.
Coleen Bogle is a passionate, energetic and multi-talented marketing leader who is a valuable contributor to the success of Draper and Kramer Mortgage. She leverages her more than 20 years of financial services marketing experience in leading the company’s highly regarded team of marketing professionals while also contributing to recruiting, compliance, event planning, vendor management and strategic planning. Bogle is the leader, manager and mentor of the marketing team. She has grown the group from six members to 16 since 2015. The marketing team’s services are widely praised and utilized by all of the organization’s loan officers. She excels at working with a diverse nationwide group of loan officers to understand their marketing needs and delivers personalized solutions. Bogle is equally adept at guiding the graphic design and copywriting work as she is planning events and leading presentations. Her other important roles include contributing to recruiting efforts, assisting with regulatory compliance, helping execute company events and participating in strategic planning for company growth.
Nadja Brandt Public Relations Director RentSpree
With Nadja Brandt’s leadership as public relations director, RentSpree has established a robust three-pronged marketing program that includes PR, social media and events strategy. Under Brandt, RentSpree’s strong marketing program has helped the company grow 1,001% in three years. Partnerships include more than 250 of the most influential MLSs, real estate associations and brokerages, and the company has served more than one million U.S. users. Under Nadja’s leadership, and in collaboration with her team, RentSpree launched the RENEW (Real Estate Network of Empowered Women) initiative in November 2022. The women-focused program aims to foster a community that looks to elevate female voices, to promote knowledge-sharing on how to navigate industry challenges and to showcase the remarkable achievements of women in real estate. Thanks to Nadja’s oversight, the initiative has grown to 148 members, many at the C-suite level. Programming includes a regular podcast series with industry leaders, events and planned occasions with a number of partners, plus a monthly newsletter.
As President of Incenter Marketing, Vashti Brotherhood leads the Incenter family of companies and external mortgage industry clients to success. Incenter helps them to develop a differentiated narrative and value promise that genuinely resonates with prospects. As a leader, Brotherhood’s greatest value is her ability to clearly see the potential in every single company, even when their leaders don’t fully appreciate everything that it can be. She is all in — helping colleagues and clients to develop a vision and mission that will engage and excite their prospects. When these leaders approach her with product ideas, Brotherhood helps her clients stand in prospects’ shoes and take a deeper dive. As an industry expert, Brotherhood understands the best way to get prospects to “feel” and experience the promise of her client’s products and services. Her mortgage industry colleagues and clients depend on her unique combination of unvarnished truth, customer empathy and creative storytelling. This empowers her clients to stay vital to their prospects.
Scott
Since joining Delmar Mortgage, Scott Cange has implemented significant changes as chief marketing officer. He has tackled projects from policy and procedure to the company’s rebranding, all while keeping his team top of mind. Cange has refocused the company’s marketing initiatives toward the digital space, building lead-generating campaigns. And, he continues to have major, positive impacts on the company’s culture. Shortly after joining Delmar Mortgage, Cange put together a year-long campaign to rebrand with a few goals in mind: building credibility in the customer’s mind, introducing Delmar to new audiences through digital marketing and increasing employee retention by continuing to define the organization’s company culture. Under Cange’s leadership, the Delmar brand successfully relaunched in November with the rebuilding of Delmar’s website, new advertising campaigns and a refresh of the design for all print materials. The company has measured great success with Cange at the helm.
KenonWith more than 25 years of product development and technology experience under his belt, Kenon Chen is an industry-recognized leader in real estate and fintech. As executive vice president of strategy and growth at Clear Capital, Chen’s passion for people-focused solutions allow him to work toward a simple goal: make real estate better for homeowners, homebuyers and industry professionals alike. Chen’s start in technology-enabled solutions began during the dot com boom when he honed his skills in several technology firms. After his foray into mortgage, he discovered his passion for creating progressive technology solutions that exceed industry needs and allow for simpler, more efficient real estate transactions. Chen sits at the intersection of Clear Capital’s executive, product, marketing and sales teams — guiding growth and ensuring consistent, long-term value for customers and partners. Since joining Clear Capital, Chen has developed and brought to market some of the company’s most forward-looking solutions, including ClearProp™, championing appraisal modernization solutions .
Clement Chief Digital Marketing Officer JPAR Real EstateCorin Clement is the chief digital marketing officer at JPAR Real Estate. His marketing and advertising work led to over 900 agents being recruited at JPAR’s company-owned offices and more than half of JPAR’s new franchise sales in 2022. In addition to his online marketing and advertising, Clement developed dozens of pieces of marketing collateral to be used in franchise sales, internal communications and affiliate marketing. He runs weekly campaigns to drive recruiting opportunities for the company-owned brokerages, constantly tweaking the message to maximize the hit rate. Clement also runs franchise marketing. In the last three years, JPAR has expanded from virtually nothing to a presence in 24 states and over 1,700 franchise agents. More than half of JPAR’s franchise sales are a result of Clement’s work. In 2022 he revamped the franchise website, managed the social media calendars and drove internal communications to both the company-owned and franchise agents. Clement works seamlessly with the JPAR Brokerage and JPFranchise leadership in addition to overseeing his own team.
Steven Cooley has been a marketing executive in the mortgage industry for almost 10 years. Four years ago, Cooley founded Art Vs. Math. The organization helps dozens of enterprise mortgage lenders and technology companies redefine their marketing strategies to grow their businesses. With his fresh perspective, Cooley’s enterprise lending and consulting marketing experience is sought after to help companies create impact and reach their goals. The company has expanded recently to support his vision and the clients that trust him with their marketing strategy. Cooley’s efforts have helped companies build marketing infrastructure, win awards, place in major tech demo competitions and ultimately drive high ROI from digital marketing campaigns. Cooley’s unique marketing approach has attracted some of the biggest mortgage companies in the industry. Meanwhile, MortgageAdvisorTools.com is Cooley’s passion project where lenders of all sizes can shop to find technology vendors, rate these vendors and learn about what is available.
Whitney Curry Chief Marketing Officer Pacaso
Whitney Curry is the chief marketing officer at Pacaso. She has propelled Pacaso to become the pioneer of co-ownership of luxury real estate. Curry oversees brand development and strategy, and she helped Pacaso reach unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation in 2021. Curry is an expert brand builder and a female leader in a historically male-dominated space. Curry has a wealth of experience and passion for bringing the voice of the customer into daily decision-making. Curry is responsible for driving demand, building the brand and creating exceptional experiences for customers. Her leadership and expertise in marketing have played a significant role in Pacaso’s success. Under Curry’s leadership, the company expanded to 40 top second-home destinations and generated nearly $300 million in revenue in 2022. Curry’s background at Zillow and her long tenure with the company gave her a wealth of experience in the real estate industry. Her expertise in brand building has been invaluable to Pacaso’s growth and success.
Krish Dhokia Senior Vice President
Krish Dhokia is the senior vice president of marketing and business development at Kind Lending. He has built a talented team that drives the Kind Lending brand, culture and initiatives with a unique flare that is unmatched in the industry. Dhokia is a visionary who is able to identify opportunities and capitalize on them in an effective and strategic manner. He has a refreshing outlook on marketing strategies, and his ability to build and lead a top-tier team has been nothing short of impressive. His thoughtful campaigns have showcased the Kind Lending brand and culture while aligning with the multi-channel model. Dhokia has also been a driving force behind several marketing technology initiatives, focusing on adoption, deployment and results. Dhokia’s leadership and contributions were pivotal in the successful launch of Kind Lending’s second joint venture from start to finish, and he was instrumental in launching over 50 new products and programs in the last year. Dhokia is a frequent writer, speaker and podcast guest, discussing mortgage, finance and real estate marketing.
Kristen Durand Vice President of Strategic Marketing Auction.comKristen Durand is the vice president of strategic marketing at Auction.com. She has the rare superpower of being both creative and strategic. She is the senior-most executive B2B marketing leader who has a reputation for listening to employees, asking the right questions, connecting the right people, targeting the heart of issues and turning ideas into actionable strategies. Durand’s ability to lead and move Auction.com’s mission forward makes her an exceptional marketing leader. Durand started at Auction.com with a focus on sales enablement. But she quickly proved that she could turn ideas into actionable strategies. In addition, when the company wanted to express to the world the good it does for housing and neighborhood stabilization, Durand was integral to Auction.com shifting its brand to emphasize homeownership expansion together with the company’s buyers and sellers. She also recently launched the Heroes in Housing social series, which celebrates housing icons. She also created the Auction Insider e-newsletter, a monthly newsletter that keeps industry leaders abreast of current Auction.com news and issues.
Caitlin Green is senior vice president and head of marketing and corporate communications at ServiceLink. She has built a cohesive, collaborative, results-oriented team dedicated to supporting the industry’s information needs and the ongoing success of the ServiceLink sales, service and technology teams. Green’s knack for communicating complex concepts through straightforward, relatable messaging across every channel is playing a huge role in empowering lenders and servicers to take that next step in modernizing their processes and systems. Her leadership in marketing and corporate communications has been integral to ServiceLink’s success throughout the industry’s recent volume swings. In 2022, Green’s multichannel content and digital strategies generated high-quality sales leads and pushed brand awareness to new heights; revenue realized as a direct result of her team’s programs was roughly triple the marketing spend. Her sponsorship and mentorship of emerging leaders make her contributions even more notable. Thanks to her support and influence, they are rising to challenges in their careers.
Sara Holtz Vice President of Demand Marketing and CommunicationsAs Vice President of Demand Marketing and Communications at ICE Mortgage Technology, Sara Holtz is responsible for how the company engages, educates and connects with its customers and the broader mortgage industry. She drives alignment and consistency between the company’s growth, channel, content and communication marketing teams to help customers make connections and turn the opportunities they have for success into reality. Holtz has been with ICE Mortgage Technology for more than seven years and leverages her expertise to create authentic relationships with customers and industry partners. At the end of 2021, Holtz was charged with combining ICE Mortgage Technology’s demand generation and communications teams into one unit. Under her leadership, the team now has a new level of synergy and alignment. By combining the efforts of paid media spending, advisory boards, regional user groups, account-based marketing and buying unit intention signaling, Holtz’s team has expanded the reach of ICE Mortgage Technology’s voice in the industry.
Brian Icenhower Founder and CEO Icenhower Coaching and Consulting
Brian Icenhower, founder and CEO of Icenhower Coaching and Consulting (ICC), is revolutionizing the way real estate agents, teams and brokerages can access high-level training on marketing through his latest creation, the ICC Custom Training Suite. All of the training modules within the ICC Custom Training Suite look and feel as if they belong to that unique real estate organization. Over the past 12 months, Icenhower has pushed forward through the creation of a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) that provides real estate professionals with the training needed to grow in different facets of their business, including a focus on marketing. Beyond being a guiding light for the ICC organization, Icenhower is a rising industry thought leader and sought-after keynote speaker at events across the country. His following has seen exponential growth over the past three years, as his engaging presentation style provides a high level of energy that keeps attendants motivated and receptive to learning throughout the entire event. Icenhower has presented for many organizations across a wide number of industries.
Steve James Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Fannie MaeSteve James is the senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Fannie Mae. In this role, he built a new, centralized marketing and communications function to serve Fannie Mae’s single-family and multifamily business lines. James oversees the internal and external communications teams, including media relations, financial communications and Fannie Mae’s thought leadership efforts. He is a valued member of Fannie Mae’s management committee, delivering creative and influential programs that educate consumers, support lenders and engage key stakeholders. He helped streamline the internal processes to build an even more collaborative relationship with Fannie Mae’s regulator, the FHFA, including refining the exchange of communication and requests for FHFA approval. James and his team delivered critical employee-facing communication efforts, including new worker classifications, updated benefits, evolving hybrid guidelines and a psychological safety initiative. James and his team successfully launched an employee-led group to further diversity and inclusion.
Jennifer Johnson is the founder, owner and chief marketing officer of The Client Cube, a marketing content agency. She is recognized by her colleagues, peers and clients as an innovative, high-energy leader in marketing. Johnson has a gift for providing on-target strategic support and creating solutions to long-standing industry problems such as low mortgage marketing staff and lack of marketing budget. Johnson and her team provide critical resources and skill sets to maximize a lender’s marketing reach and strengthen their customer relationships. Johnson’s innovative style has enabled her to singlehandedly identify a gap in the mortgage industry and offer priceless support and expertise to her clients. Her marketing solutions and cost-cutting strategies have helped lender marketing departments and their sales teams to succeed with original content and sustainable customer communication tools. In the past 12 months, Johnson has partnered with some of the country’s top lenders to solve their marketing staffing and budget problems while infilling their CRM content gaps.
Prakash Karnani Executive Vice President of Marketing Homespire Mortgage
Prakash Karnani is the executive vice president of marketing and technology at Homespire Mortgage. Karnani facilitates collaboration across departments to bring his ideas to life and implement initiatives that better both the employee and client experience. Over the past 9 years with Homespire, Karnani has proven himself to be an invaluable resource for the entire company. An integral part of the executive team, he not only excels in his role as head of marketing and IT, but he also provides guidance and direction on almost all aspects of company operations. His visionary approach and creative mind have been the catalyst for many new programs, both internal, with the goal of bettering the employee experience, as well as external, enhancing the company’s services and support for clients and partners. He steered the initiative to launch employee-led committees, giving many who wouldn’t otherwise work outside their department the opportunity for cross-functional collaboration. In 2022, Karnani worked to ensure Homespire stayed true to its values and put people first.
Matt Kaufman Vice President of Marketing Qualia
Matt Kaufman joined Qualia, now one of the leading digital real estate closing platforms, as an early employee to build the marketing organization from the ground up. He led the go-to-market and brand efforts that have helped propel the company to become a mission-critical closing platform for over one million real estate professionals and earn a valuation of more than $1 billion. As part of his focus on experiential and educational-based marketing programs, Kaufman also designed and led the team that produces Qualia’s Future of Real Estate Summit (FORES). What started as an annual event has expanded into year-round programming. FORES brings together economic experts and technologists with leaders from the country’s top title and escrow operations, mortgage lenders, proptech companies and real estate brokerages to share the innovative ideas driving the industry’s transformation. As the vice president and head of marketing, Kaufman has consistently found ways to showcase and amplify Qualia’s mission to transform access to homeownership into a simple, secure experience.
Rachel Keohan Vice President of Marketing HometapRachel Keohan is the vice president of marketing at Hometap. Her commitment to Hometap’s mission goes above and beyond her dayto-day responsibilities. Keohan combines endless curiosity with a practical, strategic mindset that makes her unstoppable. Keohan started as one of the first 15 employees at Hometap, built the marketing organization, and laid the foundation for the company’s entire marketing strategy. She also developed the go-to-market strategy, which continues to expand and evolve but has also been used to successfully launch the home equity investment product in 18 states. She developed and launched Hometap’s corporate social responsibility program, and is currently executive sponsor of the financial literacy committee. She led the strategy and vision for Hometap’s Home Equity Dashboard — a new, innovative digital platform that was created to provide homeowners with all of the resources they need to take control of their largest financial asset. She also built a successful corporate communications program that has garnered coverage for Hometap in top-tier publications.
David King joined Homeowners Financial Group as the chief brand officer in late 2021. Since then, the company has kept accelerating steadily as he continues to set new standards for the marketing department. By focusing on the company’s differentiators and supporting its sales staff in their efforts to offer value to clients and partners, King has helped employees position themselves to enjoy the benefits that await on the other end of the current market downturn. King did all this in the wake of spearheading a complete brand refresh that shows the marketplace that Homeowners Financial Group is moving forward through some serious headwinds. King has perfected the approach of “doing less with more” by identifying, attracting and retaining top talent while keeping everything lean and nimble. As a leader, King excels at motivating the members of his team, leading by example and recognizing their accomplishments. King’s supportive nature as an executive leader is consistent with several of Homeowners’ core values, which are vital to the success of the organization.
Eric Kujala Vice President of Product Marketing ICE Mortgage Technology
As the Vice President of Product Marketing, Eric Kujala is responsible for conveying ICE Mortgage Technology’s solutions to the market, ensuring alignment between the product and marketing teams, as well as providing field enablement resources that empower the sales teams. He focuses on solving problems for customers and is considered a thought leader across the industry for his participation in numerous industry podcasts, events and demo days. Kujala fosters a team culture that welcomes new ideas and open dialogue while staying focused on driving results for the business and ICE customers. Kujala has been at the forefront of mortgage automation innovation for more than 15 years, and he has helped countless lenders leverage technology to process more loans with less work. Through his expertise, experience and relationships with leaders across the mortgage space, Kujala always has his ear to the ground on the issues that are top of mind. He always maintains a customer-first mindset and creates programs to help lenders grow and digitize their businesses.
Amit Kulkarni
With a deep background in the real estate industry gained through a variety of senior-level positions, Amit Kulkarni is uniquely positioned to lead Bright’s marketing organization into the future as the chief marketing officer. Kulkarni has repositioned Bright’s marketing organization by recrafting the Bright brand story around “Open, Clear and Competitive.” Kulkarni also retooled Bright’s econ team to a best-of-breed outfit led by the nation’s first MLS-based chief economist. His deep experience in the industry offers him a valuable and unique perspective on subscribers’ needs in a rapidly changing market. Kulkarni has played a pivotal role in driving the growth and success of Bright MLS, and its associated joint ventures. What drives Kulkarni the most — and what he is most proud of — is the culture of innovation and collaboration that has been imbued within the marketing team. Kulkarni is passionate about people and devotes significant time, energy and effort to ensuring his team is set up for success while helping people with one of the most important missions in life — finding a place to call home.
Vice President of Marketing Mortgage Investors GroupMoneek Langston, vice president of marketing at Mortgage Investors Group, is a driving force behind the company’s digital lending business growth and the management of all corporate marketing. Langston directs a team of 15 employees and has been instrumental in providing strategic guidance for over 120 loan officers, while also supporting the digital lending team with lead growth and development. Her commitment to excellence, innovation and fostering diversity, equity and inclusion within the industry makes her an inspiring leader within the organization. Langston has actively demonstrated excellence and consistently reflected the values of Mortgage Investors Group through her energetic and passionate approach to her role. She not only envisions ways to make her company better but also leads and facilitates the execution of those plans. As a team player, Langston exemplifies Mortgage Investors Group’s mission statement, which focuses on doing the right thing and doing it well.
Jennifer Leonard brings over 15 years of experience to the mortgage broker community. As vice president of marketing, she heads the content production, communications and creative teams at AIME. Her work includes the Broker to Broker podcast, which earned a spot in the top 10 of Apple’s Non-Profit Podcasts. Leonard has accomplished an array of achievements that have impacted the organization significantly. These include strengthening the organization’s recognition, fostering the growth of AIME’s digital presence, enhancing web traffic and user experience and building national attention for local mortgage experts with campaigns like “Win with a Mortgage Broker” for the Official Super Bowl XVII Program. Leonard has developed live content production techniques for mortgage events, like the Fuse National Conference and Hall of AIME, and she initiated the “Brokers Are Better Together” brand evolution which enabled an increased reach for AIME. Leonard has created more than 20,000 minutes of brand content and created campaigns reaching 100,000 people, the best and brightest in the broker channel.
Liz Lilly Vice President of Marketing and Communication FlueidLiz Lilly is the vice president of marketing and communication (MarCom) at Flueid. Since joining in 2020, Lilly established and solidified the company’s MarCom function. She evolved the department into a proactive approach with multiple levers — from thought leadership to product marketing. Lilly has extensive experience in executive positioning, crisis and reputation management, corporate storytelling and employee engagement. Lilly has become more than a marketing and communications leader. Her savvy, can-do attitude and team player spirit have made her a vital counselor and strategist to the C-suite, product, sales and the company as a whole. Lilly built the first-ever formalized MarCom plan in support of a multi-product roadmap that elevates Flueid Decision — the company’s flagship product — from a refinance-only platform to one that supports an end-to-end life cycle. To do this, Lilly understood that each market cycle impacts nuanced personas with their own needs, tailoring each vertical’s story to these needs while ensuring that they all remain true to Flueid’s north star.
Dre Madden Chief Marketing Officer The Real BrokerageDre Madden is a multi-faceted marketing leader with more than 20 years of digital and brand experience. Madden thrives in fastpaced environments where she can build channels, infrastructure and teams from the ground up. As chief marketing officer, Madden has elevated the company’s corporate communications capabilities, created greater brand awareness and demonstrated an agent-first approach that has helped to drive record-breaking agent recruitment. The company onboarded more than 1,000 agents in January and hit 10,000 agents two months later. She’s also led the marketing efforts around Real’s expansion into three additional states, the acquisition of LemonBrew Lending and the creation of the company’s first practice division. Madden’s marketing efforts are focused on making agents’ lives better. Shortly after joining Real she introduced a series of new events, including an all-agent conference, virtual event and agent program support. She tied Real to the communities in which it operates by highlighting a nonprofit partner at every corporate event.
Olivia Mariani Chief Marketing Officer CurbioOlivia Mariani is the chief marketing officer at Curbio. Her knowledge of the marketing field and ability to transform that knowledge into purposeful business results have been crucial to Curbio’s accelerated growth and success. Mariani joined Curbio in 2020, when the company’s marketing team consisted of one employee. Over the next several years, Mariani put a small team in place and began to drive the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. With a unique aptitude for identifying talent, Mariani completely rebuilt a 24-person marketing team and successfully took on the challenge of doubling Curbio’s revenue. She also developed and fostered that talent, providing her employees with the guidance, tools and resources they needed to excel both professionally and personally. Mariani creates an inclusive, collaborative environment where big ideas are encouraged and staff are able to do their best work. She has also successfully created a flexible environment, where the team is able to work remotely, take as much time off as they need and work flexible hours as needed to excel in their positions.
As the chief marketing officer for Coldwell Banker Real Estate, David Marine has an impressive 20 years of digital, content and social marketing experience. He has expertise in cultivating powerful messaging, spearheading impactful campaigns to further position Coldwell Banker as an industry leader. Marine has been instrumental in maintaining the brand’s prominence as one of the industry’s most reliable resources for homeowners, sellers and industry professionals including agents, brokers and leaders. He developed numerous marketing campaigns resulting in tangible success for Coldwell Banker. In 2022, Marine served as a panelist at Advertising Week New York during the session, “The Power of Dream: How a National Marketing Campaign Became a Hyper-Local Strategy.” David highlighted the 2022 “Dream” ad campaign. Marine played a significant role in orchestrating the 2022 Generation Blue Experience in Phoenix, Arizona. From impactful breakout sessions to engaging speeches, Marine takes great pride in ensuring that this annual event is an experience that brokers and agents won’t get anywhere else.
Debbie McGriff Senior Director of Marketing and Communications, Single Family Freddie MacDebbie McGriff is the senior director of single-family marketing and communications at Freddie Mac. She leads the largest marketing team at the company, responsible for communicating on behalf of the company’s single-family business areas. McGriff has guided Freddie Mac marketing professionals to draw a connection between what borrowers need, what housing partners value and the solutions that make housing more accessible and sustainable. McGriff recently launched the marketing campaign for “A Seat at the Closing Table.” This campaign was designed to train loan officers on the nuances of working with underserved borrowers and to offer toolkits and templates that will help them close more loans in minority communities. It features a reputable industry micro-influencer and its social media campaign is already seeing 67,000 impressions in the first three weeks of launch. McGriff and her team were critical to the marketing of several new origination and servicing tools. Through the efforts of McGriff and her team, Freddie Mac communicated essential updates in innovative ways.
Carolyn Merchant is the chief marketing officer at eXp Realty. She is dedicated to clearly articulating the company’s unique value proposition and works tirelessly to drive value to the eXp agent community through both internal agent communication and external marketing, brand and communications. In one year, Merchant has transformed the eXp branding and marketing communications functions. She optimized digital marketing and initiated the company’s inaugural ESG materiality assessment. She launched CEO Glenn Sanford’s eXpansion podcast, amplifying his voice and vision for both internal and external audiences. She also enhanced the eXp event branding experience, marketing communications and content, leading and executing on a multi-channel integrated content marketing strategy to drive record registration, hotel bookings, events, speakers and sessions for the company’s two signature 2022 events. For this year’s 2023 Shareholder Summit, she revamped the content framework based on agent feedback to feature more agents than ever before.
Corie Meredith Vice President of Marketing UMortgage
Corie Meredith is the director of marketing at UMortgage. The marketing department has become a standout within the mortgage industry. Meredith’s leadership has allowed UMortgage’s creative team members to flourish. Across the last 12 months and beyond, she’s built an innovative and creative marketing team that has successfully established the UMortgage brand across the industry. As the UMortgage platform has grown, Meredith has created a scalable on-demand marketing hub that helps UMortgage’s loan originators grow their online presence, stay top-of-mind and strengthen referral partner relationships. Under Meredith’s leadership, UMortgage’s marketing team has created comprehensive brand guidelines from scratch, cultivated bespoke marketing plans to help UMortgage’s loan originators stand out on social media with easy, plug and play materials, grew its brand presence with unique content on LinkedIn — which has grown from a follower base of 1,000 to 15,000 in the last year and a half — and planned and executed live events across the country, among many other projects.
Darcy Patch is vice president of marketing and enterprise solutions at MyHome. Along with her team, Patch develops and implements annual strategic marketing and communications plans in support of the company’s lender-centric enterprise solutions divisions, including current business objective and target audience persona identification, budget development, tactical plan creation and ongoing vendor and resource management, media outreach and industry relations activities. Patch developed a corporate public relations plan to strategically position the company and its divisions as leaders within their respective market segments, including lender services, agency and direct operations. She increased company media exposure more than tenfold, resulting in $240,000-$480,000 in annual editorial value in 2021 alone. Patch also implemented the iFolio cloud-based marketing presentation program for use by WFG’s Enterprise Solutions sales team members, enabling leadership to monitor user engagement, usage, distribution and elemental content performance at both the individual and team level.
Rivers Pearce Chief Marketing OfficerRivers Pearce, chief evangelist at Milestones, has spent the last 15 years driving success for real estate software companies. He is relentless in his focus on helping real estate professionals create lasting customer relationships through scalable technology, collaboration, transparency, data and a growth mindset. Pearce positioned Milestones as the driver of a new category of technology and marketing focused on helping real estate and mortgage companies evolve from leads and transactions to long-term homeowner management. Pearce is a born leader with an unwavering commitment to excellence. He has a wealth of experience in proptech start-up environments and is never afraid to get his hands dirty to achieve success. His visionary mindset and expertise in real estate technology and homeowner management have made him a sought-after consultant and speaker in the industry. Pearce has the unique ability to translate complex ideas into simple, actionable strategies that drive success.
Julia Pierson-Fields Vice President of
As Vice President of Marketing at Fathom Holdings, Julie PiersonFields excels at implementing marketing strategies for brokerage, mortgage, title, insurance and technology. Pierson-Fields is also responsible for driving corporate messaging, directing creative collateral and executing effective digital marketing campaigns. Pierson-Fields executes the annual marketing plan, strategy and team across seven business verticals and has been instrumental in creating a cohesive and effective marketing approach for the company. Pierson-Fields has also built, managed and coached a high-performing marketing team, ensuring that they are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed. She has implemented omnichannel marketing campaigns that meet business objectives and drive qualified leads, and has identified and researched new revenue opportunities in current and potential markets. Her leadership style is characterized by a deep commitment to service. She emphasizes communication, collaboration and empowerment, ensuring that her team has the resources needed to succeed.
Celia Pinczower Head of Marketing EndpointCelia Pinczower is the head of marketing at Endpoint, a company that is reinventing the settlement experience from the ground up. Pinczower has been instrumental in launching the Endpoint suite of products in the market and evolving its brand. She is a highly skilled brand and growth marketer and world-class executor who has ensured that Endpoint is visible at key industry events through sponsorships and earned speaking placements, helping to build the company’s brand awareness. She is well-respected by leadership and the team she manages. To support the company’s expanded capabilities, Pinczower orchestrated a well-thought-out brand campaign that included media interviews, industry speaking engagements, a company-sponsored blog, social media content and other events, alongside launching a new company website. Just recently, Endpoint launched Jot, a signing service platform and nationwide community for mobile notaries. Pinczower played a key role in Jot’s launch from concept to execution. She and her team lead all elements of the product branding, go-to-market strategy and rollout.
Courtney Ray is the executive vice president of marketing and communications at Opteon. Ray spearheaded initiatives to increase lead generation and drive revenue, growth and market share for Opteon. She piloted the creation of Opteon’s global website which more accurately reflects Opteon’s leadership and expertise across the globe than previously. Ray is a strong leader and has built a brand of relentless delivery. She has expanded Opteon’s brand and industry presence through key media placements, targeted paid advertising campaigns, strategic thought leadership content initiatives and omnichannel marketing campaigns. She has progressed the marketing team from a generalist-oriented, activity-driven team to a results-oriented team of high-performing professionals who contributed to Opteon’s large market share growth over the last year. Ray continues to raise the bar through the creation of strategic omnichannel campaigns. Through Ray’s overarching initiatives, targeted campaigns and strategic media placements, marketing drove over 40% of Opteon’s website traffic in 2022.
Erica Sachse is the CEO and co-founder at Snaplistings and Development Marketing Team (DMT). Specializing in full-funnel property marketing, Sachse’s expertise in data and technology have enabled her to develop digital campaigns that drive high-quality lead generation and sales, taking real estate projects from first impressions through close. Sachse created groundbreaking content and outstanding audience engagement across both digital and traditional channels, delivering exceptional results for her clients and helping them achieve record sales. Sachse is a dynamic leader and data expert who has achieved remarkable success in growing two companies in the real estate industry. She is the founder of Snaplistings, a property marketing agency, and DMT, an integrated sales and marketing new development brokerage. Her advanced algorithms optimize engagement and increase conversion, creating an elevated buyer journey that delivers exceptional results for her clients. Sachse leads with dedication and a passion for excellence, always striving to take her companies to the next level.
Brad Sivert Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Fintech Marketing
Tavant
Brad Sivert’s visionary leadership in fintech and mortgage lending has transformed the industry. His passion for developing products and marketing solutions has fueled his professional career for more than 15 years. While he has held leadership roles across many top fintech and proptech companies, his unwavering commitment to helping Americans achieve their dream of owning a home has been the driving force behind his success. His innovative marketing solutions have put Tavant at the forefront of the industry, with aggressive brand awareness and marketing campaigns that have propelled the company to surpass its goals. As chief marketing officer and head of fintech marketing, Sivert is a true growth expert. He has a keen eye for developing products and marketing solutions that positively affect people at a foundational level. He oversees Tavant’s fastest-growing business lines, working closely with internal and external partners to manage a global team of marketing experts. Sivert’s expertise in marketing dates back to his time at Capital One and ING Direct, where he held senior leadership roles and honed his skills.
Jarrett Stanley Chief Marketing Officer Nationwide Mortgage BankersAs the Chief Marketing Officer of Nationwide Mortgage Bankers (NMB), Jarrett Stanley encompasses stewardship of all marketing and branding initiatives across the company. Stanley leads an energetic, talented marketing team dedicated to revolutionizing the industry’s marketing landscape. Stanley and his team’s mission involves leveraging strategic communication and branding to amplify its reach, ensure customer engagement and enhance the overall image of the already well-respected and growing NMB brand. Focusing on a data-driven approach, Stanley and his team utilize predictive analytics and customer insights to craft targeted campaigns that resonate with a diverse customer base. He is committed to fostering a culture of innovation and adaptability at NMB, allowing them to quickly respond to market shifts and emerging trends.
Wayne Stanley is the owner and chief inspiration officer of Bowe Digital. His knowledge of the industry and vision for custom marketing has helped hundreds of businesses strengthen their brands and reputations. As a frequent sponsor and speaker at events, Stanley is respected and admired for his compassionate approach to leadership. Prior to starting Bowe Digital in 2017, Stanley spent 10 years working for the U.S. Senate and the American Land Title Association (ALTA). During that time, he realized an opportunity to empower businesses to tell their stories and expand their impact with better communication. His vision focused on customization and localized marketing. Stanley’s experience and professional relationships helped Bowe Digital carve a niche in the land title insurance industry, partnering with over 175 title companies and seven State Land Title Associations in just six years. Bowe Digital’s success can be partly attributed to the encouraging and fun work culture created by Stanley. Stanley hand-selected a talented and growing team of professionals who are passionate about marketing.
Hadley Stecker Head of Marketing Spruce
As Head of Marketing at Spruce, Hadley Stecker has successfully propelled the company’s brand recognition within its target segments, driving meaningful revenue growth through her team’s account-based marketing efforts. Her ability to synthesize complex offerings into a message that resonates with Spruce’s target audience has been critical in the success of the company. Stecker has successfully overseen the implementation of multi-pronged tactics, including revamped messaging, targeted campaigns and content creation. Stecker takes a hands-on approach to understanding the needs of prospective clients to ensure their success and her strategic planning and execution have driven meaningful revenue growth for the company. She uses her ingenuity to apply fresh marketing techniques to an industry that has traditionally been stagnant in brand and storytelling, resulting in increased brand recognition and affinity for Spruce. Stecker is always willing to learn new concepts and ideas, particularly in an industry where traditional, fail-proof marketing strategies don’t always work.
Kara Taylor Executive Vice President of Marketing ATTOM
Kara Taylor is the executive vice president of marketing at ATTOM. Taylor leads a results-driven team, composed of brand, content and marketing strategists, as well as leading development representatives. Under Taylor’s leadership, ATTOM’s value proposition continues to gain momentum across a range of industries, further solidifying its unique position as the one-stop-shop for premium property data, as illustrated by the company’s successful M&A strategy and proven ability to make the data more widely available to a broad spectrum of companies. With Taylor in a key leadership position, ATTOM has been able to fully scale into a leading provider of nationwide real estate and property data for residential and commercial properties. ATTOM’s leadership and workplace culture of empowerment has attracted a growing body of top talent from all over the country that leverages the diversity of the workplace and encourages accountability and open communication. Taylor has been a driving force behind this philosophy, ensuring the company is well-positioned to exceed both internal and external expectations.
Alex Todak Executive Vice President Kairos Appraisal Services
As Executive Vice President at Kairos Appraisal Services, Alex Todak is relentless in his pursuit of excellence. Kairos has experienced exponential growth since his arrival on the scene in 2020 and continues to gain market share and industry notoriety with his direction. Todak’s goal of making Kairos the “national champion of AMCs” has been his focus since day one, and his efforts have Kairos well on its way. His most valuable contributions have been increasing the company’s customer service rating on Google to 4.9 stars, his innovative vision for providing the best customer service, creating a personal approach to marketing and playing an instrumental role in Kairo’s industry-leading tech roll-out. Todak is an accomplished member of his community and is the national chair of the CRN AMC committee. He is passionate about dedicating his time and resources to many organizations outside the appraisal industry. He is a long-time supporter of the Flags of Honor and the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, and he donates his time to local food and toy drives. He has a knack for marketing that is informative and brings a smile to the viewers.
Anthony Toro is the managing director of Sun West Mortgage Company. Under his stewardship, Sun West has navigated economic cycles and market conditions while delivering consistent results for consumers and investors alike. His marketing strategy for Sun West’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, Morgan, is enabling loan originators to maximize their earnings while delivering outstanding service to consumers from all walks of life. Toro worked on the Superbowl ad for Morgan which displayed his marketing knowledge and creative genius. As a leader, Toro has steadfastly helped Sun West be a dominant force in the mortgage industry. Toro has worked to ensure that Sun West remains a committed lender delivering fairness and equality in all its transactions and Toro consistently embodies Sun West’s culture and practice of consistently treating all customers fairly. Toro has a passion for giving back to his community and has been an advocate for TACA, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide education, support and hope to families living with autism.
Chelsea Vonder Haar Senior Vice President of Marketing USA
Chelsea Vonder Haar is the senior vice president of marketing at USA Mortgage. She has created one of the most successful marketing departments in the housing industry. She leads with a true passion to improve USA Mortgage’s marketing efforts. In 2017, Vonder Haar took the reins of USA Mortgage’s small marketing department and transformed it into what can now be considered an upper-echelon marketing team. Today, her award-winning group now offers everything from customized social media content to calendars and websites, and video for thousands of stakeholders. Vonder Haar has an inimitable ability to stay abreast of current trends while also weighing our industry’s climate with her company’s needs. She has also been crucial in expanding the company’s offerings and developing its digital marketing to meet the current needs of mortgage loan originators and their real estate partners. Under her guidance, the department is destined to thrive as USA Mortgage takes on bigger, better challenges ahead.
Micheal Wojcik Chief Marketing Officer Fay
Financial
As Chief Marketing Officer at Fay Financial, Mike Wojcik led the frontand back-end development and implementation of an internal referral program. Wojcik has been an integral part of Fay Financial’s diversification from mortgage servicing to a broader provider of real estate services. He led the marketing and branding efforts for two mortgage lending businesses, a home repair and renovation company, a real estate brokerage, a property management company and a title insurance provider, resulting in overall revenue growth of 363% in 10 years. Wojcik leads planning, strategy and execution for all facets of marketing, building and directing campaigns to bolster the visibility of the company and its services in a challenging and highly competitive market. Wojcik is a board member of the FayConstructive Foundation and in 2022 led a campaign to boost contributions to the foundation. The funds enabled the foundation to further its work on improving educational opportunities, combating food insecurity and supporting former military service members and first responders.
Amory Wooden Chief Marketing Officer Anywhere BrandsAs the Chief Marketing Officer for Anywhere Brands, Amory Wooden oversees the marketing efforts of CENTURY 21, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate and ERA Real Estate. She is responsible for planning, developing and executing the brands’ marketing and advertising campaign initiatives. Wooden plays a vital role in generating leads and overseeing the business strategy for the company’s franchise brands. With two decades of marketing experience both on the agency and brand side, Wooden brings the know-how, grit and fresh perspective that will continue to propel the Anywhere portfolio of well-known and well-loved brands forward in a technological landscape. Budgets have shifted in the past year across the real estate industry as a whole, and she has adapted to this new normal while still delivering a high level of service for all three brands with her “less is more” approach. By reimagining the marketing structure to four specialized teams, she has provided Anywhere with more power to focus and thrive while optimizing spend and ensuring the right decision-makers are part of key conversations.
Kellie Allen
Nancy Alley
Michelle Anderson
Cindy Ariosa
Patty Arvielo
Maneesha Asundi
Lysette Bailey
Kathy Baker
Meghan Bartholomew
Jennifer Battista
Rachel Beam
Felecia Bowers
Laura Brandao
Brooke Carillo
Stephanie Casper
Tai Christensen
Robin Clayton
Loran Coleman
Susan Connally
Cristy Conolly
Elly Cummings
Rachel Cunningham
Julia Curran
Roxana Davidoff
43 44 45 46 47
Jan Davis
Sarah Dekin
Victoria Garcia DeLuca
Jenna Evans
Susan Falsetti
Vanessa Famulener
Stephenie Flood
Erika Franks
Maria Gallucci
Alayna Gardner
Mosi Gatling
Liz Gehringer
Samantha Giuggio
Dr. Lesli Gooch
Amy Gromowski
Rola Gurrieri
Carrie Gusmus
Ali Haralson
Kimberly Hare
Kim Harland
50
51
52
49 48 53
Ines Hegedus-Garcia
Lora Helt
Shawna Hernandez
Lana Izgarsheva
Janet Jozwik
Arlyn Kalinski
Marcia Kaufman
Sara Knochel
Kim Krick
Odeta Kushi
Kamini Lane
Laura Lee
Shelley Leonard
Jennifer Lind
Katharine Loveland
Kelly Kennedy Mack
Sandra Madigan
Heidi Mason
Rayman Mathoda
Jennifer McGuinness
Candice McNaught
Sarah Middleton
Maria Moskver
Laura O’Conno
Kathleen Pagliaro
Melissa Peregord
Georgia Perez
Raveen Phifer
Susan Portnoy
Michelle Post
Courtney Poulos
Kathy Randich
Tanya Reu-Narvaez
Tamra Rieger
Eloise Schmitz
Nomi Smith
Stacy Speas
Sasha Stair
Agnes Standowicz
Karen Starns
Jessica Sturm
Marianne Sullivan
Dawn Svedberg
Katie Sweeney
Ashley Terrell
Andria Thomas
Lauren Trevathan
Amanda Tucker
Jennifer Vallinayagam
Telle VanTrojen
Madhavi Vellore
Irene Wahl
Shelby Washington
Jillian White
Marilyn Wright
KimArie Yowell
This year’s HousingWire Women of Influence list recognizes a remarkable group of women in housing who represent the pinnacle of excellence and innovation. These extraordinary women have shattered glass ceilings, defied expectations and carved a path of success through their dedication, expertise and unwavering commitment to transforming the housing landscape. Through their visionary leadership, they have propelled the industry forward, driving change, fostering inclusivity and taking the reigns as female executives in a traditionally male industry.
From leading mortgage companies and real estate firms to spearheading groundbreaking initiatives and driving policy reforms, these honorees are making an indelible impact on housing. Their collective expertise spans the entire spectrum of the sector, encompassing areas such as lending, tech, real estate, appraisal, compliance, operations, sales and so much more.
As President of Auction.com, Ali Haralson’s determination and grit have helped the company recently surpass 500,000 homes sold, with over $62 billion in total sales and 6.9 million registered users.
Dr. Lesli Gooch has dedicated her career to ensuring that quality, affordable housing is available and attainable for all. In her current role as CEO at Manufactured Housing Institute, she is focused on addressing the nation’s housing shortage.
President and CEO of Anywhere Franchise Brands, Liz Gehringer, is on a mission to create a better future for underrepresented groups looking to make their mark in the real estate market. She has spearheaded the growth of Agents of Change, What Moves Her and the Inclusive Ownership Program, the latter of which was created to help increase representation of entrepreneurs in the real estate industry in diverse populations including ethnic and racial groups, women, LGBTQ+ and veterans.
Cristy Conolly, executive vice president of appraisal modernization at Class Valuation, uses her 20plus years of experience in the industry to inform the policies and protocols she implements. In the past year, Class Valuation has seen an up to 80% reduction in underwriting revisions and 65% reduction in consumer requests for reconsideration thanks to the protocols implemented by Conolly.
The following list of honorees comprises many more examples of exceptional leadership from some of the industry’s most accomplished women.
Congratulations to the 2023 Women of Influence winners.
Kellie Allen, vice president of production at Synergy One Lending, is a mortgage company’s ideal leader. Allen exudes integrity and professionalism from production and P&L management to partnership.
A top-10 originator for Synergy five years running, Allen had nearly $100 million in volume in 2021 while also managing her branch. Her branch has ranked as top three in the company by volume 21 of the last 24 months and is the highest profit branch in the last 12 months. On top of her and her team’s production impact, Allen was an original member of Synergy’s Leadership Council, charged with making executive recommendations on behalf of the sales force. She was also an inaugural member of the Women’s Leadership Group, where she and other elite Synergy teammates focus on both professional and personal development that in turn lifts the entire organization. Add in that she is the primary sales advocate with Synergy’s credit policy and closing teams and does coaching sessions to help loan officers better utilize their tech stack in their business and she comes pretty close to doing it all!
Michelle Anderson Senior Vice President of Client and Investor Relations LoanCare
As Senior Vice President of Client and Investor Relations at LoanCare, Michelle Anderson leads with confidence and empathy, showing remarkable integrity in advocating for her clients, investors and agency partners. Always extending a hand to her team, Anderson is passionate about guiding future women leaders, fighting for what she believes in and jumping into any situation to help get the job done. With over 25 years of experience in the mortgage industry, from loss mitigation and default servicing to exam management and performing loan servicing to her current role managing client and investor relations, Anderson has a depth and diversity of knowledge that is hard to rival and makes her an integral part of her team and the organization’s success. She understands the industry intimately and can fluently articulate goals, strategies and solutions that benefit LoanCare. With a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude to leadership, Anderson never shies away from diving headfirst into any project or problem. She is a master at facilitating conversations without losing sight of the end goal. Managing the often-competing priorities of her agency, client and internal partners is no easy task and Anderson does so efficiently and effectively.
Nancy Alley Vice Persident of Product Strategy ICE Mortgage TechnologyAs Vice President of Product Strategy at ICE Mortgage Technology, Nancy Alley is responsible for the strategic planning and execution of the Encompass lending platform. As a long time leader in the advancement of the mortgage industry’s digitization journey, she has an unwavering focus on her customers and leads her team to deliver the technology today’s mortgage lenders need to operate more efficiently and deliver the experience borrowers want. Beyond her role at ICE, Alley has been involved with a number of industry organizations that are focused on moving the industry forward. Alley embodies ICE’s dedication to teamwork and collaboration. She not only knows how to effectively partner with colleagues across our organization to drive results and improvements across the mortgage workflow, but she also enables those across the industry to better connect with each other as well. Everything she does comes back to the goal of helping customers succeed and ensuring that ICE’s solutions are designed to support their needs. Through Alley and her team’s work, mortgage lenders are able to drive manufacturing velocity, streamline workflows and shift their mindset of how work gets done.
Cindy Ariosa Senior Vice President Long & Foster Real EstateAs Senior Vice President of Long & Foster Real Estate, Cindy Ariosa directly manages over 40 offices, with sales in excess of $6 billion annually. She also serves as chairman of the board of directors of Bright MLS, one of the country’s largest MLS organizations. Bright MLS has over 100,000 subscribers who in turn serve millions of home buyers and sellers throughout six states and the District of Columbia in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Ariosa leads with an incredible amount of energy, passion and dedication to Bright’s subscribers and the consumers they serve. As board chair, Ariosa works with colleagues on Bright’s board to ensure the organization is constantly evolving and continues to position the organization as a leader in the industry. Ariosa’s expertise in managing operations, budgets, mergers and acquisitions gives her a valuable perspective as board chair during a critical time for Bright MLS, as the organization in partnership with other industry leaders, investors and participants launched three separate joint ventures during the past 12 months. Ariosa’s contributions to working among numerous participants to stand up the joint ventures that are reinventing the MLS’ role in organized real estate have been invaluable.
Patty Arvielo is a self-made entrepreneur who co-founded one of the nation’s largest Hispanic-owned mortgage companies, New American Funding (NAF). However, her influence extends far beyond the mortgage industry. She is an active investor and leader of companies that uplift and empower the Hispanic community. Arvielo is also an ardent advocate for education who recently became the first Hispanic woman to have a business school named in her honor. She is a leader who guides the next generation through mentorship, a sought-after expert on overcoming the racial wealth gap and much more. In 2023, Arvielo became CEO of NAF alongside her husband, Rick Arvielo, who also serves as CEO. Together, the Arvielos have led New American Funding to heights never before seen in the company’s history. In spite of the challenging mortgage market, NAF’s foundation has remained strong, enabling the company to continue growing at a time when most other companies are shrinking. This comes as the direct result of Arvielo’s efforts as a leader of the company she helped found in 2003. Today, she manages the company’s operations and sales, while overseeing 176 locations and nearly 3,500 employees nationwide.
Lysette Bailey Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer Common Securitization Solutions
Lysette Bailey joined Common Securitization Solutions (CSS) as chief risk officer in March 2022 after spending a significant part of her career at large financial institutions and regulatory entities. Since joining CSS, she has made a tremendous impact on the company in helping to lead and develop CSS as a systemically important organization critical to the success of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s Uniform Mortgage-Backed Securities (UMBS) program, enabling the well-being and stability of the U.S. housing market. Bailey takes on an important leadership role within the CSS executive committee, helping to improve management and results related to the support of the core UMBS business for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Over the last year, Bailey’s exceptional leadership contributed to the issuance of $2.46 trillion in UMBS and the administration and management of a securities portfolio that exceeds $6.4 trillion in unpaid principal balances, representing 33 million loans.
Maneesha Asundi Senior Principal IT Product Manager Mr CooperManeesha Asundi is a transformational leader who embraces vulnerability, builds relationships and communicates transparently. She has had a significant impact on modernizing platforms in the industry. Constantly adapting to incorporate cutting-edge technology and creating process efficiencies, she drives operational efficiencies and is instrumental in helping Mr Cooper build a competitive advantage to serve customers. As a product manager for the platform team, Asundi led multiple groups to build cloud-native solutions that captured real-time changes in loan processing and developed the B2B gateway to obtain relevant loan data from over 16 vendors and nearly 60 data points into the ecosystem. These initiatives to get digital, machine-readable data resulted in enhanced operational efficiencies, improved data accuracy and contributed to a delightful customer experience. The potential for continued efficiencies demonstrates the effectiveness of these initiatives and their ability to drive positive financial outcomes. By prioritizing process efficiency, data accuracy, vendor relationships, customer experience, scalability and continuous improvement, Mr Cooper has realized significant cost savings and positioned itself for further success.
Kathy Baker Executive Vice President of Learning Realty ONE Group
For more than 30 years, Kathy Baker has served as a consultant, coach, trainer, speaker and executive in the industry, mentoring legions of entrepreneurs and Realtors to create successful careers and live their best lives. Baker believes that teamwork, attitude and leadership are the keys to success and she’s brought all three to Realty ONE Group. Baker’s energy, humor and southern charm make her unforgettable as executive vice president of learning. She has been recognized by real estate’s most prominent organizations and stakeholders as one of the most influential leaders in the industry and was recently named a 2022 RISMedia Newsmaker. In the past five years, Baker has co-created one of the industry’s leading education and coaching platforms, ONE University, which promotes thousands of courses — online, in person, via masterminds and more — to its global affiliates. The company’s Realtors depend on the organization’s coaching systems, training and mastermind groups for their ongoing success. A consultant, coach, trainer, speaker and industry executive, Baker continues to host weekly virtual coaching calls for both real estate professionals and broker-owners, as well as in-person training and coaching around the country.
Meghan Bartholomew is the executive vice president of credit and counterparty risk management at Raidan. She ensures the health of Radian’s mortgage insurance portfolio. Bartholomew has raised her hand countless times to volunteer for meaningful initiatives outside of her core responsibilities, joining the core team of Radian’s Affordable Homeownership Advisory Council and helping spearhead the company’s cornerstone partnership with the MBA to launch CONVERGENCE Philadelphia. Under Bartholomew’s leadership, Radian is not only maintaining its strong position as a critical partner in low-cost down payment mortgage financing but also positioning itself to help solve the challenges of housing affordability and homeownership equality. Throughout her career, Bartholomew has used her influence as a senior executive to bring more women to the table where business decisions are made and has built a strong team that includes women in a majority of senior management roles. In an industry where women remain underrepresented in leadership roles, her efforts to advance high-achieving women at Radian are shifting the paradigm.
Rachel Beam Director of Collateral Policy and EquityFannie Mae
Rachel Beam is driving positive change to foster a more effective, efficient and impartial home valuation process. As the director of collateral policy and equity at Fannie Mae, Beam leads critical valuation modernization initiatives and actions to drive more accurate appraisals and minimize bias, which benefits lenders and mortgage borrowers. A passionate advocate for equity and diversity in the appraiser profession, Beam co-founded the Appraiser Diversity Initiative (ADI) and has guided its growth. In the past 12 months, Beam has taken on an expanded role in Fannie Mae, leading a reorganized collateral policy team and directing groundbreaking text scanning work and other initiatives to minimize appraisal bias. Beam is a passionate, charismatic leader whose belief in Fannie Mae’s mission shines through everything she does. She has empathy for people and leadership skills to match, inspiring her team by example and tone which leads to strong business results. Since its inception in 2018, Beam has provided the vision and energy that are the driving forces in the ADI. Recently, ADI has expanded to be a true industry collaboration including Freddie Mac and the Appraisal Institute.
Jennifer Battista President of Operations and Insurance, Title - Settlement ServicesJennifer Battista is a champion of growth across the Anywhere Integrated Services family of companies. Her responsibilities have continually expanded throughout her 28 years with the company. In addition to being president of multiple successful title companies — including REAL Tech Title, which she built from the ground up — Battista was named president of Anywhere Insurance Agency in 2022. As a leader, Battista performs at the highest level of excellence and encourages the next level of leaders to truly embody the same spirit. Throughout her career, Battista has maintained a strong connection and commitment to agents, consumers and her peers, earning her a reputation for being truly in touch with others’ needs. Her determination, wit and willingness to share her expertise to help colleagues grow their careers truly embodies why she is a woman of influence in the real estate industry. Battista’s demonstrated strengths throughout her career have led her to oversee six title companies, which have more than 100 employees across the country. Her unique company culture is made up of 90% remote staff, working to fulfill the needs of clients in 31 states.
Felecia Bowers Senior Vice President and Director of Compliance and Servicing Homeowners Financial GroupFelecia Bowers leads the distinguished compliance team at Homeowners Financial Group and is instrumental in the education and development of her industry colleagues. She is a subject matter expert for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), and has been instrumental in the development and growth of compliance programs and opportunities for compliance professionals across the country. In 2021, the MBA recognized Bowers for her contributions to the Certified Mortgage Compliance Professional (CMCP) curriculum by presenting her with the Ken Markison Legacy Achievement Award. The CMCP is the only certification and designation program geared exclusively to the mortgage compliance industry, making Bowers a key player in moving the entire field forward. In her role at Homeowners Financial Group, Bowers is responsible for overseeing all the legal regulations and requirements related to originating and servicing mortgage products. Bowers always has her eye on the big picture and is committed to maintaining the highest levels of integrity at all times, all while enabling Licensed Mortgage Professionals to succeed.
Laura Brandao is the chief strategy officer and partner at Equity Prime Mortgage (EPM). She has made significant contributions to the mortgage business in impactful and positive ways for over 20 years by championing the values of diversity, inclusivity and equality for all. Brandao’s energy, compassion and positive mindset are well-known and respected across the mortgage industry. Brandao’s vision for that company is laser-focused on empowering clients with knowledge, opportunities and the educational tools they need to navigate the mortgage process with ease and clarity. EPM has also referred to EPM as meaning “Empowering People More” with the goal to increase the company’s clientele by embracing equality and diversity and becoming the face of the mortgage industry in all communities in the country. By working to become part of communities big and small, and including every ethnicity, creed and culture, Brandao’s vision is to provide opportunities for home ownership and financial success to everyone on an equal basis. EPM is committed to the cause of promoting and supporting women in the mortgage industry through encouragement, education and providing opportunities for women to grow and succeed in their careers.
Stephanie Casper Chief Revenue Officer KiaviStephanie Casper is the chief revenue officer at tech-enabled lender Kiavi, one of the nation’s largest private lenders to residential real estate investors (REIs) with over $13 billion in funded loans. In addition to leading all of Kiavi’s revenue-driving functions, including all sales, marketing, pricing and partnership teams, Casper is an accomplished real estate investor herself with a growing portfolio of rental properties. Her leadership and creative strategies have driven unprecedented levels of growth for Kiavi. Thanks to Casper, Kiavi has reached volume milestones never before seen in the private lending industry and continues to grow in market share despite a challenging macroeconomic environment. Under Casper’s leadership, Kiavi funded a record $4.4 billion in loan volume to more than 5,600 customers in 2022, and it became the first and only private lender to real estate investors to fund over 50,000 bridge and fix-and-flip loans. She also played a leadership role in shepherding Kiavi through the most challenging and uncertain time period it has ever seen and creatively adjusted Kiavi’s pricing, sales, marketing and channel partner strategies to ensure the company not only survived the market downturn but thrived during it.
Brooke Carillo Chief Financial Officer Redwood TrustAs Chief Financial Officer at Redwood Trust, Brooke Carillo’s visionary leadership and forward-thinking mentality have transformed the company’s financial operations. Her exceptional communication skills have fostered a collaborative environment that encourages cross-functional teamwork, enabling effective decision-making and the implementation of transformative initiatives. She oversees finance, treasury, capital markets, technology, strategy and investor relations in a constantly changing market landscape. Carillo led efforts that enhanced the company’s long-term strategic positioning and optionality. These efforts included: capital optimization, new partnerships, financing enhancements, new investments and cost savings across the board. Carillo was integral to identifying and then closing Redwood’s acquisition of Riverbend Lending in April 2023, which added a new asset and complementary footprint to Redwood’s existing business. Carillo has been integral to the company’s ability to grow liquidity through financing efficiencies as well as establish various capital formation partnerships. She streamlined evolution of Redwood’s financial segment reporting, enhancing how investors and analysts are able to analyze and understand the financial results.
Tai Christensen Co-Founder and Chief Diversity Officer Arrive HomeTai Christensen wants to close the real estate wealth gap that’s locking minority borrowers out of homeownership. Christensen recently co-founded Arrive Home, a social enterprise dedicated to helping responsible borrowers in underserved communities through alternative credit solutions and down payment assistance. It’s a systemic problem plaguing our country, according to Christensen, and anyone working in the lending industry right now should be actively solving it. Christensen is motivated by her unwavering belief that helping underserved borrowers achieve sustainable homeownership enables them to build generational wealth — a key ingredient to social mobility and financial security. Christensen works with government entities, lenders and nonprofits to offer innovative and diverse mortgage products designed to enable correspondent lenders to confidently deliver loans to reliable borrowers who qualify under FHA guidelines. Christensen’s commitment to increasing homeownership among minorities compels her to be a vocal participant in the mortgage space, speaking at multiple industry conferences and appearing regularly on mortgage-related podcasts in an effort to engage lending professionals about how they, too, can play a role in creating sustainable change.
Robin Clayton is the director of digital lending and marketing at Paramount Residential Mortgage Group (PRMG). She has been with PRMG for just under three years and within a year she was promoted to the company’s senior management board of directors. Clayton runs PRMG’s digital marketing and lending team which is a performance marketing and metric-based approach to generating revenue from digital marketing. Clayton has a significant influence on the company’s entire 2,100-person team. In the last 12 months, she has helped grow her team to support all three of the company’s channels. She has also helped groom others on her team to be promoted and lead other initiatives. When PRMG transitioned to a new CRM platform three years ago, the company needed an expert and Clayton was the right person for the challenge. She has since helped create multiple integrations of tech vendors within PRMG’s dashboard to serve all three channels. Originators that embrace multiple technology platforms that her team supports are more successful statistically and have a very high retention rate.
Loran Coleman Vice President of Brokerage Operations, East U.S. eXp Realty
Loran Coleman brings more than 20 years of real estate industry experience to her role as the vice president of Brokerage Operations for the eastern United States. Coleman joined eXp Realty in 2021 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic as regional operations manager-central, responsible for the operations management of 12 U.S. states. She was quickly promoted to vice president of brokerage operations for the East in March 2022, responsible for the successful operations of the eastern U.S., supporting more than 200 staff members and 45,000 agents. Coleman’s experience ranges from residential and commercial property inspector to investor and property manager. She even has experience as a licensed broker in six states and supervising broker and regional vice president for the second-largest real estate firm in the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors (KCRAR) area, covering 36 counties with 12,500 realtor members. Coleman served two terms as a board director for KCRAR and currently serves as a commissioner for the Missouri Real Estate Commission. She is masterful in taking the initiative from inception to full fruition, ensuring strategic goals are met in a manner that best serves all stakeholders.
Susan Connally Managing Director of Servicing Solutions The Oakleaf GroupSusan Connally is the managing director of servicing solutions at Oakleaf. Her ability to understand client needs, deliver tailored solutions and foster collaboration across different sectors showcases her expertise and unwavering dedication. Moreover, Connally’s contributions extend beyond Oakleaf, as she actively contributes to advancing the mortgage industry as a whole. Her remarkable achievements and inspirational leadership make her a true role model for aspiring women leaders, setting a high standard of excellence and leaving a lasting impact on the industry. Connally’s contributions to Oakleaf since she joined in 2021 have made her an indispensable member of the company. She successfully established a new line of business focused on mortgage servicing, including loan-level reviews and advisory services. Current and recent engagements include loan reviews for service transfer data integrity, the accuracy of insurance information and fee reimbursement to borrowers, while advisory work to date includes mortgage servicing compliance requirements. Connally’s efforts in building relationships with prospective clients and partners have resulted in multiple, ongoing engagements with key customers, further enhancing Oakleaf’s position in the industry.
Cristy Conolly Executive Vice President of Appraisal Modernization Class Valuation
As a respected and influential leader, Cristy Conolly embodies her title as executive vice president of appraisal modernization at Class Valuation. Conolly focuses on a key part of valuation modernization — the responsible standardization of appraisal data. In doing so, she plays a crucial role in eradicating appraisal bias through the use of appraisal technology. Conolly joined Class Valuation in April 2022 via company acquisition. In that short time, she has proved to be a vital asset to Class Valuation and continues to be a dominant leader in the appraisal space. She uses her 20-plus years of experience in the industry and knowledge as a licensed appraiser to inform the policies and protocols she implements. She has a strong focus on collaboration with industry stakeholders to improve outdated processes and bring equality and diversity into the industry. In the past year, she has implemented the company’s first appraisal bias and diversity protocols. This includes bias-based keyword searches in appraisal reports and fair housing training for all staff. Thanks to Conolly’s efforts, every appraiser employed by Class Valuation takes an appraisal course specific to fair housing and discrimination as it relates to appraising.
As Divisional Senior Vice President, Great Lakes and South Florida of New American Funding, Elly Cummings is one of the company’s most valuable assets. Cummings is the strong leader her entire region both loves and respects and single-handedly kept her region afloat when the industry contracted by almost 50% in 2022. Cummings made sacrifices so New American Funding could ride the rollercoaster in the market and make it to the other side without closing its doors. In the last 12 months, Cummings has been dedicated to supporting the underserved initiative and increasing our division’s reach by 28% to the underserved markets with the goal of making homeownership accessible to all. She does this by helping loan officers teach classes on home readiness and by supporting local organizations, like the Twin Cities Diversity Fair, in their mission to empower Black, Indigenous and people of color to close the racial disparity gap. Last year, Cummings was named a Twin Cities Notable Women in Banking & Finance, a Top Women in Finance and led her region to win awards like “Top 200 Workplace” and “Best Places to Work” by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal among many other accomplishments.
Julia Curran Senior Director of Product Design SitusAMCJulia Curran, senior director of product design at SitusAMC, knows that origination, secondary marketing and servicing all are intertwined thanks to her involvement in the mortgage industry for such a significant amount of time. Curran leverages her extensive industry knowledge within SitusAMC to help develop technology that supports the industry. In the past 12 months, SitusAMC has focused on elevating its technology solutions across the real estate finance lifecycle. Curran has been committed to and leading the development of technology that creates a more connected and efficient loan ecosystem for clients from origination through securitization. To achieve this, Curran is leading the charge at SitusAMC on the implementation of innovative technology systems with comprehensive data sets that seamlessly integrate with clients’ established operations and platforms, informing better decision-making, reducing transaction times, increasing accuracy, enhancing transparency and ultimately lowering the cost to originate. Outside of her work at SitusAMC, Curran also serves as a foster family for dogs until they find homes and has helped find a forever home for over a dozen dogs.
Rachel Cunningham Vice President of Customer Service TrustEngine
Rachel Cunningham has made a great impact on TrustEngine and its clients during her multi-year tenure leading customer service at the company. Her dedication to supporting lenders’ success has netted a 97% customer support satisfaction score, strengthened customer retention and directly contributed to TrustEngine’s meteoric market adoption and revenue growth. Cunningham has proven herself to be a highly adept leader who uplifts her team, organization and lenders at every turn. During the merger of Sales Boomerang and Mortgage Coach, Cunningham restructured customer success into three divisions to better serve clients under a unified brand. Her enhancements to the company’s onboarding procedures eliminated 95% of the implementation backlog in a single quarter. Her coaching of the customer success team to take on an advisory approach to account management resulted in exceeding retention targets. In early 2023, Cunningham announced she will serve as a founding mentor in the Women in Customer Success Power Up mentorship program. Women of Customer Success is a global community for all women in customer experience and those wanting to break into the technology industry.
Roxana Davidoff CEO Big Purple Dot
Under the guidance of Roxana Davidoff, the CEO and founder of Big Purple Dot, the organization has revolutionized the real estate and mortgage industry with its cutting-edge software solutions. Davidoff’s relentless drive, strategic vision and dedication to empowering women in business make her an exemplary role model for aspiring entrepreneurs everywhere. In the past 12 months, Davidoff has demonstrated outstanding professional excellence and leadership within Big Purple Dot, propelling the company to unprecedented heights. Her strategic decision-making and innovative approach have resulted in remarkable milestones and achievements. Davidoff played a pivotal role in spearheading strategic partnerships — including a collaboration with CoreLogic — positioning Big Purple Dot as a key provider of recruiting solutions in the industry and expanding its presence into new markets. Davidoff has fostered a culture of collaboration and excellence, leading to notable advancements in product development and remarkable revenue growth for the company. As a result of this culture, Big Purple Dot was also the first company in the industry to successfully launch the industry’s first integrated platform with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, revolutionizing the way lenders and real estate agents engage with clients.
Jan Davis is recognized as a leader in the mortgage finance industry with expertise in managing standards development, mortgage operations and data warehousing activities. This year, she stepped up to serve MISMO, a subsidiary of the MBA, as its acting president during a leadership transition while continuing to maintain her current responsibilities. Currently, she serves as the vice president of operations at MISMO, where she is responsible for managing MISMO operations and governance. Davis has played an important role in MISMO’s work to increase efficiency and reduce costs, enhance interoperability and accelerate the industry’s digital future. Her unmatched attention to detail and team management skills are an asset to the organization. As part of her work leading operations at MISMO, Davis brings together experts and practitioners across the mortgage finance industry for events focused on pressing business topics. The MISMO Winter Summit, held in January 2023, had a record number of attendees and Davis regularly plans three MISMO Summits each year.
Sarah Dekin President and Chief Operating Officer HometapSarah Dekin brings a powerful combination of strategy, product and marketing experience in both the consumer and B2B spaces to her role as president and chief operating officer at Hometap. Prior to joining the team, she successfully built and led highly motivated, effective teams for many well-known brands, including Zipcar, House of Blues, California Pizza Kitchen and Virgin. Dekin was one of the company’s very first employees. She joined as chief marketing officer in 2017 and has continually and tirelessly worked not only to create and refine the marketing organization but also to establish home equity investments as a new, credible product category within the home financing industry. Since her early days with Hometap, Dekin has been a consummate leader and collaborative colleague that is dedicated to both her team and the homeowners Hometap serves, always working to ensure clear communication, transparency and focus. Dekin also serves as an inspiration to other women in technology and recently participated in a virtual fireside chat in which she shared her story, career background and strategies for success with fellow female colleagues at Hometap.
Victoria Garcia DeLuca VIce President of Marketplace Diversity Strategy Guild Mortgage
Victoria Garcia DeLuca’s journey from a loan officer to sales manager, regional manager and now a senior leader in the mortgage industry demonstrates her exceptional leadership skills and relentless work ethic. Throughout her career, DeLuca has consistently surpassed expectations, driving growth and achieving remarkable results. DeLuca has demonstrated exceptional professional excellence and leadership within her organization, particularly in the last 12 months. Her contributions have been instrumental in driving the success and growth of Guild Mortgage. Commitment to mentorship and professional development is evident in her active involvement in trade organizations and volunteer work. As a corporate board member of NAHREP, an advisory council member for the American Mortgage Diversity Council and a board director for TLACC, she plays a crucial role in advancing the industry and fostering diversity and inclusion. Her efforts have not only helped Guild establish strong relationships with these trade organizations but have also made a significant impact on the communities they serve. She is recognized as a thought leader in the mortgage industry, regularly speaking at conferences and industry events.
Jenna Evans Executive Vice President, Deputy Counsel, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer
Ocwen Financial Group
Jenna Evans is a talented and well-respected leader at Ocwen and has more than 12 years of experience with the company. As executive vice president, deputy counsel and chief risk and compliance officer, she has led Ocwen through the ever-changing and complex regulatory environment. At the same time, Evans continues to be a champion for diversity and developing women leaders as the executive sponsor of the Ocwen Global Women’s Network, composed of more than 2,000 employees. Evans has served as the company’s lead attorney for regulatory affairs since 2016 and expanded her leadership responsibilities since then. She is adept at handling sensitive and critically important regulatory matters and is a trusted adviser to the board of directors, CEO and broader management team. Evans consistently demonstrates outstanding leadership skills and has been instrumental in further strengthening the company’s compliance and control environment.
Susan Falsetti, managing director of origination title and close at ServiceLink, is a servant leader with a people-first mindset. Taking exceptional care in the development and success of her team, her willingness to roll up her sleeves and assist when facing a challenge has helped her earn their respect and admiration. Falsetti’s impact on the origination title and close group at ServiceLink is vast and meaningful. She is a mentor to many within the organization and always makes time to sit with direct reports and mentees and provide a listening ear or coach them through challenges they may be facing; an approach that is all too rare in today’s fast-paced world. Over the last 12 months, Falsetti doubled down on her customer-centric and people-first approach. She, along with her team, took the time to speak with clients one-on-one and understand their unique challenges. Her approach was effective, demonstrating to clients that she and her team will go above and beyond to help them continue to grow their market share, regardless of market conditions.
Stephenie Flood Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Operations RE/MAX Gold Nation
Stephenie Flood has become a key leader not only with RE/MAX Gold Nation but within the whole RE/MAX world as a visible leader of her company. Through her efforts in creating The Juggernaut Podcast, MEC “Wins-Days” and the partnership with Children’s Miracle Network, which will lead to total donations in excess of $2 million during 2023, she has established herself as a leader and expert in speaking and motivating others both within the company and beyond. Flood leads a team of dedicated directors and staff who oversee the relationship between RE/MAX’s amazing real estate agents and the rest of the company. Flood focuses on leading and cheering on a team of more than 70 administrators, transaction coordinators, accounting staff and directors to help take them to new levels of productivity and job satisfaction. She has created a culture that drives engagement within the employee population at the service center that makes them want to come to the office.
Vanessa Famulener President of HomeLight Homes HomeLightVanessa Famulener, the president of HomeLight Homes, which encompasses HomeLight’s flagship financial products, HomeLight Cash Offer and HomeLight Buy Before You Sell, is a driving force within the real estate industry. Her leadership and innovation have and will continue to empower top real estate agents and their clients to compete and win in today’s market. Throughout the past year, Famulener has demonstrated remarkable resilience in navigating a dynamic and increasingly uncertain real estate market. Despite these challenges, she has played a pivotal role in propelling HomeLight’s growth, transforming it into the country’s largest agent-focused cash offer program. Moreover, she has consistently been a backbone for her team, colleagues, real estate agents and buyers and sellers. Famulener’s strong leadership and unwavering confidence have been instrumental in overseeing the continuous development and expansion of HomeLight’s flagship financial products. While other property-tech companies have retreated, she has paved the path and steered HomeLight and its agent partners in the right direction toward exponential growth and success.
Erika Franks President ACT AppraisalErika Franks has a long-standing love for real estate. She is the president of ACT Appraisal Inc. She has worked hard to establish excellent working relationships with thousands of appraisers across the nation over the past 20 years. Franks has surrounded herself with an excellent team that assists her on a daily basis. Her interest in real estate developed from an interest in purchasing property and the feeling that everyone deserves a place to live. Since 1998, Franks has excelled in several leadership roles at ACT Appraisal, a full-service real estate appraisal management company that operates nationally and handles everything throughout the appraisal process. Attributing much of her success to her magnificent team, who have been with her since the beginning, Franks is perpetually motivated by her customers and finds great satisfaction in ensuring that her clients receive the best possible experience and outcome with their transactions. She helps clients find their dream homes and has made a name for herself in the field by adding a personal touch to every single transaction.
Maria Gallucci serves as executive vice president and corporate secretary for Freedom Mortgage Corporation. She has over 30 years of tenure at the company, and she is an authorized signatory of Freedom Mortgage who oversees all of corporate funding. She has been instrumental in ensuring Freedom Mortgage funds all loans it has undersigned or purchased. In just 2022 alone, Freedom Mortgage serviced the mortgages of nearly 2 million homeowners representing over $452 billion in loans — the majority funded by Gallucci’s team. Gallucci has extensive experience in all aspects of mortgage lending and has repeatedly proven herself to be a trusted leader. Her leadership and attention to detail have earned her the authority to sign documents like contracts and checks on behalf of Freedom Mortgage, one of the largest VA and FHA mortgage lenders in the country. In addition to being the corporate secretary, Gallucci oversees a team of nearly 50 professionals in funding, collateral, post-closing and insuring, which includes the responsibility of all daily fundings for all divisions, including loan modifications and daily reconciliations.
Alayna Gardner Director of Sales and Marketing LodeStar Software Solutions
As a veteran of the luxury hospitality industry, Alayna Gardner brings a standard of excellence, personality and service to her sales and content marketing strategies in the mortgage tech industry. As director of sales and marketing, she innovates effortlessly, plans tirelessly and enjoys surprising and delighting leads and clients alike with unexpected perks, benefits and solutions. Throughout 2022, Gardner designed a sales and marketing budget that took all of the anxiety out of embracing new opportunities and investing in key relationships. She helped collaborate on the design and launch of different usage tiers and price levels for LodeStar’s Closing Cost Calculator. This initiative took the stress off of the implementation team and better served lower-volume clients. Gardner regularly shocks veteran lenders in demos with her specific knowledge both of the industry and mortgage lending software. She designed a workflow to help LodeStar’s marketing and customer success teams collaborate on user guides and howto articles so that neither team’s primary work fell by the wayside. She invests in and supports her team members to ensure their work is never too burdensome, and that they feel empowered and valued.
Mosi Gatling Sales Manager loanDepotWith more than 20 years of experience coaching, encouraging and supporting un-served communities into homeownership success, Mosi Gatling has emerged as a top 1% loan originator and a nationally recognized advocate for creating a more equitable and inclusive path to homeownership. In 2023 she was ranked 15th in the nation for FHA volume, underscoring her success serving diverse and first-time homebuyers. Gatling began her career in banking but moved to the mortgage field because she believed her financial knowledge could be better utilized in helping people realize their goals of homeownership. Gatling plays the long game and throughout her career has committed herself to helping people understand the steps to becoming “mortgage ready.” Even today she routinely holds workshops teaching potential homebuyers about financial literacy, responsible credit decisions and the power of creating generational wealth through homeownership. Gatling is a respected thought leader who regularly shares her perspective on how the mortgage industry can make homeownership more accessible, affordable and sustainable for all families. In the past year, she’s been featured at local and national conferences hosted by the MBA, National Mortgage News, NEXT and Nevada’s affordable housing agency.
Liz Gehringer President and CEO of Anywhere Franchise Brands Anywhere Real Estate
Liz Gehringer has distinguished herself time and time again as a leader within the Anywhere Real Estate family of companies. In 2023, she was appointed CEO of Anywhere Franchise Brands — an expansion of her previous role as president of Coldwell Banker Affiliates to include operational oversight of CENTURY 21, ERA Real Estate and Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate. In her new role spanning the three franchise brands, Gehringer is responsible for driving growth for their franchise networks, which collectively include more than 2,700 global offices and 200,000 agents. A pioneer for building world-class programs from the ground up and a triple threat for operational, franchise and legal experience, Gehringer is the epitome of professional excellence and leadership in the industry. Gehringer is determined to create a better future for her peers as well as those underrepresented looking to make their mark in the real estate market. She has spearheaded the growth of many initiatives, including Agents of Change, What Moves Her and the Inclusive Ownership Program, the latter of which was created to help increase the representation of entrepreneurs in the real estate industry in diverse populations.
Chief Operations Officer of Fathom Realty, Samantha Giuggio’s, innovative ideas, unwavering commitment to agents and extraordinary leadership have propelled Fathom Realty to new heights. Fathom was ranked as the No. 2 Top Mover in the 2023 RealTrends 500. Giuggio is a proven leader with decades worth of experience in the real estate industry. Leading a nationwide team of more than 10,000 agents and local leaders, she is dedicated to Fathom’s service culture that provides an exceptional transaction experience for home buyers, sellers and investors. Certified by both The John Maxwell Company and Buffini & Company, Giuggio is an accomplished speaker and coach with a deep commitment to authentic leadership. She brings her expertise and passion to Fathom Realty, where she is committed to positively influencing agents and industry peers alike. Giuggio inspires others to make a difference in their lives and the lives of those around them. Her extensive experience in real estate sales, leadership, management and training makes her uniquely qualified to build and lead a successful corporate brokerage office while fostering a culture of excellence, retention and growth throughout the company.
Amy Gromowski Executive of Science and Analytics CoreLogicAmy Gromowski leads the CoreLogic science and analytics data science innovation team. She is a proven leader, driving AI and machine learning and science-based solutions for the mortgage and real estate market. Gromowski helps CoreLogic’s clients drive profitable growth and offer their customers an excellent user experience. Gromowski works across CoreLogic providing leadership for transformation initiatives including data science, imagery analytics, weather forensics and thought leadership. Gromowski has been highly successful at building and innovating in AI, machine learning and data science, which requires influencing on multiple fronts. These include setting the vision for growth and innovation through AI/ML and science-based solutions, aligning initiatives with the company’s vision and selling the value of those initiatives to secure funding from the executive leadership team. She partners with product executives to bring solutions to market, leading through the AI/ML/science development lifecycle. Gromowski takes the initiative to deliver new solutions to the market, supporting marketing, pricing, sales and client engagement. Gromowski is successful in motivating and engaging high-level teams that have members with advanced degrees in math, science and computer science.
Lesli Gooch CEO Manufactured Housing Institute
Lesli Gooch has dedicated her life’s work to ensuring that quality, affordable housing is available and attainable for all. In her current role as CEO of Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI), she is focused on addressing the nation’s housing shortage and her passion is making the American Dream of homeownership possible through quality, energy-efficient, homes at attainable prices. Gooch has successfully elevated manufactured housing as a critical component to addressing our nation’s affordable housing supply challenges and secured the support of our nation’s top housing officials for seeking ways to make manufactured housing available to more people. She has differentiated herself from others by accomplishing federal policy changes and policymaker support for the industry that prior to her tenure at MHI were out of reach. Gooch’s ability to inspire and mobilize her team and industry members, advocate for and drive policy changes and foster collaboration among stakeholders can be easily measured by the impactful results she has produced. She also serves on the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the boards of the Systems Building Research Coalition and the Bollinger Foundation.
Rola Gurrieri Chief Fulfillment Officer Guaranteed RateRola Gurrieri leads all aspects of operations, credit policy and collateral at Guaranteed Rate as chief fulfillment officer. She has made significant contributions to the company by leading initiatives with her extensive expertise in credit policy and underwriting strategies. Her commitment to knowledge, leadership and team collaboration has made her a key woman of influence in the industry. During her time at Guaranteed Rate, Gurrieri helped form the credit concierge department, which is now staffed with some of the industry’s most highly skilled credit underwriters, in order to support the company’s loan officers to deliver the best options and solutions to homebuyers. She also established an underwriting development program to mentor and teach industry newcomers to become efficient, competent and knowledgeable underwriters. Her team of underwriters helped pioneer the Same Day Mortgage initiative, which has set a new industry standard for mortgage processing speed. Gurrieri is involved in local fundraising and is on the board of her local educational committee — the main focus of which is to raise money and issue grants for the public school districts in the area. She is also involved in a family foundation supporting pediatric cancer.
Carrie Gusmus is the president and CEO of Aslan Home Lending. She is always looking for ways to help other women in the mortgage space grow. Not just within her own company but within the mortgage industry as a whole. Gusmus is a member of Colorado Business Women, a group focused on helping women in business in the state of Colorado grow and connect with other business owners. She is also a member of Vistage which focuses on helping her become the best leader she can be. 2022 was a challenging year to be a mortgage broker. Gusmus brought her energy, encouragement, coaching and wisdom to Aslan and the mortgage industry to help everyone grow and thrive. She challenged people to look for opportunities where others saw obstacles. She even spoke on a Women of Influence panel at HousingWire Annual. Over the last year, Gusmus has pushed Aslan and its loan officers to grow and thrive. She has held monthly and weekly coaching sessions with the team to focus on growth and opportunity. And, she has worked with Aslan’s leadership to bring in new investors, products and software to help the team thrive.
Kimberly Hare President Fay ServicingKimberly Hare is the president of Fay Servicing. She is responsible for setting strategic goals to meet company and client expectations while adhering to compliance guidelines and controls to manage risk. Hare is a critical problem solver and collaborator and is well respected for her ability to build, mentor and lead teams. Hare brings decades of experience in the mortgage industry to her role at Fay Servicing. As an executive leader, Hare has transformed how customers can make payments and worked to position Fay Servicing as an early adopter of alternative payment methods. Her focus on driving online self-service and convenience for Fay Servicing customers is a core initiative. She has advanced the process by removing trouble spots while making improvements to the overall borrower experience. During her tenure at Fay Servicing, Hare has broadened the scope of the business to include commercial servicing, now over one-third of the loans the firm services. To do so, she built out an infrastructure of people, processes and technology to become one of the largest business purpose loan servicers in the country.
Ali Haralson President Auction.comAuction.com President Ali Haralson is a dynamic executive with over 20 years of experience in the servicing and distressed disposition industries. Her determination, leadership and grit have helped Auction.com surpass 500,000 homes sold, with over $62 billion in total sales and 6.9 million registered users. She guided the company through the COVID-19 pandemic, led the industry through adopting its first FHA First Look program and steered the company’s efforts in giving generously to significant causes related to veterans and housing. She helps set the industry standards for all other distressed auction companies and has helped push the industry toward higher-level goals, such as neighborhood stabilization and community development. Haralson has played a pivotal role in securing 2022’s annual revenue total of over $37 million. Her comprehensive understanding of client needs has helped spearhead revolutionary products and improve their evolution, allowing for better outcomes for mortgage servicers, distressed homeowners, distressed property buyers and surrounding communities.
Kim Harland Senior Vice President and Regional Manager PrimeLendingIn the fast-paced and ever-evolving mortgage industry, individuals who have the drive and determination to make a positive impact will stand out. Kim Harland, the senior vice president and regional manager of the Desert District at PrimeLending, is one such individual. With her extensive experience, dedication and passion for helping others, Harland has left an indelible mark on PrimeLending and the mortgage industry as a whole. Harland’s journey in the mortgage industry began at age 17 when she fell in love with the industry’s fast pace, constant variety and the opportunity it provided to positively impact people and communities. Having worked her way through various roles in the mortgage process, including servicing, closing, processing, underwriting and finally production, Harland gained a comprehensive understanding of the industry from multiple perspectives. Harland’s leadership philosophy revolves around empowering her team. She understands the importance of putting employees first. As a leader, she is intentional in her approach, consistently questioning whether she is effectively serving her team. This emphasis on leadership ensures that her team members feel supported and empowered to reach their full potential.
Ines Hegedus-Garcia is a trailblazer, leader and nationally recognized speaker on tech adoption among Realtors. She was one of the first Realtors to adopt social media and still writes her award-winning real estate blog, Miamism.com, which she began in 2006. Through her many speaking engagements all over the world and her 2023 MIAMI and national leadership roles, Hegedus-Garcia has influenced thousands of Realtors in her industry to use media and data to further their business. HegedusGarcia is the executive vice president for Avanti Way Realty, an award-winning brokerage business that has expanded from 300 to 1,500 agents in the last year and recently opened its 13th office. Hegedus-Garcia is the 2023 Chair of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Federal Technology Committee. She also sits on the board of directors of Second Century Ventures, NAR’s Capital Venture Arm overseeing NAR Reach’s technology incubator program as well as new artificial intelligence and virtual reality initiatives in real estate and more. She is also the 2023 vice-chair of the Board Leadership Forum for Florida Realtors.
Lora Helt Chief Growth Officer BOSSCAT
As the Chief Growth Officer at BOSSCAT, Lora Helt has been instrumental in guiding the company’s substantial expansion into a diverse client portfolio of more than 200 brokerage and institutional partners, including a coveted national partnership with the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Even in the challenging housing market of 2022, her strategies led to a quadrupling of the company’s revenue. BOSSCAT’s position as the 774th fastest-growing company on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list further cements Helt’s status as a real estate tech and services industry leader. Helt has displayed extraordinary leadership in the past year, driving an impressive expansion that diversified the company’s client portfolio. Her relationship-building prowess has secured key enterprise partnerships with national brokerages and institutional clients. Helt navigated BOSSCAT to a four-fold revenue increase in 2022, highlighting her strategic resilience. Embracing the startup mindset, Helt instills a culture of innovation and tenacity. Her hands-on leadership style and her role as an industry thought leader inspire employees at all levels. She mentors and contributes to national discussions on real estate, embodying the essence of influential leadership.
Shawna Hernandez Chief Operating Officer EndpointShawna Hernandez has been looking at the real estate transaction process through the eyes of the consumer for more than two decades. Since joining Endpoint in 2020, she has been a key driver in joining people, processes and technology to rebuild the settlement process from the ground up. Hernandez has overseen the development of Endpoint’s proprietary closing software that automates many of the redundant tasks associated with the settlement process. As Endpoint has tailored its operations to serve the settlement needs of proptech companies, real estate investors and digital-brokerage firms, she has spearheaded the creation of a centralized team of experienced closing specialists to service transactions at a national scale. Hernandez is the type of leader people want to follow because she champions collaboration and is credited with the close working relationship between the operations and product teams at Endpoint. This has resulted in developing solutions that align with how closing professionals work and the natural progression of the real estate transaction in the real world.
Lana Izgarsheva Chief Operating and Compliance Officer A&D MortgageLana Izgarsheva is not one to be satisfied with the status quo but rather motivated by the challenge of blazing new trails and finding a path forward that is all her own. As chief operating and compliance officer at A&D Mortgage, Izgarsheva has pushed the company to see past internal expectations and focus on diversifying everything — from its corporate makeup to its product offerings and its charitable ventures. With Izgarsheva, the possibilities are endless. Her enthusiasm is contagious, no idea is too big and no goal is too lofty. It is this attitude that has buoyed A&D in a tough market and united the company under a common purpose. Izgarsheva’s enthusiasm and creative thinking when it comes to possibilities within mortgage are infectious, and it is this spirit that has attracted top talent within the mortgage industry. Company execs credit her inspired leadership for A&D’s impressive growth, as employee numbers have doubled from 250 to 500. Izgarsheva has made it her mission to help female professionals ascend the ranks at A&D. Thanks to her relentless push, 51% of A&D employees and 33% of the C-suite are female, a fact Izgarsheva embraces as a personal accomplishment.
Janet Jozwik is the senior managing director and head of product at RiskSpan. She relies on a strong background in mortgage credit modeling, loss forecasting and data analytics to oversee the overall strategy and development of RiskSpan’s data and analytical products used extensively by more than 80 mortgage loan and MSR investors, mortgage broker-dealers, and mortgage REITs. She has attracted industry attention recently for her role in integrating climate risk into mortgage credit analytics and seeking to quantify the various ways in which the increasing risk of climate events impacts mortgage and housing markets. Jozwik’s thought leadership has benefited the organization both by raising its industry profile and educating the workforce. Earlier this year, the Structured Finance Association recognized Jozwik’s industry contributions with a Leader Spotlight during its Women in Securitization “WiS Week 2023.” Jozwik’s writing and frequent panel participation at industry events have contributed to her being widely regarded as an industry expert and thought leader, especially when it comes to climate risk and the mortgage industry.
Marcia Kaufman CEO Bayport FundingMarcia Kaufman, CEO at Bayport Funding, is an innovator in the commercial real estate finance space with a proven track record of driving growth for her firms and her clients. Her ability to manage capital activity and strategically advise investors seeking opportunities in a complex market has solidified her status as an industry leader. Under Kaufman’s leadership, Bayport Funding secured a $200 million senior credit facility from Webster Bank, helping the firm expand its portfolio throughout the U.S. and significantly furthering its ability to help investors meet their goals. In her role, Kaufman continues to accelerate the firm’s growth across the eastern seaboard in key markets such as North Florida and the greater D.C. metro area, as well as other areas such as the Dallas metroplex. Kaufman continues to showcase her leadership through strategies that move the real estate investment market forward and develop expansive relationships with investors. Under Kaufman’s direction, Bayport Funding continues to navigate the shifting landscape of the housing market with impressive efficiency, especially when compared to institutional lenders that have adopted a more reserved approach to providing capital.
Arlyn Kalinski Vice President of LEP Compliance Guaranteed Rate
Arlyn Kalinski’s forward-focused leadership is driving major change in the mortgage industry by building the infrastructure to support Limited English Proficiency (LEP) consumers throughout the mortgage process. Kalinski is a pioneer in her field, as she implemented and supports Guaranteed Rate’s Language Access Program, with the goal to educate and empower LEP consumers to make one of the most complex financial decisions of their lifetime in their preferred language. Kalinski has held numerous leadership roles spanning multiple lines of business including home lending, loss mitigation, foreclosure, regulatory operations and risk management and compliance. She currently serves as the vice president of compliance where she promotes financial inclusion through enterprisewide programs such as language access, community engagement and diverse recruiting with a goal to help underserved or marginalized communities have access to credit, while increasing diverse representation across the company. Kalinski focuses on strengthening the company’s efforts to engage a broad range of homebuying communities and works to enhance the social and economic mobility of consumers.
Sara Knochel CEO of Data and Analytics Candor TechnologyFor data scientist Sara Knochel, the thing about data analytics is that to apply it successfully, you have to understand the business you’re in. Knochel has made a career applying her skills to all things mortgage — topping it off with an MBA to refine her business acumen — which has led her to assume her role as CEO of data and analytics at Candor Technology. Knochel is guiding a team at the forefront of mortgage technology through the use of cutting-edge AI that effectively automates an underwriter’s thought process while performing credit and information risk assessments. Knochel and her team have built Candor’s CogniTech Expert System Technology, which simulates the decision-making ability and high-level cognitive tasks of human experts and recently earned a U.S. patent. The impact of this technology is groundbreaking, promising to change the face of mortgage lending by automating the costliest and most time-consuming portion of origination: how underwriters conduct credit and information risk assessment. Thanks to Knochel’s leadership on this project, CogniTech’s results have been extraordinary, with clients reporting significant improvements to cycle times and pull-through rates.
Kim Krick serves as vice president and wholesale east regional manager at Freedom Mortgage. She oversees 14 account executives covering multiple states from Miami to Maine. She has single-handedly built the company’s east coast wholesale team, closed thousands of loans over the last year and is on target to beat that by the end of 2023. Last year, Krick led her team to bring in more than $1.7 billion in loans and she is projecting a higher target this year. Krick leads one of three key regions in the Wholesale Division at Freedom Mortgage. She is one of a few employees who launched and built Freedom Mortgage’s Wholesale Division in a single executive suite in Orlando, Florida, nearly 40 years ago. Krick’s leadership has helped in growing and shaping the company from a handful of employees to thousands across the country. She has more than 30 years of experience in the mortgage industry with in-depth knowledge of underwriting guidelines and the intricacies of the broad array of loan programs.
Kamini Lane President and CEO Coldwell Banker Realty
Kamini Lane was appointed president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Realty in 2023. She was tasked with leading one of the largest real estate brokerages with a network of more than 55,000 sales professionals in 55 major markets, ensuring her position as one of the most influential women in U.S. real estate. Lane brings exceptional leadership experience and a unique blend of expertise to empower the thousands of Coldwell Banker Realty entrepreneurs who run small, medium and large real estate businesses. Her innovation, commitment to diversity and inclusion and dedication to leveraging technology make Lane a true influencer in the field. Lane has achieved success throughout her career, demonstrating leadership and expertise in the real estate industry. As the president of Sotheby’s company-owned brokerages, she managed over 48 offices and led the company to earn a sales volume of $23 billion in 2022. Lane’s visionary approach was evident when she organized the first-ever virtual national sales meeting at Sotheby’s, which garnered significant attendance and showcased her leadership in driving the adoption of technology and operational evolution.
Odeta Kushi Deputy Chief Economist First AmericanFirst American Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi is a prominent voice in real estate, providing analysis, commentary and forecasts on trends in the U.S. real estate and mortgage markets. In her role at First American, a premier provider of title, settlement and risk solutions for real estate transactions, she plays a critical part in furthering First American’s industry leadership. She provides a data-driven analysis of economic and housing market trends and the impact of policy changes. Because of her expertise and ability to distill complex topics, she is a go-to expert for journalists, industry professionals, policymakers and executive leadership. Kushi is a leader on First American’s economics team and manages the day-to-day research, forecasting, analysis and commentary on the state of the housing market and the broader U.S. economy. She regularly provides commentary to media outlets regarding various economic reports — everything from the U.S. Census Bureau’s New Residential Construction Report to the Employment Report — with the goal of helping both businesses and consumers understand the state of the markets and the impact of shifts in supply, demand, policy and beyond.
Laura Lee Senior Vice President and General Auditor Freddie MacLaura Lee is senior vice president and the general auditor of Freddie Mac, directing the internal audit division which is responsible to provide better assurance and reduce its footprint by focusing on the value and impact to the enterprise. She and her team make homeownership possible by evaluating the safety and soundness of the company. They make affordable housing a reality for more people. As a leader, she embraces a culture of trust, which enables courageous conversations, allows the team to learn from failures, encourages collaboration and promotes creativity. Her work is an essential part of our corporate focus on risk management, which is central to fulfilling our mission. This year, Lee is directing an enterprise risk assessment methodology revision to support critical thinking, curiosity, efficiency and risk management through collaboration across the company. She encourages her division to focus their thinking on the company’s highest risks and align with corporate priorities. She is investing in expanding automation to streamline administrative processes and provide continuous assurance while continuing to strengthen the leadership skills of all employees.
Throughout Shelley Leonard’s successful career spanning more than 25 years, she has gained deep executive experience in leading companies to drive growth, improve performance, increase market share, launch successful new products, expand into adjacent markets and manage M&A activity. As president at Xactus, she is guiding the company through its culmination of acquisitions and working to redefine the way mortgage verification services are delivered. Leonard is a significant contributor who is impacting mortgage banking by leading a transformative industry movement that seeks to advance stagnant processes and develop innovative workflows and technologies to accommodate a more consumer-centric mortgage experience. Her impact is already being felt in how she is redefining the way mortgage verification services are delivered. Leonard is using her decades of experience to steer Xactus with a fresh approach toward advancing the modern mortgage experience. Her expertise in developing workflows, motivating people and anticipating trends enables Xactus to deliver innovative solutions, reliable technology and unmatched support that enhance lenders’ profitability by allowing them to close more loans more quickly.
Katharine Loveland CEO Volly
Katharine Loveland brings a dynamic, knowledgeable and thoughtful approach to leadership. Since she assumed the role of CEO, Loveland has identified and implemented new strategic initiatives and growth plans with the goal of further positioning Volly as an industry-leading provider of dynamic, cutting-edge technology and compelling, personalized marketing. Loveland set Volly on a path toward market leadership and sustainable long-term growth. Despite the current challenges of the housing and mortgage markets, the first 10 months of Loveland’s tenure were full of record-breaking milestones and tremendous company success. She oversaw the expansion of existing relationships with enterprise-level clients in an effort to grow Volly’s reach in the lending space. She spearheaded an extensive rebranding effort in response to accelerated company growth and a renewal of Volly’s mission, vision and values. Under Loveland’s guidance, Volly has focused on refining, optimizing and maximizing the value of its client relationships. She has emphasized the corporate values that define how Volly operates every single day: ethical, innovative, kind-hearted and supportive. Loveland has helped drive a healthy and supportive work culture that ensures clients, partners and employees feel happy and valued.
Jennifer Lind Regional President, West Coldwell Banker RealtyAs of early June 2023, Jennifer Lind was promoted to regional president, West, for Coldwell Banker Realty. In this newly expanded capacity, she now oversees 124 offices throughout all of California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state. An accomplished real estate professional with a strong track record of leadership and making an impact, Lind has over 20 years of experience in the real estate industry, including leadership roles at Coldwell Banker, Windermere Real Estate and John L. Scott. Lind has a passion for success, natural leadership skills and integrity. She has been a vocal advocate for diversity and inclusion and has worked to create opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities in the industry. She has been recognized for her leadership in areas such as innovation, sustainability and customer service. Her influence in the industry and her ability to drive positive change sets her apart from others in real estate. Throughout her real estate career, which began as a licensed agent in 2003, Lind has also managed to acquire the Certified Negotiation Expert and Commitment to Excellence (C2EX) certifications.
Kelly Kennedy Mack President Corcoran Sunshine Marketing GroupKelly Kennedy Mack is president of New York City-based Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, the country’s new development market leader for the planning, design, marketing and sale of luxury residential developments. She has played a significant part in the company’s expansion and has preserved Corcoran Sunshine’s women-led legacy of innovation while significantly building its industry presence. The organization has generated over $40 billion in residential sales since Mack became president in 2006, all while continuing to work alongside the most distinguished leaders in real estate, including world-renowned architects, developers, designers and hospitality brands. Under Mack’s leadership, Corcoran Sunshine has marketed the decade’s biggest condominium housing projects including Hudson Yards, 30 Park Place, 220 Central Park South and 56 Leonard. Mack leads with enthusiasm and transparency, creating an engaged team with a direct line of sight into the value they provide to their developer clients. As a result, Corcoran Sunshine continues to be ranked as New York’s top new development marketer, selling over $3.6 billion in real estate in the past year alone.
As Chief Digital Officer, Sandra Madigan is leading Black Knight’s efforts to transform the mortgage industry. The organization is developing numerous digital capabilities that support the American aspiration of homeownership, exceed the needs of homeowners throughout their mortgage journey and offer mortgage providers more intuitive, user-friendly products, faster speed-to-market and the ability to stay ahead of changing market dynamics. These efforts include digital solutions that help improve operations for Black Knight’s clients throughout the loan life cycle, including those that support keeping customers in their homes during periods of financial hardship. In addition, Madigan has shared her experience as a female executive in a male-dominated tech industry and is a champion for diversity and women’s initiatives at Black Knight. Madigan commands Black Knight’s application programming interface-first (API-first) approach to software development. Under Madigan’s leadership, Black Knight applies a design-thinking approach to APIs by following a set of guidelines that provides an intuitive API experience for those who consume the APIs, such as developers, architects or designers.
Rayman Mathoda CEO Anchor Loans
Rayman Mathoda is a transformative leader with a track record of driving growth in all market cycles. In her first three months as CEO of Anchor Loans, she has formulated and begun executing a plan to expand Anchor’s national footprint, attracted senior-level talent to the company’s leadership team and explore innovative ways — beyond financing — to create value for sophisticated real estate investors. Mathoda has more than 25 years of experience across the real estate, finance and technology sectors and has an extensive track record of delivering transformational growth and value creation. Within the mortgage and real estate sectors, she previously served as CEO at Xome and co-CEO at Genesis Capital. Mathoda has been an investor in a number of co-founded startups focused on expanding access to novel genomic and therapeutic products in emerging markets including India and Asia. In addition to her extensive business-building experience, she is currently an independent director at Mosaic Sustainable Finance and serves as chairperson of the board at Desi Rainbow Parents & Allies, the leading 501(c)(3) non-profit serving South Asian LGBTQ families and persons in the U.S.
Heidi Mason Executive Vice President and General Counsel Freddie Mac
Heidi Mason joined Freddie Mac in 2022 with more than 25 years of experience in mortgage lending, financial services, consumer protection and securities law. She has brought her deep expertise to help Freddie Mac develop the legal framework necessary to propel its mission and advance the most significant projects in its equitable housing priorities. Mason has provided critical legal leadership at the center of Freddie Mac’s most pivotal projects to advance equity in housing in the last year. Mason is regarded for her informed counsel and collaborative leadership style. Her team knows she values ideas and innovation and is known for her sound decision-making at critical times. In her short tenure at Freddie Mac, Mason has quickly become a valuable member of Freddie Mac’s executive team. Prior to Freddie Mac, Mason spent 17 years at Wells Fargo, serving as executive vice president and senior deputy general counsel leading legal support for all of its consumer businesses, including mortgage operations. Just prior to joining Freddie Mac, Mason served as a partner at ElevateNext Law, a majority-women-owned law firm.
Jennifer McGuinness President Invigorate FinancePresident of Invigorate Finance, Jennifer McGuinness is not only an innovator but a thought leader. She built the first hedge fund issuer of AAA rates securities collateralized by newly originated loans, bringing products to market in a way that had never been done. McGuinness ran the first women-owned mortgage loan aggregator and now is bringing the market forward again, with the first multi-dimensional aggregator and asset management business. In the last 12 months, McGuinness’s business has become stronger while others have faltered. Now, she is entering the AAA-rated securitization third-party due diligence space as well, with all five rating agency approvals. Invigorate Finance has had significant growth and has also enhanced its asset management channel significantly. By diversifying its business lines to be multi-channel, Invigorate is now capable of aggregating loans and handling the entire lifecycle of the mortgage loan as well as conducting AAA-rated securitization due diligence, structured finance, loss mitigation oversight, loan-based triage, optimized liquidation and other structured resolutions.
Candice McNaught has a passion for mentoring and developing others, implementing innovative technology, and helping those in the community achieve homeownership. McNaught is a true leader, not only at Supreme Lending but in the industry and the community. Serving as the senior vice president of national sales, McNaught plays a significant role in marketing, products and finance, and oversees the sales team by aligning sales strategies with programs and ensuring the achievement of target goals. McNaught served as director of marketing for one of Supreme Lending’s highest-performing branches and becoming a branch manager to lead a team that averaged $330 million in annual loan production. Through her perseverance, drive and leadership, McNaught overcame the challenges of growing her team during the COVID-19 pandemic and booming market by focusing on her people — specializing in personalized professional development, placing team members in the right roles and implementing an internship program that resulted in creating full-time jobs. It’s rewarding to McNaught to identify her employees’ strengths and see them grow.
Maria Moskver CEO CloudvirgaMaria Moskver is a mortgage industry veteran with more than 25 years of executive management and regulatory compliance experience. Moskver has amassed significant expertise in acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, data privacy and security, consumer lending and employment, all of which have contributed to her proven record of driving new business and innovation in the mortgage industry. She is a seasoned fintech and compliance professional with a diverse skill set that few other executives have. In fact, she’s one of the only females in mortgage tech with a legal background. As CEO of Cloudvirga, Moskver is leading the firm’s strategic growth in building the preeminent digital mortgage automation company in the point-of-sale space where she is responsible for technology investments, new products, brand awareness and enhancing the Cloudvirga customer experience with end-to-end mortgage services and solutions. She leads with passion and purpose and is attentive to instilling that in others, creating strong followership and camaraderie. As a leader, she respects her team’s opinions, differences, and contributions, encouraging them to focus on their strengths and passions, which drives Cloudvirga’s success.
Sarah Middleton Chief Growth Officer Movement Mortgage
Sarah Middleton has worked in the mortgage industry for over 34 years and joined Movement Mortgage in 2022 as chief growth officer. Prior to her time at Movement, Middleton spent the last nine years as president of sales development and recruiting at Fairway Independent Mortgage. She also served as CEO of Fairway’s internal coaching platform, Fairway Ignite, which she helped launch in 2016. Previous roles include leadership positions at Guild Mortgage Company and Liberty Financial Group. As an originator, Middleton holds the record for the most volume and units closed in Colorado as an individual loan officer, closing over $2 billion and 11,700 units in her career. In her current role, Middleton leads Movement’s efforts to attract, onboard and develop sales leaders across the country. Middleton loves to create, build and grow with a passion for helping loan officers and managers dream bigger and achieve their personal and professional goals. Having been a top producer for so many years, and most recently as a coach and leader, Middleton has left her fingerprints on so many people and organizations.
Laura O’Connor President and Chief Operating Officer JPAR Real Estate Franchising
As President and Chief Operating Officer of JPAR Real Estate Franchising, Laura O’Connor focuses on leading by listening and empowering the people around her. A seasoned industry executive, O’Connor is responsible for developing and leading JPAR’s strategic direction, nationwide expansion and continued delivery of services to affiliates across the national footprint. She has nearly 20 years of experience in business operations, strategy and finance management. O’Connor has directed countless complex projects, from concept to fully operational status. She is passionate about seeing brokerages, and their agents, achieve their growth and development goals. O’Connor’s consistent project success, collaborative approach, problem-solving skills, leadership and commitment to customer satisfaction shine. Her collaborative nature and strong communication skills make her an invaluable team player. Her ability to foster a positive and inclusive work environment has resulted in improved team dynamics and enhanced productivity. O’Connor has been recognized by her peers for her exceptional teamwork and supportive approach.
Kathleen Pagliaro, vice president of capital markets - credit risk at Fannie Mae, leads efforts for the new issuance execution of Fannie Mae’s flagship Connecticut Avenue Securities (CAS) program. Through her dynamic leadership style, she motivates her team to perform at their best, while managing the CAS program in an ever-changing and sometimes challenging market environment. Pagliaro spearheads Fannie Mae’s Women of Capital Markets group, which fosters a community of networking and advocacy where women come together to share ideas, discuss challenges and celebrate wins. Pagliaro is responsible for developing and implementing strategies to transfer credit risk associated with Fannie Mae’s single-family guaranty business to capital markets and private investors. Her contributions to the development of the CRT market, which has been a strategic priority for Fannie Mae since 2013, have been instrumental in moving U.S. housing finance forward. In 2021, Pagliaro led the effort to restart the issuance of Fannie Mae’s flagship CAS offerings following an 18month pause. Since restarting the program, more than 50 new investors have participated in new issue CAS transactions.
Georgia Perez Chief Growth Officer LiveEasyAs Chief Growth Officer at LiveEasy, Georgia Perez uses a wholistic approach to business growth. By analyzing every detail of our business, engaging each member of the team, and incorporating 25+ years of insights and expertise as a startup and turnaround expert, Perez establishes well-defined initiatives, identify and solve gaps and incorporate and streamline processes essential to achieving the organization’s goals. Recognized nationally for her tenacious appetite to deliver unprecedented growth, Perez’s innate ability to garner a wholistic view of a company has served as her greatest strength throughout her 25+ year career. Perez can define and drive strategies that generate revenue, create a pull demand for corporate expansion and engage and empower employees throughout an entire organization. Recently, she launched the Brand Engagement Division, bringing on a real estate industry insider expert to drive agent engagement across 800+ brokerages, representing 120,000 agents, a move few other PropTech leaders have made.
Melissa Peregord Chief Growth Officer QC Ally
Melissa Peregord is the chief growth officer at QC Ally. She is credited with helping organizations build structure and procedures to help manage enterprise relationships. Peregord sees organizational growth through the lens of partnership. Instead of just looking to get deals across the finish line, she takes a consultative approach, listening to each client partner’s unique needs in order to guide them toward the best fit. As a growing organization, QC Ally relied on a few tenured team members for tasks beyond their respective departments. When Peregord came on board, she immediately saw these challenges as an opportunity to strategically bring in the right technologies and processes that would allow the company to grow at scale and free teams up to handle duties more specific to their departments. Through the implementation and early adoption of her vetted technology solutions, the company is already seeing tremendous success. The pipeline is growing, deals are closing, and the company’s growth will now be sustainable thanks to her hard work and dedication.
Raveen Phifer Business Development Manager ValueLink SoftwareRaveen Phifer is the business development manager at ValueLink Software. She is an outstanding, dedicated professional who entered the mortgage industry with ValueLink, nearly three years ago, armed with technical knowledge, a passion to learn and excel in mortgage and mortgage finance industry. Phifer’s relentless pursuit of acquiring major business accounts, active involvement in trade shows and events and strong representation of ValueLink have consistently highlighted and increased the organization’s value and expertise. Phifer’s contributions to ValueLink have been exceptional. Despite her non-mortgage background, she quickly adapted to the industry and leveraged her fresh perspective to bring valuable insights to the company. She consistently goes above and beyond to provide the best customer service, ensuring client satisfaction and fostering long-lasting relationships. Her knowledge and expertise in appraisal software implementation play a crucial role in successfully transitioning and acquiring key customers. Over the last 12 months, despite the industry slowdown, she managed to bring in clients and has grown her network and accounts by 30-40%.
Susan Portnoy is the senior vice president of product and enterprise operations at LERETA. She has transformed LERETA’s operations and product development, ushering in automation and efficiencies that significantly improved service and product offerings for LERETA clients. Her inspirational, entrepreneurial and team-focused leadership style has brought together staff from various departments to work together on common initiatives. Portnoy has focused on product development, leading development efforts for the company’s Total Tax Solutions’ product. Over the last year, Portnoy has been focused on optimizing the user experience and making improvements to workflow and operations modules with particular emphasis on finding new efficiencies and economies of scale. Portnoy’s contribution to LERETA’s bottom line through Total Tax Solutions is significant. Total Tax Solutions is an enhancement to the company’s standard tax service that pulls together all of the tax information from a servicer’s loan servicing system and combines it with LERETA’s data. This allows the servicer to see what LERETA and their own internal teams are doing and where they are at every step of the tax process.
Courtney Poulos Broker, Founder and CEO ACME Real Estate
Courtney Poulos continues to lead the charge as one of Los Angeles’ only female-founded and led real estate brokerages, ACME Real Estate. In addition to running ACME’s powerhouse teams in Los Angeles and Florida, Poulos focuses on her main mission, which is empowering women to achieve financial independence through real estate. If she has her way, every woman on the planet will have the tools they need to do just that. She maintains a full slate of speaking engagements and has written the premier book on the subject, “Break Up! With Your Rental: The Professional Woman’s Guide to Building Wealth Through Real Estate.” Additionally, she runs the 11week ACME University program to train rookie agents in ethics, etiquette, protocol and practice. In the saturated world of Los Angeles real estate, agents need a leader that cuts through the noise and provides a platform from which they can be competitive. She is an advocate for equality and transparency and is willing to speak the truth to power. She is inventive, creating a social media studio out of ACME’s retail space so that agents are encouraged to self-promote. She is a leader who teaches the agents at ACME to fish so that they may have a career for a lifetime. She has expanded the team to 45 agents and two offices, with more to come.
Michelle Post Retail Market Manager Sierra Pacific MortgageMichelle Post is a change maker and legacy creator in the mortgage industry. Whether she is lending loans as one of the nation’s top-producing originators or lending her wealth of expertise to those she mentors, Post is an influential leader who lives by the mantra “givers gain.” Over the years, Post has become one of the top retail leaders at Sierra Pacific Mortgage (SPM) and a revered voice in her local community. Post has invested her heart and soul into helping improve the lives of the customers she works with and the staff she oversees at SPM. Her value to the SPM team goes well beyond her production numbers. She continually demonstrates her compassion, understanding, and integrity as a leader who is always willing to go the extra mile on behalf of her customers. Even while managing a production pipeline double that of other top performers, Post always makes time to be responsive to scenario questions and help others around her grow. While other originators may be consumed with their personal progress, she finds the greatest satisfaction in watching someone she coaches close their first loan and build the next generation of loan officers.
Kathy Randich Area Manager Academy Mortgage Corporation
It would be difficult to find a mortgage professional who has more heart for the business and her people than Academy Mortgage Area Manager Kathy Randich. With more than 25 years of industry experience and having worked in almost every area of the business, Randich has an invaluable perspective that allows her to view both sides of the business to help promote unity among the team. She is a standout leader who truly gives everything she has so that others can be rewarded, learn, and grow. 2022 was a challenging year for many in the industry, but Randich’s leadership and coaching helped three of her team members achieve top producer status both at Academy and in the industry. Not only is she a top-notch manager, but she’s also a multiple-decade top producer in her own right, being one of Academy’s top producing females and being named to Scotsman Guide list of Top Women Originators for 2022. She is a motivated, consummate professional with a business savvy mindset who gives her all each day to be the best she can be for her customers, partners, team members and Academy. For Randich, the answer will always be “yes” regardless of the question, because she will give it her all to find a solution to help others and get the job done.
Tanya Reu-Narvaez, has served as Anywhere’s chief people officer since January 2021 and is relentlessly focused on the talent strategy for the enterprise, including employee acquisition, management and ongoing development. Recently, she led the development and launch of a new company purpose tied to the company’s rebrand from Realogy to Anywhere, including the organization’s Winning Behaviors, guideposts for employees designed to drive the Anywhere strategic transformation forward, inspire culture shifts and lead the company to long-term success. Additionally, she led the company as it moved to an unlimited time off PTO policy for salaried employees. She also helped to oversee the implementation of our hybrid work strategy, culminating in the reopening of our corporate headquarters. As a Hispanic woman in the real estate industry, Reu-Narvaez has discussed the feeling of looking around a room and not seeing anyone else that looked like her. She keeps this feeling as motivation for change and serves as a champion for our DEI initiatives, many of which she founded or initiated decades ago.
Tamra Rieger President EvergreenTamra Rieger is a 27-year veteran of the mortgage industry and currently serves as the president at Evergreen Home Loans. In a male-dominated industry, she is one of the few women who serves as president for an IMB. Rieger has established herself as a prominent figure in the mortgage industry, particularly in the realm of digital transformation. Rieger, with her 19 years of leadership experience, remains committed to ensuring that female voices are heard. She strives to open doors for other women to follow in her footsteps. In her role, Rieger identifies and communicates Evergreen’s key differentiators, oversees production leadership and growth strategies and implements new models including technology and process to drive customer value, loan officer engagement and company profitability. Rieger’s ability to drive innovation, embrace technology and make strategic decisions has proven instrumental in her growth and success. Her contributions have led to the launch of innovative products that address the Realtor and borrower’s pain, increased adoption of e-closings, significant funding production and expanded loan closing.
Eloise Schmitz Co-founder and CEO LoanNEXEloise Schmitz, co-founder of LoanNEX, revolutionizes the mortgage industry with a dynamic pricing engine platform. With a background in media and communications, Eloise leverages her expertise to bridge the gap in the market by opening access to a wider range of products. Under Schmitz’s guidance, LoanNEX has emerged as the leading platform for non-agency loans, pricing an impressive volume of over $15 billion in loan scenarios per month from 350 originating companies. Schmitz’s leadership style is characterized by empowering her team to actively listen to the market and develop innovative solutions that address existing limitations in access and opportunity. Her commitment to talent development and diversity has resulted in a highly diverse team at LoanNEX, united by a shared drive to revolutionize market access through intuitive innovation. With her extensive experience in emerging technology companies, she brings a wealth of knowledge and insights to the organization. Her visionary product roadmap, honed through leadership roles in the media and telecommunications industry, has been instrumental in driving LoanNEX’s growth and success. By implementing fiber technology and strategically pursuing M&A opportunities, Schmitz has propelled LoanNEX to exponential growth.
Nomi Smith CEO PMI Rate ProAs a female, minority entrepreneur within the mortgage technology sector, Nomi Smith is a trailblazer. Since founding PMI Rate Pro in 2020, Smith has leveraged innovative strategies to position PMI Rate Pro as a unique and trusted MI pricing engine. Smith sought ways to provide better service to her borrowers like finding better ways to quote Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). Smith saw an opportunity to connect all six national PMI providers and create a new pricing engine, which would allow loan officers to offer borrowers the best possible deal, win their client’s trust and save homeowners money. Her company’s cutting-edge technology has set a new standard in the mortgage insurance industry, and she is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of mortgage insurance tech. Within the last 12 months, Smith has progressed her company, earned recognition as a leader in fintech, and served as a mentor within the Kansas entrepreneurial community. Smith’s dedication to mentoring and supporting fellow entrepreneurs has had a profound impact on many business owners in Kansas City. Her unwavering optimism and passion for entrepreneurship make Smith a tremendous mentor and influencer.
Stacy Speas is the senior vice president of loan servicing at Cornerstone Servicing. Over the past year, Speas’ servicing expertise and ability to effectively communicate with clients, regulators and senior leadership teams played a huge part in building Cornerstone Servicing. She has a track record of leading high-performing teams, enhancing customer experiences, implementing robust business controls and establishing key performance metrics. Since joining Cornerstone Servicing in 2021, Speas has consistently demonstrated professional excellence and exceptional leadership — particularly in the past year as the company successfully launched in-house mortgage servicing operations followed closely by a visionary third-party sub-servicing business. Under her guidance, the team achieved remarkable results, exceeding mission-critical performance targets and delivering immediate improvements for Cornerstone, as well as for borrowers, with respect to quality and efficiency of service compared to the prior sub servicer. Ultimately, her strategic thinking and dedication to enhancing homeownership for borrowers have made her an innovative and influential leader within Cornerstone Servicing.
Agnes Standowicz Senior Vice President of Underwriting United Wholesale Mortgage
As Senior Vice President and Head of Underwriting, Agnes Standowicz provides the foundation for elite client service at UWM. Her commitment to unparalleled support to ensure loans are processed accurately, quickly and consistently has helped elevate internal and external operational efficiencies. Her leadership was a driving force as UWM became the top overall lender in 2022, and her tremendous capability to get in the weeds with her team and our clients continues to create a positive impact companywide. As the leader of underwriting, Standowicz ensures that there is clear communication and detail-oriented action. While leading over 1,400 team members, she maintains exceptional attention to detail and continuously overcomes challenges. She works rigorously to guarantee her team members possess a clear understanding of guidelines, processes and goals to achieve success. She also supported the development of PA+, a tool that allows UWM clients to focus on what’s most important to them — originating more loans. Standowicz is an impactful force, not only for her team of underwriters and for UWM, but also the mortgage industry.
Sasha Stair Senior Director of Customer Success SnapdocsAs Senior Director of Customer Success at Snapdocs, Sasha Stair is a mortgage industry and digital closing strategy expert. Stair’s role requires her to work closely with challenges that stifle innovation in our industry. With her knowledge, she helps inform Snapdocs’ strategy in developing technology solutions that enable lenders to reduce costs, spend more time with their customers and strategically plan for the future. Her efforts have been essential in pulling the industry forward and driving real results for lenders nationwide. Stair has advised lenders over the past year to use this time as an opportunity to prepare for the next upcycle. She’s spoken on multiple industry panels and worked directly with many lenders to identify strategies that will help them process loans faster, more efficiently and at a higher profit all while driving a better borrower experience. Stair wholeheartedly believes in being the trusted partner that stands in the trenches with customers, ensuring each lender achieves its e-closing goals in support of its greater business strategies. In all of these partnerships, she has demonstrated a deep understanding of each organization’s unique needs and developed a custom roadmap to e-close success.
Karen Starns CEO OJO CanadaKaren Starns recently took the leap to become CEO of OJO Canada as part of its February 2023 acquisition by Royal Bank of Canada. Starns’ track record of building a fast-growing brand, establishing an earned media foothold in a very crowded marketplace and serving as an outstanding cultural and operational leader at OJO Labs made her a natural choice to step into this role. Through the acquisition and early months as an RBC company, Starns has led the business strategy, built an outstanding executive team, developed the organization structure and established an operating model that enables the businesses to continue to be agile and deliver high-value experiences to consumers, Realtors and mortgage specialists. Excellence in business and operational leadership has positioned Starns to shepherd the organization through a tremendous change and onto new heights as a Canadian homeownership platform. In her previous role as chief marketing officer of OJO Labs, Starns’ leadership propelled the company to repeat recognition on the Inc. 5000 and Deloitte Fast 500 in the past year. OJO also ranked 36th on the Financial Times’ list of the fastest-growing companies in the Americas, alongside some of the biggest names in tech.
Jessica Sturm brings nearly 20 years of industry experience to her role as executive vice president of Opteon Appraisal, Opteon AMC’s sister company. She began her career as an appraiser in 2007 and brings this unique perspective when guiding clients and the appraisal team. She inspires her team and fosters a culture of opportunity for those eager to learn and expand their skill set. Under Sturm’s leadership, Opteon Appraisal has grown into one of the largest appraisal firms in the nation. Sturm plays an integral role in helping the company achieve its overarching strategic goals, such as its Staff Appraiser growth initiative. With Sturm at the helm, Opteon increased Staff Appraiser utilization by 78% since last year. Sturm’s impact on Opteon comes from her keen ability to run staff operations, build processes and her innate ability to anticipate customer needs in an ever-evolving industry. A technology-forward appraisal business like Opteon requires a certain employee aptitude and Sturm has built a culture of high-performing innovators with her appraiser staff, eager to be at the helm driving change within the industry.
Dawn Svedberg Vice President, Director of Customer Success and Head of Fintech Product Sales Tavant
Dawn Svedberg is a true trailblazer in the lending industry, dedicating over two decades to revolutionizing the landscape. She serves as vice president, director of customer success and head of fintech product sales at Tavant. From her groundbreaking work in real estate valuation, where she introduced innovative appraisal techniques and expanded geographical reach, to her groundbreaking development of Automated Valuation Models (AVM), Svedberg’s contributions have redefined the concept of “valuation without the appraiser” in major banks. Svedberg has been instrumental in driving the company’s growth and success through her professional excellence and leadership. Under her guidance, Tavant’s Touchless Lending platform has become a leading force in the industry, offering a world-class consumer and originator POS and introducing modules that automate manual processes, paving the way for touchless lending. Her visionary leadership and passion for automation have positioned her as an invaluable asset to the lending community. Svedberg’s unwavering commitment to excellence and her ability to push the boundaries of what is possible in the mortgage industry has solidified her reputation as a true leader and innovator.
Marianne Sullivan Chief Operating Officer Sagent
Marianne Sullivan serves as the chief operating officer at Sagent. She turned to the mortgage servicing sector for her latest challenge: architecting the industry’s first and only cloud-native software platform that powers homeownership and loan servicing lifecycles. Now accelerating progress on Sagent’s next-gen software platforms, Sullivan drives nuanced, progressive innovation in the highly regulated servicing space and plays a crucial role in advancing Sagent’s aim to fundamentally change the dynamics of the U.S. housing ecosystem. Sullivan injected the expertise gleaned from her time at the top GSE into the mortgage fintech world. Her influence was crucial in the renewal of key Sagent customer relationships, the integration of the Mr. Cooper fintech team into the wider organization and the rapid advancement of the next-gen suite of platforms. Throughout an acute market cycle adjustment that began in 2022, Sullivan simplified the extremely complex servicing space for Sagent clients and promoted its openAPI enterprise platform so servicers could configure workflows to their unique needs. She encourages thoughtful, iterative innovation, building highly compliant operational pathways within the old systems while incrementally replacing them with the new.
Katie Sweeney Chairman and CEO AIMEKatie Sweeney is the chairman and CEO of AIME. Throughout 2022 and 2023, Sweeney established and successfully spearheaded dozens of advocacy initiatives to benefit the Broker channel and homebuyers nationwide through AIME’s Broker Action Coalition (BAC), which led to the introduction and passing of legislative bills on Capitol Hill. Her influence has bettered the wholesale mortgage industry, and her dedication has directly impacted homeownership accessibility for military veterans, first responders, educators, low-credit families, minorities and first-time homebuyers. Under her leadership, the association has increased its revenue, more than doubled the team’s headcount and optimized the businesses’ profit margin, budget and processes. In the past 12 months, Sweeney spearheaded not just advocacy, but resources. AIME’s largest national conference, the fifth annual Fuse, was the largest Fuse ever despite the declining mortgage market. This was due to her headlining keynote, and the other high-quality content that she was integral in conceptualizing. Sweeney continues to prioritize mentoring female leaders within AIME, aiming to empower more women in the mortgage industry by appointing female AIME leadership, and personally mentoring female mortgage professionals whenever possible.
Milestones
Ashley Terrell is a master at connecting people and businesses with solutions that not only scale value, but also create lasting relationships. Terrell is the chief revenue officer at Milestones. She has helped bring the Milestones homeowner management solution to over 300,000 real estate and mortgage professionals in under 12 months. Terrell brings a wealth of proptech industry knowledge to the Milestones team and isn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves to get any job done. She is relentless in her pursuit to bring the best solutions to her partners and clients, and challenges her team members to constantly push beyond the norm. She coordinated partnerships with the California Association of Realtors, the Miami Association of Realtors, top-producing brokerage RE/ MAX Results and Town Square Mortgage to name a few. She is a sought-after expert, speaker and panelist, having been featured on numerous podcasts, videos and marquee events. Her extraordinary commitment to success and growth has been instrumental to Milestones’ success.
Lauren Trevathan Chief of Staff ATTOMLauren Trevathan is ATTOM’s chief of staff. She drives companywide initiatives, as well as ensuring alignment and success across the organization as a whole. Trevathan’s proven track record of cross-departmental collaboration, leadership and organizational accomplishments over the past three years at ATTOM have positioned her as a key contributor to the company’s primary objectives. At ATTOM, she has led multiple teams with increasing scope and responsibility and serves as a key contributor to the organization as a whole. A proven leader, Trevathan excels at communicating the vision to her team members, as well as the broader company, ensuring everyone is focused on universal initiatives, with the same focus on the end goals. In August of 2022, Trevathan was key in the divestiture of RealtyTrac, the longest-held ATTOM affiliate. From there, she was able to work closely with the company’s product and marketing teams to develop GeoData Plus into a more robust nationwide replacement product. In February of 2023, Trevathan and the team launched ATTOM’s Property Navigator, a rebranded and revamped version of GeoData Plus. In the last year, Trevathan has also been pivotal in the onboarding of ATTOM’s other new acquisitions, overseeing operations and strategy initiatives.
Andria Thomas Head of Product FinLocker
Andria Thomas is the head of product at FinLocker. She helped transform FinLocker into a product-centric company, with an emphasis on data-driven approaches that keep FinLocker laser-focused on outcomes. She places a premium on serving and is inspired by the opportunity to help many build wealth through homeownership, especially those who find homeownership out of reach. She has brought her diverse expertise to bear and is driving innovation and growth for FinLocker’s next-gen data and analytics product focused on improving homeownership literacy and readiness. Thomas is a seasoned strategy executive and product leader, committed to helping improve people’s lives and accelerating positive change in the world. She enjoys solving problems, analyzing customer needs and the business case, working with teams to prioritize and act, developing partnerships and fostering talent. She has a range of diverse experiences that make her an extraordinary leader. She moved from tech startups to the Peace Corps, to most recently being the product and business lead for a standalone app at Capital One. She brought a data-driven discipline to FinLocker, continuously measuring a product’s performance in the marketplace with precision.
Amanda Tucker Chief Risk and Compliance Officer Atlantic Bay Mortgage Company
Amanda Tucker is the chief risk and compliance officer at Atlantic Bay Mortgage Company. Simply put, Tucker is a groundbreaker. She confidently stands at the forefront of companywide engagement initiatives and shatters the boundaries of our business by moderating industry-leading products and frameworks for our communities and corporate partnerships. But most importantly, Tucker is not afraid to give back to the industry she loves through her regular speaking engagements and conference appearances. Tucker oversees Atlantic Bay Mortgage’s enterprise risk management, regulatory and operational compliance, financial intelligence and people engagement functions. Tucker is Atlantic Bay’s guide and legal expert in every new loan product or corporate partnership. She is well known for her commitment to giving back and exchanging thoughts and practices with other industry professionals, and she is unafraid to be a true ambassador of the Atlantic Bay name. Tucker runs the backend of two in-house, employee-run impact committees: AB Life and AB Cares, to ensure our offerings meet our industry’s specifications and guidelines.
Jennifer Vallinayagam is the chief operating officer at Sun West Mortgage Company. She has been a driving force in propelling Sun West Mortgage Company forward and significantly impacting the industry in the past 12 months. Her unwavering commitment to service has been evident through her tireless efforts in contributing her time and energy to employees, clients and borrowers alike. As a true role model, Vallinayagam’s exemplary leadership skills have inspired and motivated her team to strive for greatness. Her relentless pursuit of excellence and unwavering dedication to growth has resulted in improved retention and recruitment of top talent, bolstering the company’s success. Vallinayagam’s visionary leadership has been instrumental in driving positive changes within the company. Through her keen insights, she has identified areas for improvement and provided valuable feedback and suggestions that have streamlined processes, enhancing efficiency and productivity. Over the past 12 months, she has been a driving force in propelling Sun West Mortgage to new heights, making significant positive impacts on the mortgage industry.
Madhavi Vellore Senior Vice President of Technical Product Management Mr CooperAs Senior Vice President of Technical Product Management at Mr. Cooper, the largest non-bank mortgage servicer, Madhavi Vellore has led both the servicing and technology teams through major transformations across the business. Her work and leadership mobilized a 50+ person team to create a personalized customer experience by automating key tasks and in turn generating new revenue streams. Within the last year, Vellore successfully reimagined the loan boarding process by meeting the customer where they are through the development of a technological advancement named Pyro. Pyro automates tasks to reduce friction for customers and addresses the functions that add value. As Pyro’s established champion, Vellore receives asks from team members across the business for insight on how to convert their ideas into products. Throughout the company, she is a go-to leader who is willing to brainstorm solutions with people in order to make a bigger impact across the business and customer base. She has been a pioneer in reinventing mortgage servicing with machine learning. She led the charge to not only build products that understand originations and underwriting documents but also to collect insights that foster digital impact both internally and externally.
Telle VanTrojen Partner and Chief Operations OfficerChief Operating Officer and Partner in Geneva Financial, Telle VanTrojen has been with the organization since its inception in 2007. VanTrojenn created Geneva’s Secondary Department and Disclosure Desk, which enabled the company to grow. And, she spearheaded the transition from a banker and broker platform to a 100% banked product line. VanTrojen makes time to ensure that the company fulfills its responsibility to the communities it serves through initiatives that promote giving, recognition of community leaders and kind actions through Geneva’s own Geneva Gives initiatives. VanTrojen’s core focus in her role is to skillfully navigate a temperamental industry to help ensure the company’s survival under any market condition. She has spearheaded countless new initiatives to broaden Geneva’s offering, encourage continued learning and foster deep relationships between herself, her company and her community. This year she led the encompass development team in rolling out Geneva’s new mortgage platform to promote the use of the newest and best technology in the mortgage industry. She has been a leader in innovation, expansion and inspiration for all levels of the organization.
Irene Wahl Vice President of Quality Assurance American Financial ResourcesIrene Wahl is American Financial Resources‘s vice president of quality assurance. She has more than 30 years of experience and developed the quality assurance department and created the pre-funding quality control review process. She is a mentor and leader among her peers and team members. Over the past 12 months, Wahl has consistently demonstrated exceptional professional excellence and leadership. Wahl took the initiative to revamp and optimize the quality assurance processes, resulting in increased efficiency and accuracy. She introduced advanced tools and methodologies, ensuring that quality control measures align with industry best practices. Wahl has also proven to be an outstanding mentor and leader, guiding and inspiring her team to excel in their roles. She has implemented mentorship programs, providing junior employees with invaluable guidance and support. By fostering a culture of growth and learning, she has successfully nurtured talent within her team, leading to professional development and career advancement opportunities for her subordinates. The last 12 months presented numerous challenges for the mortgage industry, but Wahl demonstrated exceptional crisis management skills, adapting swiftly to the changing landscape and ensuring business continuity.
Shelby Washington is the vice president and general manager of growth businesses at Divvy Homes. She built the title and agent teams that help people achieve homeownership and bring in millions in revenue to the business. Washington led teams at Divvy during a period of hypergrowth in 2022, and is navigating them through the uncertain market of 2023. Able to shift quickly and keep her teams motivated and engaged, she kept the teams building ancillary services like title and brokerage completely on track and has been able to create a growth division at Divvy that serves the needs of the current and future customers. She leads a team that focuses on growing the business — no easy feat among current macro conditions, rising rates and fluctuating consumer demand. Divvy Title was born out of the desire to create a fully integrated title experience that’s custom-tailored to the unique needs of a Divvy transaction. Divvy has been able to streamline communications, resolve escalations faster, and ensure that transactions close on time. These services have transformed the customer and agent experience and are already generating millions in ancillary revenue. They are expected to represent a meaningful portion of Divvy’s revenue over time.
Jillian White CEO and Founder Appraisal Insights
Jillian White is the CEO and founder of Appraisal Insights. She has a unique perspective on homeownership as one of the very few Black and female real estate appraisers across the entire industry. From taking on the supervisor-trainee model that’s resulted in a homogenous talent pool, to leveraging technology to create more defensible reports, White is offering ideas and solutions to decision-makers through her firm and is making a generational impact on the profession by entering it into the 21st century. White has become a leading voice in the fight to eradicate appraisal bias from homeownership. As an SRA-designated appraiser, White puts her years of knowledge and experience to work in the community, currently serving on The Appraisal Institute’s Government Relations Committee and on The Appraisal Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Motivated by her personal and professional experiences as one of the industry’s few black female appraisers, White has made it her mission to educate and empower all homeowners. The value generated by White as CEO and founder of Appraisal Insights extends well beyond the walls of her office to reach the homeownership industry at large to confront the injustices of today and prevent the inequities of tomorrow.
KimArie Yowell Chief Learning and Diversity Officer Rocket Companies
Marilyn Wright is a broker at Premiere Sotheby’s International Real Estate. With her unparalleled expertise and keen business acumen, she has successfully navigated the complexities of the market, consistently achieving outstanding results for her clients. Wright’s commitment to excellence, integrity and innovation sets her apart as a trailblazer, inspiring and empowering others to follow in her footsteps. For three consecutive years, she is the unrivaled market leader in western North Carolina, while also securing the prestigious position of the No. 2 agent in the entire state of North Carolina in 2021. Additionally, her commitment to preserving and safeguarding the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is evidenced by her active role as a board member of the Friend of the Smokies organization, dedicated to raising funds for this cherished natural treasure. In 2023, Wright has achieved an impressive sales volume of $75 million, demonstrating her remarkable expertise and dedication. Furthermore, she has set a new standard for the local market by securing the highest-priced sales and single-handedly raising the price threshold for properties valued over $7 million. Wright is the leading agent in the markets she serves and earned her recognition as one of the top realtors in all of North Carolina, based on 2022 sales volume.
KimArie Yowell is the chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer for Rocket Companies and chief learning officer for Rocket Central. She has dedicated her career to integrating diversity, equity and inclusion into all company practices. Her goal as DEI officer is to create and sustain an environment where every team member and leader can thrive and do their best work. Yowell leads with four strategic DEI pillars — talent, culture, community and marketplace — that are all rooted in creating inclusive and equitable experiences and outcomes. Through these pillars, she gives team members the agency to share their voices and pride to champion inclusivity in every interaction. As part of her mission to invest in team members as chief learning officer, Yowell led the creation of Rock Academy — an investment in team members by reducing the financial burden to achieve their educational and career goals. Yowell frequently speaks at TMRN events to empower team members. At a recent event for both the Black and women’s networks, Yowell led a powerful discussion about bringing one’s whole self to work and understanding what it means to be authentic and navigate a career as a woman and person of color in the organization.
The following conversations are a transcript of panels at HousingWire’s ‘Affordable Housing Mini Con’ held earlier this year. Scan the QR code below to view the panels.
With rising rates, elevated home prices and scarce inventory, 2023 has been a challenging year to increase affordable housing options. But innovative new programs and approaches are being developed that can improve the outlook even in a difficult economic environment. HW Media brought together these affordable housing experts to talk about the innovative solutions that can move the needle on affordable housing.
Diego Sanchez: Looking at the news over the past six months, unfortunately the story for affordability has not been a great one. Home prices are up 40%-50% in the past few years, mortgage rates have doubled in the past year, inventory is flirting with all-time-low levels. What is the good news on affordability?
Michelle Boyd: It’s not good. I think the COVID-19 pandemic helped wake up the common person to understand housing costs and racial inequity. The recent rising interest rates have really helped underscore the housing supply shortage. We got to this point from several decades of underbuilding housing in most major job centers across the country — where people actually want to live. But, you asked me about good news. I think some of the good trends that we are starting to see have really been about zoning and confronting the fact that most of the country has a history of exclusionary zoning. That means zoning in ways that only promote single-family development with large lot sizes. We are starting to see bright spots across the country. In places like Minnesota and Oregon, these paradigms of how we think we have to build our cities are being challenged. We need to think through how we can build more cities into our current urban landscape. In California, we’ve focused on second units on properties, otherwise known as accessory dwelling units (ADU). We’ve continued to tweak the law to the point that now there are some cities — like LA — that have 20,000 ADU permits. So that is really starting to come to fruition. There have also been changes in the law that allow the state to have more legal ability to hold cities accountable for how much zoning they’re building. Specifically, this can help incentivize and force more housing production in higher income areas that may be closer to downtown job centers.
Faith Schwartz: I think, clearly, we have a big effort by the government — more than we’ve ever seen before — to make affordable housing a top priority for the administration. That puts a lot of force and power into HUD, Ginnie Mae and FHA for the government to help the industry move forward.
Laurie Goodman: Yes, home prices are up 40%-50% over the last couple of years, taken as a whole. But, they’re actually down these last six months or so. Interest rates have
hit a high of around 7%, and those have come down a bit. Inventory levels have hit bottom, yes, they are low in any sort of reasonable historical framework. But, it is important to realize, that as bad as affordability has gotten, wages have also gone up a fair amount.
I would expect that we’ll see wage growth outpace home price appreciation. Even if you think that home prices are going to be flat over the course of 2023, wages are going up. Wages and salaries are going to continue to grow, so I think we’ve seen the worst in terms of affordability.
Let’s talk interest rates. Yes, we’ve had huge increases in interest rates in the past year. But it is important to realize that mortgage spreads are unusually wide. Mortgage rates are determined by the 10-year treasury rate and mortgage spreads. It is very possible that you actually have spreads contract to more normal levels so that mortgage rates fall over the course of the next year.
Jim Gray: I agree with Faith that the change in the administration is hugely good news. We now have people with an understanding of the markets. I think people are starting to see that there really is a lot more that can be done when you make minimal changes in the credit box that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have so much power over.
The biggest challenge is helping people understand that the kinds of things we’re talking about in affordable housing have no connection to the 2008 foreclosure crisis. There are so many opportunities to make small changes and reach markets that are slightly less profitable for GSEs but plenty credit worthy.
Diego Sanchez: What can an independent mortgage bank (IMB) do when it comes to moving the needle on affordable housing?
Jodi Hall: Well, it does seem like we have very little control over affordable housing. We can’t impact the available inventory, home starts, builder red tape or incentives. But, the things that we can control include impacting interest rates, largely the cost of doing business.
A single loan rose to $11,000 on average, that’s the cost to originate. That cost gets passed on to the consumer. To keep prices down, we, as lenders, must be extremely strategic in vetting the vendors and resources we use to create those loans. Our challenges have been furthered by the aggressive increase from FICO on credit scoring models and the aggressive increase of verification of employment in the last two years.
What we can do, is drive down costs by implementing technology that drives things through the system much faster, have hard conversations with our vendors to decrease costs and educate both homebuyers and referral partners on programs to get people into homes.
Chuck Iverson: The question certainly is, “What can we do?” not “What are all the challenges?” We have a lot of
tools and resources available to us. Jodi made me think a lot about the value of IMBs in this distribution chain. Cost is the most difficult question to me. There really is no magical formula for us. Our approach is that we have to go out and compete. The price is the price. We are talking about getting a lower cost to the consumer. That forces compression and it forces innovation. It probably looks a lot better on the outside than the inside of an IMB. It is mindboggling to me, with all the implementation of technology and all the things agencies have done, how much more labor it takes to do a loan. If you look 20 years back, it costs more and is more complex to create a loan today than it used to be. But, the quality is much better now.
Diego Sanchez: What can we do in underserved communities and minority communities to expand reach and expand affordability?
Frank Fuentes: One of our mottos at New American Funding is to “mirror the community you serve.” In my experience, it all points back to that. Employ the individuals who are from the underserved markets, from loan officers to underwriters. Now, that is easier said than done. One of the toughest challenges in our business is recruiting that talent. One of the ways you start is by creating internal and external initiatives that work together. Other companies will create employee resource groups internally, but there’s no connection to sales, to the external.
A great example is the Latino focus initiative here at New American Funding. I personally spearheaded this for the past seven years alongside the president of our company. That was our first true initiative, established in 2013. Fast forward to 2016, and we began the “Dream Iniative” that was focused on Black homeownership. It started as an internal conference call and spun out into grassroots events, partnerships with minority trade organizations and blew up. But it all started with something small, among
department heads of the company brainstorming about what was needed in the space.
Diego Sanchez: What about Chuck and Jodi? Are there programs underway at your organizations that have a similar inspiration?
Jodi Hall: For Nationwide Mortgage Bankers, it happened the opposite way from what Frank described. It was an external initiative that started in 2019. We created a DBA — Americasa — that focuses on the Hispanic communities, and we brought branches to Nationwide Mortgage Bankers specifically to be in their communities and market Americasa. We’re playing catch up now, to get the internal marketing into the hands of the branches.
It really comes down to passion and perseverance. There are a lot of lenders out there with a vision, but it turns out to be a flash in the pan. It takes an organization that has a number of passionate individuals who are willing to do the work to bring that vision to fruition. There are a lot of people that don’t have that.
I think one of the most underserved communities in the U.S. is the rural community. They just have local credit unions and farmers banks that are physically in that community. They can only get 80% LTV, they have to have a very high FICO score and don’t have access to the affordable lending. There are other areas that different IMBs can focus on to serve a broader community. We need to collaborate on ideas that people are passionate about.
Diego Sanchez: Michelle, your organization makes a lot of investments into companies that are helping us solve all sorts of issues about affordability. Are there any investments that you’ve made, or that you’re planning to make, that are going to help us solve affordability issues on a national scale?
Michelle Boyd: That’s our goal! We select and look for businesses that we think have the potential for national influence. A common theme is models that are thinking about infill housing developments — a kind of smaller housing development that can fit into new zoning frameworks. We’re seeing a lot of those pop up in cities all across the country. One example in particular is co-op financing. It only used to be used in New York City and in Europe, but it has been retooled in a way that can work more broadly across the country.
Co-op financing provides a financing tool for six to 10 unit developments. Buyers would be provided a small unit plus shared spaces in a beautiful building. The financing schema makes it so that the dwelling is accessible to a low-wealth family at a moderate income level.
They can buy-in and get full access to the building that may appreciate over time. I point this out as an example because I think there are a lot of organizations trying to carve a way for renters to get access to some type of ownership stake within real estate. It may not be a traditional, 30-year mortgage or single-family home option, but it could be this co-op model in a community collective, or a landtrust model.
We’ve worked with a lot of amazing leaders, particularly leaders of color, who are thinking through this from a strong racial framework. There are people who haven’t had the chance to own land throughout the history of the U.S., so how can we build these financial models that create a more inclusive economy and more access to housing.
We’re supporting a couple of models like that, and I’m really excited about them.
cable up to 100 AMI and in high cost areas, 120.
Diego Sanchez: Is there anything specific being done to help with affordable housing for seniors?
Laurie Goodman: Most seniors want to age in place. Very few seniors have their houses fit for this stage of their life. It can be very cost effective to have medicare pay to install grab bars around your home so you don’t trip in the shower and that kind of thing. That can be done very cheaply assuming people want to age in place.
I think accessory dwelling units are another option for seniors. Expanding finances and eliminating zoning laws could make it more comfortable for seniors to age in place, because they can have someone who is in a different unit but still with them a lot of the time.
Diego Sanchez: Jim, I’d love for you to dive into some of the repercussions — positive and negative — of the administration change we’ve experienced recently. Housing seems like a big focus for the new leadership of various agencies.
“Most seniors want to age in place. Very few seniors have their houses fit for this stage of their life (...) Expanding finances and eliminating zoning laws could make it more comfortable for seniors to age in place...”
- Laurie GoodmanDiego Sanchez: Thinking back to those of you on the regulatory side, do you think the government programs will increase the income limits for affordable programs given inflation?
Faith Schwartz: I was recently at a roundtable discussion focused on government-backed down payment assistance programs. To be eligible for that, borrowers must hit 80% of the median income or lower. But, at this discussion we talked about programs that are being rolled out that allow for 140% to 150% of median income, because it is capturing more people that still have no down payment. They have good incomes, they just live in areas with expensive housing. There was a lot of chatter with a lot of advocates reflecting the reality of the market.
Laurie Goodman: There have been lots of lease purchase agreement (LPA) changes. A lot of the limits are now appli -
Jim Gray: Let’s start with the recently brought back “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” plan. It will do a lot to help communities make more affordable housing available at a local level. That’s a huge thing! Also, the president’s statement from last year was unprecedented. I don’t know of a president in my lifetime who has made such an effort in affordable housing — he featured both manufactured housing and ADUs prominently.
The fact that Sandra Thompson is now at the helm of FHFA and is taking the affordable housing responsibilities very seriously is another great thing. The work that Julia Gordon has done at Ginnie Mae, getting to title I, is awesome. There’s a long list of impressive achievements for this administration in only two years.
Laurie Goodman: I wanted to pick up on manufactured housing and ADUs too. I think this alternative supply of housing can help a lot. Just to give you a sense of the numbers: from 1977 to 1994, we produced 240,000 manufactured housing units each year. In 2022 alone, there were only 100,000 units created. So the production of the most affordable form of housing for a growing population is way down. We aren’t even at the halfway point. We would need to add 70,000 units per year to be producing half of that. In terms of ADUs, there are about 1.4 million of them but 85.6 million detached, single-family homes. These are the single most important source of supply. 1.6% of all homes have an ADU. Increasing that to 3% over five years would
create an additional 1.2 million ADUs. Between ADUs and manufactured housing, that would be about 300,000 additional housing units built each year. Last year we built about 1.5 million homes. So an increase of 300,000 would basically be a 20% increase over last year’s levels. These aren’t niche products. They’re really important.
Diego Sanchez: Michelle, lumber has been very volatile and other basic supplies that go into building an apartment or house have been very expensive. Are there alternative forms of construction your organization is looking at? For example, what’s happening with modular housing?
Michelle Boyd: That industry is still really new, but we’re seeing a couple of companies that are reaching early stages of maturity. For those in the tech world, these would still be like Series B companies. It’s early and there may or may not be stable revenue. A lot of developers who want to use those tools have often only used them on one or two developments, ever. Within that environment, we’re seeing a lot of inconsistency about whether a particular development that’s built using modular actually achieves its own cost and timing goals that it sets out.
It isn’t because of underlying flaws in the technology, but it’s more about the IT and financial support for the folks who are building these and trying to capture the cost savings.
cities — is because the tools available to city planners are really complicated.
If you allow a four-story building instead of a three-story building, maybe that higher height isn’t feasible for the developer to build, so you’ve changed the zoning code but nothing happens. So, there’s a suite of tools out there that are helping developers and investors evaluate potential sites. The Terner Center saw a gap in those tools and saw a need for a tool that was really built for city planners and state governments to understand how a current zoning code can relate to the actual likelihood of a development being built.
Our tool is currently in use for the city of Los Angeles It allows them to toggle between 20 different policies and 20 different economic conditions like inflation, then project out under those conditions to see how housing developments may change across the city.
We are aiming to help city planners, especially in these complex cities, think through all the different zoning and policy tools they have in their toolboxes. That level of analysis is important because if you’re a city planner who is really pro-housing, you may not even know how to create that reality within your city.
“We know we need to advocate and impact housing policy. It really comes down to educating the community, from loan officers to real estate professionals and home buyers.”
If you think about anyone involved in affordable housing, especially in expensive environments, there are 17 different financing sources that go into an affordable housing development. That complexity makes it really hard for affordable housing developers to work with a modular factory, which needs more manufacturing-style finances. There needs to be an evolution of how we finance housing to allow it to work with these more industrialized processes. I believe in this process strongly and believe that it can help reduce costs and increase housing supply, but the industry is still in the early stages.
- Chuck IversonChuck Iverson: To segment back to the underserved communities — and affordable housing in general — it comes down to a true focus. We have a long way to go in creating that focus. There is NAHREP, there is NAMMBA, both trying to educate the communities. There are resources available to you, but you have to get that information all the way through the supply chain and out into the community. For us, we looked at “what can we do right now?”
Diego Sanchez: If we’re talking about zoning — and that is an important part of the equation — lack of material supplies and housing supply is one of the big factors leading to lack of housing affordability. It sounds like you’ve worked with some zoning tech companies that are changing the game. Can you talk about some of the efforts there that add more density?
Michelle Boyd: The Terner Center actually came up with some of its own tools to serve city planners. There’s a lot of technology moving into the zoning space and part of the reason it’s hard to change zoning — especially in bigger
We know we need to advocate and impact housing policy. It really comes down to educating the community, from loan officers to real estate professionals and homebuyers. That is how we promote affordable lending. You have to use every single tool: FHFA, VA, housing finance and all financing products that are available to put people on a path to homeownership.
Appraisals are an important and complex step in the home-buying process. Accuracy is key — but so is speed, meaning that appraisers and their partners need to work with the best technology to be sure to stay on point with compliance and efficiency.
The company featured in this product guide, Ascent Software Group, leverages technology to reduce turn times and increase accuracy while staying up to date on compliance and changing appraisal guidelines.
Flagstar Bank is one of the top mortgage lenders in the U.S., and with recent company expansions, it is now the “one-stop mortgage shop.”
Continue to page 76, for an indepth study of Flagstar’s business practices and recent expansions as well as the company’s strategies for helping partners succeed now and in the future. Flagstar is increasing its offerings to bring even more power to the mortgage in a tight market.
ASCENT SOFTWARE GROUP, tryjaro.com
JARO IS A FULL-SERVICE APPRAISAL management software that supports lenders, appraisal management companies, appraisal firms and appraisers alike. It offers support for the simplest of workflows and the most complex, with ease.
QUICK FACTS
- Jaro helps improve efficiencies along every step of an appraiser’s process, from order management, to inspection and report writing.
- Jaro provides an appraiser with the tools to stay in one system the whole time without having to worry about third-party applications or software.
- Jaro is built for any type of user, the one-appraiser shop or even large staff firms with multiple roles.
The Jaro Suite is a full set of valuation management products that blaze a new trail in the appraisal software space. Jaro is the only true end-to-end valuation platform on the market that serves every party in the valuation process.
Jaro was initially developed by Ascent Software Group to streamline the entire appraisal workflow, eliminating the need for redundant steps and external systems. It solves the pain point of inefficiencies in the mortgage industry’s appraisal process by providing an end-to-end solution, integrating vendor payments and compliance checks into a single platform.
It offers transparency into the process, solving for both the 80% of standard orders and tools to shine a light on the remaining 20% of difficult orders through automation, notification and required actions.
Jaro leverages technology through its intelligent automation capabilities, which are integrated into every part of the appraisal process, reducing turn times and increasing accuracy. The software meets the industry’s expectations for swift, accurate valuations with compliance checks and compatibility to meet the new and updated appraisal guidelines.
“Jaro has the ability to be customized very quickly for changing processes,” said Joey King, senior sales consultant for Ascent.
“This makes us extremely scalable as the business grows. Jaro support is top-notch, with very quick response and turnaround times for requests.”
The software has proven effective in reducing turn times by 30% within two months of being implemented.
JaroDesk is an appraisal management platform designed for appraisal desks, appraisal management companies and staff offices. It includes order management with vendor management, compliance and the structure needed for success in the entire process. JaroBots are automations within JaroDesk that enable end users to create automated tasks and actions that occur after events in the system. Providing these no-code solutions is beneficial to automate the process.
The AssignIQ score estimates the difficulty of getting an appraisal done based on a variety of factors. Jaro’s scoring system is an accurate way to predict when fees could increase or extended turn times will be needed. The AssignIQ score can reduce incorrect fee disclosures by 80% when integrated into the disclosure process. Overall, it helps set better borrower and agent expectations at the beginning of the process. JaroKit unifies and standardizes how reports are built and provide quality at the time of creation. And JaroInspect provides mobile inspection tools to collect and gather accurate information about every property with PDC and PDR functionality.
“Ascent Software Group’s biggest opportunity in the near future lies in further harnessing technological advancements to enhance the Jaro platform and streamline the appraisal process even more,” said Nick Conteduca, senior product manager at Ascent.
“Ascent Software Group’s biggest opportunity in the near future lies in further harnessing technological advancements to enhance the Jaro platform and streamline the appraisal process even more.”
FLAGSTAR BANK, a top-25 U.S. mortgage lender, has long described itself as a “one-stop mortgage shop.” Flagstar made news in recent months, expanding its footprint and further diversifying its business model with the completion of the merger with New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) and the acquisition of certain financially and strategically complementary parts of Signature Bank.
But it has built its reputation on its expertise in mortgage. So what exactly is a “one-stop mortgage shop?”
“We can do everything, whatever it is you need,” said Lee M. Smith, senior executive vice president and president of mortgage at Flagstar. “From a mortgage point of view, you can come to Flagstar and we can take care of you.
“Flagstar is an originator and servicer that also provides financing solutions through its warehouse and MSR lending businesses,” Smith said. “We can buy loans, sell loans, buy mortgage servicing rights, sell mortgage servicing rights, and we have our own residential mortgage-backed securities capabilities. And now, thanks to our acquisitions from Signature, we also can offer cash and treasury management services that focus on mortgage clients and businesses.”
The bank serves both business-to-business and business-to-consumer clientele. On the origination side, Flagstar originates in all six delivery channels — broker, delegated correspondent, non-delegated correspondent, bulk, distributed retail and direct-to-consumer.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re the biggest hedge fund
in the country investing in mortgage assets, a third-party originator or you’re an individual borrower looking for a mortgage, you come to Flagstar, and we can take good care of you,” Smith said.
Flagstar has been around for more than 35 years and has always focused on mortgage, even as it grew its banking and commercial business. If anything, it’s only doubled down on its commitment to the mortgage industry now that it’s a much bigger bank.
“If you think of all of the challenges that an institution like Flagstar has seen — that we’ve navigated through all those cycles and have always been there for our business partners, it’s remarkable,” said John Gibson, senior vice president and national sales director of wholesale and correspondent lending for Flagstar.
“Our partners have always known they can count on us. We’ve never exited a channel — we’re the only bank that’s actually stayed in the broker space throughout all those years and still continues to grow in that space.”
Speaking of growth, the merger of NYCB and Flagstar, and the addition of the businesses that came with Signature, has created a $124 billion bank. The three companies coming together have very little overlap and work well together, according to Smith.
“If you think of Flagstar bringing a unique commercial banking and mortgage expertise, New York Community
Bank with its multifamily expertise and Signature Bank with its private client group and its expertise in dealing with high net worth customers, it’s a very complementary business model,” he said.
Another result, Smith said, is a strengthening of the liability side of the balance sheet given the much more diversified and stronger deposit mix, which has resulted in the combined companies having a loan-to-deposit ratio that’s now less than 90%.
Now, with the three companies under one Flagstarbranded umbrella, the bank can offer its clients an even larger array of products and services.
“We’ve got more capital and more firepower [so] we’re able to do more with our existing clients,” Smith said. “The good news is, you’ve got three organizations whose values and cultures [align] and everybody’s working together to make it as seamless as possible for our customers while increasing the number of service offerings available to them.
Even with all the growth, mortgage remains a fundamental and very important vertical of Flagstar. The organization continues to focus on helping its mortgage business partners succeed. Gibson highlighted a few ways the bank helps support its clients.
First, the bank has several support systems for its business partners, such as dedicated sales assistants and client advocates who can help on the manufacturing side of originations.
Second, Flagstar brings value to its partners by providing resources like their monthly FLEX series that has featured speakers such as Dave Stevens and Barry Habib who offer market intelligence and insights on how clients can grow their book of business in today’s challenging market.
And third, Flagstar’s account executives are spread throughout the entire country, working locally in the markets where its partners do business. On average, these account executives have been with the bank for nearly 16 years.
“The experience and the knowledge that they bring, not only from a process perspective, but also the expertise that they bring on product and depth of knowledge about the market — I think that’s one of our secret sauces,” Gibson said.
Flagstar’s account executives can do business in all its channels, making it easy for clients who work with them to change to a different delivery type — for example, brokers who want to move to the correspondent channel.
“We have 30-plus years of helping our business partners evolve,” Gibson said. “Because our account executives are experienced in the different delivery channels, that transition is seamless, and our AEs are able to educate their partners and support them along the way.”
As the mortgage industry cycles through a rough patch, Flagstar is positioned to continue to succeed.
“I think 2023 is going to be a tough year for mortgage, but Flagstar has done what we needed to do to restructure our business so that we can be profitable in any interest rate environment,” Smith said. “I do think 2024 and 2025 are going to be good years for the mortgage industry as the Fed pauses and eventually reduces interest rates.” Gibson noted that anyone who’s been in the industry for a period of time has experienced these highand low-interest-rate cycles. With Flagstar’s longevity, the bank and its team are prepared to continue to support partners through any cycle. In fact, where other companies look to downsize and reorganize their mortgage shops, Flagstar continues to grow.
“We’re investing in the TPO channel and we continue to support the channel by opening up and growing new business relationships,” he said.
Flagstar is listening to its business partners and expanding its product set, as well as investing in technology to improve ease of use and efficiency.
“Ultimately, our strength and our commitment to the TPO channel has been unwavering,” Gibson said. “We’re one of the companies that is continuing to grow.”
“I think 2023 is going to be a tough year for mortgage, but Flagstar has done what we needed to do to restructure our business...”
Trade associations from across the housing industry are on the front lines of issues that lenders, real estate agents and everyone in between face every day. In these letters, they give their members an inside look at what they are working on, and the most important issues facing each industry today.
As the summer progresses and market uncertainty continues to dominate the topic of conversation, I hear many mortgage professionals looking for solutions. As a business owner, this market has challenges that determine your bottom line — your very livelihood.
As an LO, your pipeline may be challenged to stay full or even active.
This is what many people across the country are facing — uncertainty. Where will my next loan come from? Will the referral pay off? How can I find more business? How can I run leaner?
Market cycles dictate our business forecast and impact our teams in many ways, but the one thing that holds true is the need to constantly hone your craft. As independent mortgage professionals, our community is used to being flexible. We have 70+ lender options available to find the home loan solution that’s
best for borrowers. But even more than that, we have a community of experienced mortgage professionals to draw upon.
That’s exactly what we’re leaning into at our 6th annual Fuse National Conference in October — the expertise that’s within our trusted community. This year, it’s even more important to come together to learn new strategies from the industry’s best and brightest to manage your business, train your team and leverage the tools that are available.
This is how we not only survive this market cycle, but succeed in it.
In the spirit of unity and progress, I urge you to join us at the Fuse National Conference. Let us celebrate our achievements, forge meaningful connections and empower ourselves with knowledge. Together, we can shape the future of the housing industry and continue making a positive impact on the lives of countless individuals and families.
In June, MISMO held its Spring Summit in Portland, Oregon, and hundreds of mortgage professionals from across the industry were in attendance. FHFA’s recent credit scoring changes were a hot topic. What will the impacts be upon business? How could the new requirements change the lending landscape? Many joined MISMO’s Summit for an opportunity to learn more, and they came to the right place.
MISMO started its work around these changes shortly after the announcement. The early discussions began as educational sessions. MISMO coordinated with FHFA to hold a series of webinars where representatives from the agency shared the reasoning behind the changes and industry professionals learned the basics of the proposal.
During these discussions, industry practitioners provided feedback, and the
meetings — several of which took place at the Summit — surfaced issues that will inform FHFA’s implementation of the policy update.
MISMO will continue to work with the community to update relevant standards and provide support to the industry through the transition and implementation of the changes.
This is just one example of MISMO’s valuable work as a trusted convening platform within the mortgage ecosystem. Communication, education and thoughtful consideration from every corner of our industry are essential if we are to work most effectively and implement meaningful changes. Mortgage finance industry veterans know that MISMO is the place to bring challenges, and together, we’ll continue to find solutions that meet the evolving needs of our industry.
Association of Independent Mortgage Experts Mortgage Bankers Association Robert Broeksmit President and CEONAHB members,
Homebuilders and property owners enjoyed a big win in late May when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will force the Biden administration to overhaul its “waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule.
The Sackett case focused on government regulation of a wetland near a roadside ditch. The government believed it had Clean Water Act (CWA) authority over the wetland because it claimed that the wetland, in combination with other nearby wetlands, had a “significant nexus” to Priest Lake, Idaho.
The significant nexus test that establishes federal jurisdiction over minor waterbodies such as isolated wetlands or human-made ditches is a critical part of the Biden administration’s WOTUS rule. In Sackett, the Supreme Court rejected the significant nexus test and the EPA’s reasoning.
The Supreme Court explained that in order for a wetland to be regulated under CWA, it must have “a continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right so that there is no clear demarcation between ‘waters’ and wetlands.” As a practical matter,
the court found only wetlands that are indistinguishable from waters of the U.S. are covered by the CWA.
NAHB had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Sackett case, arguing that it does not make sense for isolated wetlands, isolated ponds or human-made ditches on private property to be subject to federal jurisdiction.
NAHB wants to hear from you. Presently, we understand the Corps has temporarily halted the issuance of newly approved jurisdictional determinations (AJDs) pending further guidance from Corps headquarters. However, you can still submit preliminary jurisdictional determinations (PJDs) for potentially jurisdictional features on their property and proceed to the CWA 404 permitting process — if they so choose.
For those who have already sought such a permit, NAHB asks that you forward us any communication from either of these federal agencies about your permit request.
The Washington Post reported earlier this year that stability was the No. 1 trait members of Generation Z seek from prospective employers as this group continues its graduation into America’s workforce.
Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z has been widely recognized in the media for its acute distinctions from other age groups — already breaking records for voter turnout and for levels of diversity and education not seen elsewhere in the U.S.
Stability, of course, in many ways represents one of the most attractive features of homeownership. Home is where we start families, raise children and grow old beside those we love. These structures offer safety and comfort and financial security and one of the best possible paths toward long-term wealth.
It’s no surprise then, given this generation’s desire for permanence and security, that many Gen Zers are already pursuing their own piece of the American Dream.
NAR’s most recent “Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends” report examined similarities and differences between home buyers and sellers across various age groups.
Among a host of relevant findings, perhaps most noteworthy is the fact that Gen Z now makes up 4% of homebuyers in America.
Alicia Huey Chairman National Association of Home Builders
“As the youngest generation of home buyers and sellers, it’s encouraging to see Gen Z entering the market,” NAR’s Deputy Chief Economist and Vice President of Research Jessica Lautz noted when the report was released. “Their desire for homeownership is strong and many are relying on family support systems to help them make their first real estate purchase.”
Another key revelation from the report is the fact that baby boomers once again represented the largest segment of U.S. homebuyers. Millennials had been the biggest from 2014 to 2022. Despite the advanced age of this demographic, baby boomers are showing a prolonged ability to capitalize on the equity many have accumulated through decades of homeownership.
“The majority of baby boomers are repeat buyers who have housing equity to propel them into their dream home,” Lautz added. “Baby boomers are living healthier, longer lives and making housing trades at later stages in their lives.”
National Association of Realtors
NRMLA members,
Once a year, typically in the fall, the reverse mortgage industry comes together for its largest event of the year: the Annual Meeting and Expo. This event gives professionals an opportunity to catch up, meet with regulators and subject matter experts, discuss the trajectory of the marketplace and share ideas for success.
This year’s meeting takes place Oct. 23-25 in Nashville, Tennessee.
NRMLA’s Annual Meeting and Expo also provides an excellent opportunity for individuals from the forward mortgage space to learn reverse mortgage sales strategies and key compliance issues, and to meet one-on-one with wholesale investors and other important vendors.
Older homeowners hold $12.39 trillion in home equity, according to the quarterly NRMLA/Riskspan Reverse Mortgage Market Index. A growing percentage of these households are using their home equity as a strategic asset when developing retirement plans, which makes reverse mortgages a critical program for your clients.
At most NRMLA conferences, we not only discuss reverse mortgages but oftentimes the broader economy and issues impacting America’s aging population. The more informed you are, the better equipped you are to advise your clients about whether a reverse mortgage is the right option for them.
Our meetings provide a valuable forum for mortgage professionals to learn something new and to grow professionally. With insightful speakers and informative panels, you’ll leave with a wealth of knowledge that can help advance your career. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to network with peers and industry leaders alike. We look forward to seeing you in Nashville.
Steve Irwin Chairman National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association
A GROUP OF TRAINERS FOCUSED ON HELPFUL RESOURCES AT A RECENT INDUSTRY EVENT
BY CHRIS CLOWReverse mortgage industry professionals who wish to keep informational resources at their fingertips have a variety of options, from servicing companies to the industry trade association down to informational departments at the lenders themselves. This is according to a presentation from three experienced reverse mortgage industry trainers at the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Associaton (NRMLA) Western Regional Meeting.
Jim McMinn of Longbridge Financial, Jud Lyman of Liberty Reverse Mortgage and Sue Haviland of Finance of America Reverse (FAR) presented a series of resources that originators could call upon to clear up concerns or misconceptions borrowers
could have about post-closing issues, as well as resources available through NRMLA and the lenders themselves.
PPost-closing and servicing information sessions are always very well-attended at reverse mortgage industry conferences. Recognizing that there may be misconceptions about servicing issues among certain industry professionals, the trainers pointed to online informational resources from Celink, the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) servicing contractor for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
On Celink’s reverse mortgage borrower portal, it maintains a page dedicated to some of the most commonly asked questions related to a reverse mortgage loan once it’s moved into the purview of servicing.
R“Postclosing and servicing information sessions are always ver well-attended at reverse mortgage industry conferences."
“We hear often from people saying that there are no resources, [asking] where do [we] get the resources,” McMinn said. “Well, this is one of those really good ones [regarding] what happens afterward. Going out and taking a look at that huge part of the reverse mortgage lifecycle [helps in] building a relationship and trust with your borrower. This comes from being knowledgeable regarding all aspects of the reverse mortgage, [and] Celink is a valuable resource that assists you with answers to common reverse mortgage questions.”
Reverse mortgage education and servicing professionals have often touted the importance of the originator having a well-established knowledge base related to the servicing landscape, primarily because of the more interpersonal nature of the reverse mortgage business.
Because a borrower may be in contact with their originator for an extended period of time after the loan closes, the originator is often seen as an authority and reliable purveyor of information for the borrower who may need help navigating some of the post-closing elements of a reverse mortgage loan.
TThe trainers also touted industry resources that could assist them with finding information they may need, including from NRMLA itself and several of the industry’s leading lenders.
NRMLA maintains a consumer-facing reverse mortgage informational website and manages an industry professional Certified Reverse Mortgage Professional (CRMP) designation program that relies on holders to continuously stay up to speed with policy changes and continuing education (CE) classes and materials.
On top of the association, the lenders themselves are also leading sources of information for front-line originators and other industry professionals, but some in the business may not think to look for or ask for those kinds of resources, the trainers said.
“At Liberty, we have what I consider a fairly full suite of education material available through our website,” Lyman said. “Everything is available free of charge. But in addition to that, recently, we’ve added a certification course. We know what’s going on in the industry. We know there are people coming in, but even those that have been in for a while, again, learning should be a consistent process.”
The certification program, launched this past March, is in collaboration with the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB). It established a Certified Reverse Mortgage Specialist certification program (CREV). The program features classes by NAMB and Liberty, with the first classes having launched in April.
Lyman offered some additional details about how the lender is making the best use of the program, saying it’s primarily designed for people finding a way to break into the reverse mortgage industry. However, existing industry professionals could also find the program useful, he explained.
“We offer, virtually, that same information in a one-day intensive class
"At Liberty, we have what I consider a fairly full suite of education material available through our website. Everything is available free of charge. But, in addition to that, recently, we've added a certification course."
- Jud Lyman
“Reverse mortgage education and servicing professionals have often touted the importance of the originator having a well-established knowledge base related to the servicing landscape, primarily because ofhte more interpersonal nature of the reverse mortgage business."
- Chris Clow
that can be gone through [NAMB],” he said. “And then we also have a course submitted with the Certified Financial Planner board to offer CFP credit to planners for taking our course,” he said. “So, that’s something that we’ll be able to announce once that gets through their process and approved, and that’s something that can certainly help with the networking aspect of all of our jobs.”
“What’s really neat, though, you see the three trainers up here from three different companies,” he said. “We share resources, we talk about things. Our goal is really to get that material out to you.”
AAt FAR and Longbridge, both lenders offer their own informational resources designed to keep their professionals up to speed with the longstanding and changing realities of the reverse mortgage business. Haviland highlighted an ongoing series of live training and webinars offered by FAR, which includes content focused on systems, sales and specific product variations including FAR’s proprietary product suite.
FAR also offers resources for CFPs to get information from the company’s retirement strategies division, and the company has also added additional resources for professional development training, she said.
Something that the industry should keep in mind, McMinn added, is that all the trainers talk to each other about ways to improve, even if they’re from different companies.
"What's really neat, though, you see the three trainers up here from three different companies. We share resources, we talk about things. Our goal is really to get that material out to you."
- Jim McMinn
TThe nation’s housing industry has entered a new normal in which the dynamics of the market appear perplexing — marked by high mortgage rates and high home prices, along with shrinking mortgage originations.
The perplexing part: Why are home prices not declining in this environment? It boils down to two factors, according to housing-industry experts: a lack of housing inventory, or supply; and high demand for that limited housing stock — which also is fueling a jump in new-home sales.
Fannie Mae recently projected originations for 2023 at $1.59 trillion, a revision downward from its January estimate of $1.65 trillion — with sales of new homes rising in dominance. That compares to a record $4.4 trillion in mortgage originations in 2021.
New-home sales are up 20% year over year as of May 2023 while sales of existing homes are down by the same level, resulting in new-home sales accounting for some 30% of total housing inventory. That’s more than double the typical range of 10% to 15%, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
Meanwhile, mortgage interest rates have hovered in the 6% to 7% range over the past six months, up more than 3 percentage points since early 2022, yet home prices have increased for several months in a row, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Sam Khater, points out in a recent commentary.
Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae, attributes the dearth of existing-home sales to the so-called “lock-in effect,” in which homeowners with low legacy rates in the 3% range “are disincentivized to list their home due to not wanting to give up a mortgage rate much lower than current market rates.”
“I don’t see home-buying costs decreasing significantly in the next few quarters,” said Arvind
“I don't see homebuying costs decreasing significantly in the next few quarters.”
- Arvind Mohan
IF MORE HOUSING EXISTED, HOME SALES WOULD INCREASE, EVEN WITH HIGHER RATES
Mohan, CEO of Kiavi, a fix and flip lender. “As interest rates stabilize near their current levels, they will normalize from the record-low rates we saw during the pandemic.
“This, in part, is causing the tight inventory we’re seeing in the housing market today, as two out of every three houses have mortgages with interest rates below 4% and aren’t motivated to sell their house unless a significant circumstance warrants it.”
MMike Simonsen, founder and president of real estate data firm Altos Research, said many homebuyers are adjusting to higher rates, however, and finding ways to pursue home-purchase transactions.
“And so, demand has been significantly more robust than we expected and, as a result, there are very few homes for sale across the country,” Simonsen said. “This is what I call a supply-constrained market.
“In other words, if there were more inventory, we would have more sales happening.”
Where might added inventory come from, if the bulk of existing homeowners continue to remain on the sidelines?
One source of added inventory is the fix and flip industry, which is expected to acquire and renovate some 350,000 homes in 2023, according to Kurt Carlton, president of New Western, a private real estate investment marketplace.
“Not a lot of people are aware of this, but we have more than 15 million vacant homes in the United States,” Carlton said. “Now, some of them are vacant because they’re second homes and things like that, but many of them are vacant because they’re dilapidated and uninhabitable.”
Clearly, not all these homes can be returned to the market in a cost-effective way, or face other obstacles, such as their
location in higher-crime or deteriorating neighborhoods, according to Keith Lind, CEO of Acra Lending.
“Just because there’s vacant homes in the U.S. that doesn’t mean if you make them nice that people are going to automatically want to live there,” Lind said.
Carlton adds, however, that for fix and flip investors who understand their local markets, that vacant housing stock, in the right locations, still represents an opportunity.
“So, finding those opportunities, rehabbing and returning them to the market solves part of the [inventory] problem,” Carlton said.
Kiavi’s Mohan said that in the current environment, there is less homebuyer demand for purchasing homes that need renovation work than there is for acquiring a property that has already been “renovated/flipped.”
“[Real estate agents] believe this is due to the housing-affordability crisis paired with higher interest rates, so there’s no extra room in [homebuyers’] budgets to fix up a house after it’s purchased,” Mohan said. “This is yet another illustration of the important role real estate investors have in helping to combat the housing affordability crisis.”
The Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity, or LIRA, a measure developed by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, seems to support Mohan’s assessment, showing that year over year “expenditures for home improvements and maintenance will post a modest decline of 2.8% through the first quarter of 2024.”
Another source of potential housing inventory is foreclosed properties — although absent a full-on recession, it’s still likely to remain a muted source of potential housing stock. As of the second quarter of this year, real estate data firm ATTOM reports that 311,500 residential properties nationwide were somewhere
“Not a lot of people are aware of this, but we have more than 15 million vacant homes in the United States. Now, some of them are vacant because they're second homes and things like that, but many of them are vacant because they're dilapitated and uninhabitable."
- Kurt Carlton
in the foreclosure process.
That’s up 20% year over year and up 45% from the third quarter of 2021, “when the foreclosure moratorium imposed during the coronavirus pandemic was lifted,” according to ATTOM CEO Rob Barber.
“The number of empty, abandoned properties in foreclosure — so-called zombie properties — was also up, 16% annually, to about 8,800,” he added. “Those numbers remain way below where they were when the housing market crashed after the Great Recession of the late-2000s, but still up.
“The recent increase in foreclosures should help boost the supply of homes for sale.“
The other variable that could help to put more homes on the market is a bit counter-intuitive — and longer-term. Altos Research’s Simonsen said if we have multiple years of higher rates, that could spark many more homeowners to seek to sell their homes.
“Lower rates goose demand but not necessarily supply,” he explained. “If we have multiple years of higher rates, what we’re doing is resetting the cost basis for homebuyers.
“So, maybe you get to 12 million to 15 million homeowners that have 5%, 6%, 7% mortgages, then it’s more expensive for those folks to hold.”
to live [some 8 million families] exceeds the number of available housing units, this gap has increased over time,” Zillow reports. “The magnitude of the housing deficit and how quickly builders can fill this gap will go a long way toward determining the path for U.S. housing affordability.”
Given the huge chasm, Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR), said some government intervention may be required to help address the existing supply/demand imbalance in the housing market.
“NAR is advocating for temporarily lower capital gains taxes for momand-pop real estate investors [i.e., fixand-flippers] who are willing to sell to a first-time buyer,” he said. “This incentive can boost inventory and help meet housing demand while keeping home prices manageable and stable from the increased supply.”
ATTOM’s Barber adds that state and local governments also have financialincentive programs designed to bolster more housing production, such as tax breaks, other subsidies for builders and local zoning-law waivers.
housing supply and demand dynamics still vary greatly from market to market. In a recent research-study abstract, the researchers state that “because markets differ so much from each other in terms of their housing supply and demand conditions, we expect to find a broad range of shortages, surpluses and balanced supplies of housing.”
The researchers suggest that reforming zoning or land-use regulations to boost housing supply may be necessary for local markets that are truly supplyconstrained, but alone that approach won’t address the larger national reality that “millions of people lack the income to afford what’s on the market.” In other words, boosting housing inventory alone is of limited value if the homes coming to market — because of rising labor, material and regulatory costs — remain unaffordable for a wide swath of interested buyers.
SStill, given the housing inventory shortage, relying on new-home construction, fixand-flippers, foreclosures or longer-term high rates alone is not likely to address the problem in full. A recent report by online home marketplace Zillow estimates that the nation needs 4.3 million more housing units to meet existing demand.
“Not only does the number of ‘missing households’ without a place of their own
“At the same time, some of the key headwinds contributing to the [housing] shortage include local zoning laws that restrict how much housing can be built in any given community, stemming heavily from local neighborhood resistance to more development,” Barber said. “That gets into some very dicey issues connected to perceptions of crime, traffic, effects on existing property values and the even thornier issues of race and class.
“Those are among the most intractable questions connected to the housing supply and will not be resolved quickly.”
A pair of academic researchers, Alex Schwartz, professor of urban policy at The New School; and Kirk McClure, professor of urban planning at the University of Kansas, point out, however, that the
Yun stressed that there is a growing demand for more affordable housing for people currently priced out of the market. He said just as bridges and roads are vital for the nation, “so is affordable housing.” “We should view affordable home production like infrastructure,” Yun added. “Therefore, use tax incentives and government funding to boost affordablehousing production, since the private market by itself cannot absorb the rising cost of materials and regulations to produce affordable housing.”
AMERICA'S BEST REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS
BY BROOKLEE HANBBrittney LaHayne closed 48 transaction sides and $15.03 million in sales volume in 2022. Jesse "Weno" Dominguez recorded a record 220 transaction sides and $141.067 million in sales volume. And, Wade Covington closed 84 transaction sides, totaling $24.506 million in sales volume. Each of these records earned the real estate professionals a spot in the 2023 RealTrends + Tom Ferry America’s Best Real Estate Professionals agent and team rankings.
RealTrends recently caught up with LaHayne, Dominguez and Covington to discuss their real estate careers.
These interviews have been edited for brevity and clarity.
RealTrends: Can you tell me a bit about how you got started in the real estate industry?
Wade Covington: I am a retired U.S. Marine. I joined the Marine Corps in 1992 right out of high school and spent 21 years going all over the world, doing everything, and traveling to 14 countries and all over America. I was very fortunate that when I retired from the Marine Corps I was able to achieve a business degree and that was the whole reason I joined the Marine Corps because I was definitely not prepared to do that when I was in high school.
So, with my business degree and having learned so much about the management of people and resources in the Marine Corps, my idea was that I would join the corporate workforce as a manager of some sort. I couldn’t find a job right away, so I ended up digging ditches for a while, but then
“I am a retired U.S. Marine. I joined the Marine Corps in 1992 right out of high school and spent 21 years going all over the world doing everying...”
- Wade Covington
Lowe’s picked me up as an assistant store manager right outside Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I did that for about three years and then I decided to go get my master’s degree.
At that time, I was placing combat vets that were wounded in service for Fort Leonard Wood. If they thought they had a good candidate, they would call me and I would interview the vet for a position at Lowe's, so when I resigned I called them to tell them I was going to go get my master's.
Unbeknownst to me, they then called someone at Century 21 and told them about my history and that I had a business degree, and then one day out of the blue, the broker over there called me and asked to meet.
After that meeting, I went home and told my wife that I was going to do real estate. My wife cried because she was so scared, but that was 2015, and by then, I felt like the market had rebounded and it was a good time to get in. So I got my license and started as a new agent with Century 21 Prestige, which is where I still am today.
Jessie "Weno" Dominguez: I worked for the county as a probation manager for juvenile court for about 10 years. While I worked there, I wanted to be a real estate agent on the side or get into real estate somehow as my family had rentals, so I was always intrigued. My uncle had a lot of the rentals and I used to go with him, and we would talk to the agents. I also already had another business on the side doing décor and venue arrangements for
weddings and corporate events.
But while I was working for the county I decided to run for public office and I had the events business and during the campaign I felt like I was going to win and I was so busy managing everything that I decided I needed to quit my job, and my wife, being the most amazing person in the world, said, "What’s your backup plan?" and I didn’t have one. She was fine with me quitting, but she also wanted me to have a plan in case I didn’t win the election, so I decided that if I lost, I’d get my real estate license.
So, I lost my election and immediately got online and started my real estate license training. I took my test in February 2014 and I haven’t taken a day off since.
Brittney LaHayne: I got into real estate when we moved to Omaha. My husband is in the military, so we moved here from our hometown in Indiana. When we moved, my husband was like, "You are really good with sales, you should try real estate." The agent that we worked with to buy our house was starting a team within the military community, so I joined her team and figured I would see where it goes. My goal was just to add a little bit of extra money to our pocket because military families don’t make a ton, and now my husband is working with me instead of in the military. We support the military community here still, but these are our full-time jobs.
RT: What are three things you regularly do, that you feel set you up for success?
LaHayne: I time block, so I try to do groupings of things throughout the week. Once a week, I sit down and go through my social media and see what is going on in my clients lives, and I write notes or send gifts depending on what they are going through. Monday mornings I usually spend time prepping all the clients’ gifts. Then, once a week, I schedule out all of my social media — that one is really hard for me because I like being face to face with people and not on social media, but I know it is very important so I try to make time for it.
And then I also try to take time for myself to mentally recharge. So, I do a lot of running and personal reading. I know a lot of agents will focus on reading books about business and personal development, but I like to recharge and make sure I am spending time with my family. I don’t want my entire life to be just real estate, that might sound terrible, but you have to have some separation to recharge yourself or you’ll burn out really fast.
Dominguez: I am a man of faith, so I pray in the mornings. I have to shift my mindset every morning because by the end of the day you are just worn out and that carries on to the night and it used to carry into my mornings, so now I try to wake up in the mornings and pray to shift my mindset. I also try to go to the gym at least three times a week early in the
“The agent that we worked with to buy our house was starting a team within the military community, so I joined her team and figured I would see how it goes." - Brittney LaHayne
morning. And I always work on improving my communication skills and becoming a better communicator with my builders and clients and other agents, that is just key.
RT: So how did you go from figuring out how to sell real estate to being a top-performing agent?
Covington: I used to tell one of my professors when I was getting my HR degree that just because someone has an HR degree, it doesn’t mean they will be good at HR. There is a lot of nuance to the communication and interaction that can’t always be taught, and the same goes for real estate.
Growing up, I picked up a very effective way of communicating with people from my father, and it is just a ground level of respect. That, coupled with my personality, just happens to be a good combination in this industry.
So, sitting in that cubicle the first thing I did was learn about lead generation sites, and I just registered for everything. It didn’t matter if they charged a huge referral fee, I just wanted to get some transactions happening.
The second thing I did was I came across a Broker Price Opinion company. I had no idea what they were so I had to Google it, but basically, they would pay me $75 to go out to a property, take photos and basically fill out an appraisal report. I did that for about three years while I was getting started. The money wasn’t good, but it was very valuable
knowledge and experience.
The third thing I did was I put my communication skills and some of the boldness I learned through the Marine Corps to work for me. My broker was telling me about these things called FSBOs and I had never heard of them before, but she explained they were for sale by owners, and as an agent, you want to try and flip that to a listing.
There were a couple of FSBO signs on my way into the office, and one morning I saw a guy standing outside one of the FSBO houses, so at the last second I pulled in, and even before I got out of my truck he started waving me off, saying "Leave me alone, I don’t want a real estate agent."
But I just asked him to tell me a bit more about his house, and 20 minutes later he was shaking my hand and telling me he’ll see me at 2 p.m. on Wednesday for a listing appointment. And the next morning I got another one — same thing. By the end of the week, I had gotten three listing appointments from FSBOs.
Then the final thing I did was working my sphere of influence, and not in the ways they go through in training with just sending out postcards and things, but I realized that I knew a lot of people. I was the admin at the Marine attachment on the base and I also had 111 employees at the local Lowe's and was tapped into the market directors at other local branches.
So I started thinking about it, and I am like, I need to work these connections. I emailed everyone I could think of on Facebook or via email and then I mailed out 310 postcards to everyone else, but
it didn’t end there. I would go on base and stop by the Marine attachment and just talk to people, and then if I had 15 minutes between appointments, I’d go into Lowe's, even if I didn’t need anything and just wander the aisle until either someone spotted me, or I saw one of my former employees, and we would just talk. I sold five houses out of that Lowe's, and that didn’t come from a postcard. It came from me consistently visiting that place. But once you stop going there you are forgotten — out of sight, out of mind.
RT: What is your best piece of advice for new agents?
Dominguez: Surround yourself with some really good agents. Who you surround yourself with will really tell you who you are. And really interview where you are going to land. When I first started, I didn’t know that, I was just happy that they hired me. Always expect the unexpected and never give up. Real estate is not for everybody. It can be cutthroat, but that is not what I want in my brokerage culture, so find the right fit for you.
“Surround yourself with some really good agents. Who you surround yourself with will really tell you who you are." - Jesse Dominguez
The Compass Cares program is the charitable arm of Compass, a real estate brokerage making big waves in the market. Compass was recently honored as a 2023 “Game Changer” by RealTrends. Compass isn’t only focused on national real estate sales, it is looking to make an impact at the local level. For every transaction completed by a Compass agent, the company pledges money to a corresponding Compass branch. At the end of the year, the agents and brokers at that location are able to donate the funds to an organization in their community and affect real, local change.
When the initiative was announced in 2018, CEO Robert Reffkin said, “I want clients to know that when they are working with Compass, they are working with a company that gives back.” Compass Cares has given back over $2.6 million to local charities since 2019.
One of the most prominent events to come out of the Compass Cares program is the organization’s annual Compass Cares Classic, Charity Golf and Tennis tournament. In 2021, over 400 Compass agents and leadership team members attended, and they raised over $100,000. These donations were given to Ladders for Leaders, Young Voices of Austin and Foundations Communities.
Now in its third year, the tournament will be held in San Diego, California. Funds raised from the event will go toward Feeding San Diego, Monarch School and Rancho Coastal Humane Society.
Below, John Bilek, the national head of sales management and regional vice president of Compass, shares his insights on the program with HousingWire.
HousingWire: What is the origin story of the Compass Cares Classic?
John Bilek: Each year, Compass hosts a national retreat for approximately 2,000 of our real estate agents to network, educate themselves and learn new ways to grow their business. On the last day of the Miami event in 2019, I noticed that many of our attendees came in a day early or stayed a day later to enjoy the local golf courses. We felt there was a huge opportunity to leverage this incredible gathering to foster giving back to the communities that host the annual event. We put together a small, but scrappy, committee made up of Compass staff and agents, and held our first event in Austin, Texas, in 2021.
HW: How do the donations from the Classic impact local charities each year?
JB: We work as a group to determine which three local organizations we can support each year, placing an emphasis on finding groups that drive impact in housing for the underprivileged, career development and leadership opportunities for youth. 100% of the funds we raise go directly to the charities, and they use it in ways they deem best. We try to find organizations that truly need the resources for their current operating budgets and sustainability.
HW: What are your hopes for the future of the event?
JB: Our long-term goal with the Compass Cares Classic was to design a sustainable networking event for our agents that also benefits the communities that they serve. Over the first two years, we’ve been able to donate $160,000 to seven organizations, spanning from Colorado, Georgia and Texas. We would like to hit $1 million by our fifth anniversary, and grow the impact and size of the event each and every year. Ultimately, we can impact every one of the dozens of markets that Compass calls home to.
Congratulations to Heidi Mason, EVP and general counsel, and Laura Lee, SVP and the general auditor, on being named 2023 Women of Influence by HousingWire.
These women are lifting Freddie Mac to new heights by driving innovation, championing inclusive engagement and inspiring change.
Visit freddiemac.com
Co-Founder & CEO
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“ I am deeply honored to be selected for this year’s Women of Influence Award alongside so many inspiring women. I am even more honored that our own Elly Cummings has also been selected. She is without a doubt an example of true leadership here at New American Funding. Congratulations, Elly! ”
- Patty Arvielo
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with Sarah Wheeler
HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling mortgage, real estate, and fintech articles reported across HW Media
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The August/September issue of HousingWire Magazine is dedicated to housing wealth in all forms. Minority homeownership is inseperable from the conversation around building housing wealth. Below, Dalila Ramos, founder of Love and Tacos Media, shares her top five tips for improving the minority homeownership process. "I personally know the homeownership journey can be complex and scary, but with thorough research, financial preparedness and the right support circle, you can achieve your goal of homeownership. I am a walking testimony to it!" Use Ramos' tips below to best support the minority homebuyers in your community.
Familiarize yourself with the home-buying process, including mortgage options, down payment requirements and closing costs. Understand the terminology and seek guidance from homeownership workshops, seminars or online resources tailored to minority borrowers.
Building and maintaining a strong credit history is crucial. Pay your bills on time, reduce existing debt and avoid opening new lines of credit! Regularly check your credit reports for errors or discrepancies and address them promptly. A higher credit score can increase your chances of securing a favorable mortgage.
Investigate down payment assistance programs specifically designed to help minority borrowers. These programs can provide grants, low-interest loans or other forms of financial assistance to help cover the down payment and closing costs. Research local, state and federal programs, as well as nonprofit organizations, that support minority homeownership.
Explore various mortgage options available to you. Government-backed loans such as Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or VA loans may have more flexible requirements. Additionally, research local and national lenders that offer special programs or incentives for minority borrowers.
Consult with a trusted mortgage professional and real estate agent who understands the unique challenges faced by minority borrowers and has experience working with diverse communities. They can provide personalized guidance, and help you navigate the home-buying process. They may also assist in assessing your financial situation and determining a suitable mortgage game plan to help you get to the homeownership finish line!
Dalila Ramos, founder of Love and Tacos Media
The 1930s create an intriguing picture of the housing market. Largely affected by the Great Depression, which began in 1929, home prices fell significantly in the 1930s. Prior to this decade, the mortgage industry was unregulated and looked wildly different from today’s industry.
Notable policies like the 1932 Emergency Relief and Construction Act and the 1934 National Housing Act attempted to get more low-income families into homes and stimulate the economy. The Federal Housing Administration was also created around this time.
Home Owners Loan Corp. (HOLC) was created to purchase default home loans from lenders, refinance and attempt to save families from foreclosure. There was a cap of 5% on all these refinanced loans and thanks to this program, only 20% of homeowners in default lost their homes. Given the dire situation, it could have been much worse.
AVERAGE HOME PRICE ❱ $3,900, THAT'S $91,238 WHEN ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION
MORTGAGE RATE ❱ 5%
AVERAGE SQUARE FOOTAGE ❱ 1,129
AVERAGE INCOME OF HOMEOWNER ❱ $1,731
On June 18-21, the RealTrends and HousingWire community came together in Austin, Texas, for Gathering of Eagles. Together we heard from real estate leaders like Gary Keller, Nick Bailey, Denee Evans and Chrissy Oliver. Outside of daily sessions, attendees had the chance to network over a game of golf, a glass of wine and a round of pickleball.
The RealTrends and HousingWire team had a blast getting together with the real estate community, and we hope to see you again soon at HousingWire Annual in October.
