July 2022 Issue

July 2022

HOUSINGWIRE MAGAZINE ❱ JULY 2022

EXPANDING MINORITY HOMEOWNERSHIP

RED

LIN

A Y BU E M O H

ING

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HOUSINGWIRE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SARAH WHEELER MANAGING EDITOR JAMES KLEIMANN DEPUTY EDITOR KATE DOUGLAS SENIOR REAL ESTATE REPORTER MATTHEW BLAKE SENIOR MORTGAGE REPORTERS BILL CONROY, GEORGIA KROMREI REAL ESTATE & TITLE REPORTER BROOKLEE HAN MORTGAGE REPORTERS FLÁVIA FURLAN NUNES, MARIA VOLKOVA REPORTER CONNIE KIM LEAD ANALYST LOGAN MOHTASHAMI CONTRIBUTORS MIRIAM MOORE , JESSICA LAUTZ

REALTRENDS VICE PRESIDENT OF REAL ESTATE MARK ADAMS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR TRACEY VELT DIRECTOR OF RANKINGS PROGRAMS LIZ SMITH EXECUTIVE MANAGER, CEO PROGRAMS JILL OLMSTED SENIOR DATA ANALYST KEERI TRAMM FINLEDGER EDITOR JOE BURNS REVERSE MORTGAGE DAILY EDITOR CHRIS CLOW

HW MEDIA CORPORATE CEO CLAYTON COLLINS COO DIEGO SANCHEZ DIRECTOR OF FINANCE ANDREW KEY DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE AMY BEARD CHIEF OF STAFF ALEX BRIDGEMAN VICE PRESIDENT OF GROWTH CAREN KARRIS GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER GREG ROBERTS SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER EMILY CARPENTER GRAPHIC DESIGNER BRANDON JOHNSON VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT HOLDEN PAGE UX/UI MANAGER BO FRIZE WEB DIRECTOR BRENT DRIGGERS AD OPS COORDINATOR ELIZABETH LEDOUX DIRECTOR OF HW+ & EVENTS BRENA NATH SENIOR WEBINAR & EVENTS MANAGER ALLISON LAFORGIA MARKETING PROGRAM MANAGER LESLEY COLLINS MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR SARAHI DE LA CUESTA PEOPLE OPERATIONS MANAGER JAMIE BRIDGES PRODUCT MANAGER MATTHEW STAFFORD MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST CAROLINE ABAD EMAIL MARKETING SPECIALIST ALI MORRISSEY GROWTH COORDINATOR SYDNEY SMITH EVENTS MANAGER KATIE GALBRAITH BUSINESS ANALYST WHITNI ROWE JUNIOR DIGITAL PRODUCER ELISSA BRANCH SALES SVP SALES AND OPERATIONS JENNIFER WATSON LAWS WESTERN CHRISTI HUMPHRIES, LINDSLEY HARRIS, CASS HECKEL CENTRAL & NORTHEAST MICHAEL ORME, SAMANTHA STEIN, ADINA RITTER SOUTHERN TAMARA WREN, AMINA JAHIC STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGER BRIA SOYELE SALES MARKETING MANAGER TOD MOHNEY CONTENT SOLUTIONS MANAGING EDITOR MALEESA SMITH CONTENT EDITOR JESSICA DAVIS ASSOCIATE EDITOR MARNI DAVIMES

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JULY 2022

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Amplifying minority homeownership LAST SEPTEMBER, I ran into Dalila Ramos,

With the July issue focusing on minority

who now is founder of Love and Tacos Media,

homeownership, I wanted to amplify these same

but at the time, she served as vice president of

people who I have been asking these questions

diversity and growth at Equity Prime Mortgage.

to over the last year. Starting on page 22, you’ll

I was getting ready to lead a panel on minority

see Ramos, along with people like Montell Wat-

homeownership for our own conference —

son, director of diversity lending at Movement

HousingWire Annual — and was asking leaders

Mortgage, who answer questions like the ones I

in minority homeownership for their input on

just mentioned. I’d highly recommend reading

the topic.

what they have to say and also finding ways to

Questions like “How do we make a tangible

implement their answers in your life.

impact to increase homeownership?” and “How can lenders and brokerages support it?” were top of mind. Around the same time, there was also a major increase in diversity, equity and inclusion roles at companies, a topic that Ramos and I were able to chat at length about. How can ing a box? How do they empower this position to create change?

Brena Nath Director, HW+ & Events @BrenaNath

Tweets From The Streets My family moved to the U.S. in 1998 with $100 dollars in my father’s coat pocket. My parents yearned for the American dream of homeownership, as did I. So much so that I made it the focus of my career. Today I became a homeowner (the first in my family) in our nation’s capital.

68 19 590 by @odetakushi

JULY 2022

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. © 2022 by HW Media, LLC • All rights reserved

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companies make sure this role isn’t just check-

In Remembrance of Frank Nothaft Those of us in housing have watched the market go through so many seasons and changes. And there through it all over the decades, steadily helping folks learn how to navigate the highs and lows, was Dr. Frank Nothaft.

“Frank was a mentor to many, inside and outside of CoreLogic, and he was a brilliant analyst.

For decades, Frank was the face and voice of the housing industry, a beloved husband and father, leader, mentor, teammate and friend. Frank’s legacy will live on through the knowledge he has shared with so many through the years and the indelible mark he left on us all. ” - Patrick Dodd, president & CEO, CoreLogic

Frank was one of a kind in and out of the housing space and will be remembered for his dedication to sharing his knowledge and expertise and doing it all with style.

“He was the best housing market analyst in the business, able to clearly and concisely convey information that helped our industry understand the current market and make decisions to prepare for the future. And Frank had an inimitable style, both in terms of his presentations and his ever-present bow tie.”

- Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association

At CoreLogic, Frank was the chief economist and headed the office of the chief economist, providing analysis, commentary and forecasting trends in global real estate, insurance and mortgage markets. Prior to joining CoreLogic in 2015, Frank had a nearly 30-year career at Freddie Mac, where he was most recently the chief economist.

Frank Nothaft April 10, 1956 - June 5, 2022

Discover the most innovative technology solutions in mortgage and real estate.

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july 2022

People Movers

12 Several C-suite leadership position have been filled at lenders like loanDepot and Open Mortgage.

Take 5

13 You might know this person best for her Taco Tuesdays social series. Here’s what you might not know.

Event Calendar

14 Better known as Notorious ROB, Rob Hahn offers his straight-shooter take on commission lawsuits.

Inside Agent

15

64 Local Intel

16 Rapid City, South Dakota was the No. 1 housing market for spring 2022. This is why it’s a city to watch.

Trade Desk

56 July is a month for celebration — not just for the nation, but also for brokers from coast to coast.

Title

60 Colorado Springs offers a window into Stewart’s title strategy as it focuses on “priority” markets.

As NAR stays silent on lawsuits, agents get frustrated at how it could affect their commission structure.

Secondary Market

68 PLS market is on track to notch record volume this year, but will market headwinds hinder this?

Kudos

72 How do you bridge the DE&I and education gap in the industry? This nonprofit has answers.

Parting Shot

74 After a successful Cocktails with Logan event, HousingWire is excited for future in-person events.

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From waiting tables in Times Square, Tyler Whitman is now a top agent in New York.

Real Estate

JULY 2022

features

f

To help shed more light on where minority homeownership stands today, HousingWire sat down with influential leaders in housing to talk about ways to increase minority homeownership and some of the key areas people might be missing the mark in the conversation.

28

44

50 Marketing Leaders boldly pushing boundaries

FHA Commissioner Julia Gordon gets to work

Many issues are now before Gordon at the FHA, including potential changes to servicing guidelines and mortgage premiums.

22

How can the housing industry make an impact on minority homeownership?

This 2022 class of honorees has used their creativity, agility and leadership skills to continuously grow and strengthen their brands.

50

Wholesale Lenders Special Report

What is the state of homebuying today?

The current challenges to decreasing the homeownership gap

By Miriam Moore

By Jessica Lautz

18

20 JULY 2022

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The four companies featured in this section work to empower brokers through this changing market environment while offering products and solutions for every borrower’s needs.

The No. 1 podcast for the latest in real estate trends, a peek into new business models and conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. >> subscribe now

HOUSINGWIRE Daily A deeper look into the HousingWire newsroom's most compelling stories.

Listen here: housingwire.com/podcast

PEOPLE MOVERS

By Connie Kim

Frank Martell |

loanDepot | President and CEO

loanDepot named Frank Martell, former CEO of CoreLogic, as president and CEO, a newly created role within the firm. He has also been appointed to the board of directors. Martell brings more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in the marketing, financial services and business information industries. Martell will drive daily operations and lead the company’s multichannel mortgage origination model.

Brenda Hedeen |

Open Mortgage | Chief Financial Officer

Open Mortgage appointed Brenda Hedeen to serve as the lender’s chief financial officer. Hedeen, former chief financial officer at On Q Financial, will spearhead the firm’s finance and accounting operations. Before that, Hedeen was chief financial officer at Mann Mortgage. Hedeen will be responsible for implementing new financial management standards and adjusting resources available to the company based on emerging industry practices and trends.

Bill Packer |

Longbridge Financial | Chief Operating Officer

Longbridge Financial named Bill Packer as chief operating officer. Packer has more than 20 years of experience working with technology, operations and product development in the mortgage industry. Packer was most recently the executive vice president and chief operating officer at American Financial Resources. In his new role, Packer will help Longbridge improve its reverse mortgage experience through advancements in technology and improvements in its processes.

Jennifer Berman |

DirectOffer | Chief Operating Officer

DirectOffer, a real estate technology startup firm, selected Jennifer Berman as chief operating officer. Berman brings more than 20 years of executive experience in real estate sales leadership, strategic organizational development and promotion of industry-related technology products to the position. In her new role, Berman will help achieve DirectOffer’s mission of helping real estate professionals succeed while removing the barriers to homeownership for those who are underrepresented.

Steve Medes |

Wesley Mortgage | President

Wesley Mortgage named Steve Medes as president. In his role, Medes will be responsible for building the company’s regional and national footprint. Prior to joining Wesley Mortgage, Medes most recently served as the executive vice president of Mortgage at Commonwealth Bank & Trust. He was also executive vice president of the retail division of Franklin American Mortgage prior to its acquisition by Citizens Bank in 2018.

Ariel Dos Santos |

Redfin | VP, Product

Redfin chose Ariel Dos Santos as the company’s vice president of product. Santos, who recently served as vice president of product/technology at Peloton, will focus on growth at Redfin. Santos brings more than 10 years of experience in marketing and product management at firms including Amazon and Microsoft. Prior to Peloton, Santos spent more than six years at Amazon, where he helped launch the company’s “Just Walk Out” technology that powers its cashierless grocery locations.

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Sean O’Neil |

Ocwen Financial Group | EVP, Chief Financial Officer

Ocwen Financial appointed Sean O’Neil as executive vice president and chief financial officer. O’Neil, former chief financial officer for Bayview Asset Management, also held senior positions at other financial institutions, serving as group financial officer for Wells Fargo, Eastern Community Bank and as chief financial officer for Wachovia’s Wealth Management Group. In his new role, O’Neil will lead the firm’s global finance organization amid a challenging mortgage origination market.

JULY 2022

TAKE 5

Dalila Ramos Founder of Love and Tacos Media Dalila Ramos, who is the founder of Love and Tacos Media, has been in the mortgage industry for more than 21 years. Ramos specializes in building relationships and helping build brand awareness. Some might know her best as the host of a weekly LinkedIn video series titled "Taco Tuesdays," where she focuses on topics in the mortgage industry. She previously held roles at Equity Prime Mortgage as vice president of diversity and growth, and vice president of talent acquisition at Planet Home Lending. As an industry champion of diversity and inclusion, she’s served on the board for the National Association of Minority Mortgage Bankers of America for more than 4 years.

Below, Ramos answers five questions that give an inside look at her life:

1. Biggest business success this year... moving forward with my own company Love and Tacos Media.

2. In high school I was... bald for most of it,

(chemo).

3. I would tell my younger self... to buy

more property.

4. My morning routine looks like... making my bed, cafe (coffee in Spanish) and reading my bible.

5. Last concert I attended was... Erykah

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Badu in Nashville. You better call Tyrone... but you can't use my phone!

JULY 2022

EVENT CALENDAR

ALTA Large Agents Conference

LISTEN NOW Rob Hahn on lawsuits, commissions and the future of brokerage

July 17-19, 2022 Cost to attend: $800 Presented by the American Land Title Association

BY ELISSA BRANCH

ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Coming together at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville ,North Carolina, ALTA is gathering again for its annual Large Agents Conference, which is designed for ALTA agent members. The first day of the conference begins with a message from Richard Welshons, who serves as president at Dakota County Abstract Company and is a member of ALTA's Board of Governors. Other key sessions include a discussion on how cryptocurrency will impact the market, title insurance and settlements company best practices and a look into merger and acquisition activity.

2022 Western Secondary Market Conference July 25-27, 2022 Cost to attend: Member: $795 | Non-member: $950 Presented by the California Mortgage Bankers Association DANA POINT, CALIFORNIA The Western Secondary Market Conference brings together secondary market leaders, decision-makers and vendors to drive new opportunities and stay informed. Located at the scenic Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, California, the event will provide timely and critical information, as well as valuable networking opportunities. The three-day conference also kicks off with its annual California MBA CAMPAC Golf Tournament, which is hosted each year to raise money for the association's political action committee.

Joining the podcast this time is Rob Hahn, better known as Notorious ROB, who is managing partner of 7DS Associates, a Las Vegas-based real estate strategy and consulting firm. Hahn offers his straight-shooter take on commission lawsuits, the future of the industry and what real estate leaders should be doing today to prepare for possible industry changes.

Here is a small preview of the interview with Rob Hahn.

Tracey Velt: Zillow’s Susan Daimler dismissed CoStar as competition. What do you think is going on here and what are your thoughts on CoStar and Zillow?

Rob Hahn: This is something we could talk about probably for a couple hours. I’ll preface it and say, maybe this is a show. I don’t think it is. Last year, when CoStar entered the residential real estate industry I thought, "This is a huge deal."

I think CoStar is expecting cooperation and compensation to go away in the next few years. They’re positioning themselves to come in and take over.

They are the number one commercial real estate portal — effectively the MLS for commercial real estate.

I think they’re seeing an opportunity — a window.

They see that Zillow’s weaker than people imagine.

And they think they’re going to take that over.

They’re a very serious competitor. Andy Florence is — I think he’s a genius. I think he’s one of the great business leaders of our generation. It’s no mistake that he and Jeff Bezos know each other, and he’s built a reputation that I think is well deserved for being a pretty tough competitor.

Scan the code to listen now!

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Event SPOTLIGHT “HW Annual is a great place to get a pulse on industry trends and connect with vendors that can help you stay ahead of these trends.”

- Daniella Casseres, partner at Mitchell Sandler

JULY 2022

INSIDE AGENT

Tyler Whitman The Agency tyler@triplemint.com 13 Cranberry St. Brooklyn, New York 11201 $10 million 5-bedrooms, 3.5-bathrooms

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TYLER WHITMAN was waiting tables at Planet Hollywood in Times Square when he decided to become a real estate agent.

“My roommate was a rental agent, and I started doing rentals,” Whitman said. “I didn’t have any money and savings.”

Whitman recalls a tax refund around 2007 plus hawking tickets to New York City tourists for Broadway shows giving him enough capital to get going.

“I was the definition of the hustler,” he said.

Whitman’s career has taken a couple of major turns since.

One was joining the start-up brokerage Triplemint, which The Agency acquired in May. Another was being cast in 2018 on “Million Dollar Listing,” the long-running TV show about luxury real estate agents.

As for Whitman’s current listings, the 13 Cranberry Street home, an 1830s townhouse in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, is charming, sure. But $10 million? Whitman expressed amazement at skyrocketing prices in the last couple of years, as buyers leave Manhattan and go to Brooklyn. “A lot of locals are looking,” he said.

Whitman heads agent teams in New York and the Hamptons. His future vision, he said, is to also lead teams in Palm Beach, Florida, and — the agent’s favorite place of all — Palm Springs, California.

“Living in the desert,” he said of Palm Springs, “No [other] place has brought me happiness.”

And why Palm Beach? Whitman has horses in Florida.

“Horses are now a huge part of my life. So, I also want to be making money while I’m down there.”

JULY 2022

LOCAL INTEL

By Brooklee Han

Rapid City, South Dakota Coming in at Realtor.com’s No. 1 housing market for spring 2022, there is no doubt that the housing market in Rapid City is one to watch. In March 2022, the median list price of a home was up 21.4% year over year to $318,000, according to Realtor.com. Known as the “City of Presidents,” due to life-size bronze president statues in the downtown area, Rapid City lies on the eastern slope of the Black Hills roughly a half-hour drive from Mount Rushmore. “It isn’t always the best fit for people who like big-city living, but for people who like the outdoors, we have all sorts of things to do in the Black Hills. There is a ton of hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, just about anything you want to do outside you can do here,” Jeremy Kahler, a local Keller Williams Realty Black Hills agent, said. As Rapid City has expanded to welcome more residents from both nearby locales and other states like California and Oregon, according to Kahler the area’s arts and restaurant scenes have rapidly expanded.

Kahler said the pre-COVID-19 market in Rapid City was very seasonal with a typical spring selling season, but since the onset of the pandemic he said the market has remained pretty steady. “It is just busy all year round, so it took some of the seasonality out of it. We are seeing a lot of listings come out right now, but because there are so many buyers out there, stuff is still selling as quick as it comes out, so we haven’t gained any traction on inventory.”

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Los Angeles, California

It seems like every real estate agent you talk to, no matter what state they work in, says that the majority of their out-of-state buyers are coming from California, but this apparent exodus has not stopped the Los Angeles housing market from being red hot since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are still seeing a lot of multiple offer situations and depending on where you are in the city and the price point it can be more or less competitive,” Michael Nourmand, the president of Nourmand & Associates Realtors, said. “But it is not as frenetic as it was. It is more like a pre-pandemic late spring and summer market, and because we were used to such a crazy breakneck pace of the last 18 months, it feels a little bit slow because we are no longer used to a regular ‘good’ market.” While Nourmand said most of his clients have been local Californians, he has worked with a few Floridians and New Yorkers. “We are close to the beach, great proximity to the mountains and we have incredible weather,” he said. “And we’re not a one-trick pony anymore because all of a sudden it isn’t just the entertainment industry out here. As a kid I remember almost every deal my mom did was for someone in entertainment, but now we have these great hospitals and universities and all these amazing shops and restaurants.”

JULY 2022

Fort Collins, Colorado

According to local lore, in the early 1800s French-Canadian fur traders were caught in a massive snowstorm and to lighten their load, they buried large amounts of poudre (gunpowder) in a cache along the banks of a river. Today, the Cache la Poudre River runs through modern-day Fort Collins. While the city, which is roughly an hour ’s drive north of Denver, is no longer home to French-Canadian fur traders or other characters that appear to have stepped off the set of an old Western film, for the past several months, working in the local housing market has felt a bit like working in the Wild West. “Last spring was completely insane,” said Sarah Goodyear, an agent on the local Coldwell Banker-based Choice Team. “We were having like 20 to 30 offers every time we had a listing on the market and the offers would come in from day one until the seller said enough is enough. Usually, it would be like three or four days and there would be an accepted offer.” According to Goodyear, things are a bit calmed this year. In early May, she helped a client put an offer in on a home and, on the day she spoke with HousingWire, it appeared that may have been the only offer on the property. “That hasn’t happened in a long time, so it was pretty different,” she said. Other signs of a slowing market include fewer showings on listings and a higher level of sensitivity to over-pricing. “People who are thinking about selling their homes are listening to the news and are hearing stories about how crazy the market is, so when we sit down and talk with them about recent sales and what we think the range of value for their home should be, they always want to hit the top of the range — and who can blame them? But that isn’t always working out right now,” Goodyear said.

Bend, Oregon Recording over 25% year-over-year median sale price growth in March according to Redfin, there is no doubt that the housing market in Bend is hot and if that price growth isn’t enough to catch your attention, the average home in Bend sells after only seven days on the market. Laying on the banks of the Deschutes River, just east of the Cascade Mountains, Bend is just minutes away from picturesque hiking, skiing and outdoor adventuring. It is also home to a vibrant arts and foodie scene, with a multitude of year-round events from Balloons Over Bend to The Bend Brewfest.

The plethora of activities and access to outdoor amenities has certainly been a draw for many homebuyers moving to the area. But, while home prices in the area are still on the rise, the number of homes sold in Bend was down 24% year over year in April, according to Bend Premier Real Estate. As markets across the country contend with low inventory, rising interest rates, rising home prices and uncertainty caused by growing inflation and the war in Ukraine, it will be interesting to see how these factors influence housing markets like Bend.

Maine’s state slogan is “The way life should be.” Sitting on the Casco Bay, less than a two-hour drive north of Boston, Portland offers incredible scenic vistas, a plethora of outdoor activities, exciting food and arts scenes and great public schools, and it definitely sounds like life in Portland is the way it ought to be. “Right now, there are very few sellers and a whole bunch of buyers, who recognize the greater Portland area as being not even up and coming, but that it is on fire and for many good reasons,” John Scribner, a Portland-based project manager for LandVest Real Estate, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, said. In March, the coastal New England city had a sale-to-list price ratio of 109.0% according to Redfin. Many of the buyers Scribner and his team have worked with have turned to Portland as they search for a slower pace of life without sacrificing access to amenities like good hospitals and a vibrant arts scene. “My sister moved up here a couple of years ago with her two children because everything is simpler,” Scribner said. “It is easier to get to baseball. It is easier to get to the rink and to dance class. It isn’t a slog to get anywhere, plus the museums are fantastic, the symphony is amazing. It has everything a big city has.”

JULY 2022

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Portland, Maine

COMMENTARY

W

hat is the state of homebuying today?

Three takeaways from ServiceLink’s 2022 State of Homebuying Report

By Miriam Moore

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Today’s competitive housing market is keeping homebuyers on their toes. While many searched for their next — or first — home, hoping to take advantage of the ultra-low mortgage rates over the past year, some were priced out completely and had a hard time competing with allcash offers. Some buyers even got creative, choosing alternative paths to homeownership like purchasing at auction or purchasing with friends. Evolving consumer habits and Gen Z/ millennial buyers reaching peak homebuying age have also impacted the homebuying process, with technology emerging as the new industry table stakes — especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

With all these challenges and emerging trends so, too, come opportunities for lenders to lean into consumer habits and desires for a more streamlined homebuying process.

My company recently launched its 2022 State of Homebuying Report (SOHBR) to peel back the curtain on generational trends among recent homebuyers, their attitudes toward alternative paths to homeownership and the role technology plays throughout the process.

1,000 homeowners who purchased a home within the past five years were surveyed. While some of the report findings were on par with last years’ report, some surprised us. Below, I dive deeper into three key areas from the report that my colleagues and I found to be most impactful

in the hopes that these findings inspire or reinforce changes you may be implementing within your own processes this year.

TAKEAWAY 1: AUCTION IS GAINING TRACTION With a portion of today’s buyers experiencing the pain of losing out on a home due to competing or all-cash offers, they are now considering alternative avenues to achieving homeownership.

While it’s not the traditional route, consumers are warming up to the idea of purchasing a home at auction, according to the 2022 SOHBR findings; one-third of respondents (33%) would consider buying a home this way, while 11% of respondents already have.

When asked what would motivate them to purchase a home at auction, respondents cited potential cost savings (72%), a faster homebuying process (44%) and being able to bid remotely via an app or online (37%). In terms of how they would utilize their auction property, fixing and flipping it (31%), using it as their primary residence (29%) and leveraging it for rental income (23%) topped the list. Unsurprisingly, today’s youngest homebuyers — Gen Z/millennials — were most interested in the concept of leveraging it for rental income. As digital natives, they’ve become accustomed to vacation rental sites like Airbnb, so this cohort understands the lucrative opportunity a home purchased at auction can provide for them to build long-term wealth.

TAKEAWAY 2: TECHNOLOGY EASES THE PROCESS Technology is certainly the new mortgage industry table stakes and is helping to improve borrowers’ perception of the

“While it’s not the traditional route, consumers are warming up to the idea of purchasing a home at auction.”

JULY 2022

experts to guide them through the homebuying process one-onone, especially in an ultra-competitive market.

TAKEAWAY 3: HOMEBUYER DEMOGRAPHICS ARE CHANGING The fastest growing segment of homebuyers, Gen Z/millennials, are going to play another big role in the housing market this year, according to our SOHBR findings. For example, 26% stated they are likely to purchase a new home this year (compared to 12% of Gen X and 6% of baby boomers). They were also the most likely to refinance “Technology is certainly the new mortgage industry this year compared to their Gen X and table stakes and is helping to improve borrowers’ baby boomer counterparts — 32% perception of the home-buying process.” compared to 23% of Gen X and 9% of baby boomers. Looking ahead, they are more comfortable with alternative homebuying routes than their older counterparts, too — 55% of Gen Z/ millennial respondents either have bought or are willing to buy at auction (compared to 50% of Gen certainly reinforce the need for lenders to lean X and 23% of baby boomers). Additionally, they are the most likely in to technology to better serve tech-savvy to purchase a home without seeing it in-person first — a trend buyers who are looking for streamlined, digital that has become more commonplace over the past year, due to processes. the pandemic (23% compared to 16% of Gen X and 5% of baby In terms of the role of technology during the boomers). And while they are very comfortable with technology, homebuying process, respondents researched they also lean on experts — 59% turned to their real estate agent property listings online (69%), did virtual tours for advice when beginning the home buying process. of property listings (37%), eSigned documents These emerging trends and shifting demographics will (36%) and digitally reviewed documents prior to continue to impact how borrowers interact with the homebuying closing (34%). In terms of benefits of leveraging process for the foreseeable future. It is incumbent upon lenders technology during the homebuying process, to lean into these trends to remain competitive and better serve convenience/ease of use (72%), time savings tech-savvy consumers who expect a white glove experience.

(60%) and the flexibility to make progress on their own schedules (48%) were all top of mind.

Another interesting thing to note: baby boomers, who may be perceived as “tech-averse” are also realizing the benefits of technology. 83% of baby “59% turned to their real estate agent for boomers said convenience/ease of use was the top benefit of using technology throughout the advice when beginning the home buying homebuying process (compared to 66% of Gen process.”

Z/millennials and 70% of Gen X).

While these findings certainly illustrate the growing importance of technology, it should not come without a personal touch — the majority of respondents, 59%, still leaned on their real estate agent the most for advice when beginning the homebuying process versus going online and seeking out information (33% read articles, blogs and other information online). Additionally, more respondents leaned on a traditional lender (53%) versus an online/ digital lender (17%). These stats signal the Miriam Moore serves as the president of default services importance borrowers are placing on industry at ServiceLink.

JULY 2022

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homebuying process. That is why we wanted to dive deeper to better understand how our SOHBR respondents leveraged it during their home purchase or refinance. While some of these findings may be unsurprising, they

COMMENTARY

T

he current challenges to decreasing the homeownership gap Reflections on National Fair Housing Month

By Jessica Lautz

April was National Fair Housing Month. And now just a few months later and with the Realtor Legislative Meetings concluded, it’s a good time to reflect on research that was recently released.

Three recent reports released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Research Group were highlighted in talking points for members to use for their Capitol Hill visits with members of Congress. These reports highlight the difference homebuyers and potential homebuyers have when embarking on the buying process.

While the homeownership rate in the U.S. has increased overall throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, this is not the same for all Americans.

The homeownership rate for Black Americans has actually declined between 2010 and 2020 and stands at 43.4%, while the homeownership rate for white Americans is 72.1%. For Asian

the repercussions to homebuyers. By using real-time inventory data, and stratifying by income, the report highlights that for a household who earns $75,000 to $100,000 they have 411,000 fewer homes available for sale compared to pre-pandemic.

As of February, since 2019, due to limited inventory and the strong demand of buyers, home prices rose nearly 30% and as a result, a typical home is about $80,000 more expensive than prepandemic. Home prices in the last few months have continued to increase at a double-digit pace.

Wages for some home shoppers have also increased but not anywhere near the pace of the home prices. The report is stratified by income but also race on a state level. While the report was released in February, a new trouble of the housing

“The homeownership rate for Black Americans has actually declined between 2010 and 2020 and stands at 43.4%, while the homeownership rate for white Americans is 72.1%.”

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Americans the rate is 61.7% and for Hispanic Americans it is 51.1%.

THREE POWERFUL REPORTS In February, NAR in partnership with Realtor. com released The Double Trouble of the Housing Market report. The report used real-time listing data to show the limited housing inventory and

market has emerged: the rise in mortgage rates. The triple threat has continued to exacerbate housing affordability, especially for moderate-income households, first-time buyers and minority households.

NAR also released a second report in February: A Snapshot of Race and Home Buying in America. This is the third annual release of the report by NAR. The report is broken into two sections. While the homeownership gap by race in the U.S. is

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“A new trouble of the housing market has emerged: the rise in mortgage rates.”

successful homebuyers by race. Even among successful homebuyers, the mortgage denial rate is significantly higher at 7% for Hispanic and Black households compared to 3-4% for Asian and white homebuyers.

The report also provides critical information on how Black households are nearly doubly likely to carry student debt and hold a higher amount of debt which inhibits the ability to purchase a home. For all minority groups, it is more likely to be a first-time buyer, which makes it more difficult to save for a down payment, while these buyers would not have the housing equity afforded to and relied upon by white repeat home buyers.

The third report, released in April — Obstacles to Home Buying — takes a fresh perspective and examines the issue for potential and successful buyers and compares and contrasts their experiences. Lack of affordable housing was the top obstacle hindering buyers of all races.

Among white and Asian potential buyers, lack of homes that fit criteria was the second reason.

Among Hispanic buyers, difficulty saving for a down payment was the second obstacle, while

Black buyers faced lack of credit or had credit issues.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO WITH THIS INFORMATION? The intent of these reports is to assist in advancing minority homeownership and provide Realtors tools to advocate on a local level that highlight the differences. Homebuyers today continue to face limited housing inventory of only 2.0 months supply, continual rise in home prices, and now rises in rates.

Twenty-eight percent of the home-buying market last month was all-cash buyers, and for every home that went under contract, sellers saw 4.8 offers, with 57% bidding above the listing price. To close the ownership gap, more housing inventory is needed so local communities can help buyers into homes.

As prices and mortgage rates rise, some buyers will move to the sidelines and the housing market will normalize, but those who

“Even among successful homebuyers, the mortgage denial rate is significantly higher at 7% for Hispanic and Black households compared to 3-4% for Asian and white homebuyers.”

remain will be at higher incomes and will be able to compete.

Unfortunately, that is unlikely to narrow the homeownership gap and will hit minority buyers more than others.

Jessica Lautz serves as vice president of demographics and behavioral insights at the National Association of Realtors.

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well documented, it is easy to dismiss the issue as a problem “elsewhere”. This report provides critical information on a state level in the very first section: homeownership rate by race, the denial rate of mortgages and how costburdened renter households are.

The second section shows the experiences of

HOW CAN THE HOUSING INDUSTRY MAKE AN IMPACT ON MINORITY HOMEOWNERSHIP? Industry leaders share their insights on how we move forward to create change

By Brena Nath As we enter the second half of 2022, gone are the days of a record-setting housing market. This year instead is more identifiable by its ultra-low housing stock, rising mortgage rates and high homeownership demand that seems to have no outlet.

One important note about the housing boom over the last few years though is that while the country’s homeownership rate increased, it wasn’t true for all Americans. According to the National Association of Realtors, the homeownership rate for Black Americans has declined between 2010 and 2020 and stands at 43.4%. As the housing market shifts this year, it will take dedicated, intentional and continual effort from industry participants to improve minority homeownership, especially as the path to securing a home becomes more competitive.

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To help shed more light on where minority homeownership stands today, HousingWire sat down with influential leaders in housing to talk about ways to increase minority homeownership and some of the key areas people might be missing the mark in the conversation.

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appraisers is not producing a diverse workforce. So alternative licensing and experience methods like PAREA (Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal) need to be considered and prioritized. But even before that happens, there are steps that can be taken now to move in the right direction. We are partnering with multiple groups focused on increasing appraiser diversity, like the Appraisal Diversity Initiative, NSREA, NAREB and NAMMBA in addition to our work with SkillBridge, to provide a path into appraisal for our diverse U.S. veterans. It is important to change behavior even before policy changes.

KENON CHEN, EXECUTIVE VICE PR ESIDENT OF CORPORATE STRATEGY AT CLEAR CAPITAL HousingWire: How does appraisal technology play a role in increasing minority homeownership?

Kenon Chen: I think that appraisal technology should first and foremost create confidence and increase public trust in the appraisal process. Technology has the potential to ensure homes are not being under- or overvalued in each and every community; through digitized data collection, more objective data standards and collateral underwriting tools that provide insight into the quality of the appraisal.

This also builds the foundation for reducing the cost of the appraisal for the borrower and ultimately the cost of the loan itself as efficiencies are created for the lender.

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HW: What do you think are the common misconceptions when it comes to the role that technology plays?

KC: Technology in and of itself is not enough to bring transformation to the current process. Lenders have spent more than ever on technology in the past few years, but the costs of lending continue to increase, and digitization has not fully reached supporting services like appraisal even with recent policy changes like the modern GSE desktop and hybrid appraisal options. The truth is that innovation is actually easier than effective adoption and change management, so that is where our focus is increasing.

HW: What steps can the industry take to attract a more diverse appraisal workforce?

KC: With the current demographics of the appraisal profession being over 97% white and 70% male, creating diversity is not going to be an overnight change. It is going to take a long-term committed effort with partnership between policy makers and industry players. Obviously, the current supervisory approach to training and licensing new

HW: What are 2-3 steps that people in the industry, and at various levels, can take now to increase minority homeownership?

KC: Partnership can be a powerful thing. Willingness to take the right steps can be simple, but this is a large challenge with several layers of complexity. No single organization has the complete perfect solution, so joining up with like-minded companies who specialize in different aspects of the solution is crucial. We know appraisal innovation well, but we love teaming up with others who can bring a holistic perspective on what will increase minority home ownership and diversity in the profession. Fannie Mae also recently announced its innovation challenge for increasing racial equity in housing, as an example of a program for industry participants to consider.

HW: What do you think is the biggest threat to this conversation?

KC: One of the biggest threats is just the loss of momentum through distraction. There are many challenges facing the housing finance industry right now as mortgage rates, inflation and layoffs continue to rise. The opportunity we have had over the past 2 years to focus on and address issues of racial inequities in housing has been unprecedented. It is incredible to think that the PAVE Action Plan was the result of 13 government agencies agreeing on a once-in-a-generation series of recommendations to address inequities. For us, we have chosen to make the positive impact on people a central part of our mission and purpose so that the distractions of today do not obscure what is truly important.

HW: How can we move the needle forward this year in minority homeownership? What about beyond this year?

KC: Increasing accuracy in the appraisal process is number one for us. Undervaluation and overvaluation can create risks to homeownership, so we are fully committed to modernizing the manufacturing of appraisals, utilizing machine learning with great data for automated valuations, and raising the bar on appraisal underwriting. And having the appraisal profession reflect the diversity of the communities in which it serves is really table stakes for removing blind spots, so that effort will definitely go beyond this year.

HW: Is there anything else you would like to add?

KC: I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: sitting on the sidelines for this issue is no longer an option for our industry. There will be lots of different views on what the

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purchase a home, and down payment assistance resources. Education-forward marketing campaigns can provide powerful information to empower our minority community to consider homeownership.

HW: What steps do you think people are missing in this conversation?

TC: Education needs to be a priority if we truly want to expand minority homeownership. Providing information in a way that is easily digestible to our communities of color must be paramount.

DALILA RAMOS, FOUNDER OF LOVE AND TACOS MEDIA

root problems are and how to solve them, but inaction is a sure way to not make progress. What we do is too important and too impactful to millions of people to not work on creating an equitable impact. Technology, people and partnerships working together will keep the continued momentum.

TAI CHRISTENSEN, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION OFFICER AT CBC MORTGAGE AGENCY HW: For companies that have a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer role, how would you define the job description?

Tai Christensen: A Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer should leverage best practices and resources to promote a culture of inclusion for employees of all races, ethnicities and gender identities. They should provide fun and meaningful ways to educate their company’s employees on the value of gender, racial and ethnic diversity and the expansive uniqueness of different cultures and backgrounds.

HW: If you were to outline the key responsibilities of diversity leadership roles at companies, what do you think the description should include?

Dalila Ramos: I get together with a group of minority women once a month, and we're all in a diversity role. We’re all in the DEI space, and one of the things we talk about is our role within mortgage and real estate. The DEI role is new, compared to bigger organizations like Disney or CocaCola; they’ve had DEI roles for decades at this point. But for mortgage, it's new.

And a lot of companies have created this role just to check a box, or they’re trying to figure it out. But there’s no structure. They want to do the right thing, their heart is in the right place and so they hire someone of color, a minority. But we didn’t grow up having a DEI option in college or high school, so we’re getting these roles, and we’re also having to create the strategic outlining of the role. What does it entail? What should you be focused on? It does integrate a lot with recruiting, sourcing talent acquisition and culture?

HW: How can we move the needle forward this year in minority homeownership?

TC: The mortgage industry should invest in educational marketing campaigns, targeted for our minority communities, that focus on the benefits of homeownership and how to begin the homebuying process. Many people in our communities of color are confused about the homebuying process, their credit score, the income needed to

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HW: How can they help empower this position?

TC: The best way to empower this position is to have full and committed support from upper management and the C-suite team, as well as dedicated financial resources to help implement new programs or initiatives for their DEI efforts.

Right now, it really focuses on a lot of culture, bringing new talent to the organization, learning and development.

We’re having to do new trainings on topics we’ve never had to deal with in the past. It can also entail being a lead liaison or an ambassador for the company that you represent and maybe the organizations outside of your company, trade organizations.

HW: Do you think companies are empowering these roles and if not (or not enough), how can they support these roles more?

DR: Have a conversation. If you don’t have a DEI team, role or person initiating that charge for you at your company, it’s okay to have a conversation. It’s okay to look outside your organization and ask for advice and counsel because you’re not going to know all the answers. I advise leaders to talk with people who are in the current position, especially if they’re looking to create a role or a team. Also, look within — ask your own team what they think or need.

What can help?

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HW: What are some initiatives that you think leaders in housing can take now to make a tangible impact on minority homeownership?

DR: One of the things, if you’re really trying to make an impact in the minority community, is to have representation that reflects that community on your board or on your team. It’s really hard to get that message across if they don't look like them. It’s hard, and there's no explanation to it. Another thing is making sure that there is diversity of the mind as well. You have to make sure you have people coming from all walks of life, not just minority. When people talk about minority homeownership, and this is something NAMMBA’s Tony Thompson and I talk about — we’re both people of color — sometimes when people really don't know us, they’ll come talk to us about first-time homebuyer

products or government loan products, but we are actually very aware. I’m an investor. Just because we're minorities doesn’t mean we're first-time homebuyers. Just because I am Spanish, I don’t need my stuff in another language.

HW: In what ways do you think the government needs to step in to support this?

DR: It’s different state by state. Here in Florida, the governor recently signed a bill that mandates a financial literacy course for high school students — things like balancing your checking account, knowing the power of having credit and understanding debt-to-income ratio. I even did some research to see how I could qualify for teaching. I would love to teach that class. I don’t have a teaching degree, but I have 21 years of mortgage experience. Could you imagine if some of us could get in front of high school students?

HW: Is there anything else you would like to add?

DR: With everything going on, the first-time homebuyer is not given a chance because inventories are low, especially in states where I’m at. They just can’t catch a break. They can’t own a home. The highest bid is not always the best bid. Give these first-time homebuyers a chance. It’s such a fine line, but if we keep allowing big corporations to come in and buy all the inventory, the community will go away.

PAM PERRY, SINGLE-FAMILY VICE PRESIDENT OF EQUITABLE HOUSING AT FREDDIE MAC HW: What are some key areas that Freddie is working on to improve minority homeownership and how are you seeing them make an impact?

Pam Perry: Freddie Mac is committed to advancing equity in housing including increasing minority homeownership by focusing primarily on four areas: barriers to qualifying for a loan, building credit, identifying and addressing valuation gaps in appraisals and helping to address housing supply. These are big challenges, there is no one solution and we know there is a lot of work to do.

When it comes to qualifying for a loan, a lack of credit and financial capability is a large impediment to buying a home for communities of color. Freddie Mac is addressing this by making our CreditSmart housing and financial capability resources widely available. More than 20,000 individuals have completed CreditSmart’s curriculum in the first quarter this year, including students through seminars at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

We’re also implementing a wealth-building initiative by collaborating with grassroots organizations with the goal of educating 150,000 minority consumers on housing and financial education in 2022.

Freddie Mac is also implementing comprehensive solutions to help make rent count for credit building and homebuying. Freddie Mac’s Multifamily division is helping renters build credit with a program that reports on-time rental payments to credit reporting agencies. In less than a year, more than 13,000 renters have established credit scores

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MONTELL WATSON, DIRECTOR OF DIVERSITY LENDING AT MOVEMENT MORTGAGE HW: In your new role, you lead as the Director of Diversity Lending at Movement Mortgage. Why do you see a role that’s dedicated to diversity lending as necessary?

Montell Watson: I believe this role is necessary because there have been industry-wide disparities in lending for some time. We have been doing the work in the space and the scope of our goals required full-time attention. I believe the entire lending community needs to step into finding solutions to bring homeownership and generational wealth to diverse communities.

HW: What message would you want to send to other companies when it comes to growing minority homeownership?

MW: It’s important to meet diverse communities where they are. Take the steps to understand cultural needs both for the communities we serve and the diverse employees we serve. Then take action to have positive impact within those communities. Even if that means taking small steps to do one thing at a time; build upon each small step with another.

stood out to you on this topic?

MW: We need to build 7 million new homes to keep up with demand. This is a staggering number. Many of us know how difficult it is in today’s market for first-time homebuyers and we need more supply to help.

HW: What are 3 key areas that you think lenders, or the government, need to focus on to make a difference in this conversation?

MW: Anything that can help increase supply would be beneficial, but from a lender’s perspective, I believe we need to do the hard work of educating, empowering and taking the extra step to help marginalized and underserved communities. We need to create programming around this and consider giving back to the communities we serve outside of lending.

How can we move the needle forward this year in minority homeownership? What about beyond this year? We move the needle forward by doing the disciplined small work of educating, advising and innovating our products to be affordable and accessible for diverse communities.

It requires ALL of us to bring equity into our organizations, not just the individuals who are leading diverse initiatives.

HW: Is there anything else you would like to add?

MW: The lending community is one of the most incredible and impactful industries to be a part of. We are blessed to have the opportunity to change individuals lives every day through homeownership. I encourage each person in this industry to never take that for granted and to help bring equity and opportunity to EVERY community across the nation by focusing on loving and valuing people first.

HW: What’s a recent stat around homeownership that has really

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and of those with existing scores, 71 percent improved their score. Soon, our single-family underwriting system, Loan Product Advisor, will have the ability to identify a history of consistent rent payments that can positively impacts a borrower’s credit assessment in the homebuying process.

On appraisals, Freddie Mac’s groundbreaking research put a spotlight on the fact that appraisal values are more likely to fall below the contracted sale price of a home in census tracts with a higher share of Black and Latino households. We are exploring tools to create new approaches to appraisals, while also testing whether alternatives to traditional appraisals offer a more objective analysis of property value. We are committed to further engaging with the Appraisal Institute in identifying causes and solutions.

Given the housing supply/demand imbalance in the marketplace, efforts to increase demand will not help if there is not additional supply. That’s why we are leveraging programs to support affordable housing supply. For example, our CHOICERenovation mortgage product gives borrowers the ability to finance the cost of renovations, which helps bring more of these affordable home options into the housing supply; this includes the financing of accessory dwelling units or ADUs. ADUs are usually smaller and more affordable to build than standalone residential properties and have the potential to increase property value in an amount much greater than their cost. Similarly, our CHOICEHome mortgage for manufactured housing offers conventional site-built financing for factory-built homes that have the features of a site-built home but cost much less.

MARKETING

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LEADER

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Vashti Brotherhood Alisha Burdette Katherine Campbell Mike Darne Jon Day Phil DeGisi James Duncan Wendy Forsythe Mikhail Gaushkin Katie Goldberg Richard Grieser Susan Hallock Cheryl Hayes Ashley Honoré Smith Casey Hurbis Steve James Bijoy John Paul Juedes Eric Kushner Jennifer Leonard David Marine Megan Martin Erika Martin Stephanie McCarty

30 31 32 33 34 35

Melissa McGrath Klusmeyer Lauren Miller Christy Mindell Amy Moses

37

A. Bradley Nelson Annette Ochoa Christina Panos Haley Parker

38

Alan Parris Natasha Patla Dawn Perry James Polinori

39

Kate Schillace Brad Sivert Rich Smith Jessica Swink

40

Kara Taylor Bev Thorne Cory Vasquez Michele Weber

41

Shannon Williams Steven Winokur Melissa Wright Eric Zhou

42

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David Arnett Kara Banosian

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50 2022 Marketing Leaders boldly pushing boundaries

David Arnett

By Lesley Collins

CMO

Cherry Creek Mortgage

Connecting with clients and consumers has never been an easy task, and today’s market has been no exception. On the heels of a global COVID -19 pandemic that keeps rearing its head, the housing economy is now faced with rising rates and dismal inventory. Tasked with an endless list of functions, this year’s 2022 Marketing Leaders did it all despite market turmoil.

Phoning it in is not an option for this list of leaders who are constantly coming up with bold ideas that help push their teams to think big and drive their organizations forward in housing.

In a few short years, Cherry Creek Mortgage’s Chief Marketing Officer David Arnett has emerged as one of the most creative and prolific marketers in housing by transforming Denver-based Cherry Creek Mortgage into a nationally recognized brand. Since joining the company in 2016, Arnett has revolutionized Cherry Creek’s SEO efforts, developed and launched award-winning, nationwide TV and radio campaigns and organically grown the company’s Facebook followers from 300 to 44,000 in just three years, significantly increasing Cherry Creek’s visibility. The company’s surge in popularity is a result of Arnett’s skill at creating marketing initiatives that resonate with consumers and his ability to create a cohesive team whose efforts constantly propel the company forward — attributes that led to his promotion from vice president of marketing to CMO in March 2021.

As a leader, Arnett embodies Cherry Creek’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, which have enabled the company to reach a broader audience.

This year’s list includes marketers like Pennymac Chief Marketing Officer Susan Hallock who led the launch of a brand evolution, including a new logo and Pennymac’s first national brand campaign in company history. Rocket Companies CMO, Casey Hurbis, who — alongside his 300-person marketing team

Kara Banosian

— created the company’s highest-rated Super Bowl commercial

Stavvy

and The Corcoran Group’s CMO Christina Panos who introduced

Kara Banosian, chief marketing officer at Stavvy, is a true marketing leader who has helped the organization grow considerably over the last year, especially with its industry presence. Banosian has a keen understanding of marketing at every level and generates big, bold ideas that help the team push further and think bigger. Banosian has built Stavvy’s marketing engine from the ground up, at the blistering pace of a startup. From demand generation marketing, social media, events and much more, Banosian is fearless in taking on new challenges and exploring new opportunities that will benefit Stavvy.

Banosian cares about people and takes the time to engage and connect with each of them. She asks the tough questions and drives the entire leadership team to align on goals and assess impacts.

Marketing and communications touches everything in an organization, including Stavvy, and as a true executive leader Banosian provides leadership, insights and guidance to the other aspects of the organization.

CMO

the use of strategic brand advertising and fashion photography to the real estate industry through the “Live Who You Are” brand campaign.

The following pages include 50 examples of marketing lead-

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ers like the ones mentioned above who have used their creativity, agility and leadership skills to continuously grow and strengthen their brands.

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Vashti Brotherhood

Alisha Burdette

Incenter Marketing

Mark Spain Real Estate

Vashti Brotherhood, president of Incenter Marketing, understands how to develop lasting brands that transcend different market conditions because they are true for companies and their customers. This innate strength, which she has honed for mortgage banking and B2B companies over decades, is keeping her clients visible, noticeable and memorable. It’s giving Incenter, its 11 firms and external Incenter Marketing clients like Deephaven Mortgage an advantage in today’s ultra-competitive market — where companies can no longer afford to blend in.

When Brotherhood joined Incenter, her charge was to introduce Incenter LLC to the marketplace and quickly build strong brand awareness. Brotherhood and her team have elevated the brand as a leading solutions-driven organization and business partner to the mortgage and specialty lending C-suite. Everywhere decision makers are searching for advice, guidance or trend information — from traditional or digital media to conferences—Incenter is there.

Alisha Burdette, chief marketing officer at Mark Spain Real Estate, is consistently learning and growing her knowledge around different marketing approaches, collaborating across departments at MSRE. Burdette knows that simply generating a lead isn’t enough — it has to be a qualified lead that will have a high probability of leading MSRE’s sales team to success. Her alignment with the entire team at MSRE ensures she delivers the leads needed while taking into account the needs of the rest of the team.

Burdette works with MSRE’s call center and lead conversion team to help with call collaborations to look for scripting opportunities for the employees. This insight allows her to listen for signals from the public on ways MSRE can better address the customer’s needs through its marketing efforts. Amid the challenges of the pandemic, Burdette was able to drive even better results than in prior years.

MSRE is consistently listed as one of the fastest growing private companies and achieved 94% revenue growth in 2021.

Katherine Campbell

Mike Darne

Assurance Financial

CreditXpert

Katherine Campbell is a veteran in the financial services industry and currently serves as the chief digital officer for Assurance Financial. With more than 20 years of digital experience, she is an analytics-driven executive with expertise in web conversion, UI and technical integrations.

Campbell quickly made an impact when she joined the organization in 2018 and has climbed the ranks to be an influential voice within the company — and the mortgage industry at large. Campbell has hand-selected top-tier technology, adopting and integrating over 20 new solutions since joining Assurance Financial. Campbell understands the industry like no other and has the digital expertise to know what technology the Assurance Financial team needs to stand out as a lender and deliver a superior customer experience. Campbell oversaw the implementation of an improved online application process for borrowers, positioning Assurance Financial as a trusted lender and technology leader.

Since joining in early 2021, Vice President of Marketing Mike Darne has had a significant impact on how CreditXpert thinks about the company’s market potential and has made huge strides in bringing that vision to life and driven business outcomes.

In the past 12 months Darne moved quickly to update the company’s brand identity, launched a new website and a multichannel ad campaign. He also dug into the company’s usage data, commissioned research with mortgage executives and consumers to identify opportunities to better serve their needs. Darne has brought these insights together and is working to produce thought leadership content that will help establish a dialogue with industry leaders about the role of credit as it relates to homeownership.

In an effort to find ways to increase homeownership among minority groups, Darne is also working closely with the National Association of Minority Mortgage Bankers of America to field research aimed at uncovering and understanding barriers.

President

CMO

VP, Marketing

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Chief Digital Officer

Jon Day

Phil DeGisi

VP, Product Marketing

Chief Product and Marketing Officer, Co-founder

OJO Labs

Orchard

As the vice president of product marketing, Jon Day has been instrumental in working toward OJO Labs’s mission of making sure anybody can access the benefits of homeownership. Driven by a passion for creating meaningful consumer experiences, Day is constantly pushing himself to uncover unmet consumer needs. As a consumer-centric marketer, Day and his team are laser-focused on understanding the specific needs of homebuyers, sellers, homeowners and agents — and creating impactful new products and features to meet them. Day and his team grew the OJO Select Network to more than 20,000 agents and spearheaded a training program to support new agents, having successfully trained more than 11,000 new agents since August 2021.

As a result, the company has witnessed a 16% improvement in agent performance for those who have enrolled in the training program.

Day’s team also launched a successful YouTube channel to continue giving agents useful professional tips. In just six months, the channel’s subscriber base has grown by more than 500%.

Phil DeGisi leads Orchard’s marketing and product teams as cofounder and chief product and marketing officer. Under DeGisi’s leadership, Orchard has achieved a billion-dollar valuation in just four years, expanded into eleven markets throughout the U.S. — thirteen

by May 2022 — and helped thousands of American families win their dream homes in a hypercompetitive market. Along the way, DeGisi has fostered an inclusive environment where team members feel supported and receive clear guidance on how to drive deep impact and advance in their careers.

As a co-founder, DeGisi helped start the business from the ground up, meeting with hundreds of homeowners to understand the pain points and challenges they face in home buying. DeGisi and his teams have taken those insights and made Orchard one of the most stressfree, fair and simple ways to buy a home. Under his leadership, Orchard has grown from a marketing team of one to a thriving department of 30 people.

James Duncan

Wendy Forsythe

Thrive Mortgage

Fathom Holdings

Since James Duncan began his role as director of marketing in 2018, Thrive Mortgage has become widely regarded as one of the most innovative, creative and cutting-edge teams in the industry. Continually sought after for coaching, branding and collaborating on strategic ideas — both within Thrive as well as outside agencies — Duncan has become a voice of influence, education and positive change for our industry.

Duncan’s approach to marketing is taking a passionate interest in homeownership and maintaining a focus on improving the consumer experience. This passion is complemented by his years as a professional teacher enabling him to combine advocacy, coaching techniques and communication skills into his marketing vision and strategic execution.

Duncan leads his marketing, digital and creative design teams to better performance and career growth, while simultaneously being a leader for education, engagement and excellence.

Wendy Forsythe, chief strategy officer at Fathom Holdings, has spent her career helping top brands, brokerages and agents build their businesses. Forsythe has become a branding and growth leader by combining operational excellence with a servant-leadership mindset.

Forsythe is a forward thinker whose industry experience combined with a drive to constantly improve and innovate motivates those around her. She drives enterprise marketing and strategy across the Fathom real estate brokerage, mortgage, title, insurance and technology business units.

Forsythe is a key member of the executive team that has executed on building the Fathom brand and attracting top talent. In 2021, Forsythe supported the launch of Fathom’s Hispanic Division to support the Hispanic homebuyer and seller and played a key role in several acquisitions. She also created and launched a Marketing Advisory Council for Fathom Realty and was appointed to the Broker Resource Network Leadership Committee.

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Director of Marketing

Chief Strategy Officer

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Mikhail Gaushkin

Katie Goldberg

Auction.com

HouseCanary

Mikhail Gaushkin, Auction.com’s chief marketing officer, has revolutionized the Auction.com marketing department by introducing a data-driven approach to all areas of marketing and revenue growth.

Gaushkin develops marketing talent, drives innovation and employs data scientists and high-caliber analysts, contributing to a dramatic increase in Auction.com’s sales rate by 71%.

Joining Auction.com in October 2019, Gaushkin began changing the mindset of the marketing department so that all planning and strategy starts with data and analysis and ends with measured outcomes. Gaushkin aided in the marketing department’s ability to better predict a property’s propensity to go to auction, helping to increase Auction.com’s sales rate and revenue and allowing local community developers to concentrate on assets that sell and help stabilize neighborhoods. Using a personalized omnichannel marketing approach, Gaushkin and his team use the wealth of data to connect the right customer with the right property at the right time.

Katie Goldberg, vice president of marketing at HouseCanary, has a proven track record to lead teams, drive acquisition and guide highgrowth companies. In her role at HouseCanary, she has built out the entire marketing team, expanded thought leadership considerably and increased the company’s media engagement, exponentially increasing 75% year over year.

Over the past year, Goldberg has expanded HouseCanary’s brand and industry presence through key media placements, strategic thought leadership content initiatives, targeted paid advertising campaigns, planned industry conferences and lobbying efforts in Washington. She is one of the few women within the organization to hold a C-suite title, building her team from the ground up and increasing the company’s marketing footprint 3x.

Goldberg holds a membership at Chief, a private network designed for the most powerful women in executive leadership to strengthen their influence and drive more women to the top.

Richard Grieser

Susan Hallock

Sales Boomerang

Pennymac

If Sales Boomerang is known in the mortgage industry for its big personalities and out-of-the-box thinking, Vice President of Marketing Richard Grieser is the man behind the curtain, helping to craft, promote and drive that messaging. In his two years at Sales Boomerang, Grieser has built a successful marketing department from the ground up and worked to promote both Sales Boomerang’s product and its partnerships throughout the industry. Embodying the firm’s “No Borrower Left Behind” ethos, Grieser has been a driving force behind its growth this year, as well as helping Sales Boomerang clients’ borrower retention rates to grow at equally impressive rates.

Grieser has built the marketing department from a one-man show to a well-oiled machine. This growth has helped Sales Boomerang grow revenue by more than 116% YOY and increase existing customer growth rates by 400%, helping lenders close $150 billion in additional loan volume by enabling them to present the right loans to customers at the right time.

Susan Hallock, CMO at Pennymac, is a hands-on, analytically driven leader and global marketing executive with a 20-year track record of delivering results across financial services, entertainment and consumer sectors. Hallock joined Pennymac in Q4 2020 and was tasked with building and overseeing the marketing organization, which has earned her industry-wide recognition for leading a team that delivers effective, award-winning marketing. Under Hallock’s leadership, the organization launched a brand evolution, including a new logo and Pennymac’s first national brand campaign in company history.

Hallock’s contributions to Pennymac have reinforced its foundational principles, highlighting key attributes and building a stronger future for the company. She has architected a marketing and creative team that is highly performance-driven. With her depth of experience, knowledge of data and purpose to marketing, Hallock is able to connect the dots between a company’s DNA and what their partners and customers are looking for.

CMO

VP, Marketing

CMO

JULY 2022

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VP, Marketing

Cheryl Hayes

Ashley Honoré Smith

PrimeLending

Finance of America Reverse

Under the leadership of Cheryl Hayes, senior vice president of marketing, PrimeLending’s marketing team has pivoted toward strategies that create authentic customer connections for the sales team, leveraging best-in-industry digital tools to win new business in a challenging marketplace. Hayes’ work to expand her team to include individuals with modern marketing expertise by adding specialized skills and resources in areas such as digital marketing, SEO, social media, user experience and graphic design has been a game-changer for the organization.

A strategic and creative leader with a track record of turning high-impact ideas into tangible results, Hayes raises the game of everyone she works with and cares deeply about making a difference in the lives of her team and coworkers. Since joining PrimeLending in 2012, Hayes has grown the team from six to nearly 20 professionals and has made an enduring impact on the PrimeLending brand and marketing department.

As senior vice president of brand marketing and strategic communications at Finance of America Reverse, Ashley Honoré Smith is a proven leader and innovator with more than 15 years of experience serving as a brand and strategy captain for her company and team.

Since joining FAR as head of marketing in March 2018, Honoré Smith has remade the marketing and communications group into a strategic function, created the company’s new brand and enhanced its people-first culture. Her leadership and vision have been integral to the success of FAR’s transformation.

Over the past 12 months, Honoré Smith demonstrated that she is a skilled strategist responsible for revolutionizing FAR’s approach to its key objective — the $10 trillion in housing wealth owned by seniors.

This was a holistic transformation focused on how FAR leverages its brand both internally, via a strategic culture network centered on organizational purpose, and externally, via a visual brand refresh and the introduction of Gary, a new company spokescharacter.

Casey Hurbis

Steve James

Rocket Companies

Fannie Mae

As the CMO for Rocket Companies, Casey Hurbis brings relentless energy, positivity and drive to everything he does. He represents the heartbeat of the brand, looking for ideas that impact clients — that educate, engage and entertain. Hurbis leads a 300-person team of marketing experts known as Detroit’s premier in-house agency, Rocket Central, which was named one of Ad Age’s Best Places to Work in 2021. Hurbis’s approach to being a successful CMO is simple: Be real, be approachable and believe 100% in your brand.

This year, Hurbis and his team created the highest-rated Super Bowl commercial for Rocket Mortgage and Rocket Homes Real Estate LLC, starring A-list actress Anna Kendrick and the iconic Barbie and her Dreamhouse. It garnered top placement on USA Today’s Ad Meter, as well as top reviews from Adweek and Ad Age. This is the second consecutive year that Hurbis and his team topped the Ad Meter list — with last year’s Rocket Mortgage spot garnering first and second place, starring another Hollywood A-lister, Tracy Morgan.

Fannie Mae’s CMO Steve James has a proven track record of building brands, generating business impact and leading innovation in the financial services industry. James spearheads all marketing in support of the company’s single-family, multifamily, capital markets and credit loss management businesses, the company’s digital marketing strategy and all internal and external communications. He delivers influential programs that educate consumers, support lenders and servicers and engage key stakeholders as the company focuses on its commitment to advancing equity and sustainable access to homeownership and quality, affordable rental housing for Americans.

Alongside Fannie Mae’s efforts, James and his team stepped up to mobilize resources and lead integrated and impactful campaigns serving the enterprise across all key areas. Aided by James’s contributions, the company helped keep borrowers and renters in their homes by providing homeownership and rental education and highlighting forbearance options.

SVP, Marketing Director

SVP, Brand Marketing & Strategic Communications

34 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

CMO

SVP, CMO

JULY 2022

Bijoy John

Paul Juedes

Newrez

eXp Realty

Since joining the team in 2018, Senior Vice President of Marketing Bijoy John has played an instrumental role in scaling Newrez’s retention business. John’s servant-leadership style is to empower his team to be their best selves, which is how he was able to turn a tiny marketing operation into an industry-leading powerhouse. Through transforming customer touchpoints, driving focus on segmentation and being a key driver in creating campaigns, John is working to revolutionize communication with homebuyers within the mortgage space.

John focuses on direct-to-consumer marketing and champions the development of the department’s team members. Joining the team when there were only a handful of team members, John been a major driving force behind its growth to nearly 78 members.

Instrumental in establishing communication with customers, John has been leading efforts to increase the quality and volume of qualified mortgage leads by transforming customer touchpoints.

With more than 15 years experience as a mortgage and real estate executive, Paul Juedes was named vice president of marketing for eXp Realty in July 2021 and is focused on helping the marketing team leverage the right mix of technology and processes to efficiently build market awareness and drive agent growth for what is considered the fastest-growing brokerage in the world. He is committed to educating real estate agents about eXp Realty, where they can receive world-class training, strategic partnership and stock awards. Juedes also cares about helping families realize their dreams and goals of homeownership and has led the industry in modernizing its marketing strategies with a balance of compliance and integrity.

With a servant-leadership approach, Juedes builds and guides marketing teams to deliver results. Leveraging his years of experience in the mortgage, lending and real estate industries, Juedes is passionate about sharing his knowledge across all eXp marketing teams to build the next generation of real estate marketing leaders.

Eric Kushner

Jennifer Leonard

Amrock

Association of Independent Mortgage Experts

As the vice president of marketing for Amrock, Eric Kushner passionately applies his 25 years of industry experience to grow the business, broaden the company’s strategies to bring product and service offerings to the market and build partnerships that transform the real estate experience. With a vision for digital transformation for the industry and an enthusiasm for people and process, Kushner relentlessly pursues excellence in fine-tuning the client journey.

This year, Kushner continues to raise the bar, overseeing online and traditional marketing initiatives, creating solid partnerships and driving innovative strategies to captivate the many stakeholders in a real estate transaction for a leading national provider of title insurance, property valuations and settlement services.

Pursuant of his vision, Amrock has delivered a reimagined, carefully orchestrated client journey that provides certainty and transparency — ensuring effective communication to each individual involved in the closing process.

Vice president of brand strategy, Jennifer Leonard brings 15 years of direct to consumer and B2B experience to the broker community and thrives on creating strategic partnerships and marketing initiatives for the wholesale mortgage channel. In her years spearheading content marketing and brand development at AIME, she has increased brand awareness exponentially and produced high-value content across all digital channels, as well as for AIME’s national events.

Under her leadership, she led the creative and communications teams to develop content for five national conferences, launched an educational consumer-facing website and led the Broker To Broker podcast to become one of the Top 10 Apple nonprofit podcasts.

Leonard’s accomplishments include highlighting the organization’s achievements and driving business initiatives, growing the association’s digital presence, increasing web traffic and user experience and transforming the company’s brand through relationships with the media.

SVP, Marketing

VP, Marketing

VP, Brand Strategy

JULY 2022

35 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

VP, Marketing

David Marine

Megan Martin

Coldwell Banker

Mortgage Cadence

As chief marketing officer for Coldwell Banker with over 20 years of digital, content and social marketing experience, David Marine does more than just market the oldest and one of the most trusted real estate brands in the industry. In addition to his affinity for storytelling and leading a team of more than 150 diverse, thought-provoking marketers to reshape a brand that has existed for 116 years, Marine developed the highest-rated ad — 10 years in a row — in the real estate category; finalized the first rebrand for Coldwell Banker in nearly half a century; re-positioned the company to focus on sellers; and revamped the company’s website as part of its 2022 Dream Campaign.

Marine led the company through its rebrand “trifecta” that included Coldwell Banker Realty and affiliated companies, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury and Coldwell Banker Commercial, reshaping the mission, values, messaging and design to set the brand on a growth trajectory for the future. As a result, Coldwell Banker was the most recognizable real estate brand of 2021.

As executive vice president of marketing, Megan Martin is responsible for leading innovative, fully integrated marketing and brand development programs that drive revenue, growth and market share for Mortgage Cadence, as well as maintaining positive relationships with existing clients and third-party providers. With a passion for sales and marketing strategy, Martin has spent the past 16 years of her career focused on marketing for the real estate and financial services industry. Beginning the year as a marketing team of one, Martin both planned and executed key company initiatives and now has three additional team members who all praise her for her unique leadership style that empowers and encourages everyone around her.

Martin oversaw Mortgage Cadence’s rebrand, which included a complete overhaul to a new website and the development of new logos and brand materials that more accurately depicted the company’s mission and paved the way for a launch that would signal a new era for Mortgage Cadence.

Erika Martin

Stephanie McCarty

Enact Mortgage Insurance

Taylor Morrison

Senior Director of Marketing Erika Martin is a marketing professional with 17 years of experience in the mortgage industry. Her background in technology enables her to make data-driven decisions and improve processes at Enact Mortgage Insurance to serve customers and the company. Within the last year, Martin successfully led her team through an extensive rebrand, an IPO and a new team integration and demonstrated and promoted excellence at every turn.

Soon after Martin was promoted into the marketing leadership role, she was tasked with rebranding the 17-year-old Genworth Mortgage Insurance brand into Enact. With a 15-member team and a $3M rebranding budget, Martin worked with 65 subject matter experts and eight vendors to complete customer research and asset documentation, as well as define a strategy, new name, voice and visual identity for the new brand. Martin’s team continues this work by making changes to over 80 systems and creating thousands of new assets for the newly developed Enact brand.

Stephanie McCarty is chief marketing and communications officer for Taylor Morrison and stands out as one of the most innovative and fearless leaders in the home-building industry. At just 36, McCarty is the youngest person at the company’s leadership table by nearly a decade.

During her first five years with the company, McCarty transformed its culture and branding position nationwide, led acquisitions that helped catapult Taylor Morrison to the nation’s fifth largest residential home builder and led efforts resulting in the brand being recognized as America’s Most Trusted Home Builder by Lifestory Research seven years running and one of the Best Places to Work by Glassdoor.

McCarty is widely respected by leadership, colleagues and teams across the nation and is viewed as one of the most valued leaders within the organization. McCarty has differentiated Taylor Morrison as a progressive brand by positioning it as among the first to move the future of new construction home shopping with the introduction of innovative, industry-leading customer acquisition tools.

CMO

EVP, Marketing

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Senior Director of Marketing

Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

JULY 2022

Melissa McGrath Klusmeyer

Lauren Miller

AmeriHome Mortgage

United Wholesale Mortgage

With more than 25 years of marketing experience and nearly a decade of experience in the mortgage industry, First Vice President of Marketing and Retail Lending Melissa McGrath Klusmeyer’s passion for branding, content creation and storytelling has made her one of the most creative and influential marketing mavericks at AmeriHome Mortgage. A phenomenal leader and award-winning marketer, McGrath Klusmeyer is essential to AmeriHome’s success by helping to provide leads and driving real results. She and her team’s omnichannel marketing strategy contributed to 47% of all locks in 2021 within the retail lending division through website, email, direct mail and social marketing techniques.

McGrath Klusmeyer has created marketing campaigns that resonate with the company’s borrowers and effectively bring leads into the organization. Her goal is to create positive experiences for their borrowers, so they get the home of their dreams and become financially successful through their home financing journey.

Vice President of Marketing Lauren Miller joined United Wholesale Mortgage four years ago and has leveraged her expertise in integrated marketing and strategy to further catapult awareness around the independent mortgage broker channel. With Miller’s strategic approach, UWM has identified and developed partnerships and business development initiatives to make a significant impact on clients and the UWM brand from a local and national perspective.

Miller leads marketing strategy around all UWM product launches, ensuring smooth, efficient executions, and is always looking for new ways to expand the independent mortgage broker channel. After growing her team from the ground up, Miller has contributed to the growth of UWM and the broker channel in a strategic and powerful way. Miller led the implementation of key sponsorships, including the Detroit Pistons, the Detroit Red Wings and Pine Knob Music Theater, all working to increase awareness of the independent mortgage broker channel on both national and local levels.

First Vice President, Marketing, Retail Lending

VP, Marketing

Amy Moses

EVP Marketing

Vice President, Marketing & Communications

Champions Funding

EscrowTab

Full of personality and motivation to stay ahead of the trends, Christy Mindell has successfully made her mark in the industry by leading high-performing marketing teams and continues to do so as the executive vice president of marketing at Champions Funding. She makes the company shine by empowering the entire organization to act as ambassadors through training, cutting-edge resources and empowered collaboration. Mindell excels at making strong connections based on empathy and respect with stakeholders of all levels, from her sales teams to vendor partners, which yield trust in her and her work.

Mindell brings more than 20 years of experience in financial services marketing, project management, business intelligence, corporate branding, demand generation, training and retention strategies and tactics. She has worked with the top mortgage companies in the business, plus start-ups who funded their first $1 billion in their first 6 months. Now, Mindell will scale Champions Funding and increase its reach to propel the organization toward the non-QM and CDFI space.

Amy Moses took the reins as vice president of marketing and communications of EscrowTab in November 2021, after a successful nine-month run at Snapdocs, where she helped Snapdocs’ industry presence explode as she managed their field marketing program. She was one of the first marketers to provide thought leadership for eClosings and eNotes, paving the way for originators, warehouse lenders, servicers and investors to join the eMortgage ecosystem, increasing the number of companies registering eNotes by over 150 percent.

Moses has provided key educational opportunities for 6,000 people in the industry via her eMortgage Boot Camps, e-focused webinars and partnership programs with the five pillars of liquidity and key industry associations. She has been developing the brand while creating and launching their first-ever marketing plan. She worked closely with the co-founders on sales and business development initiatives, using her experience to help them execute on their strategy of being the leading IPEN solution for title and lender customers.

JULY 2022

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Christy Mindell

A. Bradley Nelson

Annette Ochoa

Sotheby’s International Realty

Truework

A. Bradley Nelson is a CMO on a mission to breathe new life into a storied luxury brand. His marketing efforts led Sotheby’s International Realty through a historic year, where the brand achieved record $204 billion in 2021 global sales volume.

Nelson continually strives to balance heritage and modernity while supporting the brand’s affiliated agents and companies in more than 1,000 offices located in 79 countries and territories worldwide. Under his leadership, the brand honed in on its existing technology and innovation, putting a renewed focus on virtual reality, high-definition videos and a mobile-first approach. In 2021, the newly revamped sothebysrealty.com was named the Best Real Estate Website in the 25th Annual Webby Awards.

In the past year, under Nelson’s leadership, the brand produced over 200 marketing assets to support the network and its agents, which achieved a record $204 billion in 2021 global sales volume, a 36% increase in sales growth year over year.

As vice president of marketing at Truework, Annette Ochoa has built out the entire demand generation and marketing operations function within her first four months of joining the organization. Ochoa has not only put the tools and processes in place, but she has been able to attract talent quickly.

Ochoa embodies Truework’s standards which value those individuals who plan for the future — with a key component of this motto: “captaining your own ship.” At Truework, Ochoa is not just the captain of the demand generation ship, but she has helped to build the ship from the ground up. She has the rare ability to act as a visionary and successfully execute on her ideas with the perfect balance of strategy and execution. Ochoa’s passion and alignment to the entire customer journey helps track the impact of all initiatives that Truework launches.

Christina Panos

Haley Parker

The Corcoran Group

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation

Following her start in 2004, Corcoran’s CMO Christina Panos revitalized the Corcoran brand with a top-to-bottom redesign resulting in the acclaimed “Live Who You Are” brand campaign, the ethos that drives Corcoran’s human-first approach to real estate. Looking to visually capture this transformation, she engaged a trove of renowned photographers and introduced the use of strategic brand advertising and fashion photography to the real estate industry. Her ability created a campaign that shaped the identity of the Corcoran brand and enabled a year of the most dynamic growth in its nearly 50-year history.

Panos helped jump-start Corcoran’s digital presence and expand the company’s social media profile. They embraced TikTok, garnering 288K followers and over 1 million likes. Panos and her team evolved the brand’s exclusive Digital Summit into a virtual, two-day intensive of expert forums and specialized breakout sessions to turn agents into savvy content creators.

Area Business Development Manager Haley Parker hasn’t just built, preached and coached brand and culture, she is the epitome of it at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation. Parker leads her team, branch, area and family with intention, passion, vision and humility.

Team members who spend time with Parker feel empowered to show up as the best version of themselves each day. Parker’s communication is a consistent rhythm of checking in, motivating, teaching and empathy. She has created a learning environment that has instilled confidence, creativity and autonomy in her team.

In the last 12 months Parker’s reach and influence has been felt throughout the mortgage industry and local community as everyone recovered from more than a year of remote work. She has opened doors of opportunity for Fairway’s loan officers and their real estate agent partners, provided value to the industry as a whole and assisted Branch 812 in Phoenix to secure the title of #1 branch in total units in the nation in 2021.

Chief Marketing Officer

VP, Marketing

38 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

CMO

Area Business Development Manager

JULY 2022

Alan Parris

Natasha Patla

Maxwell Financial Labs

@properties and Christie’s International Real Estate

Maxwell Financial Labs’s VP of Marketing & Growth Alan Parris has been at the center of the company’s major evolution. Parris has led his team to establish the Maxwell brand, expand the company’s influence and reach new lender audiences that benefit from Maxwell’s growing suite of solutions. Parris emphasizes demand-generation strategies to acquire new clients, which has enabled Maxwell to more than 30X its revenues in the past three years.

Parris and his team are responsible for the company’s brand positioning, content thought leadership and community engagement in the mortgage industry. Parris has worked with stakeholders across the company, including product, sales and C-level leadership to define Maxwell’s value proposition, playing a role in onboarding over 100 new clients to tech-enabled solutions. Under his leadership, the launch of Maxwell’s new brand cemented its position as a partner for lenders across America, reflecting its commitment to authentic and approachable technology solutions for small and midsize lenders.

The programs and initiatives that Natasha Patla, CMO at @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate has developed and spearheaded in her time with @properties and more recently, Christie’s International Real Estate, have contributed to significant company growth and financial results, helping create success for thousands of agents and tens of thousands of homebuyers and sellers.

In just over 12 months, @properties grew from a Chicagoland agency to a worldwide entity. With a calm demeanor, Patla managed two brands amidst an aggressive growth timeline. Her marketing savvy and creativity resulted in a series of successful franchise launches and a near-seamless integration of the Christie’s International Real Estate brand.

Patla revolutionized the @properties marketing process, tripling the size of the marketing department and expanding capabilities which include a new affiliate marketing team which works with @properties’ franchisees and Christie’s International Real Estate affiliates.

Dawn Perry

James Polinori

Realogy

Geneva Financial

As the SVP of strategic cross-brand marketing at Realogy, Dawn Perry drives marketing synergies across Realogy’s six core brands: Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Corcoran Group, ERA and Sotheby’s International Realty. With more than 333,000 affiliated agents under the Realogy umbrella, Perry is helping to arm an expansive network of real estate professionals with the products, technology and marketing strategies that help them stand out in a hypercompetitive marketplace.

Perry is the co-chair of Realogy’s Women’s Employee Resource Group and a frequent speaker at industry events. Perry’s role takes the company’s extensive suite of consumer products, marketing technology and professional development programs and helps to mold them across six widely recognized, completely distinct real estate brands.

In a rapidly changing market, Perry harnesses Realogy’s bird’s-eyeview across its global brokerage umbrella to drive efficiency, simplification, ROI and marketing excellence for individual brands.

CMO James Polinori is taking over the housing industry with his innovative marketing and human touch at Geneva Financial. As an essential part of the organization’s growth and culture, he has expanded the company in more ways than one and delivered prosperous results for the business.

Polinori has been an instrumental part of Geneva Financial’s recent growth and success, which has experienced a 250% national growth by volume and 600% growth in major markets. Polinori is also responsible for growing the company reputation and online visibility over 1,000% to a five-star rating on Google, as well as a Top 3 national ranking by WalletHub for client reviews.

Playing a pivotal role in the company’s culture, Polinori executed a streamlined method for recruiting by launching a platform with Linkedin automation that contributed directly to its growth. In the last year, Geneva Financial was named the number one mortgage bank in Arizona for the second year in a row.

VP, Marketing & Growth

CMO

CMO

JULY 2022

39 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

SVP, Strategic Cross-Brand Marketing

Kate Schillace

Brad Sivert

The Agency

Tavant

Kate Schillace serves as The Agency’s chief creative officer and is at the helm of the company’s experienced in-house marketing and creative team. Through her leadership and creative vision, The Agency continues to set trends, provide an innovative experience and create award-winning marketing campaigns for the firm’s nearly 1,000 agents across 50+ offices in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Europe.

Schillace leads the global brand strategy while overseeing the creative team serving agents and their clients. She continues to collaborate across all departments to bring the multilayered brand’s identity to life and ensure it resonates across all marketing platforms. Before being appointed CCO, Schillace held various positions within The Agency’s creative team over the past seven years. During her tenure at The Agency, Schillace has led brand strategy for the firm and also built an extensive portfolio of luxury clients. She has a vast knowledge and understanding of a broad scope of residential offerings and markets.

Tavant’s Head of Proptech Brad Sivert has a focus and a passion for developing products and marketing solutions. He has held leadership roles across many top fintechs and proptechs for more than 15 years, with the goal of helping Americans get into their dream home. Today, Sivert continues to be inspired to create products and systems that have limitless application.

Tavant’s growth has been exponential, powering more than 3.5 million mortgage applications in 2021, driven by aggressive brand awareness and marketing campaigns. Through his use of consistent news coverage, highlighting customer success stories, industry thought leadership, social media engagement and more, Sivert continues to increase Tavant’s customer base with almost 100,000 followers on Tavant’s LinkedIn. Last year, Tavant enabled 37% of all mortgage transactions while powering more than 55% of the top proptech players in the space — the result of rapid product development, new feature innovations and targeted product-marketing strategies.

Rich Smith

Jessica Swink

PenFed Credit Union

Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group

Since Rich Smith, chief marketing officer home loans, joined PenFed, the home loans marketing team has continued to grow, learn and be inspired with fresh ideas and strategy all while servicing the needs of their members and helping PenFed become one of the largest mortgage originators in the county. In his new role, Smith has moved swiftly across multiple marketing channels to increase strategic marketing tactics that enhance growth.

PenFed’s growth in 2021 came through all distribution channels; however, it was in the direct-to-consumer channel where Smith’s impact was most immediately felt. This channel grew by over 100% last year as a result of expanded digital marketing, increased SEO and unique use of first party and third party data sources to target personalized offers to consumers across all communications channels.

This strategy not only grew the overall channel, but resulted in a 90% increase in mortgage product penetration among PenFed members and a mortgage recapture rate of over 60%.

As vice president of digital and brand experience at Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group, Jessica Swink infuses her passion for product efficiency, strategic thinking and helping others into everything she does. From elevating Atlantic Bay’s digital presence and marketing efforts, to increasing efficacy in various platforms and ensuring her large team is supported and having fun, Swink does it all. And she is currently working on her certification with the School of Mortgage Banking through the Mortgage Bankers Association.

In her nearly five years with Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group, Swink has grown from a product owner to the digital presence manager, marketing director and now to her current role where she manages a team of more than 30 marketing professionals. Swink is an advocate for growth and learning for her team members and counterparts across the company. Since she has taken on the role, the mortgage banker count has grown more than 25% — a testament to her team’s efforts and ongoing support.

Chief Creative Officer

Head of Proptech

40 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

Chief Marketing Officer Home Loans

VP, Digital and Brand Experience

JULY 2022

Kara Taylor

Bev Thorne

ATTOM

Sprout Mortgage

As the EVP and head of the marketing department at ATTOM, Kara Taylor leads a results-driven team composed of brand, content and lead development strategists, which has largely contributed to a record-breaking year in data sales since the company’s inception.

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.

Taylor plays a crucial role in driving the company’s strategic vision, rapid growth and data expansion initiatives. Taylor’s keen abilities to excel at both strategy and hands-on tactical execution have proven beneficial in the proliferation of ATTOM’s portfolio offerings, advanced technology developments and partnerships attained through mergers and acquisitions.

With Taylor in a key leadership position, ATTOM has been able to further scale into a leading provider of nationwide real estate and property data for residential and commercial properties.

Enthusiastic and energetic, Sprout Mortgage’s CMO Bev Thorne is a leader who builds brands and stimulates demand for companies.

Thorne consistently strategizes to improve services, tools and programs which strengthen brand awareness, energize teams, inspire growth and increase revenue enterprise-wide. Thorne shines a light on the organization’s home financing solutions, broadening awareness internally and externally, allowing Sprout to better serve customers and investors whose needs are not commonly met by other mortgage companies.

Thorne leads the marketing team by first listening and then encouraging collaborative thought and action. Magnifying existing strengths, Thorne encourages Sprout team members to think smarter and question everything to stimulate demand. Sprout has seen unprecedented increases in sales volume in 2022 and helped unparalleled numbers of homeowners realize their dreams of home ownership through the power of Sprout’s innovative lending solutions.

Cory Vasquez

Michele Weber

Realty ONE Group

Wolters Kluwer

Cory Vasquez, CMO at Realty ONE Group, is a 23-year communications veteran with a wide range of experience in media relations, crisis communications, social media, digital communications, event planning and more. This experience, combined with her leadership abilities, are an undeniable source of Realty ONE Group’s ongoing growth and success but it’s her bright spirit, attitude and ambition to lift up others that is impactful to her team.

Vasquez has been determined to implement strategies that help the national franchisor grow and succeed while maintaining the company’s young, fiery spirit and its untraditional mindset. In the last year, Realty ONE Group has racked up a number of notable awards for its growth and has been recognized as a Top Franchise for Women, of which Vasquez is incredibly proud. With the support of her dynamic marketing and executive teams, Vasquez has accelerated brand awareness around the country, arming its 17,000 real estate professionals with modern and dynamic marketing assets.

Michele Weber, director of marketing at Wolters Kluwer, is seen by peers as an innovator, pioneer and change agent. With 25 years of marketing expertise, she has developed, supported and driven successful marketing visibility and revenue growth strategies for several companies. Weber has a demonstrated track record of aligning marketing efforts with business strategy and sales to produce impressive results. She surrounds herself with talent and inspires professionals to deliver results that drive business growth.

Based on an outstanding record of accomplishments, Weber was appointed to the top marketing position in Wolters Kluwer compliance solutions. Weber has shifted the marketing team from a generalist-oriented, activity-driven team to a results-oriented group of more than a dozen high-performing professionals who have collectively catapulted Wolters Kluwer’s digital lending and mortgage business line to the top revenue generator position of compliance solutions’ many product lines.

EVP, Marketing

CMO

Director of Marketing

JULY 2022

41 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

CMO

Shannon Williams

Steven Winokur

BoomTown

Angel Oak Lending

Shannon Williams, senior vice president of sales and marketing at BoomTown, is the record breaker and linchpin of the organization’s leadership. Her marketing strategy, sales savvy and investment in people have created record-breaking numbers for BoomTown’s, high-performing teams and new leaders.

Over the past 12 months, Williams built and led a high-potential marketing team that drove record-breaking revenue, marketing and sales. This growth was a result of significant focus on demand generation through increased optimization of digital demand while also reintroducing in-person events, enhancing the value of the platform with major product releases and evolving the brand strategy through M&A, like last year’s acquisition of Brokermint. Along the way, Williams has created and invested in a team of amazing individuals, created a high-performance mindset and established the discipline it takes to continue winning month over month, quarter over quarter and year over year.

Steven Winokur’s leadership as chief marketing officer at Angel Oak Lending helps drive the company to make critical and well-informed decisions to reach its goals. Thanks to Winokur’s leadership and alignment with the company’s brand and corporate story, Angel Oak has one of the highest producing marketing teams in the industry.

Winokur’s role has a direct impact on the organization’s revenue, internal and external relationships and reputation in the market.

Thanks to the messaging and marketing efforts led by Winokur, Angel Oak’s marketing team has been a part of helping the organization exceed its goals in origination volume and grow its brand presence around the country.

Winokur navigated the company through post-COVID-19 challenges and steered Angel Oak to reposition its company and marketing function in a changed marketplace. As a result of quick pivots in messaging, strategy and tactics, Winokur’s team has become expert in quick-shift strategy planning and implementation.

Melissa Wright

Eric Zhou

American Pacific Mortgage

First Guaranty Mortgage Corporation

In just a short time as chief sales and marketing officer, Melissa Wright’s imprint can be seen in all areas of American Pacific Mortgage — from visuals to communications, to sales and marketing strategies.

Under her direction, the company has rebranded, built a new website, honed its messaging and launched several consumer and recruiting campaigns, all returning huge dividends. From strategy to creation, implementation to insight, Wright’s personalized touch and strategic vision can be seen in all of it.

With over 25 years in the mortgage industry, Wright knew what the brand needed to align its aesthetic and voice with the company’s vision. Prior to her current role, Wright was the EVP of production for APM with a primary focus on loan originations and growth. Yet, in 2018 when the APM marketing department was without strategic vision and leadership, Wright volunteered to take it on. And she didn’t just take it on; she transformed it. In just two years, she completely exploded the APM brand. In 2021, Wright was promoted to CSMO.

A graphic designer at heart, Eric Zhou leverages over 25 years of marketing experience as vice president of brand strategy at First Guaranty Mortgage Corporation. Zhou uniquely blends participative, visionary and coaching leadership styles to empower his team to think big and understand how their efforts impact the company’s continued success. With a curious and creative mind, he has been influential in developing the Maverick Solutions brand identity, building marketing support and positioning the FGMC brand in the distributed retail channel and implementing strategies and technology to grow the department and drive the company forward.

Under Zhou’s guidance, his team plans to introduce new technology to streamline the MLO onboarding process, automate the development of personalized web pages and utilize industry tools like Total Expert to maximize departmental bandwidth. A quiet force, Zhou’s forward-thinking approach gives FGMC the ability to disrupt the industry while positioning his team and the company for long-term success.

SVP, Sales and Marketing

CMO

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Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

VP, Brand Strategy

JULY 2022

2022

V NGUARDS

Celebrating the U.S. housing economy’s leaders of the year

Nominations close July 22, 2022

FHA Commissioner Julia Gordon gets to work Many issues are now before Gordon at the FHA, including potential changes to servicing guidelines and mortgage

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premiums

By Maria Volkova JULY 2022

JULY 2022

45 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

Julia Gordon

made a habit of stopping

by Ed Golding’s office

“I always used to joke with her that she knew more about the program than I

46 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

did, she was just very thorough.”

-Ed Golding

when he ran the agency she now leads.

Golding, who served as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s principal deputy assistant secretary from 2015 to 2017, said what most stood out to him during Gordon’s visits was her vast knowledge of how the FHA functioned.

“I always used to joke with her that she knew more about the program than I did, she was just very thorough,” Golding said.

President Joe Biden clearly agreed. With her nearly two decades of experience in the housing industry, Gordon secured Biden’s nomination to lead the federal agency. After a lengthy and occasionally fraught confirmation process, she’ll soon return to Golding’s former office — this time as the face of the FHA. Stakeholders in the mortgage industry have described Gordon as “extremely qualified,” “dedicated to addressing affordable housing issues” and as a “pragmatic liberal who will bring people to the table.”

But despite industry admirers, Gordon narrowly eked out a victory to be confirmed as FHA commissioner, a position that had been vacant since early 2021. The May 11 Senate vote was so evenly divided that Vice President Kamala Harris had to cast the deciding vote, breaking a 50-50 tie.

The vote put an end to a drawn out and tumultuous confirmation process, which got off on shaky footing. From the outset, Senate Republicans criticized Gordon for what they deemed “anti-police rhetoric” on social media.

Some of the ire toward Gordon goes deeper than political allegiance, however.

She previously has testified about the way her upbringing shaped her values — she believes in creating a path to homeownership for all and has said stopping pandemic-related foreclosures will be a priority — providing plenty of public statements for Republicans such as Pat Toomey to critique.

Gordon did not respond to a request for comment, so her vision for the FHA, beyond what she’s said publicly, remains unknown. But as she takes the helm, industry professionals are focusing on those previous public comments to predict her priorities. Whatever Gordon pursues during her tenure, Golding expects his friend to stay true to her own vision.

“Julia is very strong-willed, and she has strong values. And while she listens, you're not going to pull the wool over her eyes,” said Golding.

Stakeholder wish list: “Julia ... can do something to bring that to fruition” Industry stakeholders have a lengthy list of changes they hope Gordon will implement. Perhaps the most common expectation for Gordon is to usher in changes to FHA’s servicing handbook. Representatives of multiple mortgage trade groups have said if the FHA modernizes servicing guidelines and aligns them more closely to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, depository institutions will return — at least partially — to the FHA program.

Brian Chappelle, owner of Potomac Partners, a Washington D.C.-based consultancy that lobbies for lenders, said he personally stressed the importance of this to Gordon when she worked on the transition team for the Biden administration from Oct. 2020 to Jan. 2021.

“The Obama administration worked on it, the Trump administration worked on it, and now the Biden administration is working on it,” said Chappelle. “Well, I think Julia, because of her knowledge and experience, can do something to bring that to fruition.”

Gordon has professional experience in both the public sector and at nonprofit

JULY 2022

JULY 2022

“Julia is very strongwilled, and she has strong values. And while she listens, you’re not going to pull the wool over her eyes.”

-Ed Golding

“We should reduce the premiums just to help pay for the gasoline.”

-Joe Ventrone 47 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

organizations. According to her LinkedIn profile, she worked at the Center for Responsible Learning from 2007 to 2011, at the Federal Housing Finance Agency from 2011 to 2012 and at the Center for American Progress from 2012 to 2015.

Most recently, Gordon was president of the National Community Stabilization Trust, which facilitates the transfer of foreclosed and abandoned properties from financial institutions to local housing organizations for property reuse.

Industry insiders believe her varied experience and background as an attorney make her particularly qualified to address long-standing and acute challenges facing the FHA, including outdated servicing requirements.

“Some of my clients have told me that they’ll come back in and service FHA loans if there are reasonable requirements, along the lines of the GSE’s,” Chappelle added.

Meg Burns, executive vice president at Housing Policy Council and former employee at the administration, said FHA’s servicing guidelines are “a little out of sync with the industry” and need an update.

“They’re inconsistent with the GSE’s policies and practices and as a result, they are fairly inefficient and can be costly,” Burns said. “There is an operational burden of attempting to comply with the FHA rules, which makes it challenging, and banks have been asking for a number of years now for changes to the policies and practices.”

One prominent annoyance with FHA’s servicing handbook is the stringent requirement for reporting delinquencies. Servicers must report delinquencies every month and if they forget to report a delinquency, interest on the loan is automatically curtailed for at least a year, said Chappelle.

“If you don’t foreclose on a borrower for another year, they stop prepaying interest … so the lender loses a whole year of interest just because they missed one notification requirement,” he said. “A lender should be penalized, but if they correct it the next month, they shouldn’t be penalized for a year or two.”

The FHA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Many industry stakeholders, including industry veteran Joe Ventrone, believe Gordon will turn her focus to “closing the minority homeownership gap and racial equity.”

Industry stakeholders have some ideas for how to further that goal, starting with more clarification on some FHA lending programs.

An example of a HUD program in need of clarification is the department’s down payment assistance program, especially those allowing seller-funded down payment assistance. This type of funding has been labeled by some Senate Republicans as “circular funding schemes.”

Lenders are cautious about risky FHA products because “they’re worried about liability,” Chapelle said. That’s particularly true of lenders stymied by settlements stemming from suits brought under the False Claims Act, resulting in some hesitation offering riskier products to borrowers.

Now that she’s been confirmed, some former HUD employees and industry professionals think the odds are good Gordon will slash premiums.

“My sense is that within 30 days there will be a reduction of the premiums for the sake of helping the bottom end,” said Ventrone, an advisor for the National Association of Realtors. “I’ve said, ‘Christ, we should reduce the premiums just to help pay for the gasoline.’”

Golding said the administration charges borrowers too much, a problem he hopes Gordon will soon solve.

“It was intended to be a mutual fund, it wasn’t supposed to be a revenue source for the government. The minimum ratio is 2%. It’s way above that. By any measure they’re overcharging,” he said.

But HUD has resisted lowering the up-front and life-of-loan fees. In March 2021, HUD Sec. Marcia Fudge said the agency had “no near-term plans” to change FHA’s mortgage insurance premium pricing. Since then, there has been no adjustment to the premiums. Meanwhile, the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund has a capital ratio of 8.03% as of September 2021 — almost four times the required statutory minimum.

There are an elevated number of delinquent borrowers in the FHA portfolio, HUD officials explained in an annual report to Congress, and should that lead to an increase in foreclosures, home prices could drop. Instead, delinquencies have lurched downward, igniting hope the department will cut premiums.

As of February 2022, 6.48% of FHA loans were seriously delinquent, down from 7.28% in December 2021, according to the FHA’s latest report. And while foreclosures are expected to increase, a large wave is unlikely thanks to myriad options for the deferral of forborne payments, expanded modifications and the rapid level of home price appreciation.

Reducing premiums is a measure FHA could tackle on its own. But the industry also hopes the FHA and other housing agencies will work more closely on policy matters. Ventrone believes that will be one of Gordon’s priorities.

Another hope from the industry is increased collaboration between the FHA and other housing agencies, which Ventrone believes Gordon’s confirmation ensures. Specifically, he expects coordinated efforts to address topics such as what FHA should do with premiums, FHFA’s risk-based loan pricing, and “hopefully g-fees,” which the GSEs charge to buffer against potential credit losses.

“You can guarantee that there will be coordination between FHFA and FHA because Julia has been at FHFA and knows the impact,” he said.

“How to serve the buyers of the future”

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Will Gordon cut mortgage premiums? She has supported reducing them in the past, and at a time when the capital ratio was far below current levels.

In 2015, when Gordon was a senior director at the Center for American Progress, she testified before the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance that reducing mortgage premiums implemented by the Obama administration would “help (ensure) that FHA continues to be available to the underserved borrowers that most need it.”

As the economy improved, Obama’s administration cut mortgage premiums by more than a third, slashing premiums from 1.35% to .85%, at a time when the capital ratio was 2.07%.

Currently premiums are hovering at 1.75%, and the capital ratio is 8.03%.

“You can guarantee that there will be coordination between FHFA and FHA because Julia has been at FHFA and knows the impact.”

-Joe Ventrone JULY 2022

During her testimony, Gordon said this “recalibration” would help spur a steady supply of first-time homebuyers who could then become move-up homebuyers.

In 2014, Gordon told the Senate Banking Committee the administration must cut premiums because if the “fees are not set correctly, FHA’s customers, who are more likely to be minority and first-time homebuyers, will be saddled with additional unnecessary expenses, perpetuating an unequal mortgage market.”

She also said first-generation homebuyers and borrowers with student debt may struggle to put down a 20% down payment on a property and that it should be the administration’s mission to figure out “how to serve the buyers of the future.”

Mike Calhoun, president of CRL, said Gordon is “very much committed to addressing the affordable housing problem and the racial homeownership gap.”

“It’s important that Julia has worked on this across the spectrum both in urban and rural communities,” Calhoun said. As such, she would bring “real rigor” to crafting policy beneficial to all, he added.

During the hearing in 2015, Gordon said the FHA should focus on improving its program that allows homebuyers to include renovation and repair costs in their mortgage payments, which would “help hard-hit neighborhoods.”

Gordon also said the FHA could provide expanded access to the program for nonprofit affordable-housing and community development groups. A few months after the hearing, Gordon transitioned to NCST, a community development program that restores vacant and abandoned properties.

She added that Congress should give the FHA the “authority and latitude to make certain business judgment within the congressionally mandated framework.” FHA, unlike Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, must operate within the confines of the Congressional appropriations process, rather than funding itself from its book of business.

“Congress should also support FHA’s ability to invest in its infrastructure and quality assurance processes,” she said.

In a testimony last year, Gordon gave the mortgage industry a sneak peek of what her priorities would be if she were to head the FHA. Gordon described the pillars supporting her ideological framework, specifically touching on

Twitter woes: “Julia's controversy is on tweets — not on substance” Gordon was originally nominated by President Joe Biden in June 2021, but Gordon and Senate Republicans did not get off on the right foot.

Using the social media platform Twitter in 2020, Gordon retweeted a post criticizing the police — resulting in swift backlash. The tweet has since been deleted and Gordon has publicly said she does not support efforts to defund the police.

But last year, Senate Republicans from the Senate Banking Committee, specifically Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, asked Gordon to explain the tweet criticizing the police. Additionally, Republicans on the committee wrote to Biden to ask for the withdrawal of Gordon’s nomination due to the tweets.

The letter pointed out that Gordon retweeted a thread posted by NCST that proclaimed the organization’s solidarity with those “who seek to dismantle 400 years of personal and structural racism.” Senate Republicans argued these types of statements “call into question (her) fitness to serve in a senior position in the federal government.”

Toomey, in a statement published in May 2022, also criticized Gordon’s career in housing.

“Despite record home and rental prices, Ms. Gordon advocates for throwing more taxpayer money at the housing market,” Toomey said. “It’s government intervention that caused massive inflation in the housing market. The last thing the housing market needs are more demand-side subsidies.”

In October 2021 the committee tied in a vote to advance Gordon’s nomination. Three months later, the committee held the same vote and ended up with the same result: a tie on whether to push Gordon’s nomination to a full Senate vote. Ultimately, the nomination was returned to Biden in January 2022, although the nomination process restarted just days later, when Biden sent Gordon’s nomination to the Senate for reconsideration.

When it again fell short of approval from the Senate Banking Committee, her nomination went to the full Senate for a vote on whether to allow the nomination to go forward.

Gordon’s nomination sat in limbo until early April when the Senate narrowly advanced her nomination. Vice President Kamala Harris’s vote broke a tie, placing Gordon’s nomination on the Senate calendar. She was confirmed as commissioner of the FHA May 11.

Former HUD officials, fair housing advocates and industry observers applauded after the Senate confirmed Gordon, with many noting that the FHA, which oversees $1.2 trillion in single-family forward and reverse mortgages, has been

JULY 2022

“It’s important that Julia has worked on this across the spectrum both in urban and rural communities.”

-Mike Calhoun

in dire need of a commissioner.

Stakeholders in housing have decried the delay as a purely political powerplay. One industry consultant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said “Gordon unfortunately fell victim to our political times.”

“Their President Donald Trump was crucified on tweets so they’re pinging back and it’s very clear, they’re doing an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Julia’s controversy is on tweets — not on substance,” the consultant said.

Golding also suggested the reluctance of Republican lawmakers to support Gordon’s nomination was not a reflection of Gordon’s qualifications.

“It has to do with the times,” Golding said.

“This should have been a 100-0 voice vote. You couldn’t find a person of higher quality.”

As she reflected on the role of the FHA Commissioner and Gordon’s potential confirmation ahead of the vote, Burns, the former FHA employee, said the head of the administration wears two hats.

“One of the interesting things about all of these government positions is that there’s this externally facing function that is so critically important to organizations, but that internal piece of managing a very large bureaucracy is also really important,” Burns said. “She’s got that right level of knowledge and reputational expertise that will really generate some loyalty and support from the ranks, which is really important in a job like that.”

49 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

the importance of homeownership: She pointed to her mom’s life, which “has not always been easy,” and went on to describe her own childhood, growing up in a single-family rental with low-income parents.

“This lived experience undergirds my commitment to promoting homeownership, which is the best path to family stability and prosperity, and to ensuring that we support safe, affordable and habitable rental housing,” she said during her testimony.

During her hearing, Gordon said her priorities if confirmed would be preventing foreclosures stemming from COVID-19 pandemic-related economic hardships and increasing the supply of affordable housing for both rental and ownership.

“While FHA has already done a lot of hard work to develop the right tools to help these homeowners begin to pay their mortgage again, there is still a very steep hill to climb,” she said in the fall of 2021.

- SPECIAL REPORT -

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50 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

efinance volume was projected to fall after last year’s record-breaking boom, and this year’s rising mortgage rates have further pronounced the downward trend in volume. In light of this, brokers are compelled to find new areas of opportunity, such as expanding their product offerings. When venturing into the world of non-QM and other specialty lending options, it’s important to partner with experts in the field who can provide reliable training, support and solutions. The four companies featured in this section work to empower brokers through this changing market environment while offering products and solutions for every borrower’s needs.

Champions Funding........................52 Flagstar Bank.........................53 Deephaven Mortgage............................54 United Wholesale Mortgage...............55

JULY 2022

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51 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

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JULY 2022

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CHAMPIONS FUNDING ChampsTPO.com

THE EXECUTIVES:

EVAN M. STONE, CO-FOUNDER, CEO Evan Stone taps into decades of success as former Founder/CEO of Pacific Union Financial, owner of ClearVision Funding and the newly acquired Community Savings Bank to lead the new CDFI-certified non-QM wholesale lender Champions Funding.

NATALIE VERRETTE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Natalie Verrette brings extensive experience in growing all areas of mortgage productions, operations and fulfillment for large-scale mortgage lenders to Champions where she is committed to serve the underserved.

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KIMBERLEY TORRES, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES

Champions Funding’s non-QM solutions empower brokers to service borrowers’ unique needs

F

acing a housing market in transition, mortgage lenders are striving to provide funding access to a growing population of non-traditional borrowers.

As these borrowers begin to comprise a significant part of overall housing demand, brokers and LOs want to partner with wholesale lenders who understand how to serve this emerging customer base.

With demand for alternative lending expected to increase, Champions Funding empowers their broker partners to service diverse borrower needs by providing solutions-driven results in the non-QM space.

The brokers who partner with Champions Funding benefit from exceptional support from a team that truly cares about their business goals.

“Our robust programs are supported by our exceptional underwriting and client relations team who offer one-on-one support,” said Natalie Verrette, president and COO of Champions Funding.

“When brokers are put on hold, their business is on hold. It’s our goal to cut the clutter and underwriting friction to get brokers and their borrowers on a pathway to a ‘yes’ faster.”

Champions Funding is also helping put brokers on a pathway to serving the historically underserved. The company understands that today’s homebuyer doesn’t necessarily fit into a traditional agency credit box, allowing them to build solutions that work with the needs of a changing borrower population.

“Expanding access to financing beyond the limits of traditional lending with our unique CDFI lending options, while simultaneously offering our partners the benefit of efficiency-streamlined fulfillment, is exactly the type of innovation needed in today’s market to help drive a best-inclass customer experience in the non-QM space,” explained Kimberley Torres, exec-

Kimberley Torres leverages 20-plus years in the mortgage industry where she’s focused on ensuring the ultimate client experience and is responsible for the strategic direction, vision, growth and performance of the Champions sales organization.

JULY 2022

utive vice president of sales at Champion Funding.

As one of the few lenders to hold a Communit y Development F ina ncial Institution (CDFI) designation, Champions Funding promotes growth in some of the nation’s most distressed communities.

Utilizing the company’s flagship program, Ally, brokers can tap into a one trillion-dollar market backed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury while reaching creditworthy borrowers whose communities have been historically underserved.

“We’re seeing a boom in these community-focused loans, which propels our mission to serve the underserved,” explained Evan Stone, co-founder and CEO of Champions Funding.

Serving the underserved isn’t the only way Champions Funding differentiates itself from other wholesale lenders. Besides their end-to-end user experience and non-QM lending innovation, the company boasts a diverse and primarily woman-led team.

“We’re proud to be one of the few lenders where the majority of the executive team are women,” Verrette said. “We’re staffing our team with highly motivated and talented mortgage professionals who may have been overlooked.”

Moreover, Champions Funding is debunking the myth that non-QM loans are laborious and slow by providing personalized support and speedy closings. In another example of their push to empower, the company’s best-in-class HERO broker platform is named after exactly what it is designed to do: Helping Empower Real Opportunity.

With the mortgage industry expected to encounter more new challenges as the housing market continues to shift, Champions Funding is poised to be at the forefront of what’s to come.

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W

ith more hopeful homeowners searching for non-traditional lending solutions, brokers are looking to partner with wholesale lenders that can offer unique options. For those borrowers historically underserved in the traditional mortgage industry, Deephaven Mortgage has proven that its expertise in the non-QM space can benefit both brokers and borrowers.

With more than a thousand independent mortgage brokers counting on their knowledge and experience, the account executives at Deephaven Mortgage have a reputation for helping their brokers thrive each step of the way.

“We work with brokers on their submissions from the get-go by recommending the right product, catching errors or missing information up-front and stewarding the application through to underwriting,” said Tom Davis, chief sales officer at Deephaven Mortgage. “Our brokers know we stand by our terms and commitments.

And because our underwriting is in-house, we respond faster and can be more flexible with borrowers’ individual situations.”

As the demand for non-QM continues to grow, brokers want to know that they are fully equipped to handle an influx of non-QM borrowers. While adding non-QM options to their product offering could be big for business, many brokers may not have the practical experience required to negotiate these loan types effectively.

That’s where Deephaven comes in.

“Brokers who are new to non-QM are eager to offer these loans to grow their value and their business. On the other hand, they’re often worried it may be difficult to learn how to broker non-QM,” said Shelly Griffin, senior vice president

of Client Development. “Deephaven offers great, hands-on training that quickly gets brokers comfortable with the process and submitting loans. We also provide them with white label marketing materials explaining non-QM and different product options that they can simply pass on to borrowers or real estate agents.”

Deephaven also offers a bank statement loan program feature that provides an excellent solution to evaluate the financial position for borrowers who are self-employed or small business owners.

Moreover, Deephaven’s 15-day DSCR (Debt Service Coverage Ratio) loan program give brokers a competitive advantage in a booming property investment market.

By pioneering more non-traditional lending solutions, Deephaven is keeping pace with a housing market and workforce that is constantly evolving. The team at Deephaven continues to adapt its products and approach to align with the needs of today to help future borrowers meet their homebuying goals and to help brokers meet their business goals.

“Entrepreneurs, self-employed workers, business owners, property investors — more and more people are choosing to do it their way. As the demand for non-QM continues to grow, it will become more mainstream to the point where it will be unusual for a wholesale broker not to include non-QM in their product offering,” said Steve Lemon, senior vice president and national head of Wholesale Sales.

“Our role is to lead the adoption of nonQM by the wholesale broker community through product innovation, great training and fantastic support for both brokers and borrowers.”

DEEPHAVEN MORTGAGE deephavenmortgage.com

THE EXECUTIVES:

TOM DAVIS, CHIEF SALES OFFICER Tom Davis manages Deephaven’s Wholesale and Correspondent sales channels and brings 20+ years of experience helping lending partners with their non-agency/non-QM and agency needs.

SHELLY GRIFFIN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CLIENT DEVELOPMENT Shelly Griffin’s profound knowledge of loan processing and underwriting translates into confident, long-term client relationships. She has helped innumerable mortgage professionals successfully roll out non-QM products for their organizations.

STEVE LEMON, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL HEAD OF WHOLESALE SALES Steve Lemon is expanding Deephaven’s broker network as the demand for Deephaven’s non-QM products increases. Steve brings more than 25 years of success in sales and support in the non-QM space.

JULY 2022

53 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

Deephaven Mortgage offers hands-on training to help brokers gain expertise with non-QM product offerings

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FLAGSTAR BANK www.flagstar.com/why

THE EXECUTIVES:

LEE SMITH, EVP, PRESIDENT OF MORTGAGE Lee Smith is responsible for the direction and oversight of all aspects of mortgage, including mortgage sales and originations, secondary and capital markets, mortgage fulfillment operations and mortgage servicing, as well as the strategic growth of Flagstar’s mortgage and servicing businesses.

JOHN GIBSON, SVP, NATIONAL SALES DIRECTOR; WHOLESALE & CORRESPONDENT LENDING

T

he housing market has undergone a significant transformation over the past two years. While a booming market kept brokers busy in 2021, the 2022 housing market has been underscored by rising interest rates, inflation and geopolitical turbulence. In response, many brokers are relying on extra support, and Flagstar Bank offers exactly that.

With 35 years of experience in the mortgage business, Flagstar has a reputation for successfully navigating the ebb and flow of an ever-changing housing market.

Not only does Flagstar offer brokers direct access to seasoned sales, support and underwriting teams, it also provides a product set that includes specialty lending options like the Advantage non-agency loan, jumbos, new construction, renovation products and HELOCs, and in the pipeline, loans to foreign nationals, seconds and investor property loans.

“We’re well-capitalized and committed to mortgage, particularly the broker channel. We have a broad product set, competitive pricing and great technology,” said Lee Smith, EVP and president of mortgage.

“Our brokers are our partners. We treat them like family and want to help them grow their businesses and be successful.”

Moreover, Flagstar ensures that their broker partners have the tech solutions to meet their business goals. Powerful LOS technology, including DIY documents, automated alerts and third-party integrations, ensures brokers have the tools they need when they need them.

“We continue to make investments in our technology to streamline the process for our broker partners as well as integrate third-party platforms like Arive, Caylx All-In and Experience.com,” said John

54 ❱ HOUSINGWIRE

With nearly 30 years of experience in the mortgage industry, John Gibson is responsible for the strategic direction, growth and profitability of Flagstar’s broker and correspondent channels.

Flagstar Bank offers brokers direct access to seasoned specialty lending experts and powerful tech solutions

JULY 2022

Gibson, SVP and national sales director of wholesale and correspondent lending.

Thanks to its multichannel business model, Flagstar helps brokers transition to mortgage bankers, and it’s been doing that successfully for over 20 years. As the second-largest warehouse lender, Flagstar is well-positioned to introduce warehouse lines to brokers-turned-bankers. Flagstar also offers brokers the opportunity to participate in the Flagstar FLEX monthly webinar series designed to help them better their businesses.

“Our platform is scalable, and we allow brokers to work with us the way that they choose. We understand they have options, so everything we do revolves around what is in their best interest and making the process as easy as possible,” Smith noted.

Because Flagstar is a major player in the broker channel with a long-standing commitment to the space, brokers who work with Flagstar can be confident they have a partner with the expertise to help them thrive. An accelerated broker closing program and regional underwriting and closing teams are just some of the ways Flagstar’s wholesale program equips brokers with the tools they need to grow.

“Wholesale is expanding, and given our experience in this channel, we expect to be at the forefront of supporting brokers for many years to come,” Gibson said.

As the housing market remains predictably cyclical, Flagstar is dedicated to ensuring its brokers receive the best service possible.

“We’re always listening to our business partners and adjusting our offerings to meet their needs — and we’ll keep doing that as the space continues to grow,” Gibson said.

- SPECIAL REPORT -

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United Wholesale Mortgage’s program Boost helps independent mortgage brokers connect with borrowers Through this new marketplace, brokers will be able to hire a team of associates to call past and prospective clients on their behalf, then live-transfer them directly back to the broker. In addition, they can hire a dedicated team who will help identify potential real-estate agent partnerships and schedule one-on-one introductory meetings. Brokers will also have the opportunity to purchase leads tailored to fit their unique business needs.

“Providing our clients with the tools they need to grow in every market and get better is a top priority for UWM,” said Bryan Miller, vice president of National Sales.

“We keep our ears to the ground and are always ready to pivot, find a solution and develop technologies our clients need to have a competitive edge.”

On top of offering resources like Boost, UWM has also put an emphasis on keeping clients up to speed on industry knowledge, technology and tools, as well as supporting business professional and personal development. It recently expanded its Success Track curriculum by adding a variety of new courses, including more specialized training for loan officers, processors and broker owners plus virtual electives each week that focus on specific and timely topics. Whether they’re new to the industry, an industry vet or have been to Success Track before, UWM’s clients continuously improve through these courses and are set up for sustained success.

UWM firmly believes the time to dominate as an independent mortgage broker is now. With its unwavering dedication to the wholesale channel, the company will continue to find new and innovative ways to support and advocate for mortgage brokers across the country.

THE EXECUTIVES:

BRYAN MILLER, VICE PRESIDENT OF NATIONAL SALES Bryan Miller is a key support system to UWM’s highest producing clients and is focused on helping them grow their business and create strong relationships.

JUSTIN GLASS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER Justin Glass has a unique ability to marry his innate knowledge of the mortgage business with today’s technology and is always innovating systems to operate more effectively, creating a broker experience that is unparalleled in the industry.

LAUREN MILLER, VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING Lauren Miller leads marketing and brand strategy related to UWM product launches, partnerships, business development and wholesale channel growth initiatives further ensuring smooth, efficient and flawless execution.

JULY 2022

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ntuitive technologies developed and built by experts in both mortgages and technology can drive efficiency, reliability and profitability when paired with exceptional customer service. To further catapult wholesale channel growth, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) remains committed to developing proprietary technology and amplifying state-of-the-art training programs for mortgage brokers across the country.

“At UWM, we’re always looking for ways our brokers can grow their business,” said Justin Glass, senior vice president and chief digital officer at UWM. “This type of cutting-edge technology is driven by the needs of the broker community, and we’re always gathering and implementing feedback so we can provide tools that will help our clients continue to grow their business.”

UWM recently launched an exclusive new marketplace called Boost. This program provides independent mortgage brokers in the UWM network with streamlined access to services that allow them to grow and manage their businesses more effectively.

Specifically, it’s designed to help brokers easily connect with borrowers and real estate agents using a level of speed and support that’s completely new to the industry.

“With Boost, we’re providing our clients with a powerful one-stop shop for some of the most valuable tools and resources in the industry,” said Lauren Miller, vice president of marketing at UWM. “This exclusive marketplace will save our clients time and money, while also helping them establish and maintain relationships for the long term, and we’ll continue to curate and add new services based on their evolving needs.”

UNITED WHOLESALE MORTGAGE uwm.com

TRADE DESK

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.

AIME......................................57 MBA ......................................57 NAHB ....................................58

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NAMMBA...............................58

JULY 2022

TRADE DESK

Katie Sweeney

CEO Association of Independent Mortgage Experts

AIME members, July is a month for celebration — not just for our nation, but for brokers from coast to coast. As we embark upon our fifth anniversary of celebrating independent mortgage experts for National Mortgage Brokers Day, I’m reflecting on the journey we’ve taken as a community up to this point.

From our humble beginnings as an online group with roughly 1,500 Facebook followers to a membership association with thousands of members from every market in the country, it’s mind-blowing to see how far we’ve come in such a short time.

Now we reach over 65,000 wholesale mortgage professionals with varying degrees of experience in the industry, different business models and numerous job titles that keep our channel growing exponentially. We

have established a voice on Capitol Hill with dedicated advocates fighting for what’s best for brokers, homebuyers, and homeowners alike. We have partners who are growing with us and helping to spread the word that brokers are the best option for a consumer to get a mortgage. We have thousands of mentors within our own community who are sharing their knowledge with other brokers to help them learn, grow and master their skills. We have a true community and our team couldn’t be prouder.

AIME has a focused vision for the future, one that includes continued expansion and growth, capitalizing on the momentum we’ve garnered. Join us on Monday, July 18th, in celebrating everything that the broker channel has accomplished, and cheers to our future!

MBA members, Since 2020, mortgage lenders have helped a record number of homeowners refinance their mortgage, while also offering forbearance to more than 6 million families, helping them come through the COVID-19 pandemic in a more secure financial position.

As policymakers look to apply lessons learned from the capacity challenges originators faced during this unprecedented time, their best bet is to remove the barriers that prevent lenders from scaling up to meet customer demand.

Four potential reforms deserve special attention.

1. FHFA and the GSEs should remove underwriting, appraisal and other operational barriers for streamlined rate/term refis, including for borrowers in government-mandated forbearance.

This policy would reduce processing bottlenecks and help lenders quickly process and fund refinancing transactions on loans the GSEs already guarantee, that simply lower interest rates and monthly payments to borrowers, with no additional risk to the GSEs. 2. CFPB should facilitate streamlined rate reduction refis by providing an exemption from the Ability to Repay rule for loans that reduce interest rates and payments without exposing

borrowers to greater default risk. As with the GSE streamlined option, lenders could bypass cumbersome and costly income and asset documentation and verifications and process these streamlined loans more quickly.

3. State policymakers should facilitate more remote work options. This move would allow lenders to hire more people — without having to increase their physical footprint.

4. Policymakers and mortgage lenders should collaborate to enact more digital solutions, from e-notes and automated appraisals to remote online notarizations and digital signatures. Broader adoption of digital solutions throughout the mortgage process lowers costs and speeds the lending process.

These reforms will empower mortgage lenders to serve more families, in good times and bad.

Robert Broeksmit President & CEO Mortgage Bankers Association

Mortgage Bankers Association JULY 2022

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Association of Independent Mortgage Experts

Jerry Konter

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Chairman National Association of Home Builders

National Association of Home Builders

TRADE DESK

NAHB members, Three leading industry trade shows will take place at the same time next year, as the National Hardware Show joins the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) International Builders’ Show (IBS) and the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show for Design & Construction Week 2023, Jan. 31Feb. 2, at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nev. NAHB CEO Jerry Howard sums up the excitement we are all feeling about the opportunity for attendees to explore even more products and services to grow their businesses.

“We are absolutely thrilled that the National Hardware Show will be in Las Vegas during the same time that Design & Construction Week takes place,” Howard said. “The synergy it creates will allow attendees to maintain a competitive edge in the market.”

The 2022 IBS in Orlando emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic like a hungry bear after a long winter, with attendance far exceeding expectations and reflecting the pent-up enthusiasm of every individual in the

NAMMBA members, The secret to success in the CRA/LMI marketplace isn’t a formula. It isn’t banging your head on the proverbial brick wall hoping for a breakthrough.

And it isn’t trying the same old tactics in the hope that something sticks. It’s a combination of knowledge and becoming a part of the community you serve.

Success just isn’t that easy to achieve, but is well worth the effort, with up to 100% of market growth expected to come from historically underserved markets through 2040. How can you get your team on board with CRA/LMI lending AND help them smash their sales goals?

I’ve taken what I have learned as a successful sales manager, team leader and creator and distilled it into an 8-session coaching program called Certified Community Lender (CCL).

CCL is powerful because it covers why the CRA is necessary and why this market is the backbone of creating long-term stability in the marketplace. You’ll learn game plans for making alliances with partners

home-building industry. More than 45,000 home building professionals filled the Orange County Convention Center for IBS 2022, the first all-industry gathering in more than two years, while Design and Construction Week drew more than 70,000 attendees overall. Attending the annual IBS helps keep our industry strong. Every IBS registration, along with exhibitor revenue, supports the advocacy work we do on Capitol Hill and in state capitols and local communities for home-building professionals everywhere. IBS is the premier event for our industry and is the only place you can get your products and services in front of all the key dealers and distributors across that entire industry in just three days. When NAHB members achieve professional success, the communities we live in are stronger, we create more jobs, and together we keep the heartbeat of our nation’s economy humming.

Find out more about attending IBS, sharing your knowledge as an educational speaker, or exhibiting along with the best of the best in our industry at buildersshow.com.

like real estate agents and builders. Loan originators will craft business plans and learn how to host successful education and homebuyer seminars. You can set up your team to become trusted advisors in the communities they serve … not just loan salespeople.

Your team can grow from resisting this market to incorporating it as a part of a healthy, sustainable and ultimately profitable part of your company’s lending mix.

You have to plan how your loan origination team will tackle serving this market … but you don’t have to create and execute the plan yourself.

Been there. Done that. Got the fancy pocket square and the job accolades to prove it.

Let’s talk about how Certified Community Lender coaching with NAMMBA can cultivate your team for leadership in this sector.

National Association of Minority Mortgage Bankers of America JULY 2022

Tony Thompson

Founder/CEO National Association of Minority Mortgage Bankers of America

HousingWire’s top stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Find the right fit for you: www.housingwire.com/newsletters

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TITLE

JULY 2022

TITLE

Colorado Springs offers a window into Stewart’s title strategy COMPANY IS FOCUSING ITS EXPANSION ON "PRIORITY" MARKETS

BY BROOKLEE HAN

the pandemic.

But Stewart Information Services Corporation, the smallest of the nation’s “Big Four” title insurers, has planned for this inevitability.

On its first quarter earnings call earlier this year, CEO Fred Eppinger highlighted the firm’s growth in Colorado as a prime example of how expanding in strategic markets has helped the company juice revenue and improve performance, even in a choppy market.

“In Colorado Springs we were a small operation,” he said. “We probably had only a marginal contribution

"Now we are probably the leader on the purchase market in Colorado Springs, and the stability that comes with that is tremendous."

- Fred Eppinger

JULY 2022

and what would happen is we would get crushed during the first quarter because seasonally we didn’t have enough volume and we couldn’t adjust any of the resources there. Plus, we would be just one option in town and people would pick from a challenger because we didn’t have the breadth of operation. Now we are probably the leader on the purchase market in Colorado Springs, and the stability that comes with that is tremendous.”

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According to Eppinger, Stewart’s recent merger and acquisition spree has helped the firm improve its scale in what it called “priority markets.” And its investment in technology support and innovation have helped the title insurer deliver consistent service to its customers, he said. In the first few weeks of 2022, Stewart acquired Nashville-based

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ue to rising mor tgage rate s , soaring home pric e s and low inventor y, the title insurance industry is falling precipitously from the record highs achieved during

TITLE

Homeland Title, as well as a majority interest in Houston-based Great American Title Company.

“The backdrop of rising interest rates, normal seasonality and uncertainty about the spring selling season is weighing on the start of 2022, but this is the market environment we have been preparing for,” Eppinger said on the company’s earnings call.

During the first quarter of 2022, Stewart saw the total number of title orders opened drop to 116,755 from 157,918 a year ago. Although the purchase category saw a small decrease — dropping by 2,300 orders — falling refinance volume was most responsible for reduced title volume.

Refinance title orders dropped by nearly 50% from Q1 2021 to Q1 2022, falling from 81,750 orders to 40,574 orders. Commercial was the only sector that saw an increase, rising from 3,569 opened orders during the first quarter of 2021 to 6,042 opened orders during the first quarter of 2022.

Despite these dips in volume, Stewart notched yet another strong quarter financially. In Q1 2022, the firm generated a total revenue of $853.9 million, up from $688.6 million a year ago, and saw net income rise to $57.9 million from $51.7 million during Q1 2021.

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The goal has always been to create a sustainable business that would succeed through all types of cycles and economic conditions,” Eppinger said. “We focused on improving margins, growth and our resiliency. During this time we have focused on enhancing the customer experience through technology investments that have meaningfully

"The goal has always been to create a sustainable business that would succeed through all types of cycles and economic conditions."

- Fred Eppinger

change our ease of use in our agency, lender and direct businesses. It wasn’t that long ago that Stewart routinely lost money during the first quarter.”

Stewart’s title segment saw a pretax income of $82.8 million during the first quarter of 2022, up from $77.1 million a year ago. Total direct title revenue came in as $317.8 million during Q1 up from $279.5 million a year ago. Revenue from non-commercial domestic title transactions rose slightly to $220.2 million from $216.0 million a year ago, while commercial domestic title revenue saw a sizable increase from $29.2 million during Q1 of 2021 to $56.4 million during the first quarter of 2022.

As the company has grown, however, so have its expenses. During Q1, the firm’s title segment loss expenses came in at $29.2 million, just above the $28.8 million in title loss expenses recorded a year ago.

JULY 2022

While Stewart’s real estate solutions segments generated a pretax income of $6.8 million up from $2.7 million a year ago, operating expenses rose 55% to $29.3 million. Corporate operating expenses also increased, rising to $8.9 million compared to $5.8 million a year prior.

Consolidated employee costs also saw a year-over-year increase during the first quarter, rising 21% to $35.6 million, attributable to increased salaries and employee benefits.

TITLE

Despite the challenges the real estate and mortgage markets are facing, as a title firm, Stewart’s executives said they had taken the necessary measures to ride out what they called “a transitional period” in the market.

“We are confident in our ability to manage in this transitional period and we remain bullish in the long term prospects for the markets we operate in,” Eppinger said. “It is important to understand that even though the market has transitioned, our journey continues.”

Chief Financial Officer David Hisey added: “Our view is that [it’s] choppy

"The next two years are still going to be very good years for title. So we still believe that there is still a relatively strong market position."

- David Hisey

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right now — look at demographics and look at all the trends. But the next two years are still going to be very good years for title. So we still believe that there is still a relatively strong market position.

We usually manage ourselves effectively and we will continue to do so.”

JULY 2022

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REAL ESTATE

JULY 2022

REAL ESTATE

NAR’s silence on lawsuits frustrates agents HOW WILL THE LAWSUITS AFFECT THEIR COMMISSION STRUCTURE?

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he U.S. Chamber of Commerce is worried. The probusiness lobbying group filed an amicus brief in a federal appellate court supporting the National Association of Realtors (NAR) this past Friday. A federal judge’s ruling that lets hundreds of thousands of housing consumers partake in a class action lawsuit against NAR is “an issue of concern to the nation’s business community.”

It affects “countless businesses,” the Chamber of Commerce declared in the brief that supports NAR’s appeal of class certification, namely co-defendant brokerages and the independent contractor agents who act as their own entrepreneurs.

The lawyers representing NAR, and in turn their member agents, now face “crushing pressure

"Through these lawsuits, the 5-6% total commission of home sales may be drastically reduced."

JULY 2022

to settle” a lawsuit that claims commission’s are “artificially inflated.” In other words, through these lawsuits, the 5-6% total commission of home sales may be drastically reduced.

“We can’t infer too much from class certification,” said Erik Hovenkamp, a University of Southern California antitrust law professor. “Of course, there are other signals the complaint may be meritorious, such as the fact that the DOJ is bringing its own antitrust case against the NAR.” Yet, instead of using its annual legislative conference earlier this May to huddle with its members and plot a response, NAR almost entirely ignored the issue. The talk was not that hundreds of thousands of consumers in Missouri alone were now involved in a lawsuit against a trade group that is supposed to mutually benefit agents and consumers.

Instead, NAR discussed a few legislative items with little chance of passing. And it reiterated support for improved diversity, equity and inclusion in the real estate industry.

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BY MATTHEW BLAKE

REAL ESTATE

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The event, combined with NAR’s recent record of courtroom losses and stymied legislation, leave some of the organization’s 1.5-million member agents puzzled about how these lawsuits affect them, and what concern they should have for the litigation.

“The things they are using their advocacy for are not the most important concerns to their members,” said Courtney Poulos, CEO of ACME Real Estate in Los Angeles.

Poulos said that she wants more guidance about how these outside threats may harm her business. For example, could consumers have the power to claw back contractually agreedupon real estate commissions?

However, she learns about NAR’s antitrust troubles through news articles, and not through her local NAR chapter, the Greater Los Angeles Realtors Association.

Other agents echoed this frustration.

It’s not that they see these lawsuits as the end of the world, but they do have questions about them.

“There is not a lot of education,” said Darrell Hurdiburgh, broker at Real Estate for a Cause in Oakland, Michigan. “Some of the agents don’t even realize there’s a lawsuit.”

NAR did not make executives available for an interview. But it did make available spokesperson Mantill Williams and Ron Phipps, the trade group’s president back in 2011 and a broker at Phipps Realty in Warwick, Rhode Island, since 1978.

The pair acknowledges that NAR simultaneously faces major litigation and a historic low-inventory housing market.

But Phipps and Williams also indicate the trade group’s focus on diversity coincides with their legal defense.

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Under legal fire is NAR’s policy for agent and broker compensation. Currently, consumers sign contracts stating that a portion of the seller’s commission is split between the seller’s broker and buyer’s broker. And the consumer selling the home pays all the commission costs, which are a percentage of the home sale price.

Home sellers like Scott and Rhonda Burnett — the named plaintiffs in the Missouri lawsuit granted class action status — argue that NAR and top brokerages including Realogy (now Anywhere), RE/MAX, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and Keller Williams, used the buyer broker agreement to engage in price fixing.

Burnett’s arguments are replicated in a Chicago case inching through the factfinding stage. The commission debate is also in Washington, D.C. federal court, where NAR itself took legal action for DOJ withdrawal’s from an antitrust consent decree. DOJ claimed to back out in order to further investigate commission costs.

Messages lef t with DOJ for this article went unreturned. NAR awaits a judge’s ruling in its attempt to end the investigation, Williams said. “NAR remains confident the pro-competitive, pro-consumer local broker marketplaces serve the best interests of buyers and sellers and that we will ultimately prevail,” Williams said.

Phipps, the former NAR president, had this to say about the organization’s antitrust troubles. “Is the leadership concerned about it? ” Phipps said.

“Absolutely. I think they are disappointed it remains an ongoing conversation.”

One thing NAR wants to discuss instead is inventory shortfalls.

There are less than 1 million homes on the market now, according to Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, a figure that

JULY 2022

compares to 1.5 million houses at the pandemic’s start.

If NAR’s lawsuits aren’t registering with members, Phipps said, it’s because, “The majority of our members are so focused on their clients,” adding, “The number of sales will drop off this year, but not because of lack of demand.”

Indeed, more agents are likely concerned with today’s inventory than tomorrow’s possible lawsuit outcome.

Ken Johnson, a real estate professor at Florida International University, held a question-and-answer session this week with the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors. Nobody mentioned the antitrust actions, Johnson said, but instead asked about inventory and what is going to happen now with the housing market.

NAR’s record on improving inventory is mixed.

The Realtor’s association has a web page of “advocacy successes,” chronicling “legislative, executive and judiciary branch wins.”

There are a few notable items from 2021 and this year, including passage last February of the Equality Act, a prohibition on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination that extends into housing.

The American Rescue Plan, meanwhile, provided $10 billion in homeowner assistance. And, last August, the U.S. Supreme Court took the position of NAR and landlord groups in tossing out the Center for Disease Control’s eviction moratorium.

But most other items that NAR counts as “wins” — from real estate provisions in the failed Build Back Better infrastructure measure to a bevy of bills pushing for developer and community homebuilding tax credits — are stalled in Congress.

At the legislative conference, NAR policy and legislative analyst Bryan Greene noted the struggle of working with a Congress passing few laws. For NAR’s dues-paying agents and brokerages, it’s a pricey struggle. NAR spent $44 million

REAL ESTATE

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It was in November 2020, a year marked by the death of George Floyd and growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, that NAR apologized for its prior support of redlining.

“What Realtors did was an outrage to our morals and our ideals,” NAR’s thenpresident Charlie Oppler declared at a virtual fair housing summit. “We can’t go back to fix the mistakes of the past, but we can look at this problem squarely in the eye.”

Since Oppler’s remarks, NAR has publicly focused upon diversity, with at least two concrete goals. One, Phipps noted, is boosting the number of nonwhite agents and brokers.

Another goal is closing the gap between white and non-white homeownership.

The 2020 homeownership rate for Black Americans was 43%, according to a NAR analysis, one percentage point less than in 2010, and far less than the 2020 white homeownership rate of 72%.

The idea that the American dream of homeownership should be available to all — along with the agent and brokerage commissions that come along with it — is good business for NAR. It also meshes with NAR’s legal defense for the current commission structure.

NAR is “raising awareness of how

local broker marketplaces ensure equity, transparency and market-driven pricing options for the benefits of homebuyers and sellers,” the organization wrote in a statement for this article. “Listing brokers making offers of compensation to buyer brokers gives first-time, low-to-middle income buyers a better shot at affording a home and personal representation.”

NAR is arguing that the buyer broker arrangement — ironically a policy that NAR devised a century ago when it often supported housing segregation and discrimination — today boosts firsttime homeownership, including first-time minority homeownership, since there is no buyer’s commission. “The pay structure we have incentivizes buyer’s agents,” Phipps said.

Phipps was asked if NAR promotes its diversity commitment because it can double as a legal defense in the Missouri case and other antitrust actions.

“No, it is unrelated to the lawsuits, investigations, or whatever,” he said. “We are committed to DEI. If that all stops now, the commitment to DEI does not stop.”

Williams added that the American real estate market, “Really does favor low-tomiddle income buyers,” and that the U.S. is “one of the few places where you can start with lint in your pocket and become Serena Williams or Oprah Winfrey.”

A couple of agents interviewed contended the focus on diversity is disingenuous, noting NAR donates to office seekers such as Texas governor Greg Abbott or former U.S. senator from Georgia David Perdue, who arguably do not prioritize inclusion, particularly based on sexual identity.

“NAR wants to look progressive and woke, while working in the background to keep the social and economic order in place,” said one Texas real estate agent who requested anonymity so as to, “not upset NAR further.”

Other agents are taking a more supportive stance.

JULY 2022

“I do feel that NAR’s stated interests do reflect my interests most of the time,” said Chey Tor, a RE/MAX agent based in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Generally, we all share the same goals of getting as many individuals as possible to become homeowners to build their own wealth and achieve the American dream.”

“We may disagree on how to get there,” Tor added, “And that’s OK.”

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However, homebuilding isn’t immune to some of the challenges in today’s fluid environment. For example, getting inspections done could become difficult in some areas. For new builds, inspections must be performed all throughout the project in order to move on to the next building phase.

“With county governments closing, the notion of getting your inspections done, the notion of even getting the real estate land closing done becomes very challenging,” Howard said.

“We applaud the federal government, and we applaud the financial institutions for modifying their practices to allow for things like virtual inspections and electronic signatures rather than requiring what they call a web signature, things like that are helping us move forward.”

Land Gorilla is just one example of a company quickly adapting to the current challenges in the market, launching a remote inspections product to fit the changing way consumers and businesses now need to interact.

These types of products will help streamline the process as builders continue to push new homes to the market.

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on lobbying Congress in 2021, according to OpenSecrets, and $12 million for the first quarter of 2022.

One whisper at the conference is whether DOJ’s investigation of NAR diminishes the trade group’s clout on Capitol Hill. Phipps dismissed the chatter.

“Legislators are concerned about what the consumers are focused on,” Phipps said, adding, “Equity and fair housing are what the consumer is focused on.”

SECONDARY MARKET

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Secondary Market JULY 2022

SECONDARY MARKET

PLS market is on track to notch record volume this year MARKET HEADWINDS WILL CONTINUE TO BE A DRAG ON GROWTH

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espite the turbulence in the U.S . economy fueled by inflation, international tensions and rising mor tgage rate s , the private-label securities (PLS) market recorded a strong first quarter, at nearly $43 billion in issuance, and is projected to finish 2022 with record volume.

That $43 billion mark represents the secondhighest issuance total since the global financial crisis (GFC) some 15 years ago and also was nearly two-and-a-half times above issuance volume for the first quarter of 2021, according to a recent market assessment by Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA).

The report focuses on so-called RMBS 2.0 deals, defined as all post-GFC residential mortgagebacked securities issuance in the prime, nonprime (including non-QM) and credit-risk transfer

"This [performance] is due to the inherent diversification of RMBS 2.0 deals."

- KBRA

JULY 2022

(CRT) spaces — the latter typically issued by the government-sponsored enterprises.

“In our view, this [performance] is due to the inherent diversification of RMBS 2.0 deals among subsectors differently sensitive to interest rates, a large variety of issuer types, and a quickly appreciating home-price environment,” the KBRA report states.

Those dynamics lead KBRA to project record nonagency (private label) residential mortgagebacked security (MBS) issuance for the year, though at a declining rate in the coming quarters.

“We continue to expect 2022 will close as a record post-GFC issuance year with almost $131 billon in aggregate [RMBS 2.0] issuance,” KBRA reports.

“KBRA expects Q2 2022 to close at approximately $38 billion, and Q3 to decrease further to $29 billion across the prime, non-prime and credit-risk transfer segments because of rising interest rates and an unfavorable spread environment for issuers.

“To date,” the KBRA report continues, “issuance spreads [have] widened rapidly for all sectors as

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BY BILL CONROY

SECONDARY MARKET

supply and demand volatility hit nearly all-time highs.”

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The spread is a measure of relative yield value between two types of debt instruments, such as a benchmark U.S. Treasury bond and a mortgagebacked security. As spreads widen in an unfavorable way for issuers, MBS prices tend to decline. Bond prices, however, move in the opposite direction of yield — with a higher yield (the ratio of a bond’s coupon to its price) deemed compensation to an investor for the added risk in a volatile market.

Among the factors industry experts contend are contributing to the volatility in the MBS market, and consequent deal-execution challenges, are fastrising interest rates in combination with the Federal Reserve’s tapering of its MBS holdings.

“So the Fed is clearly on a rate-hiking cycle,” said Seth Carpenter, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley, in a presentation at the recent Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Secondary and Capital Markets Conference & Expo in New York City.

Carpenter said Morgan Stanley expects rate bumps after July are likely to return to the 25 basis points level until “we get to a peak of about 3.25% [for the Federal Funds rate] early next year.”

For now, the Fed is not purchasing new MBS to hold in portfolio, and it also is allowing a portion of its existing portfolio to run off its books as those securities mature. But what happens if the Fed’s run-off strategy isn’t sufficient to meet its MBS divestment goals?

“They’re going to let their mortgagebacked security portfolio prepay without being reinvested, and there will be a

"Will they end up then selling mortgage-backed securities on an outright basis to get up to that $35 billion level? I think the answer has to be the following: We’re not sure."

- Seth Carpenter

JULY 2022

cap of $35 billion [a month] starting at half that for the next three months,” Carpenter explained. “Our forecasts from my colleagues at Morgan Stanley suggest that given what the Fed has in their portfolio, [MBS] prepayments [runoff] are unlikely to get up to $35 billion a month.

“Will they end up then selling mortgagebacked securities on an outright basis to get up to that $35 billion level? I think the answer has to be the following: We’re not sure,” said Carpenter.

The Fed’s continuing effort to wind down its $2.7 trillion MBS portfolio is expected to fuel widening spreads in the MBS market because it creates more supply to be absorbed, Bloomberg intelligence analyst Erica Adelberg explained in a recent Bloomberg report.

That, in turn, puts downward pressure on pricing.

Regardless of how the Fed proceeds in shrinking its MBS portfolio, however, Mike Fratantoni, chief economist for the MBA — who also spoke at the recent MBA conference — expressed confidence that the MBS market will weather the storm.

He described it as the “second most liquid market in the world.”

“There are buyers domestically and abroad for mortgage-backed securities,” he added.

The issue ahead that Fratantoni zeroed in on is investors’ reactions to perceived market volatility, sparked by uncertainty.

“Even if it’s not going to result in a [Fed] sale [of its MBS holdings] ... every sort of rumination about that has the potential to lead people to change their position,” he said.

Sonny Weng, vice president and senior credit officer at ratings firm Moody’s Investors Service, explained in a recent interview focused on the PLS market that because of inflation and the volatile rate environment, coupled with an abundance of MBS supply — due, in part, to the Fed’s monetary policies — investors are

SECONDARY MARKET

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The gap between rates on mortgages currently, compared with the much lower rates in 2021, also is creating another layer of deal-execution challenges. A recent market report by digital mortgage exchange and loan aggregator MAXEX reflects that reality.

“Private-label securitization (PLS) spreads continued to move wider throughout April as issuers digested lower-rate mortgages [3% or lower] that remain in inventory as current market rates rise rapidly,” MAXEX states in its May market report.

Weng added: “And obviously, when your mortgage pool has a lower [interest] rate, and you also have to cover certain fees, a higher coupon translates into a higher funding cost for the issuers.”

There is a light at the end of that pipeline, however, according to MAXEX. “We expect this trend to continue in the short term until issuers’ pipelines stabilize and, over the coming months, note rates closer to 5% migrate to PLS [private label securities],” the company’s report states.

KBRA also indicates that impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine “are important factors in our issuance projections for 2022, and these factors may also influence 2023.”

“Mortgage rates are generally expected to increase further as the Fed attempts to cool down rampant inflation and the housing market, impacting issuance as well,” KBRA’s market-forecast report states. “We expect the prime sector to decline in 2022, mainly due to sharp interest rate increases that have decreased overall mortgage production.

“Similar themes could continue through 2023, causing prime issuance to be negatively impacted further. The non-prime sector’s expected issuance

due to existing NOO securitization pipelines built through the end of 2021 and early 2022.

“In addition to traditional RMBS 2.0

"We expect the prime sector to decline in 2022, mainly due to sharp interest rate increases that have decreased overall mortgage production." - KBRA

is projected to increase moderately in 2023 as spreads normalize after rising precipitously in Q2 2022.”

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Another bright spot going forward this year for the PLS market, according to KBRA and MAXEX, is the potential for solid non-agency PLS issuance backed by investment properties and other more “esoteric” offerings.

“We are still seeing an increase in the number of second homes and investor property loans being traded through the exchange to avoid the LLPA [loan-level price-adjustment] increase instituted by the FHFA [Federal Housing Finance Agency] for second-home and highbalance loans delivered to the agencies after April 1,” the MAXEX May market report states.

KBRA reported that MBS issuance backed by mortgages on nonowneroccupied properties (NOO), such as investment properties and second homes, “was strong in Q1 2022, with over 10x year-over-year growth.”

“We continue to expect further issuance in this segment,” the KBRA forecast report states. “This expectation is partly

JULY 2022

issuance, reverse mortgage, mortgage servicing rights-backed issuance, home equity line of credit-backed deals, PLS CRT, Ginnie Mae early-buyout (EBO), and other esoteric RMBS transactions are also poised to increase in the remainder of 2022 and 2023 as interest rates rise further.”

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demanding a higher MBS coupon, or the rate of interest paid annually on a note at par value.

KUDOS

How do you bridge the DE&I and education gap in the industry?

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An inside look at a nonprofit changing the talent pool in mortgage

By Sarahi De La Cuesta

The mortgage industry is not only infamous for its aging workforce but also its lack of diversity in the talent that it does have. Paul Gigliotti, president of AXIS Lending Academy, is determined to change this narrative and the future of the industry.

With more than 20 years of experience in the industry, Gigliotti sat down with Housingwire to talk about the nonprofit and how it has been making history in the mortgage industry. Prior to the founding of the academy, Gigliotti held multiple leadership roles at Pinnacle Home Loans, California Mortgage Bankers Association and West Coast Mortgage.

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HousingWire: How did the academy go from being an idea to a concrete establishment?

What did that process look like?

Paul Gigliotti: As a hands-on pulse leader and innovator in the mortgage lending industry, I see on a day-to-day basis the limitation created in our industry due to the lack of fresh talent.

We have created company cultures and environments that don’t want to support growth and that lack diversity. As a diverse individual myself, I have experienced this lack of diverse talent which limits the “out of the box” creative thinking and inclusive culture which sparks growth.

Also, there is no point of entry in our industry — so we created a point of entry and what better way to do that than through education. You see the lack of education bottlenecks our ability to innovate. A robust education empowers driven individuals to think outside of the box in their role and have a broader understanding of how they fit into a bigger picture.

The education program we created, along with our integrated wellness program, ensures that our learners are ready to start their new career with a whole-self approach, bringing 100% of themselves to any situation.

This approach brings a productive, happy and healthy individual to work. What led to the concept of AXIS Lending Academy was my own personal experience and growth in this industry and realizing how this shift could provide such great lift to not only individuals receiving the education, but companies and the industry as a whole.

HW: Why is there a need for a program like this?

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PG: Our program bridges the DE&I and education gap in an industry that is all about providing opportunity for its consumers. It is time we expand those opportunities for the companies that support the industry and their team members. Bridging these gaps will provide a point of entry for diverse fresh talent to enter our industry through education which will produce empowered and driven individuals who will support creating a more robust, forward-thinking culture and expanded industry that will be ready for the next generation of team members and consumers.

HW: How does this program help solve the talent shortage when it comes to people getting high quality talent into the space?

PG: AXIS Lending Academy is dedicated to lifting not only the learner, but our permanent placement partners and the entire mortgage lending industry. We ensure from the time a prospective learner starts their application process through the education platform and into the alumni program that they are dedicated, driven individuals and are ready to begin their career in an entry-level position within the industry.

Because our learners also participate in the wellness and professional development programs, they are supported in reaching for a higher quality of lifestyle practices, both personally and professionally. The information and process offered to our learners sets them apart from most professionals in that it aids their ability to cope with stress, increases mental flexibility, openness and overall resiliency. We offer applications of healthier choices related to psychology, health and nutrition. Our learners gain greater understanding and acceptance of themselves and their personal story. No formal

dos HW: Who are the mentors that you’ve attracted to help with the program? Why are they passionate about it?

PG: I am so grateful and fortunate to build an amazing team of dedicated, brilliant professionals who share my passion and who believe in AXIS Lending Academy’s mission and execution. Our board members consist of Bianca Broos, Brendon Weiss, Brian Vieaux, Sue Woodard, Kevin Peranio, Jerri Herrera and Dan Greiner.

Each member of our board brings their own wealth of knowledge, talents and dedication.

AXIS Lending Academy has also built out a strong volunteer structure, with our committee chairs Casey Hughes Wade, Sabrina Park and Anthony Galiano. On staff we have Aaron Foster, our director of wellness, as well as John Bates and Brendon Britten, who support the wellness program and our director of education, and my business partner, Jerri Herrera.

Each one of these members have the same conviction to the mission as I because of their desire to see our industry grow and because of their own personal story. To some degree, all of us at one time or another have felt excluded and all our board members, volunteers and team members have had the experience of being the “odd person out.” For this reason, we all share the passion and reward that comes from lending a hand up to those who desire it.

HW: What are some of the nonprofit’s goals that you are hoping to accomplish with these programs? Short and long term?

PG: Long term — AXIS Lending Academy is looking to make a shift in the industry, creating inclusive cultures and environments that are open to out-of-the-box thinking, different ideas and approaches from diverse individuals who bring to the table a different point of view.

We also have plans to expand AXIS Lending Academy into additional sectors within the housing industry and work toward academic accreditation.

In the short-term — AXIS Lending Academy plans on rolling out a membership program to companies that want to participate in the AXIS lifestyle and not only hire the diverse talent we educate but that want to create lift in the industry by offering our blueprint program and wellness program.

HW: A key part of the program is technology training to create long-term employee success. Can you talk to us about the importance of this?

PG: AXIS Lending Academy is an innovative concept and company which ensures we are supporting the industry by providing professionals who are innovative themselves, as well as educated and driven. Since technology is a tool for innovation, we naturally gravitate toward using technology in class and as a part of our curriculum. The next generation of team members and consumers are more technical by nature due to their place in time, therefore technological training is an expected part of their day-to-day lives, thus by proxy supporting long-term employee success.

HW: Is there anything else you want to add about the academy?

PG: Our nonprofit provides a free 90-day education platform to diverse individuals that are looking for a hand up, not a handout. Our learners graduate from the program with a strong understanding of how a mortgage is started, assembled, offered and sold to the secondary market.

Upon completion of the education platform, our alumni will have already gained real-life experience through practicum during AXIS Lending Academy’s paid internship. They will have received the knowledge and know-how for application of their education toward a productive, prosperous and balanced life with our professional development and wellness programs.

JULY 2022

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education offers such a lifestyle program.

KUDOS

parting shot HousingWire leaders at Cocktails with Logan: Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami, COO Diego Sanchez, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler and CEO Clayton Collins.

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❱ WHEN’S THE NEXT COCKTAILS WITH LOGAN? As the expert on all things housing and economics, we couldn’t think of a better place to host Cocktails with Logan than in New York City. In the city that’s home to Wall Street, along with one of the busiest housing markets, HW Media brought together finance and real estate professionals to ask HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami their burning questions directly. In today’s fast market, the future of mortgage rates, housing inventory and the potential for a recession are not only top of mind but also require steady updates. We thank everyone who came out to meet us face-to-face, and while Mohtashami had fewer charts to share in person, we still had a great time.

Stay tuned for more events like this one.

JULY 2022

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