Debbie Dirosa & Joshua Welsh (United Wholesale Mortgage) On Scaling, Speed & Tech

All right. Welcome back to Mortgage Daddies. Today we have 2 special guests all the way from Michigan. Uh, we have been workingI’ve been working with Josh since I got into this business. He was our one of our first account reps at United Wholesale Mortgage. And Debbie, probably what? A couple of yearsI, I, I We didn’t do enough business for Debbie to talk to us in the beginning. No. No. They brought Debbie in afterwards. But now, now she flies down to visit us. So I think we’re doing something right. Doing all right. We’re winning now. I’m Vernon. I run the top mortgage brokerage in Massachusetts with over 20 years of experience. I’m Craig. I’ve done $100 million consistently since my second full year in the business and I’m Massachusetts’s top mortgage broker. We’re the Mortgage Daddies with real advice, real stories and real results. Let’s get going. Yeah. Thank you guys for coming on all the way from, uh, beautiful Pontiac, Michigan in the middle of summertime. I know it’s probably the nicest time of year like it is here in, uh, August, September but, uh, thank you guys for coming on the show, man. It’s always a pleasure. Thanks for having us. We’ve been, uhWe’ve been, as Craig said, stuck with Josh Welsh as our account executive over at UWM through the good, the bad and the ugly. At the end of the day, you know, I don’t think we could have grown Milestone or, uh, I Actually, let me rephrase that. I know for a fact we would not have been able to grow Milestone without the UWM relationship all the way from Matt, all the way down to the, you know, the janitors at UWM. You guys do a great job sending our team out there for success tracks. Um, it’s, it’s just an amazing, amazing team that you guys have over there at UWM just supporting all the brokers, right? Like I hear it now a lot that we have UWM out here all the time and we’re now hopefully getting to be a bigger account. But- Yeah. You know, I think a lot of people don’t realize the opportunity that you guys give brokers. You know, whether it’s the speed which is nice to be able to build your business just based off of speed and be able to cl- close something quickly. But also, a lot of the other opportunities with, you know, referrals for people that are looking to get into the broker side that you’ve been able to hook us up with. You know, in continuing to grow, getting us out there, helping our team build, helping our team get better. When in the beginning, I, you know, I wasn’t necessarily the biggest UWM fan in the world because- Or Josh fan. Or Josh. Definitely not Josh fan. Still not a Josh fan. Josh is an acquired taste. Uh, but- Big time. But, you know, I came to realize, you know, over the years the amount that you guys have done for Milestone and for us and the opportunities. And, you know, that’s notYou don’t get that anywhere else. It also goes both ways, too. Yeah. You know, you guys send a good portion of your business to us, so, you know, trusting us to get it done is always, you know, it’s appreciated. But, you know, Matt, Matt will say all the time, I mean, speed solves everything, you know. Think about how many deals you’ve gotten over the years because of those 5, 6 day CTCs. know, how many realtors are like, “Oh, I’m gonna call this Craig guy. I’m Vern. “The relationships you build between, you know, with your Re/Maxes and all the other agents you work with,I’m not saying it’s directly because, oh, we close it in 5 days. But putting that marketing piece out there starts, you know, perking ears because the average turn, what? 45 days in the industry. You do some stuff with banks, those, those loans, 30 days minimum. Mm-hmm. So, you know, when you can throw a five, six, seven day out there, turns some heads. Absolutely. It’s good for starting new relationships with business partners and realtors when they know that you can get something done because they’ve seen it on social media that you can do a seven or 8 day, 10 day. It’s not the norm, right? Our, our norm average CTC at UWM is like 14. 3 days but if we need to turn one around for 7 days, we can call Debbie and Josh, give them the heads up. We can submit that loan and rescue that deal where, you know, another, you know, lender couldn’t get it done, wasn’tRunning into issues, we, we’d solve those issues and we, we have the full confidence in UWM and the partnership that we have with you guys that you guys are gonna do what you guys do best and that’s getting loans to the closing table and fund them. Right. Those are the home run deals, too. Oh, yeah. Like when, when the other lender couldn’t do it and you still meet commitment. Yeah. And you only had the deal for 5 days. Yeah. You know. I think one of our biggest advantages, too, and you guys have, um, had the pleasure or we’ve had the pleasure of having you out, um, to our campus and everything else. But if we need to make changes, call an audible and we’re able to do that quickly, efficiently and get loans done. if, if there’s an issue we wanna take up with underwriting, uh, closing, whatever it may be, capital markets, you know, we, we walk over there. Yes, we sit down, we have a conversation. Um, that’s not had in I think most organizations. Yeah. I feel- Yeah. You guys definitely like it. If we have an issue or things aren’t going well, you’re like, “Okay, how do we fix it? “And you change it instantly. And it’s a good thing on the loan officer’s side, like for me when a loan’s somewhere else and you’re like, uh, there, 48 hours. It doesn’t seem like a lot. 48 hours doesn’t seem like a lot for them to review things happen and things come in, wait on the line. You’re waiting on something. Waiting on an asset to clear. You’re waiting on an appraisal, a re-inspection. Oh, everybody doesn’t want, doesn’t get that okay, well, the closing day’s probably going to have to move out. Well, with you guys, we could get that in today and close this afternoon if we needed to. Or the next day. And that’s like a huge weight off of our shoulders where you’re never gonna get that elsewhere. Especially when there are like Title V issues. You’re 2 weeks in a transaction and all of a sudden, you know, we’ve got septic issue. It’s gonna take the guy a week to get out there. And then, you know, with a guy we could turn it back over in 3 hours. So, you know. There’s really very few situations I think where it’s like, oh God, we gotta go. Like, because it’s just, it’s business as usual, you know. That’s how I look at it at least. The one thing I think we do, too is we lean very heavily on great partners such as yourself. Um, we take your feedback. What are- Yeah. things that we can do to get better? Um, in addition to that, we lean really heavily on technology. I think we’ve been kind of a trailblazer when it comes to technology in mortgages. Um, so when we talk about speed, it’s not just underwriting turn times. It’s our change of circumstance that are like instant. It’s our closing which is instant. It’s getting docs out which are, you know, you can get docs out in 5 minutes where, um, you know, competition sometimes takes days in order to process those. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Do you think that’s like part of your secret sauce? Other, other than everything you just said with the technology, definitely you guys are trailblazing that. But having everybody under one roof, like I feel like that’s an important thing. Like we went through this like growing, we’re in different offices and then, you know, made the decision to come under one roof for the most part here in New Bedford. But I feel like every single time I go out to UWM, there’s a whole different department that I wanna go and hang out with or talk to and it’s like, “All right, let’s just walk over here. “I feel like that’sIs there another investor out there in the wholesale channel that has everybody under one roof, all the account executives, all the operations, underwriting, funding,Wild how big your campus is. Yeah. I mean, I can’t answer that question because I don’t know that, butYeah. I think, like, what you said, there’s a different department for this, there’sWhere, where we win outside of the tech and th- those kind of things is my underwriters only underwrite. They don’t do CFCs. They don’t clear conditions about seniors, right? They just do income and credit. The 2 clears everything else, you know. Or my indexing team, or my setup team. So my underwriter is free to underwrite. You guys have systems in place where I feel like a lot of the investors that we deal with, um, they don’t, right? Like, it’s kind of painful. You just hope everything kind of works out, and like we’re past that. You, you just- Yeah. You just know what you’re getting with UWM. And I think that’s like once you get used toAnd like when I was first starting out it’s like, okay, you try these other investors and it’s like you just don’t know what you’re getting. You don’t know how manyYou could send the same file in to 2 different investors and you get 3 pages of conditions here and you got like an easy half a page worth of conditions on the right. Well, which one are you gonna wanna go to? And you do that over and over again. You’re like, this is just making more work for everybody on this side and it’s just not worth it. And when you know what you’re gonna get and what you can expect, it makes setting the expectations on our side because as a loan officer, 90% of the, the, the stuff is, okay, if you have a clean file. It’s just really setting the right expectations. Like, somebody asks you a question. Yep, this is gonna happen at this time. Yep, we’re gonna be able to have commitment by this date and we’re gonna be able to close. If you meet all those dates you look like a superhero in this business. Yeah. But when you’re trying to set expectations with a lender that you’re not used to working with or that say, says they can do something and they don’t deliver on it, it makes you look bad. And the problem is, is like whatThe frustration on my side was always like, well, the, the lender just doesn’t seem to care, like have that same like care to make it happen like we do. You know what I mean? ‘Cause they’re not, they’re not consumer-facing. They’re not talking to our clients so they’re not getting the wrath of the client. They’re not getting the wrath of the realtors that are mad. You guys are friends with half of our realtors. Yeah. We, we have events. You guys, we, you, we’ve done multiple events where we’ve taken 100 plus realtors to UWM for classes, hang out with them. You guys come down here, you meet them, you’re commenting on their social media stuff. Like you, you’re invested in it just like we are which is, you know, a great thing on my side because if I pick up the phone and need something, e- everyone’s gonna do whatever they can to get it done. Just like, you’re just an extension of our team instead of like a lender in my opinion. You know, it’s a double-edged sword though too. Like if a file isn’t going the greatest at that point, they all know how to reach me. Yeah, yeah. I’ll get those, those instant messages. What do the kids say? DMs now? I’ll get, I’ll get that DM like, “Hey, dude. “You know, I’m not gonna say exactly what they say but-you know. Like you can imagine. Um, but you know- Just get it done. Yes. And, and you know, Craig, the, the approval part, I like that because before we were UWM, like the technology company like back when I first started working there, you know, back about 2014, our approval letter was our biggest sell because it was so clean. We didn’t send 4 sheets with all these different snips andYou know, our doc package allows you to do your, um, compliance disclosures as well, like your anti-steering, all that stuff. So that automatically is cleared out. And then through the process as you get loans, uh, conditions cleared, we take them off the approval letter. Whereas most lenders you have that one 3pager you got at your desk. Line ’em up. Right. So that was a big- And it’s always like unclear if like they are clearing it or they’re not clear. Right. It’s like I sent it in and it’s like you think they cleared it. It- But you don’t know. It’s very frustrating. Yeah. Our, our approval letter was a really, really big sell for us. know, it was, it was huge. And then you guys have added a ton of technology over the years- Oh. since we’ve started working with you guys. You guys already had, in myby far the best system to use on the broker side. But then you’ve added other features for brokers to be able to have things at not a cost to them, you know, whether it’s Brand 360, some of the marketing stuff, Blink, you know, opportunities- Mm-hmm. where you can have a broker shop. And we, we’re at a larger scale now- Right. so we have a lot of the systems ourselves, you know, because it makes sense-to be able to control it a little more. But you guys have brought out a lot of features and technology for the broker that you could run a one or 2man shop and just use everything from UWM and really keep your costs way, way down. I mean, the credit report stuff. I have that. You know, a lot of brokers operate like that- Mm-hmm. you know, because it’s expensive to have all this stuff. And you guys make it super efficient and easy and cheap for the smaller brokers to be able to compete without having those additional expenses. And then one of my favorite things that you guys rolled out is MIA. You like that MIA, huh? MIA’s been well, doing well for me the last couple of weeks. We love MIA. Keeping you busy. Yeah. You guys want to touch on kind of MIA a little bit? Sure. Um, so it is our, um, AI, uh, loan officer assistant that will reach out on your behalf to your previous client base, um, whether it be rate drop, whether it be just letting them know what their payment is due in the next, or 20 days after closing. Um, it’s a touchpoint that, on your behalf, is reaching out to your clients, just letting them know where they are in the market, that you’re thinking of them. I look at it almost as a, um, an upgraded voicemail. I say to myself, “Why do I just want to leave a voicemail? “You know, it used to be, um, you, you had answering machines. So answering machines now upgraded to voicemail. Voicemail is now your AI assistant, um, where it interacts with you rather than leaving a message, not sure whether it’s received, if it’s read. Um, the end user, yourself, um, you get an email communication back exactly what the communication was. So it’s a great way for you to follow up. I think it’s easy, you knowor a lot of loan officers kind of have the thought of like, “Well, I don’t want some AI calling my clients, like I want to call them,” which is great. But I know, I run all the sales team here, I can go and tell them, “Go call every single one of your past clients this week or next week,” and they’re not going to do it. They’re not gonna get through it for whatever reason. I know I’m not gonna be able to get through it myself. Well, things come up too. Yeah, you get somebody- You’ve got British Business Running as well. Dustin shows up, that really sets everybody back. You know, with, with him and h- all his talking. But, like, things happen, and it’s not easy to get through it or, you know, you call, you knowUh, this, uh, the w- the way this is working, and at first we didn’t do it- Right. and then we got it turned on, and all it’s doing now is my phone’s ringing with clients saying, “Hey, I got this message from somebody on your team. “That’s 90% of what it is, it’s, “Somebody on your team called me about rates. Wha- do you think I should refinance? “”Yeah, no problem. Let me send you over some stuff. “And it’s like taking all of that away from me having to try to reach out to them or forgetting to reach out to somebody or not getting through the entire list because, m- you know, Vern and I can sit there and one day want to go call everybody, but next thing you know, something else happens that we don’t get through it. So it’s a great system. I mean, I don’t know why any broker or any loan officer wouldn’t use it if they call them. Worst case, they call them and say, “Hey, so I got this weird call from this robot-” Mm-hmm. if they think it’s a robot. “Oh yeah, no. “And I just put like, “LOL, that’s funny. Yeah, it’s one of my, you know, new AI assistants and they’re just calling to, you know, set up an appointment with me. “”Trying something new right now. “Yeah. You know, and they’re- Just k-like, “Oh okay, great. “So take a Craig Smel, right? You do, what, 24, 25 purchases last month, something like that, 26? Yes, usually around there. Right. When do you have time? I always say I have time. You coach baseball. But the- I mean, you got to-days run, run into each other very quickly now. I mean, you could beyou got 4 kids, so you’re doing that, that’s hard enough. coach how many baseball teams? Oh, too many. Okay. So- Big win last night, by the way. So you’re, you’re at the ballpark at least 3 days a week, probably 4. And, you know, you guys touched on it a couple episodes ago, like just the coaching aspect takes time, but then there’s the field prep, the equipment prep, right? TheYou guys are doing a lot. So I’d say you probably give at least 10 to 12 hours a week to baseball. Mm-hmm. Minimum. Right? That’s your minimumWhen do you haveAnd you’re putting in 40 to 50 in the office, so now we’re about 60, 62 hours a week. When do you have that time to make that call and actually get to go home and be a dad, not have your wife kill you ’cause you’re never home? Right? Like those are the things, like, it frees up so much time for you. If the borrower doesn’t want to do it, they’re not going to call you back. Yeah. Right? I look at it as, it’s a touch that I wasn’t gonna be able to do- Right. for me- And it’s a better touch. Like it’s not just an email. Like a lot of people have CRMs, they send out an email blast. I haven’t originated a loan- How many people look at their emails? personally in my name in the last 10 months. I had like over 60 conversations, MIA had made conversations with past clients from the last 2 or 3 years. Mm-hmm. Those are touchpoints I was not gonna get to in a given day based on what, what ends up happening. I think anybody watching that, that does business with UWM and is not using MIA, get it turned on. What’s the downside? Like I, it’s like, you know, no publicity is, you know, bad publicity is, is, is just as good as good publicity. They’re making a phone call on your behalf. If that s- sparks them to make a phone call and call you about getting a loan, it’s one less call you had to make and play phone tag with that person. Right? Like, I don’t mind making 60 phone calls. I probably only talked to 15, 18 people who picked up the phone last Friday when I, when I dedicated 4 or 5 hours to, to doing those calls, so. The other thing too is MIA can take incoming calls. So let’s just say I’m at a ball game, I’m coaching. I don’t want to forward my phone to just a voicemail. I want somebody to be able to be interactive and talk to MIA. Um, they can take messages. So consider it more than just somebody who reaches out, somebody calls in, you can forward it to your number, MIA’s number, your assistant’s number, and they’ll have an interactive conversation, take the message, relay it back to you verbatim so that you can follow up when you get back. We have people that use it if they’re going to dinner, um, you know, so they don’t miss any calls. They make sure that they’re capturing as much as they can. So- Yeah. I mean, if you’re not in a position to have a LOA or something, I mean, that’s a-50, 60, $70,000 a year job plus bonuses. I have a brother in Michigan who’s a broker. You know, we were just talking about our free s- like he uses my free credit reports. He uses Blank, Brand 360, he uses Mia, right? He’s a one-person operation. He’s not a, a, a home run hitter every, every month but he’ll do 3 or 4 deals a month. all the co- His costs are so low, huh? His costs are, there’s nothing. He doesn’t even leave his house. Like he just lives out in the woods, he’s a weirdo but he’s, you know, he’s happy. He’s just a happy dude and this stuff affords him all that, you know? And, and, you know, t- like when Vern, you just said, you know, about 60 calls, I think we forget right now because, you know, I use this analogy a lot with people. Like if I had 20 grand in credit card debt, I, I don’t really care, I don’t. Just, you know, one decent month I’ll pay it off, no problem, right? You don’t care. A W-2 borrower who is an electrician or, you know, a, a, whatever, a journeyman, whatever he does, he’s a W-2 paid hourly, he doesn’t have that privilege or they don’t, she doesn’t have that privilege like we do to make a nice commission a month to pay that bill. So with, if we’re not reaching out where Mia is, imagine how much we just saved that person. Maybe it’s like we saved them from drowning. Yeah. You know, Steve White did a deal for one of my personal friends a few months back. I think I told you about it. Yeah. He was $240,000 in debt and this is like credit card bad debt. And it h- h- his monthly minimums were $10,700. That was his minimum just to make it. And, um, Steve got his monthly minimums down to 6,200 bucks so that he can breathe. The guy makes a quarter of a million dollars a year. couldn’t make, you knowMm-hmm. And it all stemmed, Debbie, myself and Vern went to dinner and we were doing mortgage talk and he was sitting there like, like he didn’t know what was going on. Good old Josh, been with the guy for 6 years, take him out to dinner, he probably paid the bill, I don’t remember. And what does he do? He gives the loan away to his fr- to one of the good friend he knows, to another loan officer in the company. Like, “Hey don’t, don’t call Vern, it’s okay. I don’t really know-” You just said I haven’t originated a loan in 10 months. I’m just kidding. Steve’s the best. The one thing I will say though just to kind of add to Josh’s point, I think too often as originators we, we make the assumption that the market hasn’t moved enough. So when we talk about Mia, we talk about touch points, um, think about all the people that purchase homes. I know in our state when you buy a home, your taxes get reassessed. Think about people who are drowning maybe in escrow shortages. Um, so we don’t know what people’s financial or what that, that turning point is that people may just need to reach that. So a touch point, reaching out to borrowers that maybe you more likely than not would not have called or thought about, um, it’s gonna hit them. Debbie, that’s 100%. I just- And it could be a timing issue. Speaking of that, I didn’t know about the taxes but I was just reading an article on homeowner’s insurance and the cost of- Oof. what that’s gone up over the last- Oof. like 12 months. It’s insane. It’s like a lot of markets up on average like 22% I think it was, was the number, 21%. That’s a lot. So you really start thinking about that. And you tag that along with I wish Mia, maybe we can talk about this like offline, would call every single client I’ve ever closed because even if their rate’s at 3%, we have the highest debt this country has ever had. Like we don’t know what’s happening until we make that phone call, we make that touch. And it’s the people, like you said, you know, your friend. Oh, yeah. A quarter of a million dollars in debt, like I don’t even know what ILike I’ve never had a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of debt but I can’t even imagine what that feels like- How do you get there? the relief that that guy- Oh, yeah. or that couple has of just paying that off. And it doesn’t have to be a quarter of a million. Like, like you said, it could be $20,000 for some people. If that makes their mortgage payment go up $50 or whatever it is per month, if they sleep better at night, that’s always like pretty much how I operate. You sleep better. Right? Like it’s, it, it’s in, you’re doing the right thing. Right? At the end of the day we’re doing the right thing by the consumer. Speaking of that, going to broker channel, what is the new updated number average savings, uh, by using a mortgage broker as opposed to a retail lender? I know it used to be like 9,800- 10-6 now. 10-6. So using a mortgage broker saves you over $10,000 in savings. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t use a mortgage broker. No, I, I, I checked into my hotel yesterday, Debbie was here checking in, oops, and I had the Milestone quarter-zip on. And I was talking to the guy about whatever and he’s like, “Oh, Milestone. “It’s like it’s crazy, you know, they originated in a New Bedford, you know, that’s where they started. I was like, “Well actually they got rents on State Highway but no, n- no big deal, like they’re here. “And he was like, “Yeah man. “He goes, “They’re in like 35 states now. “This is a d- this is a dude that works at a hotel. That article in the New Bedford Guide- Yeah. came out. And then he started talking about interest rates with us and I was like, he’s like, “You know, it’s not gonna really matter, the rates aren’t gonna get lower on Thur- on Wednesday or Thursday, you know, it’s not gonna happen. It’s already built in, it’s cooked in already. “Well, what- what are you working at a hotel for? All I know is I’m going- It’s like a milestone. down to the hotel and finding that kid and hiring him. That was the thing, I said, “W- go- go talk to Vern. “Yeah. You know? He knows more about interest rates than probably 50% of the originators-in the country. I mean, let- let- let’s put it where it is. Our phones are all gonna blow up. By the time this airs it’s already gonna be out there but- Mm-hmm. you know, they- they’re probably gonna drop the- the rates tomorrow. Our phones are gonna all blow up, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, “Rates went down, I want to refinance. “It’s like they’ve already been baked in, they haven’t really moved, but like yeah, we’re at- That’s justAnd that w- that guy even said that at the hotel. The- the co- the concierge guy, he goes, “Oh, the people have b- built my pricing in for weeks already. “And I’m just like, and he was like really- Definitely a past client of yours. He’s gotta be. But I mean they- The good news is though-he was well-educated in what he was saying. Equity- Definitely Craig’s client. I say the good news is equity is at an all-time high. All-time high. Yeah. Absolutely. So equity is only good if you do 2 things;either tap into it, or you sell your home. Otherwise it’s just paper. Just sitting there. Y- you can’t use it. Well, and if- and if you bought the house in the last 3 years, it’s not like it was your- your blood, sweat and tears of equity. This was the market movement. The market drove it. Like when we did the re-fi for my friend. Yeah. His- his, he bought his property two and a half years ago and he had 200 and like $70,000 in equity in Johnson, Rhode Island. And he didn’t pay that and he was like, “Oh, I don’t want to touch it. I just want to do a HELOC. “I said, “No. Like you’ve already proved that you’re not credit smart. “Like, you know what I mean? I- I love you, been friends with him for 25 years, but- Really hope he’s not watching this episode. I hope he does ’cause then he can tell more of his friends about calling Milestone to save his life. Yeah. Good point, good point. You know? Showing it to him right now. Hi. Hey look, Holly, when you’re- when you get it cut up, let me know, I’ll send him some clips. Got to get him on the episode. But, um, you know, I mean, think about the stress you guys took off that man’s plate. wild. Oh, yeah. Like you could- you could call him right now. I don’t care where you’re at. He can give you the loan, you call him right now and just tell him who you are, where you’re from and he would be wherever you needed- Yeah. for whatever you need, without a question. He’s a loyal guy. Very goodhim. I know another guy like that, big Josh Walsh. Been stuck with us for 6 years. took a little hiatus, we’re not- we’re not gonna hold it against him. 106 days. 106 days. 106 day hiatus from, uh- Yeah. from UWM. A little sabbatical. That was probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in your life. You know what, it was really- It was a good thing you had to get outta your system, you know, I have to get things out. It was really stupid but I- I explain to people this way. Remember that year you got outta high school, how much fun you had before you went off to whatever was next? Yeah. Imagine having money. I golfed probably 70 rounds that summer. I just, all I did was golf. We know. It was amazing. It was awesome. He’d call, check in, “How you guys doing? “I still take your calls. “I’m golfing. “I still take your calls, you know what I mean? Still didn’t break 80. This guy w-Uh, no, I never broke 80. But I’d get a call from him on Fr- on a Friday night, he’s like, “Oh my God, dude, what’s going on with this? “I’m like, “Hey man, just- just, you know, pepper it this way, everything’s good, you know, no big deal. “So like I never left. I mean, but I did obviously, but I mean, I always stayed in contact and was always working. You know, some of the guys or gals, like Steve would still call with scenarios, you know. He’s like a Labrador Retriever, like he’s loyal. He’s not the smartest guy in the- in- in, uh, in the building. No. No, brains- brains- brains are, there’s a shortage. No, you do a great job. There’s a shortage, no. And then you always have Debbie for that. That’s right, I know. Like at this point, I just go to Debbie for about 95%. I hope none of our loan officers watch this ’cause they’re gonna start calling Debbie. But Debbie’s, you’ve been, uh, you’ve been instrumental. We’ve seen you at awards ceremonies, everything Milestone. I’m her second favorite Snell too. Yeah, that’s tough. Yes, this is true. So. Is she sitting in the same chair your dad did the- the podcast in? I think he sat here and I was there. Oh, that’s sad town. She loves Mr. Snell. What’s not to love? runs in the family. Look at this guy’s cheeks. I’ll punch him for sure. I meanThey’re cute. Do not touch me. I walked in yesterday and Steve was like, “Hey man, Kevin said he wanted to- wanted you to give him a hug. “I said, “Kevin didn’t say that. “That’s a hard no. Kevin did not say that. Kevin does not like to be touched. Kevin doesn’t want me anywhere near him. He- So what do you guys see in the future with all this AI stuff and- Um, I’m thinking it should allow your business to triple. So we’re looking, market moves a little bit more with AI, with the technology, we’ll be able to triple, which means our brokers business are tripling. That’s the only way we grow ’cause we don’t have any other- I think it- it helps-any other resource. the loan officer retain business that they would not retain because it’s always been like this, you know, we work to get the lead, we work hard to get them into their purchase, talk to them, help them a ton, but before we make a call back out, some other company’s calling. Well, and that’s the thing though, you don’t think retail’s using this? Yeah. Retail has AI and I mean, I’m- I won’t use names ’cause I don’t think that’s allowed, but if you think about it, there’s a big retail lender out there that just bought a real big service from, that just bought a real big, uh, real estate corporation, right? You don’t think they’re coming for them? So I- I- and I say it this way and I, you know, I just don’t understand why like y- like I don’t know why people won’t use it, but you can’t keep up with that real- retail company who has a thousands of LOs that will call your- your people 3, 4 times a day ’cause you’re in rotation. And they’re not even offering them a better deal. They’re just- they’re just offering them something. They- and they have name recognition. Yeah. So as a consumer you’re like, “Oh, okay, yeah, that sounds good. “but you don’t understand the fine print or the 2 points on the back ofthat they’re, you know, that you’re, you’re paying for 40 basis point reduction in your interest rate. Mm-hmm. You know, that stuff to me doesn’t make much sense. But again, don’t use it. They’re not being offered anything else. Right. That’s the problem, is everybody’s always too busy or they, they just don’t- No. get around to doing it. I mean, do you think- But, but with the tools, tools and technology that now are in place, it allows you 3, 4 years ago, the business, the rates fell and your capacity, you were, you were capped. Yeah. You had no way to- Just gotta have suites at the office. You had no way to scale, no way to double your business, triple your business. Now with all the technology, we certainly allow you to do that. Um, we have things in place even internally if you need additional help with, with processing or, um, other resources, uh, that we’re here to help you as well. So I think last time those, that business got lost. I think everybody’s scared of the technology, what it’s gonna do to their jobs or, you know, their roles. And, you know, Craig and I talk about this quite a bit. No one’s gonna lose their job, they’re just gonna have to adjust to the market and adjust to the job and do, do, do things a little bit differently, right? But I think what it’s gonna do is the core group that UWM has or Milestone has with these companies, they’re gonna havethey’re gonna win because we can double or triple without having to go out and add 10 processors now, or 3 more LOAs- Right. because of the technology and where it’s going. And I think it’s put us as a company in an amazing position going into 2025, you know, 4th quarter ’26, ’27 with the interest rates and things like that. And UWM has done everything, everything to help Milestone and all, the whole entire broker channel grow. Just from that standpoint, they give you every tool. I mean, we’ve talked about this, but like now even the AI stuff, they’re making phone calls for you. You’re likeIt’s, it’s pretty special what you and your team have done. Yeah. Well, that goes both ways too. I mean, you guys have been pretty special in your own right. Think about some of the hardest years, the last 3, 4 years coming off of, you know, the lowest interest rates historically. And you guys have scaled in a market where others were downsizing. I mean, that’s to be commended. Yeah. Talk about building a foundation and that sort of stuff. So now you guys are really ready to, to take off. I’m- We- I’m, I’m excited to see what’s about to happen I see that look in your eye, man. Like I told you- Yeah. there’s nobody in the 4th quarter like you. Yeah, I mean, I4th quarter’s always the fun quarter, right? Everybody wants to start and everybody runs and you, you sit back and you’ve seen everybody come out of the gates and they’re sprinting. They’re, they’re just sprinting forfirst quarter of the year, they’re running like crazy and I’m like, “It’s a marathon, big guys. “And I think a lot of your secret sauce is, um, reminiscent of our secret sauce, and it’s our people, it’s our culture. It’s, you know, our, our number one pillar is people are our greatest assets. And so we invest in them. You know, Michigan just doesn’t breed mortgage people. Um, we have to grow it organically. We have to train, we have to find the right people, the right culture, the right fit, and then teach them the business. And that’s, that’s easier than finding people trying to teach them culture. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s one of the bigger pieces to our success is our relationship with UWM because we got to see you guys. You guys were already a monster, right? 2019 when we started in March, you guys were already the leader. But we’ve been able to see you guys go public, all these big things that have happened at UWM, and we’re just following in those footsteps. Like, we can pick up the phone and call, a Chris Park or, or a Todd or Chad or Debbie. The, theJustin White. Like I mean, you guys just keep throwing pieces where we can call somebody and say, “Hey, what did you do in this situation? “The advisory councils that you guys put together with all different brokers around the country. Nobody else is doing that, right? Like I don’t get a phone call from XYZ that we send a lot of business to or, or other investors. They’re not calling us saying, “Hey, what’d you guys think about this? Hey, this is how you would scale this out. You shouldn’t spend the money on this. You should, you know, invest it in this. “And it’s really going back to what you’re saying, culture. Like at the end of the day, like if we took a poll here at Milestone, it’s really like people only work here because they actually like the culture. They don’t like me. No. They just like the culture, right? Like they like the, the business that we have, the partnerships that we have, the UWM relationships. And I think all of that altogether makes it a well-oiled machine. But you guys are absolutely the, the leader in that and you just go there likeAnybody who has not been to UWM that’s on the broker side, reach out to your account executive because once you go to that, uh, facility. I remember having toRemember trying to- Oh, he was-twist, twist this guy’s arm. No, go. I write deals. I can’t miss 2 days. How long’s the flight? Twoandahalf hours. “Nah, I don’t like planes. “”I don’t like planes. “He goes, “You know, I, I don’t go on vacation. “Like- No, he doesn’t. that’s not vacation. Like, this is work. Like, you’re gonna go out there and you’re gonna learn something. “No, no. I can’t do that. We have me and an assistant now. Yeah, no. If you want Now, now I can, butI almost bought a- I almost bought one of those fat heads a couple of years ago of a Craig cut-out- Oh, yeah. so when Emily went on vacation with the kids she could have Craig with her. And I’d talk about it. I was like, this guyBut I mean, like, you know- Oh, yeah. She used to go everywhere with the kids. The grind though, like when you first started this you were a fireman. you know, what’d you do? You sat in the office and watched Vernon do interviews. know, you learned how to do it. And, and, you know, there was a certain point, like, you want to go home. You know, Craig would be in the office ’til one o’clock in the morning. Everybody wants to be a Craig Snell, but they don’t know- They don’t know what to do. what it takes to be a Craig Snell. And I gotta give you that, you know. Well, what do you guys say at UWM? Never relax. Never. Right? We, we just adopt that, we live that same, same mentality. Like, just never relax, never give up, just keep grinding. I’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of, of originators. And I, uh, you and I have talked about this, I think him and I have too. I’ve never seen an originator take off the wayCraig justHe walked in one day and was like, all of a sudden there’s 12 loans in his pipeline. They’re not giving the loans away. Nope. You gotta go find ’em, you gotta earn ’em, you know. And, and the amountWhat’d you close, 160 million last year? I mean- 150? If you look like he looks, I’d close 125, 150 million too. Well, that’s why we’re behind the phone. I did look a lot younger before- Lookit that flow. Before all these loans. Lookit that flow he’s got. Yeah. Look at your flow. I don’t got a flow. That’s why you, that’s why he came back to UWM. That’s why I work, that’s why I work behind, behind the phone. Yes, I agree. I talk to the people who talk to the people. Our faces are built for- I’m like-over the phone. I know my lane and I’m okay with it. I get it. Poor Debbie’s like, “Why did I get on this-” “this podcast today? What is going on? “We haven’t had fun yet, though. But to the culture point though, like you, you said like, you know, UWM’s culture is great. Like, you can’t fake when you walk in that building and all the people there laughing, smiling, having- Yeah. a good time. That can’t be faked, right? Maybe on the first trip, sure, we can get you. But how many times you been out there? 12, 13? Yeah, probably at least- We can’t get you every time. 10 times. We can’t get you every time. You know, likeAnd, you know, I do about, what, 3, 4 times a year I try to get out here. I, I’m excited to come here, you know. It’s fun. Like I remember when the, when Milestone Mortgage was Vernon. Remember when Craig came in, what, about a month or so, 5 weeks later? It was Vernon then Craig. And then now it’s Vern, Craig, Rosie, Steve, Lombard, Jared. Like we, we got, we got people everywhere now, you know. And, you know, Dustin, he flew in from Minnesota. You got Mike coming up from Texas this week. Charlie from Washington. Like, this thing is- National now. Unite. Where’d we, where’d we learn it from now? I know. Right? Like, we just took the playbook of what you guys did, bringing, flying people in. Mm-hmm. Teaching them, going over, building that culture. And that’s, that’s the key part. At the end of the day, when the song is over and it’s whatever year the, you know, rates start going back up and it’s back to oh, God. We’ll still have the culture, we’ll still have the people, we’ll still have the, the memories. We’re, we’re, we’re having fun. Like, at the end of the dayUh, you know, we had Dustin on. He’s like, “Vern, as soon asYeah, I’m gonna tell you when I’m gonna leave Milestone. “I’m like, “Yeah? Great. You have this narrowed down? Like, how you gonna figure this out? “You gotta figure it out. He’s like, “The day I stop having fun here is the day that I’m gonna pack it up and leave. “And I’m like, that’s a good way to look at it ’cause Craig and I have had ups and down days where I’m like, “Dude, I’m done. “Like, “Dude, just cash me out. “And he’s like, “Nah, it’ll be fine. Come back tomorrow. “Right? Like, but if youYou just wanna have fun. Like, and no matter what anybody does, like, I feel like everybody wants to have fun but you have to put in that time. I think right now where you guys are, Debbie please, if you disagree let me know, like, you’re, you’re, you’re at UWM in 2017. Right- Maybe like 2010. Mm, we’ll go ’16. Be, likeWhen, you know, Debbie and I, like we, like the older people like me that have been there forever, like, we didn’t know what we wereWe were just trying to make a living. Right? You know, came to work every day just trying to get some loans in the door, put some families in homes, do some refis. If, you know, I remember I, I, when I hired in, Matt does like a first dayLike he comes and talks. And we were in this 5 story building in Troy, you know, east wing, west wing. We had valet. Like, it was, and he was like, “You’re on the ground floor!”I’m like, “This guy’s nuts. “Like, “This guy’s lost his mind. “And to see the 2. 3 million square feet of office space that we have now,But we didn’t know what we were building. We just thought we were going to get a paycheck and- Yeah. learn how to do, you know, make a living for our families. go back 6 years- Yeah. for you guys. You know what else wild, though? You didn’t know you were gonna add- I was just thinking about-all this. when you said 2. 3 million square feet. It’s not- 200 acres. 200 acres. That’s not how I envisioned UWM. I know this is gonna sound absolutely crazy. I envis-Like, every time I go to UWM, I’m just going to hang out with friends and, and, and people- Mm-hmm. I work with and I can’t wait to see. And I see the sameWhen I fly out to UWM, full disclosure for everybody watching, I think I talk to about 15 to 20 people, and then the rest of everybody’s just doing their thing. And it’s been the same 15 or 20 people since we opened in 2019, right? Every single person I talk toCan’t forget about Julie Parker. Julie’s the G. We won’t go down that road again. I’m just kidding. KB. Like, they’ve all been there- G, she’s a lifesaver. Right? Like, these guys have Craig and I how to build a business, how toI can call Debbie tomorrow and say, “Hey, Debbie, what’s going on with this? Hey, what would you do in this scenario? “”Vern, I really don’t know. But hold on. “Yeah, I would say that that’s been- And she knows we know. That’s become the best part of UWM, is the help and the growth of the business. Like, we would not be where we are today without it because we don’t know what you don’t know. Yeah. But that goes, again, it goes back to you. We wouldn’t be where we are without great partners such as yourself, ’cause we’re all in on the wholesale side. You have to be- Yeah. receptive to the help too. The one thing I can tell you that, um, never gets old for me-is when I drive into work, and if you were to walk the bridge and you look on both sides, and surrounding all of our campuses are nothing but cars. And with each one of those cars is associated a family. And when you think about the responsibility that we have for all of the people that work there, especially with us in sales, like that’s a huge weight that we carry every single day. But we have a blast doing it. And knowing that we are helping not only internal, those families, but externally peopleWe get to put people in homes. Yeah. We get to pull equity out of homes and pay off debt. We get to help them put kids in college. Um, all of the things that we’re able to do for the American dream, who can’t love what you do when you do that? No, I totally agree. That’s what we do. The American dream. Living it. It’s a lot. Yeah. So much. And if you think about it though, think about the purchase transaction, how many people are dependent on a paycheck? No, no, it’s huge. I mean, that’s what separates the good from the bad in this business- Fact. you know? Mm-hmm. And that’s what separates the people that can withstand a downturn in the market because you’re not just relying on refis. You know, when we were getting started, refis about a year in were really what everybody was doing. I didn’t have much competition out there to go get business-because I was the only one going to open houses. I was the only one throwing events. I was the only one doing trainings with realtors to build those relationships, which still stand today. Mm-hmm. Back then when everyone was just like, “I’m just gonna sit back and refi, do a three or 4 or 5 deals. “I’m like, “Wh- why do you wanna stop at 5? “Do you know how many people- Why do you wanna stop at 10, like, I wanna do 50, I wanna do 100. I wanna know w- Do you know how many originators I begged, don’t just layback on these, on these refis. Get in front of these realtors. This is not going to last forever. “Uh, you know what’s crazy is even to this day I would rather deal with a buyer preapprove them, help them find a house, get them into a house and close the house than just do a couple of refinances. Yeah. Like it’s cool, like you make money on them and you’re helping the people that you know, but at the end of the day, like it’s not the same. You know what I mean? Like when you send that clear to close email to that person and let them know like, “Hey, you’re all set on this. “Especially a first time home buyer. Like then they’re unsure, they’re nervous the whole time. Like I got an email this weekend from a client like, “Hey, you know, uh, i- is everything like all set because like “And they were not even at commitment date yet, but they’re just like nervous. Yeah. You know, they’re buying theirThey haveThey give their notice to the landlord that they’re moving out. And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re good. Like, your loan will be CTC tomorrow because you just sent the bank statement we needed and one hour later you’re going to be on CTC the loan. “And the girl was- That’s awesome. you know, gassed. But- Yeah, there’s a lot of moving parts and Like I said, for me the first time home buyers are, are the ones where it’s just like- ‘Cause they appreciate it the most. They do. Well, and when you think how long were they saving money t- toward a goal, right? And they reached that goal. You got to help them. You know, that stuff isThat’s the good ones. Well, guys, we wouldn’t be here today without you guys. Same. And I appreciate you guys coming here. I think this is gonna be a great episode to get out to everybody and learn more about UWM because I think a lot of people don’t really know what UWM really does unless you’re in this business. Because you guys don’t work with the consumers directly. And you guys are a huge asset, I think, to this entire, uh, country and the entire broker channel whichI don’t think the broker channel would be where it is today without UWM. No chance. No chance. Number one lender in the country, baby. That’s crazy. We’re gonna double it. Are we gonna hug now? No. Okay. See you guys next time. Thanks guys.