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Her passion is in creating the operational team and the experience she always wished she had. She wants to help each team member reach their highest potential while helping improve their personal life through balance and appreciation. For more than twenty years she has worked in the mortgage industry, where she has had the opportunity to work in nearly every facet. From starting out as a receptionist for a three-man shop, she has worked in the areas of setup, post-closing, funding, origination, table closer, mortgage closer, renovations and construction loans, processing, underwriting, and everything in between. Now that she has the privilege of overseeing all of Operations, she feels even more blessed to have had the opportunity in life to work in the many different areas. She firmly believes that it makes a world of difference when management can empathize with people’s challenges and stresses.

 

 

In this episode, guest host Craig and Chrissy discuss:

  • Leadership is a jungle gym 
  • Why it’s important to do hard things
  • Providing value by educating clients

Key Takeaways:

  • Approach leadership as not a ladder but a jungle gym. The way isn’t always directly up, you have to embrace all the pivots and recognize it all as a part of your journey toward becoming a better leader. 
  • Don’t shy away from or grumble about difficult circumstances. Treat every experience as an opportunity to build up your skills and character. Cultivate a hunger and desire in you to make a career out of the job you’re in. 
  • Recognize that people on your team or in other departments are all just as much of a key piece to the success of the organization as you are.
  • Providing education to the public means expanding their understanding of what is possible. We must all do a better job at making sure that our clients are equipped with everything they need to know in order to get what they want. 

 

“Even if you're not growing in your title, or your compensation, everyone has the ability, at any level that they're at, to grow as a person - professionally and personally. When you put in effort, you will naturally be a leader to those around you, even if you don't hold the title.”
- Chrissy Brown

Connect with Chrissy Brown:

 

Connect with Craig Ungaro:

 

Listen to the podcast here:


Chrissy Brown- Ask the Question

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Insight Interview by Rewire. Today, joining me is Chrissy Brown. Chrissy, how you doing?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm doing well. I'm excited to interview you and I hope you're excited to be here as well.

Of course.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, before I get started, I just want to do a little introduction for the audience. Who is joining me today is Christina Brown, also well-known as I should say, as Chrissy Brown. She is the Chief Operations Officer of Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group. Atlantic Bay is a regional IMB located in the Mid-Atlantic, covering over about 15 states and $6 billion in annual origination. Chrissy has over 25 year’s experience, and I would say best way to summarize her background is she's done it all. In addition to doing it all, Chrissy is a certified mortgage banker and accredited mortgage banker and a certified residential underwriter. She's also serves on Freddie Mac's lender advisory board ,lenders one's advisory board, and she's very active which we'll talk a little bit about today on our show. The most impressive thing about Chrissy is, I'm going to read off just last year's awards for Chrissy Brown. Just 2021 if you needed my last three awards, by the way, you have to go back years but just just last year, Chrissy was named 2021 Women of Influence by Housing Wire, 2021 elite women in mortgage and 2021 Hampton Roads Women in Business Award. That is a really, really impressive resume Chrissy.

Awesome, thank you.

Yeah, you got it, you got it. You know, the one thing is I love reading those awards, but there's one word in those words that I wish we would remove from them, which is women. And, you know, 2021 Women of Influence can easily replace women with leader. The 2021 leader of influence by Housing Wire. That could be you. Elite women in mortgage, you could be the elite executive in mortgages, you've done a lot of really great things, and as a peer and somebody who I work with and talk to, I've never came to you for just a women's perspective on things, I've come to you for leadership perspective, and you really are just an all-around just awesome, awesome leader, and I'm excited about this interview.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah, you got it. You got it. So, what are some things going on? Like why don't you tell us a little bit about your past? And how you got to where you are right now with Atlantic Bay? And you know, I sort of summarized by saying you’ve done it all, but why don't you just take us through your professional journey?

Well, I really didn't choose the various avenues I went down, it was more so voluntold what I was going to do at that point. Old school mortgage business, right? So yeah, I started as a receptionist 25 years ago, and, you know, back in the day, they did a lot of temp agents and things like that. And they tried to, you know, get me to learn processing for minimum wage at the time, right? And so, you know, with everything I just learned and soaked up as much as I could. If you're willing to teach me I'm willing to learn, right? And so, from there, you know, start, I went into processing and closing and, again, back in the day, it was more so where's the need? And can you do it? And I was always the first one to sign up for whatever was available, because I wanted to learn as much as I could. And again, kind of my motto throughout my career is if you're willing to teach me anything, I'm willing to learn all of it. And, you know, that led me, you know, as my trade, if you will, as an underwriter. And from there, I joined a lending pay 11 years ago, and you know, as an underwriter here and just kind of grew up into the operations manager, and then so on and so on, and I'm still learning so much every single day. It's incredible. How much there is this industry?

Yeah, that's, that's great. I love that. voluntold that's great. I'm definitely going to steal that one from you, for sure. You know, I love that, and I'm going to dig into some of that story a little bit now, but what that point of your willingness to learn and one of the things I admire about you is you're constantly asking questions and diving in, and it sort of exposes me I mean, I'm, I'm a peer of yours in another company and you ask questions. I'm like, I don't know the answer to that either. I need to look into it. So, I love that you're just constantly trying to expand your horizons. That's really wonderful and somebody in your position, some people get complacent and just kind of sit still and that's definitely not your DNA for sure.

Well, and I don't know if it's so much complacency. I think there's a lot of intimidation, right? To say I don't know, or, you know, maybe I should know this, and so I'm just gonna stay quiet. Right? And in that you don't end up learning what you know, whatever that is at hand, right? And so I think that, but it is intimidating. I mean, I've spent many years being intimidated by lots of folks, right? But then you just have to come to a place where it's like, you know what, no one knows it all. And it's okay. So I'm just going to ask the question, because most likely somebody else's asked him wondering the same question, or somebody can learn from us, right?

Yeah, that's so interesting you say it like that, you know, intimidated to ask the question, because you feel like, well, I should know this. And, yeah, that's probably a very true perspective for a lot of people and including myself.

Right.

One of the things that I tell folks, and it sounds like your journey is similar is that, you know, promotion is not the way it's, you know, in movies, right? So, it's not land this account, and then you get the job, it's generally disguised in the work nobody else wants to do. And that's generally how you become, you know, the CEO of a company and says, like, you know, along the way, so, where were some pivotal points where maybe, where were those accelerators In your career? Those sort of launching points? Can you sort of identify those times?

Yeah, actually, I told my team all the time, leadership, like, really excelling to the top of your career, any field, right? If you approach it more like a jungle gym, and I'm stealing this completely from Sheryl Sandberg, who was the CEO of Facebook, but purchased like a jungle gym, versus a ladder, the jungle gym may have pivots down sideways, you know, but you're getting the whole perspective, right? You're getting to see everything. So, when you get to the top, you know what the entire landscape looks like. If you're constantly going straight up, you're only looking down from your path that you grew into, right? And so, I know that there's a lot of folks that get frustrated, like I didn't get picked for the promotion, or I'm pivoting over to this position or that position, and I really wanted to be underwriter, you know? If you just embrace all the moves, left, right, down, it will make you more well-rounded, and you'll have a better understanding of everything. And that really is, you know, kind of how my career was in the voluntold career, which I'm, you know, back in the day, I would be very frustrated, right? It is frustrating to be picked over for a promotion, or, you know, not make underwriter, or the various things or, you know, be moved to a whole different department and you don't know that stuff. It can be frustrating; it can be defeating. But if you can embrace it as a learning opportunity, I mean, sky's the limit. So, a couple of the things, I mean, I scanned final docs for a year. We’re gonna dial it way back in history back when you had hardcase binders, and you were seeing another copy machine. That wasn't scanning actually, it was copying, right? And you're sitting there for hours. But what I got to do in those hours is I got familiar with every single document in the case binder, right? And I know that sounds like a silly way to learn it, but I knew all the documents, where they need to go what needs to be in there. Another time in my career where you know, this really came as an asset to me and I was not very happy about it at the time, I was placed into a construction perm. And I was like, come on, can’t I just do the vanilla loans like everyone else? Why do I have to do construction perm? I felt like, you know, I've done something wrong, or you know, I took a demotion, if you will. I not only then did construction perm, but I did manufacture housing construction perm. Now it was like, really, what have I done here? But again, you know, well, here I am. Let's learn it, right? And you know, I spent probably about a year or two in construction perm manufacturer housing, two or three days, renovations, all that good stuff, and now they're actually my favorite products, so I love them. But you know, when it came time for me to become Operations Manage at Atlantic Bay, and then on to COO, when I assumed the construction department, I wasn't completely in over my head. I knew how a construction loan worked. I knew how drawls worked. I knew all the documentation you needed and the risks with manufacture housing and things like that, and I was so blessed that moment, even though at that time, it did not feel like a blessing, right?

Yeah.

You know, back in the day, we weren't, you know, bonus per file and things like that. Like it was like, I'm working twice as hard as everyone else, you know, these loans, but back in the day, I thought it was kind of my curse, if you will, nd now it's my blessing, right? And again, you can go about it, and you can moan and complain, and oh, man, why do I have to do the hard things? Why do I have to do all the difficult loans or all the self-employment, right? If you have a borrower that has, you know, 87 businesses, why do I have to do this? Well, you learned it, right? And if you could just approach it and change your perspective to, I have the opportunity to learn these things, and I think I'm going through right now, you know, in this market, I'm learning a lot about capital markets, and it's overwhelming, very difficult, but you know, instead of looking at like, oh my gosh, this is so hard, and I don't get it, I have an opportunity to learn it. Let's be excited about that.

That's great. And I love where you're going. You know what you just said there. I feel like we have this right now and we're talking about capital markets and every one of these turns right there presents some sort of opportunity, but it really isn't glaring, it's you got to look deep for it right? You got to kind of lean into the moment to present line that opportunity.

100%.

I think that's an amazing quality that you have. And in your role right now, you probably love the person that you were as an employee, right? The person that could learn something, and you know, there's no better path, upward or, or left, right. I love the jungle gym analogy there, but there's no better way to like, if you look at your team, and you go, okay, I have a challenge. Who could I throw this challenge on? It's the person that it is not always the highest producer, the one that did the most amount of loans, it's the one that's the most versatile. The one that really can expand the horizon. And so, you know, I'm sure in your role right now you have some people in organization are like, okay, this is a new challenge. I know, I can count on this person.

Yeah. And I can see that in their eyes, right? Like, even if they, you know, the entry level in the last couple of years and or season, right? There are folks that just hunger, the growth, right? And that is a completely different personality. And again, you know, there are a lot of folks that just are good with what they're doing, and that's fine. I respect that, right? But you know, if you have that desire, you have that hunger, you can be vocal about it, because there's definitely some folks I meet that are, like I said, even entry level or just, you know, newly to processing, you just see it in their eyes of desire, and the hunger to make this a career, not a job, and to learn everything you can. And so, when those opportunities come, they're the first people we're thinking about, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I think when it comes to developing people, leaders, you know, I really do think of you I know your team, so, I know the people on your team. I think one of the really cool things about our relationship, as I was thinking back at this, sorta looking at our notes, and I'm like, I've had dinner with your team, without you there, you've had dinner with my team, but I wasn't present. I think that's really awesome. But the thing about meeting with your team is that as impressed as I am with you, the way we engage and talk and your questions and sort just your depth of knowledge, your range, quite frankly, it's when I'm with your people, I see all those qualities coming from them and they talk the way they talk about you is awesome, you know? And that's how, you know you have a real leader, right? When the people around that person really, when they're not present. They're being spoken about that way you do a great job of that.

Did they pay you to say that, Craig? Did they pay you to say that?

Yes, I will be compensated. The Venmo is hitting me right now. So that's wonderful. No, no, no.

 

And vice versa, as well, Craig, and vice versa. Your team, you know, just thinks the world of you and I, to your point, that is what leadership is as somebody that they want to follow, right?

 

Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. How do you get, you know, one of the things I think listeners would love to hear is not everybody can be the COO, and not everybody can be an executive, not everybody can be a leader. I'm quoting my hands here, like sort of like, find leader, but there's leaders within it. So how do you keep people motivated, even though you can't have 50 people being Vice President of Operations?

That's a really good question. Yeah, I don't think I've ever been asked that question. Yes, you're right. And I think that it all comes from what motivates you, right?

Yeah.

                                                                                                         
"Like, I've never been motivated by title and money power, and that kind of stuff. I'm just hungry for knowledge. And I'm the kind of person that is googling whatever thought comes to my head at 3am. Like, I have to know what the answer is right now, even if it's silly, but, you know, I think that you can, even if you're not growing in your title, or your compensation, everyone has the ability, at any level that they're at, to grow as a person, right, professionally and personally, right? You can just soak up that knowledge and, and through that, when you do the hard work and you do you put in effort, you will naturally be a leader to those around you, even if you don't hold the title."

You know, somebody asked me one time, like, how did you get your level? You know, like, I don't know, I'm still asking myself that question. How did you get to your level, and I said, I was just a good student, right? Anybody that is willing to teach me anything, I was willing to do the work, right? You got to do the work. And then I was willing to do the extra credit. And so, every employee in any position in any company or department has the opportunity to learn. There's free resources out there, you can Google stuff, you can read guidelines, you can do professional development, you can get into emotional intelligence and start to understand how people are and you can naturally develop leadership skills within yourself without the title.

Yeah, really great stuff. One of the things that, that we talk about all the time is, you know, if I were to give you this promotion today, would anybody be surprised? And if the answer is yes, that's the thing you got to work on, right? Why would your peers all of a sudden be taken aback by you being our leader tomorrow, right? And so constantly being like, ready to be in the game is one of the sorts of thing you do a great job of, because I see some of that your folks and how they take such control over their world, like whatever they're in charge of, is like, the most important thing, and the thing they're most enthusiastic about it. And you know, there's a couple people that I'm thinking of in your organization right now, and I think, you know, they're great people, and I've known them beforehand, but just how excited and enthusiastic they are about their job is something I just credit you for, for being just a tremendous leader doing that. So, along those lines, we talked about this time of the, you know, this cycle that we're going through, and I don’t know if you want to call it this environment.

The dark winter, the dark winter.

Yeah, exactly. And this week was the MBA annual, and you were there, and I'm sure so, you know, what would you say some of the themes or the tones coming out of Nashville was this week?

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You know, I think one of our peers that at best, the tone really was like, more so validation that we're all in the same boat, right? I think for the last several months, there's been a lot of pressure, who's outperforming who and how are they getting lower rates than we are? And, you know, who is kind of having to look up at that news industry? And I feel like we're starting to all kind of get to the same place where we're all in the same boat, we all have the same challenges, right? And, you know, we all want the same goal for the market to even out and to start paying up again. And I think, you know, as a leader, some of these decisions that we've been through recently have been very difficult.

Yeah.

Gut wrenching, actually, you know, and so I think we're not alone, right? We're all again, in the same boat. Obviously, there were some major announcements from the FHFA, but everyone's aware of that.

Yeah.

But you know, again, just that was is a great time right now to continue to strengthen your relationships. Your relationships, at the end of the day, will get you much further than anything else. And so have relationships with your investors, your vendors. I mean, those are the things that matter when things get hard.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's really well said, it is about those relationships, and I'm sure even internally, right? Like, there's some really difficult decisions that had to be made and being made, and, you know, but you do make them for the people that are part of your organization still, and so, what's the message to your leaders, you know, that are still in this with you? And they're part of it. How do you get them through this?

It's been tough, I'm not gonna lie, you know, I have struggled myself, right? And like you said, you know, there's been difficulty within relationships, even internally, right? For every organization, this is tough stuff, right? This is definitely the most challenging market, I've led in. And, you know, a lot of like you said, hard decisions and hard calls, and I'm really having to dig deep and get creative, and it really puts a lot of strain, and then morale, you know? Morale has been tough. How could it not be? You know, how literally could it not be? It's just a really tough market right now, and so, you know, one of the things I constantly tell my leadership team is just try to stay as authentic and transparent through this as you possibly can, right? You know, people at the end of the day will appreciate knowing what's going on, what to expect, and just your authenticity, I think that, you know, we could really go wrong by trying to, you know, oh, nothing to see over here, this is a great market, you know, everything's fine. So, I think the best we can do is communicate, set expectations, and just be authentic through this.

Yeah, that's great advice. Yeah, over communicate, and just constantly, because as things change, you know, your the situation changes, and I think the communication then changes and whatever those are, and one of the things that, you know, I'm sure you're dealing with is the balance, right? Like, we talked about what our loan officers are going through right now, and they are out there trying to create value, right? And we're doing that as operators, right? We want to continue to provide value to them. And, you know, one of the mantras we have is, like, be in this fight with our loan officers, like be as much into that same fight they have is our fight today, you know, on any of the elective initiatives, all the sort of things, there's a whole table, they've been tabled. And now it's all about sort of providing as much value as possible and put that stuff when you are cutting back on resources at the same time. So that balance is always difficult. Any techniques or sort of tricks that you've done to sort of be able to still be able to provide as much if not maybe even more, in a time when volumes down and resources may be sort of lacking?

Yeah, I mean, again, I think goes back to the team concept, like you're saying, right? You know, at the end of the day, and I'll say this to every loan officer in the United States, and to every operations person, you know, you can have the best loan officer in the world and the worst ops, you're not gonna be successful,. As successful, Ill say. You have the best ops in the world and the worst loan officer and you're not going to be as successful. It really takes both pieces working together for that common goal. And so, you know, we really talked to our operations a lot about the fact that they do have a hand and whether or not we're successful, even through this market, right? If they have, you know, if the loan officers have this amazing support, and they're able to deliver, as you know, certain companies are making some very difficult decisions, and some of them I'm not, you know, we'll see how that pans out kind of decisions, you know, they will have the opportunity if they can come and give 110% Every day. They can grow, they can learn, they can utilize this time to expand their knowledge base and, and you know, personally and professionally in various different areas, then they can help be a value add to a landing bay, which will help with our overall success.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great advice, and they're in so much more in control than they may realize in the service they provide and the relationship you have internally with our, you know, our loan officer partners and sales partners and things like that. That's really, really phenomenal advice.

Yeah, we actually did a survey recently, for all of our sales folks, and just kind of what do you value? Right? All the various things we offer, what do you value? And, you know, the most the majority of everything that they value the most is operations. right?

Yeah.

And so, you know, I think that it's easy to get feel defeated as operations person right now, I actually just wrote an article, it'll be released next month, about the state of the operational employee right now.

                                                                                                           
"You know, I think it's easy to feel defeated, to feel like I want to throw my hands up, to silently quit, or quiet quitters, or whatever they're calling that right now, but as an operational person, like, this is a time to shine. This is a time to really add that value and be a team player, see how far like, how do you band together with your sales folks, and really, just for the entire success of the company, work together to do whatever it takes, you know, to stand out this time?"

Yeah. And that brings me to a question. And what I'll do is remove us from the current environment we're in right now, for a moment.

Thank you.

Thinking just yeah, we're just gonna, like just fantasize about being in a different time period right now. And just say, you know, I think there was a shift already happening prior to 2022, and that shift is somewhere between, you know, where technology and sort of our manufacturing loan process and the service that we provide is really coming to a head if you, you know, if you ask me. So, you know, how different do you see the processing, or the underwriter role, you know, post 2022? You know, post inflation, combating inflation at 324, do you see that materially changing, or just sort of slight changes?

You know, so I talk a lot about E closing. That’s more like my jam there. But, when I talk about E closings, you know, kind of go back through the technology and technological advances into the traditional mortgage setting, right? I heard somebody best put it like, we're at the foothill of the traditional mortgages death and the birth of electronic mortgage, right? And so how do we kind of navigate through that? What does that look like for the various positions? So, I always kind of dial it back to when AUS first came out. I will never forget that and I won’t say what year that was. But you know, at that point, every person and operations like, well, there we go, the machine has replaced us, right? There's going to be zero need for processors or underwriters, they're just going to be able to click a button, and AUS will tell them what is needed, right? And if we look forward 25 years, or however long has been, you know, that is not the truth, right? We're able to do things more accurately, we're able to do things more efficiently, and we're able to put our focus on to the things that are a little bit more difficult or need a little bit more of that human element. I don't think that technology will ever replace the human element of mortgages, because every single borrower has a completely different financial makeup. Completely different. And so there has to be that discretion and those judgment calls when you're looking at things, but I think that the technology really is a massive tool for accuracy. I think that we need that to be able to put the checks and balances in place some of the errors. I'll just speak for my organization, I'll put it out there, you know, some of the errors I've seen never should have happened, right? Because that's going to happen with human element. But when you start to have those, those technology pieces n that safeguards you from some of those errors, and the errors in this industry can be very expensive. So I would say that, you know, I do think that we're going to get more and more technological, I think that, you know, we're going to start communicating more in apps, which is needed to happen for a long time.

Sure.

But even if you think about, you know, communicating with borrowers and apps that are so much better than email. That doesn't replace a processor, that doesn't replace a loan officer, that replaces the inconsistency of I missed an email, it didn't come through, I was on vacation, you know? So I think that we're going to be able to really uptick our efficiency and really, really, I think it's gonna be a massive accuracy initiative as we put more and more technology into the industry.

Really well said and I also think that probably more volume per person, as a result of some technology as well.

There better be for the cost of technology.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Looking forward, or you know, if it's not more volume, then more time spent on some of the various loans. A lot of the affordable housing sector, some of your HFA loans, things like that, where we'll have more time and manpower to really get in there and help our borrowers, counsel them and get them into a place where they can achieve homeownership.

Yeah, perfect segue, I was going to ask you about products next step, and say, you know, this year 2022, I'm sure you're experiencing it, the emerging product being such an important part, right? It goes back to that value proposition to the loan officers. Do you see that continuing to expand as we get into things like, more and more gig economy? You know, people have multiple jobs, multiple people in homes that, you know, for cash flow, underwriting things online? How much do you see that expanding?

You know, I think that the industry always has to evolve with the, the makeup of the average American, right? And I think that if anybody tries to stay in par for the course for 20 years, the risk right now, a risk that an underwriter or credit risk person is looking at is completely different than what the risk characteristics were 10 years ago. They're definitely different than 20 years ago. I think you have to constantly evolve and expand with the various characteristics of like I said, the American borrower. However, you know, I would hope that the GSEs and the Ginnie Mae and all of the people will be the ones to really stay up to date and evolving with that, and I felt like the GSEs have been evolving with that. We're definitely getting a ton of demand for various privatized products and non QM and you know, some of those more creative products, if you will. That does bring, you know, gives anybody who was a risk person a little bit, some hesitation, just because you're putting some eggs in some pretty powerful baskets, right? That I would hope that and I have seen that, from what I can see that, you know, the government agencies are moving along with. I think that they still have some, you know, some areas that can improve in, but they're definitely trying to move along with where the average citizen is right now.

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Yeah, that's great. Your answers have been perfect segue to my next questions, which are great. And so, we'll talk a little bit about agencies and talk about that, you know, CHLA, has been very instrumental, you were very instrumental within that group. Can you talk about some of the success CHLA has had with and maybe just do a little overview of CHLA for everybody?

So, see, CHLA is a trade group. And we represent the interest of the independent mortgage bankers, community lenders, so as you can see, and you know, very similar to what MBA does on Capitol Hill, but just making sure the voices of the independent mortgage banker are heard loud and clear and the impact that some of these decisions have, you know, when you're not a depository. So, I’m in and out active, if you will. I'm very active when it comes to agency issues that's as a being an underwriter by trade, that is definitely more of my forte. But CHLA has done fantastic things. Just recently, they've made a huge charge, and I won't go into too much detail, but there was a Ginnie Mae capital risk requirement ratio that was trying to go into effect, and it would have a massive impact on IMB. May not have as much of an impact on a depository. So, they spent a lot of time meeting with the heads of Ginnie Mae, and various government agencies to really try to highlight what this does to the IMB community, which does represent still 80% of the industry of originations. And so, that has a massive impact. And sometimes, you know, those voices collectively, there's so many IMBs, it's easy to kind of get lost in the shuffle. Because, you know, a lot of our companies are a lot smaller than, you know, your Wells Fargo and your, you know, Chase, etc. So, that is one of the things and that just got extended last Friday to the end of 2024 further review and data. We were very instrumental and very vocal in the PSPA suspension. That was something that I was very passionate about, because I had to do with it, you know, the GSEs and being under the PSPA amendments, and what that did to our industry had a massive impact on us. And so, you know, we met with various agencies and government entities to really try to highlight like, what this does, because, you know, there is data that shows improves that IMBs serve the affordable housing sector, much better than depositories, right? You know, again, we'll take all that time and restructure loans and, and look at ways to okay, we'll try doing this for six months and come back, and, you know, I think that it's really important that we're represented because you know, if those things hurt us, it hurts the consumer, the borrower.

Absolutely. CHLA has been great and Scott Olson, who leads that group there is really does a great job of staying focused on the IMB issues as you mentioned, and actually a former Insight Interviewer and a very big part of that group as well. And really, thank you on behalf of all the ISPs for your involvement in CHLA and moving the needle for things that are very, very important to us.

Oh, it's really exciting, because just recently merged that merger with CHLA, so to really bring those two organizations together and really have a combined effort a combined, you know, voice into that space, I think is going to be even more powerful.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you're involved there, you're involved with lenders one, which is a great, cooperative, and I think that's where we met by the way. Where did we meet?

Yes, Lenders One.


Yes, exactly. Right. And then you're also involved in Freddie Mac's advisor. So, my question to you is, how much sleep do you get at night?

A lot. I have to have eight hours or I'm not gonna-

Okay. So, you're quite focused and focused on your sleep?

Yes, yes. Actually, we're going, you know, back and forth with some peers and industry today, and they're like, well, we need three or four hours. I'm like, nope, I'm not gonna function well.

Yeah, that's excellent. You know, one of the things that we started doing is really started focusing on the sleep as if like, you know, almost the way a professional athlete focuses on their fitness. We got these rings and really focused on how many hours of sleep, so you really do get eight hours of sleep? In our communication with you, I would have thought maybe two, three hours at the most.

Oh, no, it's all about balance, right? It's trying to figure out what's most valuable. Use your time today. And that's really where the struggle is. How do you make the choices to just balance out your life and know what's most important?

So, I'll ask just a couple more questions here, and then any topics you want to jump on. So, what was one of the, you know, I think your culture of your organization is awesome. What is some of the more I would say best bang for your buck or the most fun events that you've done with your staff or your company?

Okay, the most fun, huh?

What was like the best like culture event that you've done? Doesn't have to be the most elaborate. Doesn't need to be your President's Club trip or whatever, but what is the this is the most enjoyable sort of cool, even if it's a thing that you do like every Friday thing. It's a recognition platform. Like what are some of those things? I know people would love to hear.

Yeah, so when the pandemic broke out, and we were in more of a quarantine status, you know, it was a lot of stress on our employees, families, and you know, at home learning, and, you know, just navigating through that entire environment. We started doing game shows, I think it was every other week, and we called it like the happy hour. And everyone from our owners to executive leadership, various managers would all get on and we do all sorts like family feud and wheel of fortune, and it was super fun.

That is awesome. I love that. I love that very much. A couple more questions here and we'll sort of wrap it up here. What would be one word that you would describe 2022?

I don't think I can say this. No. No, I’m kidding. I mean, hard. It's been hard.

Hard?

Yeah, it's been hard. Challenging. I'm trying to I'm trying to spin this into something positive. You know, the positive out of it is that there's growth, right? But it's been challenging. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. It's been very, very hard, hard.

The word that came to mind for me was declining. I felt like as the year went on, things just continued to decline and decline and decline. So, with that being said, what do you if you could fast forward time, but not personally, so your kids would be the same age or everything would remain intact, but the industry would fast forward, how fast, what time period would you like to go towards? Like, how fast would you want? You want it to be six months out? You want it to be 12 months? Or what would you want to hit the fast forward button to?

I'm really interested to see what the spring market does.

Okay.

So, I think that that's gonna be a telltale sign. You know, historically, the winter is a little bit more difficult, a little bit slower, and so that paired with the environment, it's going to be very difficult to kind of figure out like, where really are we? I think when this spring market comes in, back up, you know, we get into March, April, May and you know, things typically are starting to increase and volume is going up and you know, everyone's buying houses. If that is still flat, or you know, or not as increasing as much, then I think that will help give us some guidance for what the rest of the year will look like.

Sure. Okay. So about six months out for now. Okay.

That was a long answer to your question.

No, no, it was great. I appreciate the commentary for sure. Last question for you. If we have a bunch of mortgage professionals on here listening to this interview, what piece of advice do you have for them?

I was actually thinking about this over the last couple days. Shockingly, because MBA annual. I think the biggest thing right now is to continually put out education to the American public, right? There's so many rumors of you know, this is not good for you, or this is too high or you know, but when you start to really dig in into interest rates, tax deductions and rent versus buy, I think that we should do a better job of really breaking down what the facts are. The education around owning a home even at a higher interest rate and what the benefits are and where it doesn't make sense, right? There's times certainly it doesn't make sense, you know, and then especially coming from a market where you're having to over bid by quite a substantial amount to get a house. And so, what that looks like realized into what you pay an increase in mortgage with a higher interest rate, and, you know, those various things, I think we just need to continually stay steady to education. That is our job as an industry is to educate those that are not in our industry, of what's going on, what are the facts.

Yeah, what a great point. You know, I don't want to beat up on the media, but their purpose is to sell advertising dollars, and so, you know, headlines and clickbait, and all those things need to be generally negative. People don't simply sign on for positive news. And you know, so things like we've all read, which is the average consumers paying $500 more a month for an average. But last year, they may have been overpaying by $30,000 for that same home, and it's not really part of the equation. So, you know, it's probably not as doom and gloom for the consumer, you know, as the buyers and the sellers, as much as, as maybe the media leads out to be, but to your point, which is, this is our job. It's our job to communicate that. And so, we need to continue to communicate and show that entire story. So really wonderful, wonderful advice. I really appreciate you answering all my questions, anything, any questions you have, for me, anything that you want to leave for the audience before we break?

I think that you have covered everything.

All right, excellent. Excellent. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Well, Chrissy, we are all so much more informed now. This has been great. I really appreciate you joining the show.

Of course.

And I hope to have you back on.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

You have a great day. Goodbye.

 

 

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