Podcast appearances and mentions of arch mortgage insurance

Mortgage Insurance is an often used and even more often misunderstood financial tool in the homebuying process. Kerry Murtagh, Account Manager at Arch Mortgage Insurance, breaks down MI facts and features to help homebuyers, realtors, and sellers understand how it can be best leveraged. We can also discuss why more down payment does not always mean the best loan or most qualified buyer.

In this episode of Laugh, Lend, and Eat, recorded live at NAMMBA Connect ‘24 in Orlando, FL, Fobby and Joe chat with Michelle Mendes, Account Executive for Arch Mortgage Insurance. Michelle, who was born in Venezuela and migrated to America as a child, shares her expertise in using social media to grow and engage with audiences. Known for her active presence on Instagram and other platforms, Michelle explains how mortgage professionals can leverage social media to build strong relationships, foster communities, and ultimately, drive business. She also discusses the differences between platforms like Instagram and Facebook and how loan officers can tailor their approach for maximum impact. Key Topics: The value of an engaged social media community versus focusing solely on follower count Why focusing on one or two key social media platforms is more effective than trying to be everywhere Strategies for using social media to start meaningful conversations and turn them into real-world connections Insights into how loan officers can best use Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn for their business Michelle's journey from Venezuela to the U.S. and her rise in the mortgage insurance industry Top 3 Notable Quotes from Michelle Mendes: "I honestly think the less the better, because you're fostering this community. If you have a smaller community and you have 10% of your following engaging with you, then Instagram starts boosting your stuff out of it, and then you get more and more connected with other networks."— Michelle emphasizes the importance of creating an engaged, tight-knit social media community. "It's important to have a presence in each of those platforms. However, I think doing less has been the key thing. You should kind of hone in on one or two platforms and really put all of your efforts into those."— Michelle shares her belief in focusing on fewer platforms to achieve better results. "You start getting questions about what you do, who you are, and who you do it for... The initial goal is to start a conversation. The ultimate goal is to take that relationship offline, meet in person, and that's where the real value comes in."— Michelle explains how social media should be used to build relationships that can eventually lead to in-person connections. Call to Action:Subscribe to Laugh, Lend, and Eat for more episodes with industry leaders like Michelle Mendes, sharing insights on how to grow your mortgage business. Connect with Michelle to learn more about her social media strategies and her work in mortgage insurance. Host: Fobby NaghmiCo-host: Joe Wilson, SocialCoachGuest: Michelle Mendes, Account Executive, Arch Mortgage Insurance

Mortgage insurance is often a misunderstood and overlooked aspect of the home buying process. However, it plays a crucial role in making homeownership accessible and protecting lenders. In our latest podcast episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Kama Johnson, a top mortgage insurance expert from Arch Mortgage Insurance. Kama shared her extensive knowledge and personal experiences to help us understand the ins and outs of private mortgage insurance (PMI). Whether you're a first-time homebuyer, a seasoned real estate professional, or just curious about mortgage insurance, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Tune in to learn more from Kama Johnson and get a clearer understanding of how PMI works and why it's so important. Let's dive in!

Live from the zoom town studios in beautiful Bend, Oregon, it's Truth in Lending! The podcast for mortgage people, by mortgage people. On this week's episode, Tammy Golden of Arch Mortgage Insurance joined us in the studio to bust out some mortgage insurance myths and provide some insight to help you better serve your clients. What are the factors for how much the fee will be? How can I get rid of it? and how do market conditions effect prices? Tune in for some helpful information about the new LLPA's from Katie, and as always, your market updates from the Truth in Lending Mortgage News.

On this episode of Open House, Reba and Eric welcome guest Sharon Knowles of Arch Mortgage Insurance to provide her expertise on the subject of PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance), and its importance in qualifying for certain kinds of loans.You'll learn: -        How PMI can make the difference in qualifying for a loan-        The relationship between PMI and down payment.-        Factors for determining how expensive your PMI is.-        The conditions that allow you to drop your PMI.-        Ways to adjust PMI to lower your mortgage payments.-        The variety of options for financing PMI.-        The difference between PMI and Credit Life/Credit Disability Insurance.Plus, Reba and Eric discuss the current tumultuous market dynamics, and leveraging them to your financial advantage, as well as best practices for making a winning offer.  So if you think PMI is just a monthly headache, tune in to this episode and get some much needed relief.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/info7)

Intro Welcome to the Arch MI Podcast, featuring our senior customer trainer, Blaine Rada. Arch Mortgage Insurance company, or Arch MI, is a leading provider of mortgage insurance or MI in the United States. Our competitive pricing tool, Arch MI Rate Star, is the leading risk-based pricing platform in the industry providing rates based on a thorough understanding of the underlying risk. Here's your host, Blaine Rada. Blaine Rada: [00:00:33] Welcome to the podcast. My name is Blaine Rada with Arch MI. I really appreciate you taking time to invest in yourself and I promise not to waste your time. My intent is to help you separate and differentiate yourself from the competition. And I do this by sharing my perspective and experiences from doing this work for over 30 years. Like the previous two seasons of this podcast, I plan to be unscripted and conversational, which means I'm never quite sure what I'm going to say or how long it will take me to say it. However, I would like season three to be a little different, perhaps with shorter episodes and an even easier to implement ideas. We'll see if that actually happens. So, let's get to it. I'm pretty confident that today's episode will be a little bit on the shorter end just because of the nature of what I'm going to be sharing with you. And it's not as complex and detail oriented as many that I do. I find it interesting that people have t-shirts of either places or events that they didn't actually ever experience themselves. I mean, I kind of look at t-shirts that highlight something as being something that only the people who've experienced it should be able to have. But anybody can buy a t-shirt. Right. I mean, you can go online and probably find a t-shirt that says I love Paris, even if you've never been to Paris. I think the best shirts are the ones that actually you can't buy. In fact, you have to earn it. The only way to get your hands on the shirt is to earn it. I actually have a shirt like that and I was going to wear it today. It's actually one of my favorite t-shirts. I've owned it for a long time and I only wear it like very, very rarely actually. So it's still in terrific shape. And I was going to wear it today to kind of inspire me as I was recording this podcast. Um, but I put it on and I don't know what happened, but it seems like it's shrunk. It seems like the shirt got smaller. And then I thought, well, maybe I just got more muscular. Like maybe over time, I've actually gotten bigger and the shirt stayed the same. And then I realized, well, I don't think you actually get more muscular, like in your belly area, do you? Like that's not an area where you build muscle. So I thought, well, I really need to be comfortable when I'm recording a podcast, I need to be able to breathe properly and feel comfortable. So I am wearing a different shirt that's an event that I experienced, that I enjoy. But it's not this particular shirt, the one that I wanted to wear today. And I'll just describe the shirt for you a little bit. It's green in color. And across the back of the shirt, kind of like along the area of your shoulder blades in big yellow letters is the word finisher. And it's a shirt that I got many years ago when I completed an ironman triathlon. Now, if you're not familiar with an ironman triathlon, it's basically a multi-sport event that involves swimming, biking, and running, sequentially all on the same day. And the ironman in particular is about a two and a half mile swim followed by a bike ride of about 112 miles. And then a full marathon of 26 miles that you run as if your legs aren't already tired enough. From a physical standpoint, athletically speaking, it certainly is probably one of my proudest accomplishments. And so I really cherish this shirt because it's not something that you could buy, you had to actually earn it. But do not be impressed by the fact that I've completed an ironman triathlon. I mean, athletically, I'm really very average. But I'm tenacious. I won't stop and I know how to train. I know how to prepare myself for whatever kind of crazy nutty thing I've decided I want to do. In fact, to kind of demonstrate that I'm not really tough at all, I'm not really that strong or that tough of a person, several years ago my wife and I, within a span of 10 days, we're going to become emptinesters. Both of our children were going to be leaving the nest within about a 10 day period. Our son was going off to graduate school and our daughter was going to finish her undergrad schooling. And so we decided it would be this fun ritual where we would all go, all four of us would go and get tattoos. Not like matching tattoos, we would each get whatever kind of tattoo we wanted, but it would be this thing that we would all experience together. Now, my wife and daughter had already gotten tattoos before. And so they were familiar with what that's all about. My son and I on the other hand, had never gotten a tattoo. And so it was completely foreign. I think I was the only one of the four of us that actually passed out while I was getting my tattoo. I remember vividly I was trying to breathe and deal with the pain and discomfort of getting the tattoo. My wife says that she remembers because she was kind of watching me the whole time. There was this moment in time where all of the color in my face completely left. In other words, I became as white as a white sheet. And then I lost consciousness literally for just a couple of seconds. And then she said the color came rushing back into my face as I woke up from my little nap. And interestingly enough, after I woke up from my little nap, I was fine as far as the discomfort and the pain. And the tattoo artist, now, she might've just been saying this to be kind, but obviously she's done probably thousands of these. She's experienced probably any kind of person you could imagine in the chair. She said it's actually very common that it happens much more often with men, that men are the ones that lose consciousness instead of women. And that after they've taken this little two second snooze they're fine and that their body is much more able to handle the discomfort. So, I don't know what that's all about, but it certainly didn't show a lot of toughness. And so that became part of the bonding experience with the family. But, you know, aren't we really all just kind of ordinary people yet we're trying to do extraordinary things. You know, we're trying to either live an extraordinary life or accomplish extraordinary things, or do things in an extraordinary way. But in reality, we are all just kind of ordinary, right. There aren't that many of us who are truly extraordinary people.  [00:07:07] And so goal setting, doing extraordinary things has always been something that really interests me. And so I've come up with a formula and as most formulas go that I've come up with, they are in hindsight. It's like, I wish I would've known the formula before I actually tried to use it. But it's in looking back at things like my ironman experience, where I can put pieces together in hindsight and figure out, wait a minute, there was a formula for being able to achieve what I consider to be extraordinary. And the formula is very simple. It's four As. And it's basically the idea that attitude plus aptitude plus action equals achievement. So when you're looking to achieve a particular thing and maybe that bar is very high, or maybe that bar is not that high, that you have to jump over, it's really going to come down to your attitude and your aptitude and your actions. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? [00:08:17] So I want to apply that formula to a more recent event that I participated in, known as the Tough Mudder. You may be familiar with what a Tough Mudder is, but just in case you're not, it's basically a 10 to 12 mile obstacle course. And so the Tough Mudder that I did in the Chicago area was 11 miles. Now running 11 miles as someone who has been a runner for most of his adult life, that in and of itself was something that was easy enough to train for. I wasn't intimidated about running 11 miles. But what was different about a Tough Mudder is it's not just about covering 11 miles, there were over 20 obstacles that you had to navigate on this course. And these obstacles were actually designed by British special forces. Now you could say that doing something like that would require strength and stamina and mental toughness. So, why would I do that? I mean, don't I already have the shirt? Don't I already have with my iron man shirt, the fact that I've done something that required strength and stamina and mental toughness. So, why would I do something like the Tough Mudder? Well, for a couple of reasons, one was, some of the proceeds from that event goes to support the wounded warrior project. And I wanted to be a part of something that was supporting the wounded warrior project. And also what intrigued me about the Tough Mudder was that you can't actually accomplish it by yourself. Now, if you do it by yourself, which I did, you're going to have to work with strangers, with people that you don't know to actually overcome these obstacles. For instance, there's one obstacle known as the Berlin Wall, which is basically a nine foot wooden wall. Well, I don't know about you, but there's no way I can scale a nine foot wall. Someone's going to have to boost me up. Right. So I'm going to have to step on somebody to get myself up to a point where I can grab a hold of something that's nine feet up and pull myself over to the other side. And so I was intrigued with this idea that, you know, as someone who's been a runner my whole adult life, it's never about teamwork when you're a runner. It's about me versus the clock. And yet there's no clock in a Tough Mudder. There's no finishing time. There's no ranking of where you finished compared to other people. It's basically get through the thing and don't leave anybody behind. Don't leave your Mudders out on the course. Make sure that you're working together to get everybody to finish. And those really intrigued me. So, let me apply this formula of attitude and aptitude and actions to my experience with the Tough Mudder.  [00:11:05]  And of course attitude, I mean, it kind of goes without saying, right. I mean, to achieve anything significant, anything that might be difficult that you haven't achieved before you've got to have the right mindset, right. You've got to have a positive outlook for instance. Now I had my doubts about the obstacle portion of the Tough Mudder. I certainly had some concern about what those would be. And I knew that you didn't have to do them all. I mean, you could walk around them or skip them or you can kind of do whatever you want, but I'm the kind of person that tries to go all in. And so I had some doubts, but I certainly had a positive attitude. I certainly went into it thinking that this was going to be a good experience and that I was going to do okay. And they actually did a great job of firing everybody up. You know, they had someone who was kind of the cheerleader, so to speak, that got up high where everybody could see him and got people chanting and jumping and fist pumping. So, I mean, literally when the gun went off, it was like hundreds of warriors being sent off into battle and everybody was just practically screaming and couldn't wait to get at it. And that energy and that enthusiasm and that passion, that's really what I'm talking about with attitude. Your energy, your enthusiasm, your passion, in my tough Mudder experience that lasted until the first obstacle, until the very first obstacle. And I'm going to try to describe these as I mentioned a couple of these obstacles and I'm actually going to use what the Tough Mudder organization calls them. These are not my words. But the first obstacle was known as Arctic Enema. Well, now there is a visual for you, right? Arctic enema. So what I'd like you to just envision is something like a garbage dumpster, right? Something, a container about the size of a garbage dumpster that's basically filled with 35 degree water and has big chunks of ice floating in it. And so you have to not only jump into this 35 degree water dumpster, but you have to completely submerge yourself because you basically have to kind of swim underneath a board that's been placed in the middle of it in order to get to the other side. So after the very first obstacle, I am completely soaked. I am freezing cold. And I don't know if you've ever experienced this before, but what happens to you when you are in 35 degree water is that nothing happens because your muscles basically seize up. Your muscles basically stop working and it becomes hard to breathe. And that was just the very first obstacle. So after that, I'm still trying to keep my attitude right where it needs to be. I figured it can't get any worse than that first one.  [00:13:48] Now aptitude is having a plan. Aptitude is doing your homework. You know, attitude is kind of how you think about what you know, but aptitude is what you know. And certainly for many goals, it's not just going to be a positive mental attitude that's going to get you to accomplish your goal. It's going to be the homework that you've done and the research that you've done and the plan that you've put together. So I knew a little bit about what some of these obstacles were and I shared some of this with my wife, as I often do. Because she doesn't necessarily understand why I do some of these crazy things, but she is supportive and I try to involve her as much as I can. And so part of my plan, part of my strategy was that I was actually not going to do the very last obstacle. The very last obstacle on the course was something that they called electroshock therapy. And I had seen videos of what this was, and I had seen a description of what this was. And both my wife and I mutually agreed, it was probably more strongly suggested by her than by me that I should not actually participate in that last obstacle. Basically, you were kind of running over these mounds of dirt. So kind of like these little teeny holes or little teeny hill. You were running over those as you were getting to the finish line, but hanging down from this structure that they had built there were these wires that had 10,000 volts of electricity running through them. And so you didn't know which wires would actually give you the jolt. But inevitably you would be running into wires that would have 10,000 volts of electricity. And I kind of thought, you know, I'm not really sure that that's a great idea. And so my intention was to walk around that one and you can imagine being the very last obstacle on the course, right. If you've gotten to that point and you're so close to the finish line, and then you choose to like I pass or like, I'm not going to do that one, that actually was kind of a difficult decision to make mentally, right. From an attitude standpoint, it was hard for me to say no to that. But I had my plan. My aptitude, my knowledge told me that that was probably not one that I wanted to do. And in hindsight, when I watched people do it, I saw people literally be rendered unconscious. I mean, I saw people faceplant themselves into the ground after getting 10,000 volts of electricity in them and thought, well, I made a really good call not to actually do that. [00:16:15] Okay. So what's the last A? I mean, it's not just about attitude and it's not even just about aptitude. It's ultimately taking action. Any achievement requires that we actually take action and the actions have to be very specific, and the actions have to be with the intent of accomplishing your goal. And so one of the things that comes to mind when I think about action is the word resolve. And probably the best definition of the word resolve that I've ever heard is promising yourself to never give up. Promising yourself to never give up. One of the last obstacles on the course is known as Everest. And Everest is I guess they call it a quarter pike, basically a curved wall, so to speak. And the objective is that you take a run at this curved wall, this quarter pike, and you try to get yourself up high enough that the people who are up on the top and people who've already done it before you they're up at the top holding their hands and arms down so that they can hopefully grab you as you're trying to get to the top and pull you up and over Everest. This is designed for people who are light and have springs in their legs. Neither of which apply to me. But I'm trying to be a good sport about these and at least attempt every obstacle. There were certainly some that I failed at and some that I couldn't complete. But I at least want to attempt every obstacle except the last one that involves electroshock therapy. And so I took a run at this thing and I didn't get high enough to be able to reach anybody's hand. And then you come tumbling down, literally kind of falling down the thing. And I took a second run at it, and I think on my second attempt, I might've just gotten somebody's fingertips to touch my fingertips, but it still wasn't high enough that I could grab onto somebody and they could pull me up. I tried a third time, I didn't even get as high as I got the second time and came tumbling down. And I'm really getting kind of discouraged at this point because I really wanted to try to accomplish this. And I look over into the spectator gallery and my son is there. He had come to kind of cheer me on and just see what this crazy thing was all about. So I walked over to my son and I said, you know, every time I do this, I'm getting more and more tired. And I don't know that I have any more than one attempt at this left in me. I think I can just give it one more try, but I'm going to give it everything I have. I'm going to resolve to give it everything that I possibly have this one last time to see if I can get to the top of Everest. And as you can probably imagine, that was what was needed. I was able on that last attempt to get high enough that somebody could grab onto me and pull me up to the top. And then of course, I waited up at the top and helped many other people up, who had extended that same courtesy to me. Now again, don't be impressed by these physical feats that I have put myself through. They may not be anything that you would ever be interested in doing yourself. I'm simply using them as an illustration of the kind of achievement and goals that are important that we're all trying to meet. So why bother? I mean, you could say, well, why bother with doing these kinds of things that very few people might want to do, you know, can't a person just be satisfied and not have these high-level goals that they're trying to achieve? Again, it all comes back to, I think we're very ordinary people who are trying to live extraordinary lives, in our own way. However, we choose to define extraordinary. We're trying to live in an extraordinary way or accomplish extraordinary things. But when it comes down to it, we really are very ordinary. But the best t-shirts are the ones that you cannot buy. The ones that you have to earn, and every time you put it on, you can think to yourself, I got the t-shirt. I put my attitude and my aptitude and my actions together in alignment and I got achievement. I achieved something significant. I got the t-shirts. And when you do that, when you achieve something that you didn't think you could, not only do you inspire other people, the people who see what you've done and heard about it, but you inspire yourself. You inspire yourself to even try something more, something different. And I did that with a tattoo. Most recently, I got my second tattoo which was much more extensive than my first. In fact, it took three separate visits to the tattoo artist and probably about seven to eight hours in the chair getting this tattoo and I didn't pass out once. So there you have it. I have made progress with the right attitude and a little bit of aptitude and of course actions, there's no telling what you might be able to achieve. So it's a pretty simple formula, but my hope in sharing it with you was that it would inspire you and give you a structure, an easy structure to follow, to achieve whatever's important to you as well. So that is it for this episode. I actually made my commitment come to reality in keeping this a little shorter than they usually do. But again, the work is not done just because the episode is over because we think clarity leads to action, when in fact it's action that leads to clarity. We think that as soon as we've got it all figured out, we'll take action, when it's taking the action that actually helps us to figure it out. So, only when we put ideas into practice will we really understand what they mean. And so I encourage you to get the most return on the investment of time that you've put in today. Take action on something that you found valuable, put it to work. This is Blaine Rada with Arch MI, thank you for listening.  Outro Arch Capital Group Limited's US mortgage insurance operation, Arch MI, is a leading provider of private insurance covering mortgage credit risk. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Arch MI's mission is to protect lenders against credit risk, while extending the possibility of responsible homeownership to qualified borrowers. Arch MI's flagship mortgage insurer, Arch Mortgage Insurance Company, is licensed to write mortgage insurance in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit ArchMI.com. Arch MI is a marketing term for Arch Mortgage Insurance Company and United Guaranty Residential Insurance Company. All right reserved.

Passionate & Committed to the Credit Union Engagement at Arch, Shannon VanSickler has worked over 30 years in diverse lending experience encompassing sales and service with a credit union focus for the past 22 years to include her present position of VP of Credit Union Engagement for Arch Mortgage Insurance.    On today's podcast we asked Shannon to share what she was seeing in leadership in mortgages. Our friend Shannon shares what some credit unions have been doing to combat the craziness in mortgages over the past several years. Both Shannon and Scott offer up a life line to mortgage managers as a Christmas special. To get ahold of Shannon to hear about CUREN's in their area email: svansickler@archmi.com To get a free coaching call with Scott email: Scott@ServiStarConsulting.com  

Intro Welcome to the Arch MI Podcast, featuring our senior customer trainer, Blaine Rada. Arch Mortgage Insurance company, or Arch MI, is a leading provider of mortgage insurance or MI in the United States. Our competitive pricing tool, Arch MI Rate Star, is the leading risk-based pricing platform in the industry providing rates based on a thorough understanding of the underlying risk. Here's your host, Blaine Rada. Blaine Rada: [00:00:34] Welcome to the podcast. My name is Blaine Rada with Arch MI. I really appreciate you taking time to invest in yourself and I promise not to waste your time. My intent is to help you separate and differentiate yourself from the competition. And I do this by sharing perspective and experiences from doing this work for over 30 years. Like the previous two seasons of this podcast, I plan to be unscripted and conversational, which means I never quite know what I'm going to say or how long it will take me to say it. However, I would like season three to be a little different with shorter episodes and an even easier to implement set of ideas. So, let's get to it.  [00:01:10] This is part two of 10 Steps to Sales Success. And part two is about five key questions. If you didn't listen to part one, it was five must have skills. And while these episodes do stand alone, there are some kind of complimentary things back and forth that you'll discover if you listen to both of them. So five key questions are simply questions that I believe successful salespeople ask themselves and get the answers to. And of course, it's one of the reasons why they're successful. So the very first one is what's my brand. Now branding, again, this is a really huge topic and there's a lot of experts out there that are much more skilled and knowledgeable about branding than I am. So I would encourage you to seek out that information and do your own research. But I want to just make a few suggestions about your brand. And this is, you know, primarily it's you, right. Brand you as opposed to the brand of perhaps the organization that you work for. But there are different levels of brand, right? There's the brand of the company you're employed by. There's the brand of the team or the group that you work for or with. And then of course, there's you. You incorporated, so to speak. What is your brand?  [00:02:34] One of the most compelling parts of any brand is what's known as point of view. In fact, it's become kind of so necessary that you'll even hear the expression, POV marketing, or point of view marketing. And the way I relate it to the sales process is that people just want to know what you're all about. Like they want to know what you stand for, what you believe in. Even simple things like, why do you do this work? You know, what is it about this work that gets you up every morning excited to do it. Why do you work where you work? And we don't tend to think about sharing our point of view. Like a lot of people are hesitant to do that because they don't want to offend somebody or they don't think it's appropriate to share that kind of information unless they're specifically asked. But I would suggest that in the sales process, it is important to share your point of view. Because there's a lot of things that affect a brand or that can be identified as a brand that are not that. That are not your point of view. Things that almost anybody would be talking about that a potential customer or client would be interacting with. So for instance, is part of your brand that you're selling a solution to a problem, right? That's one way to look at a brand. What is the solution that you're selling? Another way to look at a brand is, do you help people achieve a particular result? You know, what is the actual result that you help people accomplish? Of course, many times your brand is kind of your product or products. And that's what you're kind of identifying with. I'm going to give you a suggestion for perhaps how to identify what you incorporated, what you personally might have as a brand that you're not even aware of or in touch with. And that is to make sure that you get feedback from people. And I'm sure you do, right. You have people that either say or write nice things about you. You've helped them in a way that they appreciate and they talk about it and they mention it, at least to you. If you start to pay attention to the feedback that you get, the testimonials, if you will, the endorsements, whatever word you want to use, if you start to pay attention, there will be probably two or three words that actually consistently come up more often than you've ever realized in people's feedback. In other words, these are the things that people are identifying in you that you may have never gotten in touch with yourself. I'll give you a personal example. Over the last several years, in my speaking and training and even the topics that I've spoken about have evolved over time. But over the last few years, I have started to see in the feedback that I'm receiving a couple of words like motivational or inspirational. Now I would have never identified with those words. In fact, I almost stay away from using words like motivational or inspirational because that is definitely not my style. In other words, when I picture those words, I think of somebody that if you were in an in-person presentation, you know, they jump on the table and they fist pump in the air and they shout and they yell and they make people scream and get excited. It's kind of like this high energy, high octane kind of a presenter that gets people all fired up and then leaves the room, and then of course the energy dissipates. I've never identified with that particular style of speaking. Not only do I not do it myself, but I don't even necessarily get much out of it when I see someone who does it that way. But I don't think that's what people are talking about. I think what people are talking about when they say that they received motivation or inspiration is that I got them thinking. That I kind of got into their heads a little bit and they started to think about things in a way that maybe they hadn't thought about before. And that was kind of inspiring to them, and it kind of motivated them to do something with those thoughts. Well, that's spot on. That's exactly what I try to do. But I personally would have never used words like motivational or inspirational. Now that I'm seeing that come up consistently in the feedback that I get, it's helping me appreciate what those words mean and that yes, that actually could be a part of my brand. So part of identifying your brand is actually reaching out to other people and finding out what their impression of you is. Like, how would they identify your brand if they had to describe it in a couple of words. The other thing I'd have you consider in kind of tossing around what your brand is, are you more about the journey or the boat, right? The journey or the boat. So just using mortgage lending as an example, the boat is the mortgage, right? The boat is the outcome. People have come to you because they need a mortgage. You're helping them to get that mortgage, and so ultimately it's about that product, right? That's the boat. But there's also a journey that they're going to go on. The journey is this process that you're going to lead them on. And that may actually be more important to your brand than the boat itself. So again, what are you selling? I think a lot of times we focus on that product or the boat when it's really the journey that people are after. And you know, I mean, just think about why people would take a cruise as an example. I mean, yeah, it is about the ship itself. Is it glamorous, does it have the amenities they want, is it the size of a ship that they would want to be on? There's a certain amount of taking a cruise that is about the ship, the boat, so to speak. And for some people that is actually the main reason why they cruise. Like they never even get off the boat, even when it goes into a port and people have the ability to leave the ship, they stay on it because they just enjoy being on the ship and taking part in entertainment or in gambling and eating and whatever it is that they like to do. Other people, the ship is just a vessel. It's just transportation. They're all about the excursions, seeing different parts of the world. Again, I'm just using that as a metaphor in anything that you're selling, there's the part that is the ship and there's the part that's the journey. And it may be useful when you think about your brand to think about it from that standpoint. So basically, I've given you lots of potential homework, right? Are you selling a solution to a problem? Are you selling a product? Are you selling a particular outcome or helping people achieve a goal? Is it more about the journey or the boat? And again, ask for feedback. If you don't actually get regular feedback, it never hurts to even ask people, how would you describe the experience of working with me over these last several weeks and see what kind of words people start to say when they talk about you. You'll probably notice two or three key words that come up consistently. That's probably your brand. Okay, so that's question number one. Key question number one, what's my brand.  [00:09:31] Question number two, why choose me? I think we need to have an answer to that question. Why choose me? And if we just want to cut to the chase, the shortcut is it's all about value. Because no one's going to do business with you if they don't perceive that there's a value in doing business with you. So again, to use our business as an example, realtors, if you were to talk to realtors and ask them how is it that we can do business with each other, right. What are you looking for? What do you need in a lender? How can we form a relationship and a partnership? If they were honest, they'd basically say, I need to know the value that you bring me and how it's different from everybody else that I do business with. And that may sound kind of blunt, but that's exactly what everybody's asking even subconsciously when they're trying to figure out who to give their business to, what is the value in doing business with you and how is that different from the other choices that I have. Those are the things that you're going to want to have an answer to. And it's kind of what I call, why choose me. Now what we're really talking about are competitive advantages. That's the marketing expression that would be used here, competitive advantages. And so I want to give you a quick primer on, well, what are those things, exactly. And they're usually things that have nothing to do with price. Even though people ask you about your rates and your fees and how much it's going to cost to do business with you. You know, they ask that all the time, unless you've got the lowest price in town, you need to have another story to tell. You need to have something else that you can explain as a reason why people should do business with you. [00:10:56] So a competitive advantage really has three components. The first is that it's what you're all about. It almost kind of goes back to what's my brand. What is your point of view? Who are you? What do you stand for? A part of your competitive advantage is, again, you incorporated. It can't be something temporary. It can't be a sale that you're running or something that's just a short-term way of doing business. A true competitive advantage is kind of built into your DNA. It's what you're all about. And again, you could be thinking about this as you, your team, your company. Second part of a competitive advantage is that it's different. It's something that is maybe not one of a kind, pretty hard to be one of a kind in business now, because especially if you truly have something that's one of a kind, it's only a matter of time before somebody else has it. I mean, everybody just kinda copies from everybody else. So don't necessarily search for one of a kind, but what is unique or different in doing business with you? Again, it might be a product, it might be a service, it might be the experience they're going to have. It might be the knowledge or the way that you hold a person's hand and walk them through this transaction. Again, there's going to be some things that you do, well, maybe not one of a kind are at least considered different or unique. And the most important part of a competitive advantage is that you could actually quantify it. That you could actually put a number to it, that you could measure it. Because to just say things like, oh, I'm all about service or I close loans really quickly or I have a lot of experience or I work with a great team. I mean, all those things may be true and they sound fine, but if you could put a number to them, I have 30 years of experience. I work with people who've been doing this work for at least a minimum of 10 years. Everybody on my team has a minimum of 10 years' experience. Doesn't that sound a lot more compelling than I work with a great group, or we've got the best people in the business. It's kind of like answering the question, what's your interest rate? You'd never answer that without giving them a number, right? You'd never say some vague thing like, oh, it's really low. Or it's really good. If somebody asks you what your interest rate is, you're going to tell them what your interest rate is. So a competitive advantage needs to be that quantifiable. So you may need to measure some things in order to know what that is. Okay. So all of those things, again, are ways of trying to think, why choose me. It comes down to what is the value that you have, what is the value that you offer and how is that different? And again, another way of looking at it would be, is it a competitive advantage? Is it somehow such a part of how you do business and it's different from what's in the marketplace and you can quantify how good it is, then you're onto something. [00:13:47] All right. Question number three. What's my niche? Or some people would say niche. I'm never quite sure which is the correct pronunciation. Probably either is fine. There's a lot of conversation around niching. And in our business, I think what we tend to focus on is demographics. Demographics are basically how the world sees us, that's a demographic. How the world sees us. So as an example, I am a middle-aged man from the Midwest. I just gave you three demographics about myself. There are things that are easily quantifiable or easily measurable, easily determined. Male, middle aged, lives in the Midwest. And so companies will use that information to target market. They'll decide, well, we want to do business with middle-aged men, or we want to do business with men who live in the Midwest. And so we tend to get very kind of fixated in business on what demographics, you know, where are there opportunities, what demographic do I want to work with? And that's fine, other than everybody else is doing that. And so it just makes business harder because if everybody's focusing on building their business in the same way or going after, for instance, the same demographics, then it just makes it harder. So if you haven't heard this term before, I'm going to introduce you to psychographics. So if a demographic is how the world sees us, a psychographic is how we see ourselves. So now we're talking about things that aren't visible, we're talking about things that aren't readily knowable. What are my concerns? What are my fears? What are my goals? What are my aspirations? What am I anxious about as it relates to this transaction that we may be doing business together. And it's obvious now that all middle-aged men from the Midwest are not going to have the same psychographics, right. That becomes obvious. So if you can start to identify psychographics that you specifically are a good fit for, and honestly it might be ones that are similar to your own. Like, do you identify with people who are anxious about buying their first home and getting a mortgage? Now, a first time home buyer is a demographic. But people buying their first home who have a lot of anxiety around that process, now the anxiety part would be the psychographic. And do you see how you can position yourself differently? If you're an expert in working with people who are anxious and you have an ability and a skill to kind of calm people and make the process have less anxiety, you're starting to attract a whole group of people that otherwise would have never seeked you out because they didn't know that that was something that somebody specialized in. So psychographic allows you to really kind of niche down even further. And so I think that's a question that's worth kicking around. What are the niches or what is the niche that you're perfectly suited to serve? This is the group that you can help the most. [00:17:07] All right. That was question number three. Number four, how can I stand out? Specifically, how can I stand out from the crowd? Sales is a crowded marketplace, right? There's a lot of choices. Probably never been as many choices as there are. And so how do you be different? How do you stand out? I mean, we've already kind of talked about a few things that kind of relate to that question, but let me give you a suggestion I haven't given before, I don't think in any of the podcast episodes I've done. If you think about the things that people dislike about interacting with a salesperson, there's no shortage of data on this. I mean, you can do your own research. Of course everything you find out there may not necessarily be true. You have to do some vetting and make sure that the information you're getting is accurate. But even intuitively, if you just asked yourself, what are the things that people dislike about dealing with a salesperson. There's probably a common list. So I recently came across a survey that had three things. The top three things that people identified were problems that they said they associated in dealing with a salesperson. I'll just give you what those three things are. One of them was, they felt that sales people didn't listen to them. They felt that salespeople talked too much and didn't listen. Okay. That sounds reasonable. I can appreciate that. I mean, you've been in that position yourself as the buyer, right. You've been in a position where you've been dealing with a salesperson who is obviously not in touch with, you know, where you're at, right? They've not spent enough time trying to understand you. And they've just been kind of going on and on about themselves and their product and their company. And you're feeling like these people don't get me at all. That is a common complaint that people have about working with salespeople is they feel like they didn't get listened to and the salesperson talked too much. That was number one on the list. Number two, they feel like they didn't respond to their requests in a timely manner. Now, sometimes that's an unreasonable kind of thing, right. Like somebody called you up, you weren't available, they expect you to call in like 30 seconds. Well, that's obviously not reasonable. But I think there's some truth to people saying the sales person wasn't responsive. The sales person didn't honor their commitments because I've experienced it myself, right. As a buyer of products and services, I would say more often than not salespeople make promises and they don't honor them. And again, I don't think it's intentional. I don't think they're intentionally misrepresenting themselves. I just think that they make promises they can't keep, and that they're not very good at followup and that they're not responsive. And this is what's showing up in the surveys. People don't like that. And the third thing that I saw in this survey is that people said the sales person doesn't understand my needs. That kind of goes back to the listening. But they specifically said, the sales person doesn't understand my needs. So, if we just recap these problems that buyers have typically said they don't like about dealing with salespeople, that the salespeople don't listen to them, they talk too much, that the salespeople don't respond to their requests, especially in a timely enough manner or that the salespeople, they didn't feel understood their needs. If you simply work on not being any of those things, if you simply work on being the person that listens and doesn't talk too much or being the person that is responsive or being the person that really tries to understand what their needs are. In other words, if you simply try to do the things that people have said that this is what they want in a salesperson, because this is what they don't like in a salesperson doesn't that automatically make you different? Doesn't that automatically set you apart from the crowd. Because the crowd is what people are responding to. So whenever you see somebody saying, here's a list of things that I don't like about doing business, just don't do that. Just don't do those things that people say they don't like. [00:21:05] All right. So that was question number four. Number five, who can impact my business? And I'm going to share an idea that I actually heard from someone else. So I want to give attribution to Mark Leblanc. Mark Leblanc is a small business owner that actually helps other businesses grow, helps small businesses grow. And he has what's called the advocate strategy. So what we're talking about here is, you know, who can impact your business. And the advocate strategy is probably the lowest cost, highest return thing that you can do to grow your business. So if you're interested in the lowest cost, highest return, it's the advocate strategy. And it has three pieces to it. And again, you can modify it to fit your approach, but I probably wouldn't modify it too much because Mark Leblanc has figured out that this is really a pretty solid piece of advice. So the first thing is to have a list of people, roughly 25 in number. Have a list of 25 people who you think are people who could impact your business. Now that in and of itself sometimes is a difficult thing to sit down and figure out. So who could impact your business? Well certainly, people who've worked with you before, right? So like referral sources or people who have used you before, you know, repeat customers, so to speak. The people who know you and like you and appreciate what you do. Those are certainly people who could impact your business. But it could also be just people who are your biggest fans. I mean, they may not even be people who you've done business with. Now, I probably would carve out family members. Although sometimes family members can actually be a great source of business building. It's just that sometimes that also gets a little weird because when somebody says, oh, you should do business with John. Then they ask why they said that and they say, well, I'm John's father. Well, right away that referral is a little less impactful because of course John's father is probably going to say, you should do business with John. But there are fans that you have out there. There are people in the business community, or in your personal circles who really admire you and trust you and just would be happy to speak kindly about you and send people your way. So this list of people obviously can change over time. It's not like the first time you write down 25 people's names that that list stays forever— those twenty-five people. People are going to kind of come and go in and out of your life. But that's the first step of the advocate strategy is to have a list of roughly 25 people that you've identified are people who could impact your business in a positive way or help you grow your business. All right, the second part of the strategy is to contact them. Now, Mark's suggestion is every 30 days. Now I know when I first heard that, I thought, wow, that's a lot of contact. Like, is this almost bordering on harassment? Like contacting people every 30 days, that's asking a lot. But it's not, when you think about it. And again, you can determine if 30 days is the right timing, just like you can determine if 25 people is the right number to have on your list. The idea is there's a lot of ways to contact people, right. I mean, there's reaching out and calling them or sending them a text or an email, or even sending something physically in what used to be called the mail. I mean, a lot of people don't use that anymore but there's lots of ways to reach out to somebody. And so Mark's idea is that you've got these 25 people and you're making some type of contact with them every 30 days. Okay. So number three, and this might be the most important part, the contact intent needs to be neutral. In other words, you're not selling, you're not reaching out to these people every 30 days to say, hey, got any business for me? Got anybody you could send to me? Because then that would probably be considered too much, right? I mean, to be banging on somebody's door metaphorically every 30 days to say, hey, you know, can we do business or you got any business for me, that would become a nuisance. Instead, the contact is neutral. It's not selling. Again, the possibilities are endless. You could just reach out to see how someone's doing. You could recognize some type of special occasion, like a birthday or an anniversary. You could send them a piece of information that you think would be valuable or interesting to them. But the key is you're not selling yourself when you make these contacts on a regular basis. And so here are 25 people who probably think very highly of you and the work that you do, and you're just kind of consistently staying in their awareness by reaching out to them as often as you choose, Mark says 30 days. Again, it could be as simple as just sending a little text. Hey, thinking of you, hope you're having a great day. I mean, to me, that qualifies as a contact. Or it could be something more specifically like, hey, I've got this new idea. I'd like to run by you, can I book 20 minutes of your time? Again, it's like the possibilities are endless. Now, this sounds really simple, right? A list of names, regular contact, don't be salesy. You know where the challenge is, it's doing it. The challenge is having the list, keeping it up to date, actually doing the contact every 30 days, and making sure that you're not selling yourself. Because that tends to seep in, especially if business is slow and I'm really trying to figure out how to do more business. You know, I start to get anxious and sell more to people. And again, Mark Leblanc is saying don't sell. The selling kind of takes care of itself. That's known as the advocate strategy.  [00:26:55] Okay. So that was the five key questions. Again, this is kind of part two of 10 steps to sales success. And part one, we talked about some must have skills. Five must have skills that you just can't skip. This was part two, five key questions. First question was what's my brand. And I specifically highlighted point of view. People want to know what you're about, what you stand for, why you do what you do. But I gave you many different ways of trying to articulate your brand, including asking for feedback, finding out what people really value in doing business with you. The second question was why choose me, which really is a value question. What's the value in doing business with you and how are you any different from the other choices that people have. We talked a little bit about how that relates to competitive advantages. Question number three, what's my niche or what's my niche? We talked about the difference between a demographic and a psychographic. And if you can really market to people's psychographic, there's far less competition and you're far more compelling than when you just market to people's demographics, which is what we see on the outside, psychographics is what's on the inside. So we have to learn what that is, right? So you have to actually build a relationship to know what a person's psychographic is. Question number four, how can I stand out, specifically stand out from a crowded field? And I specifically talked about things that people don't like in dealing with salespeople. So just don't do that. Just don't do the things that people don't like and you automatically stand out. And then last was sharing Mark LeBlanc's advocate strategy, which might be the lowest cost, highest return thing that you can do. Basically staying in touch with people who can impact your business in a non salesy way. All right. Well, you know, as much as I try to not put too much content and not take too much time in these, it seems like every time when I'm done with one of these, I think, well, yeah, that was about another 30 minutes and I actually put a lot more content in there than I thought I would. So much for my field that season three would be different. So far, it's sounding a lot like seasons one and two, at least in my approach. I'll work on that as we go forward. So that's it for this episode. But again, your work with these ideas is just beginning. I'd like to finish with this idea that we think clarity leads to action, when in fact it's action that leads to clarity. And again, that's worth repeating. We think clarity leads to action when in fact action leads to clarity. Only when we put ideas into practice will we really understand what they mean. So I'm encouraging you, if you want to get the maximum return on your investment of time today, take action on something that you found valuable. It's always a pleasure to spend some time with you. This is Blaine Rada with Arch MI, thank you for listening.  Outro Arch Capital Group Limited's US mortgage insurance operation, Arch MI, is a leading provider of private insurance covering mortgage credit risk. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Arch MI's mission is to protect lenders against credit risk, while extending the possibility of responsible homeownership to qualified borrowers. Arch MI's flagship mortgage insurer, Arch Mortgage Insurance Company, is licensed to write mortgage insurance in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit ArchMI.com. Arch MI is a marketing term for Arch Mortgage Insurance Company and United Guaranty Residential Insurance Company. All right reserved.  

Intro Welcome to the Arch MI Podcast, featuring our senior customer trainer, Blaine Rada. Arch Mortgage Insurance company, or Arch MI, is a leading provider of mortgage insurance or MI in the United States. Our competitive pricing tool, Arch MI Rate Star, is the leading risk-based pricing platform in the industry providing rates based on a thorough understanding of the underlying risk. Here's your host, Blaine Rada. Blaine Rada: [00:00:33] Welcome to the podcast. My name is Blaine Rada with Arch MI. I appreciate you taking time to invest in yourself and I promise not to waste your time. My intent is to help you separate and differentiate yourself from the competition. And I do this by sharing my perspective and experiences from doing this work for over 30 years. Like the previous two seasons of this podcast, I plan to be unscripted and conversational, which means I'm never quite sure what I'm going to say or how long it will take me to say it. However, I'd like season three to be a little different with shorter episodes and even easier to implement ideas. So let's get to today's episode.  This is probably going to be the most unique episode I have recorded yet. And perhaps the shortest. I talk a lot about less is more, I need to sometimes practice that more myself. But I'd like to start with this idea that we frequently have obstacles in our lives and in our work, right. Personally and professionally, we have obstacles that you have to either overcome or perhaps ignore or find a way to get around. And sometimes these obstacles can really feel like a roadblock. Like they're in our way, right? These obstacles are in our way. And I just like you to consider for a moment that maybe obstacles are actually simply on your way— that obstacles are actually just a natural part of life. And rather than thinking about them as something that's in our way, it might be more helpful to think of them as just part of what's on the road. Obstacles are going to be on the road. Now I kind of came to this realization myself by having a fairly unique experience that I'd like to share with you. I don't know what part of the country you live in, and I don't know if you're familiar with trains. But in the Chicago area where I live, coming across trains is a frequent event. Being kind of centrally located in the United States, Chicago is probably a major transportation hub. And so there's not only Amtrak type trains that are transporting people to and from that come through Chicago, but there are freight trains, many, many freight trains that come through the Chicago area, as well as commuter or passenger trains that take people from the suburbs to the city itself. And you know, back out to the suburbs. A lot of people who work downtown, but live in the suburbs take commuter trains. And even downtown, there are what we call the L or the elevated trains that run through the downtown area up on these tracks well above ground. So lots of trains in the Chicago area. And so what comes with that is frequently having trains as an obstacle. Frequently, you're trying to get somewhere you're driving, and you come to a set of railroad tracks, and the gates are down, and the bells are ringing and the lights are flashing, and there's a train. And sometimes there's more than one. And sometimes they literally stop right there, you know, you're trying to cross the tracks, the train literally comes to a stop, you have no idea when it's going to move. And so you have to decide, do I sit here? Do I try to pull out of this line of traffic and find another crossing? Do I take another way? In other words, it can really be kind of frustrating. So I'm just trying to paint that picture for you in case you don't live in an area where you have to deal with trains. So I want to share with you about this time when I was standing, not driving, but standing at a railroad crossing. The gates were down, the lights were flashing and the bells were sounding, but there was no train. Now I'd been running; I was out on a morning run on this cold winter morning. I'd been running for a few miles. And while I was a little bit out of breath, my eyes were working just fine. I could literally see down this train track in either direction four miles there was no train. Four miles. What I did see was a sign right at the railroad crossing that read $500 fine for crossing the tracks when the gates are down. So I looked around, didn't see anybody. Saw the sign, didn't see a train. But what would you do? Would you stay where it's safe and wait for these broken gates to lift? Or would you cross the tracks? Now as a metaphor, I just want you to think about this train or lack of a train. And these railroad tracks with the gates down and the lights flashing and the bells sounding. I'd like you to think of that as a metaphor for obstacles, right? What tracks or obstacles have come into your life where you were afraid to take action. Only to realize later on, you had nothing to worry about. These tracks were an obstacle to my forward progress. Now, again, this is a cold winter morning. I've now been standing there for several minutes. Not only do I want to keep moving, but I'm getting cold. I need to keep moving. The gates were obviously broken. No one would know. [00:06:25] So, I crossed the tracks and continued jogging. When I got a couple more blocks down the road, a squad car pulls up beside me. To this day, I'm the only person I know of who has been pulled over while jogging. I thought, am I running too fast? Certainly not. I'm not speeding. It can't be the reason why I'm being pulled over. I mean, obviously, I knew I was being pulled over. The police officer, let's call him officer kidding, as in, are you kidding me? He approached me and said, you can't cross a railroad crossing when the gates are down. I said, but officer, the gates are broken. There is no train. As he started to write a ticket, I said, “seriously!” He said, look, if it was up to me, I'd let you go. But my commanding officer is the one that saw you cross the tracks. And they radioed to me to write you a ticket. So I said, I'd like to speak to your commanding officer. So, I got a free ride in the back of a police car, which, hey, everybody should experience that at least once in their life. I mean, get arrested for something. I'm kidding about that last part. No one at Arch is encouraging you to get arrested for anything or for that matter for crossing railroad tracks. This is one of those, you know, don't do what I did kind of stories. So I ultimately had to appear in court because the commanding officer at the station would not see me. You know, I got this free ride in the police car to the police station. The commanding officer refused to talk to me. So I had this ticket, and I had to appear in court. And I was actually looking forward to my day in court because I wanted to make the case that the gates were broken. There was no train literally for miles. I could see in either direction, there was no train coming.  [00:08:22] The judge was not interested in my explanation. He simply asked, “did you cross the railroad crossing when the gates were down?” And all he was looking for was a yes or no response. So I pleaded guilty. The judge glanced over to where the police officers sat, looking for officer kidding. And he hadn't come to court that day. Maybe he was out pulling over other joggers, I don't know. But because he hadn't come to court, apparently as the judge told me, case dismissed, you're free to go. Wow! Well, that was a close call. I mean, I almost became $500 poorer that day. But again, I learned this lesson that we think obstacles are in our way, when they're often really just on our way. You know, many of the gates and the lights and the bells that we face are only manufactured in our minds. And like leg irons they keep us from moving forward, keeping us afraid. You may have been scared of the dark as a child. You were certain there was a monster in your closet or under your bed. But eventually you learned there was nothing to be afraid of. There was no train. Again using the train metaphor. When you were nervous about your first day of school, no train. Your first date, no train. Your first marriage, okay, sometimes there is a train coming down that one. But in all seriousness, sometimes we face a challenge that seems too overwhelming to overcome. It's as if the freight train has come to a complete stop right in front of you. Well, even if that has happened, one of two things will happen. The train will eventually pass and you can get on with your life, or you'll find a way to get around it. One way or another, you will cross the tracks. Making forward progress is wired into our DNA. Pushing past fear, however, has to be practiced. So, the next time you face tracks in your life, when the gates are down, and the lights are flashing, and the bells are sounding, remember, we think obstacles are in our way, but they're really just on our way. There is no train. That's it for this episode, I'd ask you to consider what ideas you thought about as I was sharing that story with you and put those ideas into action. We really never know what an idea means until we start using it. I encourage you to do that in order to get the maximum investment from the time that you've invested with me today. I kept this really short and sweet, but I hope you found it valuable. This is Blaine Rader with Arch MI, thank you for listening. Outro Arch Capital Group Limited's US mortgage insurance operation, Arch MI, is a leading provider of private insurance covering mortgage credit risk. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Arch MI's mission is to protect lenders against credit risk, while extending the possibility of responsible homeownership to qualified borrowers. Arch MI's flagship mortgage insurer, Arch Mortgage Insurance Company, is licensed to write mortgage insurance in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit ArchMI.com. Arch MI is a marketing term for Arch Mortgage Insurance Company and United Guaranty Residential Insurance Company. All right reserved.  

This week, Carl Tyree, the executive vice president, and chief sales officer at Arch Mortgage Insurance, joins the Housing News Podcast to discuss how the growth of the nonbank originator channel is impacting the housing industry.In this episode, Tyree discusses the amount of servicing volume that Independent mortgage bankers are retaining and how they've managed to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.Additionally, Tyree explains how mortgage insurance companies work with lenders throughout the forbearance process and explains why the implementation of new technology has been critical for ensuring the mortgage industry's survival.The Housing News Podcast is a weekly wrap of the top news stories by HousingWire CEO Clayton Collins. Each week, HousingWire interviews financial services experts who can help make sense of the latest headlines, sponsored by our partners at Arch MI and Quicken Loans Mortgage Services.Here are links to the topics discussed:Share of mortgages in forbearance rises to 8.5%Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac forbearance rate is ‘manageable,' Calabria saysDavid Stevens stresses the important role of IMBs[PULSE] The value of warehouse lenders in the mortgage market

This week, Michael Miedler, the president and CEO of Century 21, kicks off season two of the Housing News Podcast. Miedler discusses his accession within the real estate industry, as well as what it takes for agents to thrive in an “experience economy.” Additionally, Miedler touches base on some of housing's hottest topics ranging from Millennial homebuyers to inventory and affordability woes.

This week Kathy is on the beach and Tony is golfing. Rick handles the hosting duties and welcome Lou Chinnapi from Arch Mortgage Insurance. Real Estate Attorney Rick Carter and Lou Chinnapi discuss a variety of topics including: There’s more inventory on the market right now Rates are coming down again You can get Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) on a refi How much equity do I need to avoid PMI? Joe shares some negotiating techniques What ways can I stop paying private mortgage insurance? What is a HomeReady loan? Is Rick buying the farm? June is home ownership month What’s the best thing about being a bank teller? What happens at a home buyer class? Should I give up my home inspection contingency? Do I really need title insurance? If you need a Real Estate Team that can walk you through the purchase of your new home start with Carter Law offices. All that and much more on this week’s episode of Real Estate House Party recorded this and every week at The Studio 21 Podcast Café and hosted on The United Podcast Network!

Home affordability is shrinking rapidly, according to research by Arch Mortgage Insurance.  In the first quarter, affordability (defined as the size of the monthly mortgage payment needed to buy a home) dropped by 5%. This was mainly due to the increase in mortgage rates. As a consequence, more people are now stretched and taking on greater debt relative to their income. Other buyers are being pushed out of the market altogether.  “There’s no need to panic if you’re a homebuyer.” And that’s not all: Affordability is expected to drop an additional 15% to 20% by the end of the year. That’s because home prices continue to rise, and the Federal Reserve is expected to ratchet up its reference interest rate, which often leads mortgage rates, two more times this year. What does this mean for you? If you’re looking to sell, you won’t have a hard time finding a buyer. Even with decreasing affordability, demand for homes still far outstrips supply. However, it’s certain that buyers will look to take advantage of current conditions before affordability drops further. That means that this spring and summer might see an additional rush in the real estate market. It also means that right now might be a very good time to list your home if you’ve been thinking about selling for a while. On the other hand, if you are thinking of buying a home, you might think that this news spells doom for you. However, there’s no need to panic. While affordability is dropping, it is still well above historical averages (just like current mortgage rates). In fact, Arch Mortgage Insurance estimates that homes are now 15% to 20% more affordable than they were in the period from 1987 to 2004. When rates go up, it will affect what your monthly payments will be on a new home. From this perspective, it makes sense to move now in case you’ve been looking to buy before rates rise further.  So what’s the next step? If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home, give us a call. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

How have recent changes in our market impacted affordability, and how will current market conditions influence your ability to buy or sell? Let’s discuss these critical questions today. Welcome back to the Phoenix & Scottsdale Real Estate Show. On today’s episode, we’ll discuss a critical question: “What does the current drop in home affordability mean for you?” First, it’s important to know that home affordability is defined by the size of the monthly mortgage payment needed to buy a home.  The government began tracking home affordability as an index in 1970. And just a few years ago, homes were recorded as being more affordable than ever before, or at least more affordable than any other time since we began recording this index.  But now, this index, which takes into account inflation, current mortgage rates, and home prices, indicates that affordability is shrinking rapidly. Why is this the case? Well, rates and home values, which have been significantly low in the recent past, are slowly but surely on the rise. As a result, home affordability dropped by 5% in just the first quarter of this year.  This drop has primarily been the result of increasing interest rates, which the Fed is expected to bump up once or twice more by the end of 2018. In turn, affordability is expected to drop an additional 15% to 20% by that point in time.  So what does this all mean for you? For sellers, it may mean that finding a buyer could be more challenging than in the past. And if a buyer does come along, sellers must realize that what buyers actually pay for a property tends to fluctuate within a 10% range of the actual list price. Whether sellers achieve a price that is higher than or lower than their list price depends on how and who manages the listing process on their behalf. The right agent will help sellers make the most of their home sale using strategic marketing and negotiation.  “Even though affordability is lower than in the recent past, it is still significantly higher than it was between 1987 and 2004.” As for buyers, it isn’t time to panic yet. According to Arch Mortgage Insurance, homes are 15% to 20% more affordable than has been the case since this index was first recorded. Even though affordability is lower than in the recent past, it is still significantly higher than it was between 1987 and 2004. Rates are still low, historically speaking, so homeownership remains well in reach for those interested in pursuing it.  If you have any other questions, would like more information, or are interested in how my team and I can help you pursue your real estate goals, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Home affordability is shrinking fast. Here’s what you should do to get ahead of the curve. Home affordability is shrinking rapidly, according to research by Arch Mortgage Insurance. In the first quarter, affordability (defined as the size of the monthly mortgage payment needed to buy a home) dropped by 5%. This was mainly due to the increase in mortgage rates. As a consequence, more people are now stretched and taking on greater debt relative to their income. Other buyers are being pushed out of the market altogether. That's not all. Affordability is expected to drop an additional 15% to 20% by the end of the year. That's because home prices continue to rise, and the Federal Reserve is expected to ratchet up its reference interest rate, which often leads mortgage rates, three more times this year.What does this mean for you?If you're looking to sell, you won't have a hard time finding a buyer. Even with decreasing affordability, demand for homes still far outstrips supply. That means that this spring and summer might see an additional rush on the real estate market. It also means that right now might be a very good time to list your home if you've been thinking about selling for a while.There’s no need to panic if you’re a homebuyer.On the other hand, if you are thinking of buying a home, you might think that this news spells doom for you. However, there's no need to panic. While affordability is dropping, it is still well above historic averages (just like current mortgage rates). In fact, Arch Mortgage Insurance estimates that homes are now 15% to 20% more affordable than they have been in the period from 1987 to 2004. When rates go up, it will affect what your monthly payments will be on a new home. From this perspective, it makes sense to move now in case you've been looking to buy before rates rise further. So what's the next step? If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home, give us a call. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Home affordability is shrinking fast. Here’s what you should do to get ahead of the curve.Thinking of selling? Get a free home valuationThinking of buying? Search all homes for sale on the MLSHome affordability is shrinking rapidly, according to research by Arch Mortgage Insurance. In the first quarter, affordability (defined as the size of the monthly mortgage payment needed to buy a home) dropped by 5%. This was mainly due to the increase in mortgage rates. As a consequence, more people are now stretched and taking on greater debt relative to their income. Other buyers are being pushed out of the market altogether. And that's not all. Affordability is expected to drop an additional 15% to 20% by the end of the year. That's because home prices continue to rise, and the Federal Reserve is expected to ratchet up its reference interest rate, which often leads mortgage rates, three more times this year.There’s no need to panic if you’re a home buyer. What does this mean for you?If you're looking to sell, you won't have a hard time finding a buyer. Even with decreasing affordability, demand for homes still far outstrips supply. That means that this spring and summer might see an additional rush on the real estate market. It also means that right now might be a very good time to list your home if you've been thinking about selling for a while.On the other hand, if you are thinking of buying a home, you might think that this news spells doom for you. However, there's no need to panic. While affordability is dropping, it is still well above historical averages (just like current mortgage rates). In fact, Arch Mortgage Insurance estimates that homes are now 15% to 20% more affordable than they have been in the period from 1987 to 2004. When rates go up, it will affect what your monthly payments will be on a new home. From this perspective, it makes sense to move now in case you've been looking to buy before rates rise further. So what's the next step?If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home, give us a call. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

www.TheHousingHour.com

Since the housing market meltdown in 2008, the introduction of new regulations and the impact of technological innovation have completely changed “business as usual” for mortgage lenders. Recent economic jitters have some wondering about the long-term health of housing and the implications for loan originators. On this program, I had a very interesting interview with David Gansberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Arch Mortgage Insurance. Through an acquisition, Arch MI is both a legacy provider and a relatively new entrant to the mortgage insurance sector, that has emerged as a leading innovator and preferred partner for GSEs and many lenders. Our topics include: What do you think is going on in the current housing market?What do these conditions mean for lenders and borrowers? What challenges do loan originators face?What is the role of mortgage insurance in this market?What are some examples of Arch MI's commitment to innovation?   Be sure to download and listen at your convenience on your mobile device.  Also, be sure share a link to this program via e-mail or social media with your associates.   Thank you, David Lykken, program host.

Since the housing market meltdown in 2008, the introduction of new regulations and the impact of technological innovation have completely changed “business as usual” for mortgage lenders. Recent economic jitters have some wondering about the long-term health of housing and the implications for loan originators. On this program, I had a very interesting interview with David Gansberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Arch Mortgage Insurance. Through an acquisition, Arch MI is both a legacy provider and a relatively new entrant to the mortgage insurance sector, that has emerged as a leading innovator and preferred partner for GSEs and many lenders. Our topics include: What do you think is going on in the current housing market?What do these conditions mean for lenders and borrowers? What challenges do loan originators face?What is the role of mortgage insurance in this market?What are some examples of Arch MI's commitment to innovation?   Be sure to download and listen at your convenience on your mobile device.  Also, be sure share a link to this program via e-mail or social media with your associates.   Thank you, David Lykken, program host.  Since the housing market meltdown in 2008, the introduction of new regulations and the impact of technological innovation have completely changed “business as usual” for mortgage lenders. Recent economic jitters have some wondering about the long-term health of housing and the implications for loan originators. On this program, I had a very interesting interview with David Gansberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Arch Mortgage Insurance. Through an acquisition, Arch MI is both a legacy provider and a relatively new entrant to the mortgage insurance sector, that has emerged as a leading innovator and preferred partner for GSEs and many lenders. Our topics include: What do you think is going on in the current housing market?What do these conditions mean for lenders and borrowers? What challenges do loan originators face?What is the role of mortgage insurance in this market?What are some examples of Arch MI's commitment to innovation?   Be sure to download and listen at your convenience on your mobile device.  Also, be sure share a link to this program via e-mail or social media with your associates.   Thank you, David Lykken, program host. 

Since the housing market meltdown in 2008, the introduction of new regulations and the impact of technological innovation have completely changed “business as usual” for mortgage lenders. Recent economic jitters have some wondering about the long-term health of housing and the implications for loan originators. Today I'll be talking with David Gansberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Arch Mortgage Insurance.  Through an acquisition, Arch MI is both a legacy provider and a relatively new entrant to the mortgage insurance sector, that has emerged as a leading innovator and preferred partner for GSEs and many lenders. Our topics include: What do you think is going on in the current housing market?What do these conditions mean for lenders and borrowers? What challenges do loan originators face?What is the role of mortgage insurance in this market?What are some examples of Arch MI's commitment to innovation?   Be sure to mark your calendars to listen to this program "live" or, as an alternative, download and listen at your convenience on your mobile device.  Also, be sure share a link to this program via e-mail or social media with your associates.   Thank you, David Lykken, program host.

Since the housing market meltdown in 2008, the introduction of new regulations and the impact of technological innovation have completely changed “business as usual” for mortgage lenders. Recent economic jitters have some wondering about the long-term health of housing and the implications for loan originators. Today I'll be talking with David Gansberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Arch Mortgage Insurance.  Through an acquisition, Arch MI is both a legacy provider and a relatively new entrant to the mortgage insurance sector, that has emerged as a leading innovator and preferred partner for GSEs and many lenders. Our topics include: What do you think is going on in the current housing market?What do these conditions mean for lenders and borrowers? What challenges do loan originators face?What is the role of mortgage insurance in this market?What are some examples of Arch MI's commitment to innovation?   Be sure to mark your calendars to listen to this program "live" or, as an alternative, download and listen at your convenience on your mobile device.  Also, be sure share a link to this program via e-mail or social media with your associates.   Thank you, David Lykken, program host.  Since the housing market meltdown in 2008, the introduction of new regulations and the impact of technological innovation have completely changed “business as usual” for mortgage lenders. Recent economic jitters have some wondering about the long-term health of housing and the implications for loan originators. Today I'll be talking with David Gansberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Arch Mortgage Insurance.  Through an acquisition, Arch MI is both a legacy provider and a relatively new entrant to the mortgage insurance sector, that has emerged as a leading innovator and preferred partner for GSEs and many lenders. Our topics include: What do you think is going on in the current housing market?What do these conditions mean for lenders and borrowers? What challenges do loan originators face?What is the role of mortgage insurance in this market?What are some examples of Arch MI's commitment to innovation?   Be sure to mark your calendars to listen to this program "live" or, as an alternative, download and listen at your convenience on your mobile device.  Also, be sure share a link to this program via e-mail or social media with your associates.   Thank you, David Lykken, program host.