Podcasts about better mortgage

The Future Of Canada: Four Faces, Four Visions   Michelle Butt holds and honours in linguistics, is a Master NLP coach, and facial intelligence expert. After studying human communication for over 15 years, and developing her facial intelligence body of works, she knows how and what drives people. She's also the founder of Face Talk Academy, helping others coaches, healers and leaders to see their own faces and the faces of others as the blueprint for success. Today we chat about What is facial intelligence; How can it be applied in business and personal relationships; We dive in and examine via pictures the features of Maxime Bernier, Pierre Poilievre, Mark Carney and Jagmeet Singh to check for trustworthiness and and who would make the best leader, and MORE…this is a MUST LISTEN if you are curious about how facial features can tell you more than what they are saying!   Contact Michelle   Web: http://MichelleButt.com Insta: Face Value    This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select - https://bmselect.ca    Better Mortgages Select   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca   Please a leave a review, as it helps Gary understand if he's bringing on the right guests that you want to hear from!   To learn more about Gary's mentorship program, visit https://garyhibbert.ca 

You Are Enough - Jas Takhar   This is part 1 of our conversation with Jas, a Toronto native and trailblazing entrepreneur, and the force behind FTGU - From The Ground Up Academy. He empowers professionals with game-changing training, and is the host of the Jas Takhar podcast. We dive into mindset; how we have a shared experience in seeing Tony Robbins; the fear of judgment and how to overcome it; how to be a great event and podcast host; how to treat your employees; how to manage and leverage your CRM effectively; and MUCH more!      Contact Jas Instagram: @jastakhar13    This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select - https://bmselect.ca    Better Mortgages Select   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca   Other Links: WATCH the podcast! https://www.youtube.com/@gary.hibbert

Bank switching surged in December, as those with mortgages appear to have shopped around for cheaper debt at a record rate. Just over $2 billion of mortgage debt changed hands between banks and non-banks during the month - a record amount since at least 2017 when Reserve Bank records began. NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bank switching surged in December, as those with mortgages appear to have shopped around for cheaper debt at a record rate. Just over $2 billion of mortgage debt changed hands between banks and non-banks during the month - a record amount since at least 2017 when Reserve Bank records began. NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As artificial intelligence (AI) penetrates practically every facet of the marketing and advertising industry, marketers could be forgiven for thinking whether AI is a threat to their jobs. Matt Miller, SVP of strategy and analytics at Level Agency, says that while it's still early in the game,  there's a growing onus on CMOs and marketing teams to figure out how to make sure that  AI will enhance marketing jobs rather than replace them. Miller, whose clients include Better Mortgage, Pathstone, and Sphera, joins host Matthew Schwartz to answer some burning questions about where things go from here and if marketers' concerns are justified.

In this insightful episode of the Broady Windsor Group Podcast, we dive deep into the world of mortgages with Joe Valenti from Better-Mortgage.ca. We discuss the latest government policies impacting first-time homebuyers and explore key differences between insured, insurable, and conventional mortgages. Whether you're a first-time buyer or a seasoned homeowner, this episode provides valuable insights to help you navigate the complexities of real estate finance.Key Topics Covered:1. Understanding Different Mortgage Types: Joe Valenti explains the differences between conventional, insured, and insurable mortgages. He walks listeners through how these types impact buyers differently based on the down payment, property value, and risk to the lender.2. New Government Policies for First-Time Buyers: The conversation covers the recent policy changes, including the increased threshold for insured mortgages from $1 million to $1.5 million. Joe discusses how this affects homeowners, particularly in the West Island area, and what first-time buyers should know about the 30-year amortization option.3. The 30-Year Amortization Strategy: Joe shares insights on how the 30-year amortization can lower monthly payments, making homes more affordable. He advises buyers on how to make the most of this option and the importance of planning to reduce the amortization period over time.4. First-Time Homebuyer Savings Account (FHSA): Joe highlights the benefits of opening an FHSA to help save for a down payment. He explains how this account works similarly to a combination of an RRSP and a TFSA, providing tax advantages and flexibility for future homebuyers.5. Fixed vs. Variable Rate Mortgages: With interest rates fluctuating, Joe offers expert advice on choosing between fixed and variable rate mortgages. He outlines the risks and rewards of each option and how to decide based on individual financial situations and future plans.6. What Banks Consider in Mortgage Applications: Joe details the factors banks review when evaluating mortgage applications, including credit scores, income stability, and debt ratios (GDS and TDS). He also explains how self-employed individuals can navigate the process with the help of a mortgage broker.7. The Role of Mortgage Brokers vs. Bank Specialists: Joe explains the key differences between working with a mortgage broker and a bank specialist. He emphasizes the advantages of using a mortgage broker to access a wider range of lenders and customized solutions based on the borrower's unique profile.8. How New Policies Might Impact Montreal's Real Estate Market: Joe and Scott discuss how the new policies, including the increased amortization period, could influence home prices in Montreal. Joe speculates on potential price increases in the lower price ranges due to higher demand and limited supply.9. Should You Pay Down Your Mortgage or Invest?: A common question from homeowners is whether to pay down their mortgage or invest extra funds. Joe provides a balanced view, explaining the pros and cons of both strategies, and how personal discipline plays a key role in deciding the best course of action.Final ThoughtsThe episode wraps up with practical advice on real estate and mortgage strategies for first-time buyers and homeowners looking to refinance or renew their mortgage. Joe emphasizes the importance of working with experienced professionals to make informed financial decisions.Contact the BW Groupinfo@broadywindsor.com

The Microcosm of the Mind w/Gail Sauer #269   Gail Sauer, naturopathic doctor, founder and director of Silver Spruce Naturopathic and lifelong learner joins me to probe the mind - the effects of the pandemic; what social media is doing temporarily and permanently to our minds, with infinite scrolling and comparing ourselves to others; anxiety, depression - their differences and some of the causes, and some of the solutions by changing your mindset to be able to successfully process information without comparing ourselves to others; and MORE!   Contact: https://silverspruce.ca   This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select - https://bmselect.ca    Better Mortgages Select   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca   Other Links: Gary's mentorship program visit https://garyhibbert.ca  

How much is property costing you? Home loan borrowers are extending their mortgages to keep costs down: Investors are absorbing higher running charges with an eye on the long term prize of capital gain. This week we take a close look at refinancing and how to make it work  In today's show we cover  *  How to speak the language of property finance (and score a better deal) *. Does downsizing actually save money?* Forecasts for the year ahead * Extending the mortgage - pros and cons  Stuart Wemyss of ProSolution Private Clients joins wealth editor James Kirby in this episode See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Insights From a Contractor Turned Investor: RE Strategies Working Today w/Jeff Lee #263   Jeff Lee of Complete Contracting Solutions, an investor-focused renovation company, with 20+ years in the contracting industry and personal experience as a real estate investor joins me and Christopher Hummell in studio to discuss what's working in real estate right now - student rentals, duplex conversions, ADU or garden suites, flipping etc. I also ask Jeff if he was putting his money into something right now, what would it be, and what's in store for the future. Jeff also talks about the importance of cash flow, or he doesn't do a deal; how to work with towns and cities to get things done properly; the importance of checking for open permits BEFORE you buy; how has the market shift impacted his business; the difference between the building codes and bylaws; the biggest mistakes he sees investors making, and MORE!   Contact: https://completecontractingsolutions.ca   This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select - https://bmselect.ca    Better Mortgages Select   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca    Other Links: WATCH the podcast! https://www.youtube.com/@gary.hibbert

Lex chats with Vishal Garg, the CEO of Better Mortgage. Better is an all-in-one digital homeownership company. From finding a real estate agent and getting a mortgage, to shopping for homeowners insurance and title services, Better and its affiliates take customers through the entire homebuying process online. Garg shares the story of how he founded Better Mortgage after experiencing the difficulties of getting a mortgage online. He explains how he saw an opportunity to reimagine the mortgage industry and create a more efficient and consumer-friendly process. Garg discusses the challenges of scaling the company, going public through a SPAC, and navigating the changing market conditions. He also shares his optimism for the future of Better Mortgage, highlighting the company's focus on efficiency, automation, and sustainable growth. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Better's Website: https://bit.ly/456T3UbVishal's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4e52szk Topics: fintech, mortgage, digital lending, digital mortgage, SPAC, interest ratesCompanies: Better.com, Better mortgage, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, SoftBank ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 

The Blueprint for Realtor Success w/Melissa Flynn #258   Public speaker and award winning real estate agent Melissa Flynn was the top agent in ONR for 2023, for the number of transactions. I dig deep to discover how she's reached this level of success, and we talk about the mistakes that she learned from, and all the habits that help her create and elevate her success. We chat about how to build a team around you with different skill sets, and why you eventually can't do everything on your own; why referrals are her number 1 source of new clients; how she has benefited from personal coaching and mentoring, and how she's passing that on to her team; how she hires team members; the things she does weekly with her team to keep them motivated, and MORE!   Contact: Web: http://MelissaFlynn.ca     This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select - https://bmselect.ca    Better Mortgages Select   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca    Other Links: Real Estate Investment Club visit https://www.smarthomechoice.ca 

Scaling Your Business: From Chaos To Order w/Adriana Ostapenko #253   Adriana Ostapenko is living proof that you can start with little and build your own empire. We dive in to how she's built her empire in the multi-family space; the ‘purchase plus' improvement strategy; The MLI Select CMHC product that she's taken advantage of; Where's she's investing; HOW to scale successfully, plus MUCH MORE! If you are curious about U.S. Investing, and how the environment is more friendly to landlords, THIS is the podcast for you so TUNE IN!   Contact: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/adriana.ostapenko/   This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgages Select   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca   Other Links: Gary's mentorship program visit https://garyhibbert.ca

We talk with Margaret Lomas from Destiny Financial Solutions about shopping around for a better mortgage rate and a piece of advise you might never have thought of before. ► Subscribe here to never miss an episode: https://www.podbean.com/user-xyelbri7gupo ► INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/therealestatepodcast/?hl=en  ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070592715418 ► Email:  myrealestatepodcast@gmail.com    The latest real estate news, trends and predictions for Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. We include home buying tips, commercial real estate, property market analysis and real estate investment strategies. Including real estate trends, finance and real estate agents and brokers. Plus real estate law and regulations, and real estate development insights. And real estate investing for first home buyers, real estate market reports and real estate negotiation skills. We include Hobart, Darwin, Hervey Bay, the Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Central Coast, Wollongong, Geelong, Townsville, Cairns, Ballarat, Bendigo, Launceston, Mackay, Rockhampton, Coffs Harbour.     #sydneyproperty #Melbourneproperty #brisbaneproperty #perthproperty   

#246: Jeff Ortiz - From Colombia to Building a Multi-Family Legacy   Jeff Ortiz from Ortiz Equity Group joins me in studio to talk about building and leaving a multi-family legacy! Jeff and his brother John started off with wholesaling, but now typically invests in multi family homes in South and North Carolina, and also Georgia. He walks us through the process of finding B and C class homes, homes that have some room for improvement. They are usually priced right and in areas that have great services and businesses, and just need some TLC to add some value and attract great tenants. We talked about coaching and mentorship and how his business took off with coaching; the economy; his wholesaling experience; his multifamily deals; mindset, and MUCH MORE! If you are curious about multifamily and if you haven't tried it, TUNE IN!     https://linktr.ee/Ortizequity    This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgages Select   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca     Other Links: Real Estate Investment Club visit https://www.smarthomechoice.ca

#242: Kory MacKinnon - Is Your Vision Stronger Than The Economy?   Kory MacKinnon joins me in studio to discuss his predictions for the coming year; Is now a good time to purchase a property; How to start your day; How to handle a bad day; what's harder - Becoming or staying successful; Repositioning his business in this fast changing market; and MUCH MORE! If you are still on the fence in regards to real estate investing, Kory shares many ideas. TUNE IN!   Contact: https://korymackinnon.com    Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   email: info@bettermortgageselect.ca   Other Links: WATCH the podcast! https://www.youtube.com/@gary.hibbert 

#236: Sarah Larbi - Navigating Economic Hardships: Strategies For Survival   Previous guest Sarah Larbi hopped on a Zoom call with Gary last minute to talk about how her business, and her life has been impacted by the recent market conditions. Some of her ‘older' properties still are doing well with the rate increases, but ones purchased more recently have struggled, leading her to sell off a few to ‘balance things out'. Gary also shares the unpredictability of the market, how having multiple streams of income helps anyone survive market changes, and what skills he prefers to have someone else do, allowing him to focus on what he's good at; and MORE! They also touch on possible Universal Basic Income; immigrations; where the market might go, and how to be on the right side of the upcoming wealth transfer! If you are looking for answers on the current market and where things *might* go in the near future, TUNE IN!   And Gary shares a few tips in the intro on how to survive AND thrive!   Contact:  http://sarahlarbi.com  Sarah@sarahlarbi.com    This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select.   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   Other Links: Private Investing, visit https://deep-pockets.ca

#231: Raul Morales - Finding Geographical Freedom In Mexico   Raul Morales of MyCasa is originally from the heart of Texas, but is now helping many other investors in the Riviera Maya region of Mexico with luxury real estate. There is no MLS in Mexico, no central place to find what something sold for, so he created MyCasa in 2012 to fill the void of information, but also help you navigate local contracts, how to use a local lawyer, etc. Raul assisted Darlene and I, and we had many questions such as what is the crime rate like, what amenities exist, property management down there, can I Air BnB my property down there, and MUCH more! If you are curious about geographical freedom and owning both a vacation property for your family as well as an income generating property, TUNE IN!   Contact:  Instagram: @mycasarealestate  raulmorales@mycasa.mx    This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select.   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"     Other Links: Real Estate Investment Club visit https://www.smarthomechoice.ca 

#226: Jacob Sofer, Metrosuite - Modular Homes Could Save The Housing Crisis   Jacob Sofer from Metrosuite, a builder of modular prefabricated homes joins me to discuss how modular housing can quickly impact the housing shortage, and do it at a fraction of a new build. We also touch on Bill 23, and how the various municipalities differ in their permit process for accessory dwelling units. And, Metrosuite will, at no charge, investigate to see if YOU can add a modular home on your existing property, within 48 hours! Their pricing is on their website, and the cost is ALL IN! If you are curious about a garden suite or accessory dwelling unit, DO NOT MISS IT!   Contact:  https://metrosuite.ca    This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select.   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   Other Links: Private Investing, visit https://deep-pockets.ca

Who said only journalists and Mark down at the Dairy Queen get the scoops???We've got a VERY special episode for you all: Vishal Garg, Founder & CEO of Better.com joins us to address the public reaction to their SPAC announcement. I asked some questions, gained some opinions, and I'm curious to see what you all think.Enjoy!Links:Better.comVishal on TwitterSoftBankTopics:(00:02:02) What led to the decision to do the SPAC and to IPO?(00:07:06) Why did you come on the Podcast?(00:08:44) Why did SoftBank pursue the Spac model rather than a private round?(00:10:44) How have you handled the negative media attention?(00:13:41) How is the average American consumer reacting to this?(00:15:36) How much are you originating vs. refinancing?(00:18:44) If you could go back and do this all again, would you?(00:21:33) What are your interactions with Masa like?

#Archive: Rene Masse - Walking Away From Your 9-5 Job With Real Estate   Rene Masse has over 20 years of being successful entrepreneur, as a realtor and investor in the Kingston, ON area. On this archive podcast, he and Gary talk about the mindset required to leave your 9-5 job, and that it's not an overnight thing; his best selling techniques and it's about selling yourself; his favourite places to invest; how to have a conversation with a potential JV partner, and should you show them the property; should you invest with family or stay away, and MORE! If you're considering trying to escape the 9-5 rat race, START NOW by listening to this episode!   Also, Gary shares 5 ESSENTIAL tips/strategies to survive the current market! As Gary says, YOUR economy doesn't need to be THE economy…   Contact:  Website: ReneMasse.ca   This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select.   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"   Other Links: WATCH the podcast! https://www.youtube.com/@gary.hibbert

#220: Fabio Campanella - Creating Your Own Bank Using Infinite Banking   Ever wish you had a financial quarterback? Gary's good friend and previous guest Fabio Campanella is here to give all the juicy details of how you can invest your hard earned money into an investment that can be tax-free, and then as this investment grows you can use this money to buy other properties or use it for any purpose to fund your lifestyle. Fabio Campanella was employed by some of the largest financial companies in Canada, but moved on to form the Campanella Group, a boutique accounting firm with a small clientele. Can this investment strategy work for you and your situation? Have a listen and find out!   Contact:  https://campanellagroup.com    This episode proudly sponsored by Better Mortgage Select.   Are you looking to create generational wealth and get one step closer to financial freedom? If the answer is YES, then Better Mortgage Select is the brokerage for you.  Better Mortgage Select has helped more real estate investors achieve financial freedom than any other mortgage brokerage in Canada.  They are expert financial planning consultants that allow investors to grow their portfolio and have a unique way of helping clients navigate through the different banks and lending options available. Contact them today for a free consultation and get started on what could be a life-changing journey. Don't just get a mortgage, get a BETTER MORTGAGE!"     Other Links: Real Estate Investment Club visit https://www.smarthomechoice.ca

There are ways to get a better home loan deal than advertised.  Business journalist and editor of economic and political newsletter, The Kaka - Bernard Hickey talks to Jesse about how it works.

Many artists, musicians, and other creative entrepreneurs want to own property. But because of the unique nature of their industries, they may not be paid as regularly as someone who has a 9-to-5. For example, an artist might get three lump sumps throughout the year instead of a steady paycheck. As a result, many artists and creatives struggle to get approved for a mortgage. Alejandro Szita has worked all over the lending and real estate industries and has learned the ins and outs. Just as importantly, he understands the mindset behind banks that deal with these types of individuals. Alejandro works with artists and entrepreneurs to ensure they're maximizing the likelihood of getting a mortgage — and how they can use it to earn even more money.

109: In a Consumer First Approach to Debt, Sean Hundtofte, founder of Solve Finance, joins host William Glass to discuss how our current lending practices fail borrowers. Sean spent years in consumer finance at the NY Fed and Better Mortgage and became frustrated with how our current lending practices fail consumers. We discuss his experience in the industry and how Solve Finance is taking a consumer-centric approach and the keys to building a better system. Follow the Silicon Alley podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. __ Visit SiliconAlleyPodcast.com to become a guest and sign-up for the newsletter. Follow on: - Instagram: http://bit.ly/SIliconAlleyIG - LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/SiliconAlleyLI - YouTube: http://bit.ly/SiliconAlleyYouTube Our Sponsors: Ostrich helps you go from being one of the 92% of people who fail to achieve their financial goals to one of the few who does. 80% of Ostrich members are on track to achieve thief financial goals. Sign up for free at https://www.getostrich.com About Sean Hundtofte: Sean Hundtofte, CEO and Founder of Solve Finance, has dedicated his 20+ year career to consumer finance, most recently as a member of the exec team at Better Mortgage (where he halved CAC while growing D2C volumes 4x), and previously as a distressed investor, a PhD in household finance and as a research economist studying household credit at the NY Fed. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedIn.com/in/sean-hundtofte Website: www.seanhundtofte.com Silicon Alley is a Financial Glass Production --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/silicon-alley/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/silicon-alley/support

Morning Motivation is an ongoing conversation with Mark Gordon, the Chief Revenue Officer of one of the fastest-growing mortgage banks in the industry: Princeton Mortgage. Mark rings his blunt yet heartfelt take on sales, loan origination, business, and the mortgage industry as a whole.Today's topic:  Creating a Better Mortgage Company

Hosts Miss Shannan, Mimi Schoneman (Re/Max Results), and Shelly Farris (Caliber Home Loans) discuss construction loans, GDP's impact on interest rates, and the purpose of pay points.

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Howard Katzenberg, CEO and Founder of Glean, an accounts payable solution that combines smart automation with spend intelligence to drive material savings. Glean supercharges vendor decision making. This platform automatically detects duplicate invoices and overcharges; receives alerts on billing errors, anomalous spend activity, and available vendor savings; and leverages vendor benchmarking to see what other companies are paying. In this episode, you will learn about how: - Howard's CFO experience inspired Glean - Glean impacts on client's profit lines - Fintechs can disrupt the enterprise software industry - Howard took his own company from 0 to 1 - And so much more! About Howard Katzenberg Howard Katzenberg is CEO and Founder of Glean. Formerly, Howard served as CFO of OnDeck and Better Mortgage. He earned his MBA degree from The Wharton School, and studied Business while earning his Bachelor's degree from Cornell University. About Glean Glean unlocks the powerful data detailed in vendor invoices/receipts to surface relevant spend insights and drive spend accountability. To learn more about Glean, visit glean.ai. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Gabriela's Twitter: twitter.com/byGabyC Gabriela's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gcampoverde

In this episode, I share what you can learn from Coca-Cola to help you run a successful mortgage business.   If you're looking exclusively for "10 Loans a Month" episodes, subscribe to the "10 Loans a Month" podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.   The I Love Mortgage Brokering Network is now brought to you by Finmo. To learn more, visit: www.finmo.ca/ilmb   If you have any questions you want me to answer, send me an email at scott@ilovemortgagebrokering.com   I Love Mortgage Brokering: www.ilovemortgagebrokering.com   Find out more about the 10 Loans A Month Academy: www.10loansamonth.com   Find out more about ILMB Mortgage Pros: www.rookietorockstar.ca   Find out more about the $25 Million Dollar Blueprint: www.get25million.com

In this episode, I share what you can learn from Coca-Cola to help you run a successful mortgage business.   The I Love Mortgage Brokering Network is now brought to you by Finmo. To learn more, visit: www.finmo.ca/ilmb   If you have any questions you want me to answer, send me an email at scott@ilovemortgagebrokering.com   I Love Mortgage Brokering: www.ilovemortgagebrokering.com   Find out more about the 10 Loans A Month Academy: www.10loansamonth.com   Find out more about ILMB Mortgage Pros: www.rookietorockstar.ca   Find out more about the $25 Million Dollar Blueprint: www.get25million.com

There are lots of stereotypes around accounting teams, and one of them is that they're controlling and "no" people. Their stereotypical reputation arises from the fact that they live and die by their routine, spreadsheets, and statements, and they seem to like it that way.But one of the goals of CFOs is to align finance and accounting with other teams within the company, including sales and marketing. By aligning teams and including accounting in other important matters inside the company, this department can become more strategic and forward-thinking.In the new episode of The Role Forward, host Joe Michalowski welcomes Howard Katzenberg, the Founder and CEO of Glean. They get into the typical stereotypes around accounting, the best ways to make accounting more strategic, and the importance of building relationships and trust with other departments inside the company.Name: Howard KatzenbergWhat he does: Howard is the Founder and CEO of Glean.Company: Glean Noteworthy: Before starting Glean, Howard was the CFO at Better Mortgage and OnDeck.Where to find Howard: LinkedIn | Glean Company

Welcome back to The Real Estate Nerds Podcast! On today's episode our host and attorney Scott Smith welcomes investor Jordan Goodman to discuss a topic we haven't covered as much as we would like to--funding real estate investments. Scott and Jordan have a truly inspiring conversation that may have you thinking differently about financing and sourcing funds for real estate investments. Stay tuned through the end to hear some of Jordan's favorite free mortgage tools.Listen to Episode 34 of The Real Estate Nerds Podcast NowJordan Goodman on Crowdfunding and MoreScott Smith invites Jordan Goodman onto the show. The two investors chat about Jordan's crowdfund and crowdfunding more generally, as well as risk mitigation in these contexts.[1:00]Jordan comes from a financial journalism background and runs the popular website MoneyAnswers.com. He has become the author of 13 books, many about real estate[2:37] Jordan discusses crowdfunding, which has only been possible by Act of Congress in 2012. The spirit of the law was to give investors access to funding they otherwise may not have, while also benefiting developers.[3:47] Jordan mentions the fund he is involved with and its 8% yield. It is called the Secured Real Estate Income Strategies Fund (SREIS). Visit the fund's website for more information, including an inside look of those managing this fund. Jordan is on the board aswell.[5:00] Jordan touches on the two strategies that make this fund work: “The first is forced appreciation, meaning they're doing something to the building to increase the value of it.” Next, they use collaborative lending to partner with the developer and keep a profit share. Both the investor and the fund receive profit returns from sales.[7:00] Scott asks Jordan how the fund handles the risks inherent to the real estate market:N “Obviously real estate has risks. So we want to mitigate those risks.” Jordan explains the ways that risk can be mitigated--by having lenders have “skin in the game,” through diversification. Diversification can be geographical or across asset classes. He also mentions the thorough underwriting they engage in.[10:10] Jordan's fund offers options. Investors may choose to receive monthly payouts or reinvest profits to continue to draw on the high returns.[11:00] Scott points out that the rise of crowdfunding has attracted some bad operators on to the scene. He asks Jordan what investors should look for in a fun. “Track record is key,” Jordan explains. Jordan also believes leverage and the fund's strategy (degree of speculation) are essential metrics to look at. He gives some concrete examples, pointing out that his fund doesn't rely on an area's appreciation, but rather on adding value. He gives an example of one investor whose cashflow doubled on the same property.[13:00] The two investors touch on the dangers of loaded funds, which lack incentives for any of the key players to perform well. The more invested operators are, the better crowdfunded models tend to perform. In the case of Jordan's fund, the profit sharing is split 80% to shareholders and 20% to management. Each gets paid “on the back end” based on the performance of the fund.[16:50] Jordan and Scott talk the essential metrics that make Jordan's fund that make it a good choice for those seeking secure, regular income off of passive real estate. Scott wonders if the fund is more secure in some sense, such as against recession, than real estate itself.Jordan Goodman's Investing ToolkitScott and Jordan change focus to practical tools any investors can use, giving particular attention to their mortgage payments and strategy.[18:50] Scott asks about ways investors can get involved with some of the activities and funds Jordan has discussed. Jordan turns away from crowdfunding to point to another of the most essential tools for the average investor: “The Mortgage Optimization Strategy is a way to pay mortgages off much faster than you ever thought possible. It can be used on homesteads or investment properties.” Jordan highlights the fact that most mortgages aren't making money, and in fact the average mortage holder is making many interest payments and few principal payments.[19:32] “The Mortgage Optimization Strategy allows you to pay off the principle much faster--without extra income,” Jordan explains. He goes on to explain that some are able to pay of a 20- or 30-year mortgage in as little as 5-7 years. He gives an example of how this works using a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). For a more in-depth description of this process, visit www.truthinequity.com. The tools are absolutely free and help calculate a mortgage based on the strategy.[24:00] Jordan elaborates, stating: “There are three things you need to make this mortgage strategy work.1. Equity on your house.2. Decent credit score to qualify for the HELOC3. Positive cashflow to push the principal down.”He believes most of our listeners have these three things, particularly those with tenants paying down those mortgages faster for you. Jordan has written an entire book chapter on this strategy.[25:34] When Scott asks Jordan for additional resources on mortgages, Jordan explains some benefits for professions he knows as American heroes, consisting largely of those in the military, helping professions, and medicine. There is a program known as Heroes Come First that such people can take advantage of at www.heroescomefirst.com or by calling 1-888-487-6114.[27:58] To conclude, Jordan offers one final resource: VerifyMyMortgage.com. They will conduct a detailed analysis of how much you should be paying, and their system can find many errors. Often, investors have overpaid their mortgages and are eligible for lower payments and even refunds.

In this episode, we cover: 00:00:00 - Reflections on the Episode 00:03:15 - What is Mortgage Servicing 00:13:20 - Impact of the Great Financial Crisis  00:18:40 - Andrew's Background 00:24:10 - Valon's Technological Innovations  00:31:06 - Relationship with the Consumer  00:36:00 - Regulations and Regulators  00:40:40 - Valon's Future/Outro Links:Website: Valon TranscriptJason: Welcome to the Perfectly Boring podcast. Today we have Andrew Wang, CEO of Valon, on the show, and today we're taking on the topic of mortgage servicing. So quickly, what is mortgage servicing?Well, a mortgage is obviously a loan for a home. And mortgage servicing is the institutions that actually take care of paying off that loan over the 10-, 20-, 30-year timeline. So, that digital interface where you pay your bill, et cetera, that is not always your originating bank. And Andrew is building a fascinating business in this space. We learned a lot about the mortgage, the evolution of the mortgage servicing space over time, the impact of the great financial crisis, and the interesting approach Valon is taken, not only just with technology, but changing the relationship with the end customer. So, what were some of the interesting touch points that we got during the conversation, Will?Will: It was a really wild discussion because I started with a fairly preliminary understanding of what mortgage servicing was. And in part of the wind up that listeners are going to get an opportunity to hear, Andrew really gives us a perspective as to how critical mortgage servicing is to the underlying health of the US, and therefore global, economy, and how much of an afterthought mortgage servicing has historically been, and why that should not necessarily be the case, and why now is the, sort of, unique moment in time to be able to use advanced technology and a reorganization of the overall stack for mortgage servicing to bring a better product to market for both consumers, for originators, for investors, and for regulators. And so, I mean, really badass discussion, really cool company, a space most people never think about, definitely a boring space, but with a just immense amount of value to be created.Jason: Yeah, and hopefully our listeners go through kind of the same increase in excitement that I had during the conversation, which is you kind of over time just realize this entire industry of mortgage servicing, not only is it critical, but how much they're missing the actual point which is, if you really just focus on the homeowner and creating a great experience for them, this is a huge relationship, it's a multi-decade relationship, and there's probably not just one product you can offer them. But they're stuck in the staid and stodgy technology of yore, and haven't been able to move as quickly and break through to open that aperture and open that relationship with their customer. So, before we get too deep into the weeds, let's just jump into the interview. Here's Andrew.Will: Andrew Wang, founder and CEO of Valon, thank you for being on the podcast with us today to talk about the very boring, very large industry of mortgage servicing. For the benefit of our listeners, it would be good to start at a really high level and give people kind of a baseline for what mortgage servicing is, and maybe a little just on the history of the mortgage servicing industry, you know, before we dive in a little bit on the specifics of your background and Valon.Andrew: So, mortgage servicing is a sort of pervasive thing that exists throughout the mortgage ecosystem and in the lives of most American homeowners, but it is also just not very well understood in terms of the dynamics that are involved with mortgage servicing in terms of who's involved, how they're involved, and exactly what they do. But again, nonetheless, it's something where it's within every part of the mortgage ecosystem today. But to give you some background on mortgages and how mortgage servicing even is a real thing, let me first talk about the mortgage industry as a whole. When you think about the mortgage industry, it's obviously a very large component of the American economy today. When people look at it, they say, “Hey, 20% of GDP in terms of housing,” something that the US government often uses in order to boost spending; they lower our mortgage rates in order to cause people to have more savings and then spend on other things. It's just a very, very core piece of the American ecosystem.But it actually came into play really, during the depression, the Great Depression, were effectively pre the Great Depression, mortgages weren't really regulated all that much, and as a result, there were kind of weird, funky structures, even crazier than what people saw in 2007. And as a result of that and as a result of all these people who weren't able to pay their mortgages due to these balloon loans being in place, which are basically loans that don't amortize, and basically become due and payable at a certain point in time, what the US government did as a function of the New Deal was put these government institutions into place to create more affordable housing structures, to create these institutions who would really regulate the housing market, or really add liquidity into the housing market so Americans could actually own a home.Will: And that kicked off the current, almost philosophical ideal that we have today about homeownership kind of being the epitome of the American dream. This was—the mortgage was almost an invention to bring that to fruition after World War Two?Andrew: That's exactly right. So, after World War Two, it became more and more core to the American dream. When everybody talks about, “Hey, what is the American dream?” It's obviously being able to get further in life based on your own merits, it's about owning a home, and starting a family, building a community, all of those different things, and the home is just so central to that dream. But exactly to your point, it started from post-World War Two.By the 1990s, it became such a large component of how the US economy even functioned and worked that there was more and more so this focus on affordable housing, putting people in homes, putting people in sort of a structure that creates the ability, creates stronger communities, and create a more robust ecosystem within cities, within neighborhoods, and everything else. So, that's how mortgages became so intertwined in the American system versus, you know, other countries, which may have relatively high homeownership rates, but just not nearly as high as the United States. That's, like, the genesis of how mortgages became a big component of it. The mortgage servicing aspect of it actually wasn't as relevant of a thing, that became more of a thing, actually, after the great financial crisis, the GFC. So pre-2008, what ended up happening was actually that most people when they got a mortgage were serviced by the same people who gave them that mortgage. So, you had Countrywide, you had some of these older institutions which have since gone bankrupt or have been acquired by more older financial institutions, servicing the mortgages. So, it wasn't really a separate thing, for the most part, at that point in time, and it wasn't really an important topic, actually.Jason: Before we go too deep, maybe you can define servicing. Like, how does that show up in the average American's life? What is servicing when it comes to an individual?Andrew: So, mortgage servicing specifically is what happens right after you get a new mortgage. So, when you get a new mortgage, you go to your originator. It can be someone who works at a bank, it could be mortgage broker that is a family friend of yours, it could be someone on Main Street who has a sign out that says, “I'm a mortgage lender. Come inquire about rates.” Once you get that mortgage from them, you have to make the payments back because you've got the mortgage to buy your home.That entire process of making those payments and the institution that you make those payments towards, that is the mortgage servicer. Now, when you look at that very simply, that is similar to a debt collection agency where you're effectively making payments, they're collecting on the debt and they're making those payments back to the person who made that mortgage. Now, what's actually more complex about mortgage servicing, as opposed to normal general debt collection is the fact that one, there's a lot of more regulation associated with it, right, because there is a home involved, and there's a lot of regulation around how you deal with homes; there's a second component which is, as per the government agencies and as per many state regulatory agencies, you are considered the trusted financial advisor to the homeowner along the homeownership journey. So, when a homeowner says, “Hey, I'm unable to make a payment; I need some help,” the mortgage servicer isn't allowed to just say, “I don't care. Deal with it,” they're often required to go through all these interactive processes to make sure that the homeowner can actually get the right solution and continue owning their home.Long story short, just jumping quickly back to what we were just talking about, it's really core, and part of the thesis, really, of the American economy that they want to keep people in homes, they want to keep people getting homes, increase the homeownership rate, make it part of the American dream. So, what they did was they made mortgage servicers responsible for keeping people in homes.Jason: Gotcha. And this was on the back of the great financial crisis?Andrew: Correct. Actually, it was there before but what I was trying to really get into was that pre the great financial crisis, it wasn't as really hot of a topic because homes were honestly increasing prices all the time; anyone who bought a home basically made money on their home, so just not really a big worry throughout the entire ecosystem. So, when people thought about mortgage servicing back then, it existed but it wasn't really a concern. It wasn't a focus of both regulators, politicians, really anyone in the entire ecosystem. But when the great financial crisis happened, what ended up happening was, well, people weren't able to get out of their homes, they weren't able to pay for their homes, their homes were less valuable than the mortgage that they took out.And as I mentioned just right now, the mortgage servicing process is actually also the process of helping the homeowner stay in that home. And that's why home mortgage servicing became such a large topic and became such a large focus because post the great financial crisis, it became all about making sure that people who took out these mortgages were able to put themselves in a position where they were able to keep their homes. Obviously, there was a lot of difficulty with respect to it. Obviously, there were a lot of people who were unable to actually pay for their mortgages on an ongoing basis, so there were a lot of what's called modifications, basically changes to the underlying mortgage in order to make it affordable. But that entire ecosystem really exploded both from a regulatory scrutiny perspective, from the amount of activity that was happening in it because of the great financial crisis.Jason: So Andrew, why does mortgage servicing even exist to begin with?Andrew: Yeah. So, this is one of those really long archaic, sort of, pieces of knowledge that people have to understand the ecosystem, understand the history, understand all the different dynamics before they end up realizing why it's even a piece of the entire pie. And if you look at other countries out there, like Great Britain, Asian countries where there's tons of mortgages, as well—China, Japan—but mortgage servicing as a separate concept, it's just not really a thing. So, it's really, for the United States, a concept that is tied to Fannie, Freddie, FHA, VA—which are basically Ginnie—these government institutions. So, the long story short, but still very long story, is that when the government put these different institutions in place, they created a concept where basically the underlying person who they wanted to interact with the mortgage was still the originator.So, I make a mortgage, my business isn't to hold this mortgage because the government wants to buy the mortgage and make it more liquid, and therefore more people can make mortgages, and therefore the cost of a mortgage is lower, but I still want you to be the person who interacts with the homeowner. So, I want to split this concept out. I'm going to own the mortgage, you're going to service the mortgage. And let's stick with that for now. So, that was, like, phase one of it.Then phase two of it was the fact that well, if that's going to happen, then every single person who makes a mortgage needs to be able to service the mortgage, so that's not fair to mom and pop shops across Main Street. If I originate whatever, 10, 20, 50, 100 mortgages a month, I'm not going to be at a place or a scale where I can run a true mortgage servicing operation. It just doesn't work. So, how am I going to deal with it? So, the government, again, to try to incentivize mortgage lending to incentivize liquidity in the space, said, “Fine. You can sell that servicing to another guy who then will deal with the relationship.”And boom, thus mortgage servicing is born, the idea of mortgage servicing is born, and this entire ecosystem then diverges. And really, not just diverges, it converges really to an efficient model of saying who is the best at mortgage servicing? Who are these cheap cost providers who are in the Midwest, who do it poorly, but thus can pay the highest price for mortgage servicing, and thus that's where all of the capital and all of the assets, sort of, flow? And that's why we live in the world we live in.Will: So, servicing is kind of an afterthought for the majority of the existence of a mortgage industry at large. Until, '08, '09. In '08, '09, everybody starts fixating on the servicing process as what it should always have been looked at, which is this really critical interface between the borrower and the lender, to a degree. And as a part of all of the regulation and the ongoing focus on servicing during that period of time, as we almost reworked the entire housing market, the cost to serve as a mortgage also changed a lot. Maybe you could just touch on that because there are a lot of compliance and regulatory framework aimed at servicing actually dramatically increased the complexity of doing servicing, which I think had a pretty profound impact on the cost to do so, right?Andrew: Yep. So, to elaborate further on these points that you're mentioning, the mortgage servicing ecosystem was really underdeveloped, both from one technology perspective as well as an understanding perspective, pre-2008. Again, people were not really afraid of being able to pay mortgages because naturally whenever you couldn't, you just sold your home and you probably made money on it. So, it's debatable as to whether or not [unintelligible 00:14:48] people are fully compliant back then whether the cost of servicing would be higher, but nonetheless, it is based on the data that people can see in the financials of mortgage servicing companies. Mortgage servicing became extremely expensive and really double, tripled in costs post-2008.And the way that it played out was basically the great financial crisis happened; people were unable to pay their mortgages; the traditional way would be to just put people out of homes, and as I mentioned earlier, the government's very incentivized to keep people in homes. And in order to make sure that the servicers were doing the right things, they basically put a bunch of different regulations both on the federal level and the state level to ensure that mortgage servicers were following the right processes in order to determine whether or not someone could make a payment for the mortgage, make sure that they're offered the right plans, and to make sure they were provided the right disclosures before they actually got through a process of foreclosing. So, when they put these regulations in place, normally you would think, “Well, these things can be somewhat automated. These things can be provided as part of the process.” But as I mentioned because it was so under-focused, there was just really not that much technology in the space, really not that many technological providers even involved in the industry.There's one main one, named Black Knight. So, when this all happened, these servicers went to Black Knight and basically asked them, “Hey, well, we are running into these issues. Can you help us?” And the answer was, quite frankly, “We will try, but we can't really guarantee all that much to you because there's a lot of changes, there's a lot of code that needs to change, and we just can't get it all done that quickly.” So, the only way that the mortgage servicers could handle these different regulatory requirements was basically to put people in place.You basically replaced what you would like to use, or what like to get done with technology, with people. So, you basically have this explosion of people cost in the number of people required to service a mortgage, and basically got to a place where today, there's two to three times as many people who need to be involved in a mortgage, versus pre-2008.Jason: What does the actual structure and distribution of mortgage servicers look like today, and how has that changed since the great financial crisis?Andrew: It's one of the things that honestly, the government focuses a lot on. There's a term, which is systematically relevant of financial institutions. So pre-2008, like I mentioned, there wasn't really that much of a concept of mortgage servicing. There were mortgage servicers out there, but most of the servicing was still held by the originators who made the mortgages. So, as a function of that, the ownership and really the people or entities that were servicing the mortgages was distributed quite similarly to the origination volumes.The guys who made the mortgages were the guys who serviced the mortgages, and as a result, there was a good split between bank who were very involved in mortgage space, as well as non-bank entities became more relevant, you know, probably post-2005. Today, we've gone into a world that is more and more non-bank-oriented, meaning the regulations have stepped up to such a dramatic degree that the underlying institutions who were originally involved had really substantially changed. I'll give you some simple examples. CitiMortgage, one of the largest originators previously, still a very large originator probably top five, now no longer services its own mortgages. It's completely outsourced—I think as of 2017—all of their mortgage servicing to Cenlar.Similarly, US Bank is no longer servicing their mortgages. The folks at JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon has, you know, publicly stated that they want to get out of this business and they've been working with other sub-servicers to slowly migrate to a place where they're not servicing their mortgages anymore. So today, you are in a world now, where it's basically 70% non-bank dominated versus pre-2008, we were in a world that was probably 70% bank dominated.Jason: You're painted a really stark picture of an increasingly disjointed, highly regulated, under-digitized, mortgage servicing market. This sets the table really well, I'm sure, to start to talk about how you're changing those dynamics with Valon. But before we dive into the company, maybe you can give us a bit of background as to how you personally got involved with mortgage servicing to begin with.Andrew: I like to coin—or use the term that I am an accidental operator because my background is actually on the investment side. I started out, really, in my career focusing on investing in some of these legacy mortgages. So, my first job out of college was working at Goldman. I was on what's called the short-term products [unintelligible 00:19:24], did some stuff with mortgages, I did some stuff with aircraft, but I quickly moved over to a Soros Fund Management where my primary job was actually to look at mortgages. So, I started out actually looking at the legacy, what's called non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities, and looking at the data underneath and seeing what was going on with these mortgages.Naturally, as with much of the market, we went from buying these securities to a place where we started buying the underlying home loans, the actual mortgages as opposed to the securities that you can buy on an exchange. And as a function of that, I ended up having to work with the servicers because when you buy the whole loan, unlike a security where everything's packaged up for you, you don't have to think about the accounting, the servicing, whatever else, when you buy the whole loan, you have to go find the guy who's selling the whole loan, you got to understand what he's doing, so he's not selling us stuff that you didn't want to buy, he's running the processes the right way, and you also have to go work with the servicer to actually get the servicing to happen, because it's a licensed activity. So unsurprisingly, the way I got about it was I started calling all my friends who had owned whole-loan portfolios before, and I asked them, “Who do you guys work with? Who should I be talking to you?” And the answer was, very simply, “They all suck.” Like, nobody likes your servicer.Now, you would think that would be an answer purely from one perspective, one angle like it'd be the perspective of an investor, maybe they charge too much. But it turns out it's because they aren't liked by the consumer, extremely low NPS scores of on average about 16; they aren't liked by their investors, they're extremely commoditized and extremely poor customer service, and they're most certainly not liked by the regulators who just keep fining them over and over again. You search mortgage servicing [unintelligible 00:21:07], you basically have, like, thousands of pages about this. And it's still even happening today. And it's not even entities that, you know, are foreign and pretty small and not understood; it's even large institutions like Citibank which is—like I said—why they got out of mortgage servicing.So naturally, my view on it was, well, this seems like something that technology can solve. This is something that we should be able to do better. This seemed insane that in the 21st century, that we're still dealing with this type of stuff. But as you start to dig in more and you start to pry into the actual underlying business, you start to understand both the complexities from an execution perspective and the actual underlying technological challenges. So, I ended up trying to find a couple of venture companies to invest in to go do this, but I actually couldn't find anyone who had the right idea, the right setup, the right vision in terms of how to build this company.So, you know, I went about my way, kind of left this on the side, and focused on other things at the time. But actually came back to it when I started looking at mortgage servicing rights which, at the time, I didn't understand nearly as well because I bought what are called whole loan mortgages, this entire mortgage. Mortgage servicing rights are basically the contractual relationship between the person who owns the right to service the mortgage—like I said, to collect, to interact, to really deal with the data of the mortgage borrower—and the person who actually services the mortgage. So, it's the contractual right that allows you to sub-service a mortgage out. What's interesting about that is that is basically a way to own that relationship and contract that relationship long-term.And for me, as someone who had started looking more and more into FinTech, the way I sort of saw it was, here is a way and here is an asset class, and here's a space that actually allows the mortgage servicer to own these relationships and do have these long, sticky monthly engagement type relationships that they can have over 7, 10, 30 years. And that's a very unique thing to have. More importantly and most interestingly, it's in a situation where actually in this ecosystem, people pay you to own that relationship, people pay you monthly fees to say, “Hey, actually work with the borrower. Hey, actually interact with them, help them find what they need, whatever else, and we'll pay to do it, and you're allowed to market additional things to them.” So, to me, that seems like such an interesting situation because not only can you have a business that is built to really improve the margins of the business and build automation around it, but you have this sticky relationship with the homeowner that you can really use to build trust, and really sell future financial products to.And that just seems like a very interesting business in my mind. So ultimately, I decided, hey, investing is interesting but this seems like too big of an opportunity to give up. So, I decided I wanted to go start a business, and this was the business I started, you know, right after.Jason: And one of the most interesting things to me is that it's not just a software component, right? Because you had looked at a number of other software providers and decided to do something a little bit more full-stack, which we don't typically see in the venture space. People tend to just want the software component and tend to steer clear of the services component. Maybe you can talk a little bit about why you still decided to include services as a part of what Valon offers.Andrew: There's an understanding amongst most venture investors that you want to be in the software business because it has a high margin business, it's defensible business, and it's less subject to changes in terms of margin profile because of the large amount of margin you have. Which, you know, is understandable. And that's ultimately actually where we thought we were going to get to, until we dug into and, sort of, operating this business, the actual origin of starting a mortgage servicing company as opposed to just the technology company was the fact that we realized that existing players were hamstrung by their current software in such a crazy degree that they weren't even able to migrate off of their existing systems to a new system. It's also a super-regulated space so anybody who wants to do it, wanted or needed to see clear performance, clear audits, really regulatory buy-in before they even made those things. So, it actually started out originally as an execution [ploy 00:25:31] where we said, “Well, we can execute faster, we can learn faster, we can dogfood our own product so much faster, and come back to people later on once we've been able to show these numbers.”But as we started doing this business more and more, we began to further understand that there's actually a really, really great opportunity running the mortgage servicer because you have that direct customer relationship. And that's such a valuable thing because even if we had automated all of the backend processes and even if we were focused on just making these margins more efficient, it's not really fundamentally changing how the borrower perceives it. It's changing the financial profile of these businesses. And additionally, a lot of the things that we wanted to do was build trust, and that's a front-facing thing; that's something that you need to be invested in as a business, which a lot of the existing mortgage servicers didn't have that perspective and that view. So, for us, it became more and more of a consumer story versus an enterprise SaaS story where we can say, “Hey, not only can we get this cash flow machine by doing servicing well and build really good software around it, but we can really build a great partnership with the homeowners that are being serviced by us and really build longer-term relationships with them.” So, that's where I think the turning point change from, “Hey, we're doing this out of necessity,” to, “Hey, we're doing this because we think it's the best thing we can be doing for people.”Jason: I love also that because the existing system isn't able to migrate off, their slow and outdated solutions and they're a highly fragmented space, it's effectively a commodity; you can come in, build a whole new tech stack, still put humans against the problem, but undercut on price. But you kind of used that extra cost as a way to broker a relationship directly with the consumer and offer a more expansive and holistic product over decades, which is a fascinating inversion of what the traditional mortgage servicing mantra and MO is. Maybe you can talk to us about how you actually convinced the originators and loan purchasers, mortgage purchasers, to trust you and your new small startup to actually service those loans? Because it feels like a difficult business to really get your foot in the door and get those initial loans through the platform so that you can build that trust with the originators and the loan owners as well.Andrew: To your exact point, it's a business that's extremely difficult to get into, [again 00:27:52], a lot of regulatory scrutiny, there's a lot of requirements to get into the business. And just name a couple here, you need—generally speaking—all 50 states licensed for you to be a quote-unquote, “Scaled servicer.” You need to have what's called agency approval, Fannie and Freddie approval, to be able to service most mortgages in the United States. So, between those different aspects, it's really hard to even get the legal requirements to be involved in this business, let alone get commercial contracts.But the way we approached this was really two-fold. The first part of it is, we were fortunate going into this space knowing that the existing players were so bad and so commoditized that actually, people were willing to work with different servicers. I'll give you a really simple example here: there's a company out there that we partnered with, it was one of our big investors, it's called to NRZ, and they're one of the largest owners of these mortgage assets. They own, like, 7% of the entire market. They own their own servicer, it's called Shellpoint.But even as an owner of that servicer, they don't actually give all of their business to their own business. And that's because they're trying to keep them competitive, that's because they're trying to diversify their risks, but the very fact that they don't give all their business to the entity that they are most financially incentivized to work with gives you a little bit of insight into how everybody thinks about this space, which is, “I'm not married to my vendor. I'm going to work with anybody who seems to be better. And there's a lot of things that are lacking, so you can try to convince me in a variety of different perspectives.” Obviously, if you've increase the bar because you've improved everything, that will no longer be the case, but today as it stands, that's how the ecosystem works.The second part of it, which is we actually went into this knowing that if we need these portfolios, we don't want to just have to convince people, we want to guarantees. So, we actually made sure that the initial investors in this company, the people who would take the benefits and the fruits of the technology that we built are some of the largest players in the space. So, we actually got folks like for example, Soros, NRZ, Jefferies, and a couple of other guys later on, to invest in the company with the belief that, “Hey, if I give you some mortgages to service and you actually are able to improve these margins, our business will be that much better off for it.” In some sense, they view this as, “Hey, this is an outsourced R&D effort. We can't hire good enough technical talent internally; we'll give you guys that through an equity investment, and if you guys win, we also win.”If you think about it as an example, NRZ spends something like, eh, on order of a billion dollars a year on servicing fees. If we can truly save them 10% on it and give that back to them—and let's say we save more than that, but we're just getting ten—well, that's $100 million a year that they're saving. And the way that their investments, or really their fund is really valued, that's a billion dollars of value that was just created. So, that's what's so interesting about this space which is, you have these players who are very incentivized for our success and we just made sure that we went to them very early on and said, “Hey, we're going to get this done. This is a very low risk for you; we're going to ask for a small portfolio, but if you give it to us and we succeed, we can both be big winners at the end of the day.” It's really about incentive alignment.Will: Andrew, I think one of the more profound things that you brought up here is that you're being paid to have a direct relationship with a consumer, a home-owning consumer, and that historically, I think mortgage servicers were happy being collection agents and not thinking about the long-term relationship that they had with the consumer, thinking about themselves as a commodity. How do you think about the relationship that you have with a consumer over the arc of your relationship with them and the types of products and services that you can start to bolt onto that relationship?Andrew: This is a really crucial point for us as a business, which is fundamentally and philosophically different from preexisting and the incumbent mortgage servicers. So today, the way people view this industry is that they view the extraction of value from the consumer as how they are still in business, the way that they generate margin. Meaning if there's a way I can extract an extra dollar from the consumer, for example, if I charge them a fee for making a payment online or for convenience, that's how they are continuing to make profits. Which is a very foreign and crazy concept, obviously, for people who are in venture and tech, et cetera. We take the approach that we want everything that we can do to make the consumer happier.a happier customer and investment towards making their experience better is how we actually make money. Because if you remember, at the outset, we don't actually make money from the consumer directly; we make money from servicing mortgages. And to us, the most efficient way to service the mortgage is a borrower who wants to use our automated products, who trusts us, and who doesn't call us with a lot of difficult questions. So, to do that, you have to really make sure you do everything right for the consumer so they are willing to trust you with that large financial ticket item that is their home. Now, I'll give you a couple of cool examples as to what you can do if you're a mortgage servicer who's really focused this way.So, really simple example; today, a lot of homeowners actually don't even use autopay, and you get a variety of different explanations. One of the really good explanations is that many people actually have lumpy incomes, so they don't really know when they'll get paid. Now, they want to use autopay, but the problem is because they don't know when they'll actually get paid, they need to make sure that they're paying when there's money in their bank. They don't want NSF fees, they don't want overdraft fees. We can use integrations with folks like Plaid to check their bank account and make sure that they have enough funds in their bank account before we pull, basically guarantee to them that you'll never get these type of fees.Now, that increases the convenience for the homeowner and allows them to put themselves on autopay, reduces actually for us the amount of times we have a call to make sure that they remembered to pay, and then overall, it actually results in a situation where we save more money and thus we make more profits at the end of the day. That's a really, really simple example.Another deeper layer you could go for example would be to tell people, “Hey, instead of just paying your mortgage through bill pay or whatever else that you're using, why don't you set up autopay and when you set up autopay will take $1 every time you use autopay and we'll actually pay it towards the next delinquent borrower.” Meaning it's a charitable donation; we're taking money out of our pockets to pay a delinquent borrower. Now, that doesn't seem like a big impact when you just think about the dollar, but when you think about the percentage of people who are current, and then people all do this, we actually can generate enough money that we can donate to delinquent borrowers. It actually reduces our overall delinquency rate and therefore our overall costs as a mortgage servicing company. That's virtually unheard of.Lower delinquency rates look better for agencies, for regulators, for investors, and we can do in a way which really doesn't take any money out of our own pockets, it just reduces costs because we're servicing with a lower friction way, but actually generates a lot of goodwill with the homeowner. Which then leads us into the second part, which is, well, we can actually cause people to stay on our platform because as the servicer, we actually can offer them the lowest rate possible. If you look at a world that we service the mortgage as well as originate, we don't care that much about making money on originations because we own the consumer, we own that relationship. And we know everything about them; we also have most of the information, so it's easily preprocessable. Which means that we can go to the homeowner and say, “You know, you're usually going to try to refinance right now, but I'll give you the best rate because I have zero marketing costs, and I just want to keep working with you.”So, you don't even need to shop with everybody else because I'm going to preload it, I'm going to give you the best rate, and you're going to have a very smooth origination process and servicing process because nothing will move off. So, you get more and more into these type of conversations around, hey, because of our relationship, because of the trust we build, we can offer people more and more products that honestly make them happier, and ultimately that will drive them towards using us more longer-term, which is exactly what we want. And that's what we find so interesting about the mortgage servicing space because while it's not understood this way today, it is the perfect setup to be in a situation where you're really building a long-term financial platform, and the mortgage is that linchpin to getting into that consumers life and really trying to build that trust relationship with them long-term.Jason: I've got to imagine the regulators absolutely love what you're doing. I'm curious if you're thinking through feeding that data loop back into the regulators because I can't imagine the regulation has gone down since a great financial crisis. I'm curious what relationship you have with the government on this front.Andrew: So, our relationship is primarily with the agencies. When you think about regulators, there are regulators who are the state regulators—they manage their own department of financial services in each state—there's obviously the CFPB, and then there's Fannie and Freddie who are called regulators, but really they're investors by and really regulate the mortgage market through their buying of mortgages. But from Fannie and Freddie's perspective, yeah, this is—you hit the nail on the head; this is exactly what they want, this is what they've been seeking for. When you look up on Fanny's website, “Hey, what is a servicer?” They literally write, “Trusted financial advisor.” That's what they want.But nobody does it today, and there's not much that they can do about it. So, from their perspective, they love this outcome where the servicer is thinking about this; they love an outcome where if the homeowner gets a stay with their originator, they have that continuity of relationship; and then they lastly love the outcome where if we are providing this platform on a greater scale, they then don't have to worry as much about the volatility of earnings for originators because they have this blended financial profile. It basically turns in originator from a company that basically has highs and lows based on how much origination is happening to a customer relationship management company. And that is honestly where they want this stuff to go long-term.Jason: And do individual homeowners get any say in the decision on who gets to service their mortgage? Or is it entirely up to the originals?Andrew: Unfortunately, it's buried on page whatever—probably, like, ten—on your closing disclosure, and then later on your mortgage documents, you get put to whoever your mortgage originator wants you to be serviced by.Jason: So, the way you'll… [laugh] coming into a home near you will be through your success with the people who are originating the mortgages and paying for that mortgage servicing contract?Andrew: Today, that is the case, but in very short order, by the end of the year, you can get a Valon mortgage. And when you're with Valon, you stay with Valon. We won't sell your mortgage, we'll keep your mortgage on our platform, and we'll build that long-term trust-based relationship with you.Jason: Tell us more about that.Andrew: Yeah, so we—I mean, we would love for a world—and this is something, by the way, plenty of people have gripes about where they want to be able to have a mortgage that they transfer the servicing based on their own discretion, based on who they want to work with, but that's a longer-term conversation, that's a highly regulator-based conversation. So, it's something that's not going to happen tomorrow. The easiest way that we can become partners with people who actually want to work with Valon is that we offer them a highly competitive mortgage. Again, the fact of the matter is, we don't need to make money off of mortgage origination; we make money off of having the consumer stay with us. So, we'll be happy to offer them possibly the lowest rates that they can get.So, when they come to Valon, they can get their mortgage refinanced, or if they're getting a new mortgage, they can just get a mortgage from Valon, and then thereafter, they'll continue to stay with Valon. There'll be serviced by Valon, when rates drop, we'll just be proactive and we'll preempt any sort of refinance that they want to do. They can log onto our webpage, they can log onto their app, and they will exactly know how much they can refinance it for, what the costs are, all those different things. But again, the nice part here is because we don't really need to make money on originations, like a Quicken, like a [loanDepot 00:40:13], or any of these other players out there—even Better Mortgage—they know that we have an incentive just to keep them on a platform and we can offer that lowest rate. And we can do that. So, that's what's so unique about it which is, you get that relationship, you get that great service, but you also get really priced competitive results, which we believe ultimately will build longer-term trust.Jason: I mean, it's an amazing and powerful refocus where you've effectively created alignment with all the major players in such a way that's made it difficult for any other competitors to compete with you. It's a pretty [laugh] amazing approach to the market that you've developed here. What gets you most excited about the future? Like wh—you know, obviously, you've got origination coming up; you know, in five, ten years, if you're massively successful, what's the impact you've had on the US economy and the US mortgage space?Andrew: So, there's obviously elements where we're helping consumers, right, so we can reduce the delinquencies in the system, like I mentioned, through different mechanisms. We offer people really cheaper financial products, which we believe they deserve, but I think the long-term most impactful thing is that we can provide, really, researchers as well as government regulators the right tools to make the right decisions. When you think about what basically happened recently with COVID, now the government went about and offered everybody forbearance, which is extremely expensive for both players in the industry as well as the government, but they don't really have a good way to address the crisis at hand. So, they used the very blunt-edged solution to it. As the platform that hopefully ends up winning the market, we can provide that information to the government; we can provide that implementation to them.So, they can be much more, with a sharp knife and really a small pencil, start to draw exactly what they want to end up happening. So, instead of giving a forbearance for every single person—which is what happened; they said, “You didn't have to pay a mortgage for nine months, twelve months,” instead of giving a forbearance to every person out there, you could say, “Let me check your bank account. Let me see that you're actually running into a crisis. And if you are, actually I will give you even longer. I will give you 18 months, I will give you until you figure out what to do next.”And for the people who didn't actually have a crisis, we're not going to give it to you. So, you actually can help the right people in this sort of situation. Alternatively, you might have a situation where the government wants to test a different modification program. Usually, it gets into a large argument about does this work; does it not work? There's not much data out there.But with a technological platform like us, you can actually go as far as to say, let's actually A/B test these results. If the government buys-in will test it with [unintelligible 00:42:54] portfolios, and we'll report these results. So, this is kind of where we believe government policy and really, American policy around housing can be really shaped if you had the right system and the right sort of infrastructure. So, while we are very focused on trying to build that long-term vision and build out a trust relationship with homeowners across the United States, we believe the longer-term impacts of doing something like this really come from the fact that we can leverage this infrastructure to help so many different people.Will: Aside from going deeper in the value chain on the mortgage lifecycle, are their orthogonal products—I know before we jumped on the call, we were sort of talking about insurance a little bit—are there other orthogonal products that are correlated to homeowners that from a product standpoint that you see Valon being able to bolt on to the platform over time?Andrew: I think the big new products that we'll be focused on outside of insurance as an example that we talked about where offering property insurance is a very natural next step, which we're already going to look to do by the end of this year is actually getting into things like for example, credit card debt consolidation. So, it's a very well-known thing that people when they get credit card debt sometimes want to refinance it with a HELOC because it's cheaper to pay a HELOC than a credit card. Now, that's not a very simple process today because getting a HELOC is a painful thing because you have to work with the servicer or you have to work with a HELOC originator. So, making it really easy where someone who has credit card debt, move it quickly over to their HELOC and pay less interest is obviously a quick next step. But that really actually speaks a lot more towards long-term financial management because again, we are dealing with such a large purchase and a large component of their daily—their monthly cash flows.So, as we look to what we do going forward, there probably will be a lot more around financial literacy, financial advisory, around all these different components. And if we can build that trust really leading the homeowner to make these right decisions and being able to forecast for them different outcomes based on what they want to do. So, I'd say that's probably the direction we'll ultimately take with this business. We need some time to work on all the different sort of initiatives that we have, but we're really hopeful that we can really make a difference here.Will: Andrew, congratulations. This is an unbelievably badass business and a very, very boring, esoteric industry that you are transforming. We really, really appreciate you taking the time to hang with us today and to give our listeners a look inside the mortgage servicing industry.Andrew: I appreciate it. Thanks for letting me talk. I went on a very, very long rant.Will: Thank you for listening to Perfectly Boring. You can keep up the latest on the podcast at perfectlyboring.com, and follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll see you next time.

Finance Fix with Gemma Acton: Homeowners lock in better mortgage deals; record trade surplus. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Finance Fix with Gemma Acton: Homeowners lock in better mortgage deals; record trade surplus. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, Entrepods host Jennifer Gligoric sits down with Amanda Abella, an award-winning content creator, keynote speaker, and business coach who specializes in helping business owners activate their persuasion prowess so they can make more money and live a more affluent life. Her clients go from hating sales and marketing to achieving 90% close rates and closing multiple five-figure deals. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Univision, and many more. Since 2017, Amanda has dedicated herself to helping women coaches and course creators master systems, influence and sales so they can earn more money while having more time. She does this through her best-selling products and programs like Media Pitch 365 and Persuades to Profit. Since Amanda is passionate about financial freedom she works with brands like Intuit, Capital One, TransUnion, Relay Rewards, Florida Prepaid College, and Better Mortgage on financial education campaigns. Amanda tells us that we cannot let trying times tank our business. Stay focus, stay diligent, and find new ways to pivot and you will succeed. She also goes on to tell us that consumers have become a lot smarter, they don't want automation such as funnels, they want more old-school marketing and advertising tactics.  Calling, outreach, and personalizing your message will gain you more customers every time.  Everything Amanda says in this episode rings so true, you have to listen to the whole episode!    To find out more about Amanda Abella, visit: https://www.amandaabella.com/  Want to be an EntrePod?  It's Free! Go Here: https://bit.ly/3i9814W Love what you're hearing? Let us know: https://lovethepodcast.com/entrepods Follow Us!  https://followthepodcast.com/entrepods EntrePods is on most listening platforms, YouTube and AsgardiaTV!

Sarah Tucker shares her expertise on helping you with your mortgage journey if you're a professional in a specific industry. Read on to find out if you qualify... What kinds of professionals can get good mortgage deals? In some professions, you not only have your qualifications and a structured career path, you also have some big advantages when you're looking for property finance and mortgages. There's a long list of people that mortgage lenders class as professionals.    Considering the amount of time and money you've invested in your education and your training, it's only fair that you get rewarded when it comes to mortgage advice.    The careers which usually allow you to apply for a professional mortgage are:  Accountants Actuaries Architects Barristers Civil Servants Doctors Dentists Engineers Officers in the Armed Forces Optometrists Pharmacists Pilots Police Officers Solicitors Surveyors Teachers  Vets   You'll usually need to be fully qualified, registered and practising in your profession and a member of your professional association. But some lenders will consider trainees, especially trainee accountants and trainee solicitors. Do all lenders offer professional mortgage deals? What do they involve? Not every single mortgage lender offers professional mortgages, but there are plenty out there, all with different criteria and products.    In terms of benefits, you can often get better interest rates because lenders want your business. Do remember, though, that the rate is not the important thing when it comes to a mortgage. There's more to take into account when choosing a mortgage.   Many banks use their headline rate to draw you in, but you will also need to look at the costs in the background, the fees, valuation charges and admin fees. It's also about the rate you may revert to in the future, exit fees and more, depending on your plans.    You can also get better loan-to-value ratios. While there are 95% mortgages for non-professionals, lenders have additional products at better loan-to-values for professionals.    You can also borrow more, which is probably the biggest benefit, because they consider your profession to be less risky. Lenders can predict what you might earn in the future, and you have good job security. You're a stable client because you've invested so heavily in your own training and professional development, and shown commitment to your career. How much could I borrow with a professional mortgage? The typical mortgage amount is four and a half to five times your income. As a professional, you can get five and a half times your income and sometimes as much as six times your salary.    Because of that you won't get realistic figures from a standard mortgage calculator. You need to speak to a broker. To get the best mortgage values you usually need to earn over £50,000 pounds, but it's different for each lender.    Some lenders are willing to be more flexible around your mortgage. Scottish Widows, for example, assess every single application individually rather than sticking to a formula. They offer an offset facility so you can use your savings to save money on your mortgage. You can also choose to change the terms of your mortgage or your monthly mortgage payment at no additional cost. If your mortgage is less than the agreed maximum amount, you can apply for a further advance after six months. Can I get a professional mortgage as a Self-Employed Consultant?  If you are a Consultant or you're Self-Employed in a professional career, lenders will look more favourably on that. They may even offer you a mortgage on just one year's accounts.   Non-professionals can potentially get a mortgage with one year's accounts too, but it might not be as competitive a deal. Lenders are looking for security, and they have more confidence in a professional consultant than in the average Self-Employed applicant.   Something to bear in mind is that every profession has a registered body and lenders will want to see that you are a member of the relevant organisation, or have been within the last five years. Do I need a Mortgage Broker to find a professional mortgage? A Mortgage Broker can really help you as a professional because not every lender offers special treatment. A broker will know the ones that do and can compare all the different options to find the most suitable products.    Remember too that if you are a doctor or have any role in the NHS, we offer free mortgage advice for you, and also for police officers and emergency personnel. It's our way of saying thank you for everything you do, because you make a huge difference every single day.  If you have any questions for Sarah following this podcast please email sarah@themortgagemum.co.uk or contact Sarah on social media. Alternatively, please head over to www.themortgagemum.co.uk or contact us on social media. We would love to help you! The Mortgage Mum is a team of 20 female brokers based all across the UK. They are passionate, driven, enthusiastic women who thrive from helping customers achieve their property dreams. They educate, empower and they give an excellent service from start to finish. Follow The Mortgage Mum on all social media platforms: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/themortgagemum1 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/the_mortgage_mum/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-tucker-the-mortgage-mum-%E2%9C%A8-669898185/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG899KReJ9NHLZfyK3CXrUw Thank you for listening. Our beautiful intro and outro piano music was created and recorded by the incredible Zoe Alexandria - www.zoealexandria.co.uk. Please check her out on social media. She is so talented. If you would like to appear as a guest on The Mortgage Mum podcast please email sarah@themortgagemum.co.uk

On March 24, 1989, a disaster in Alaska became the subject of newspaper headlines all over the country and world. Unfortunately, cleaning up the disaster wasn't an easy fix and the effects can still be seen today. Do you remember reading about and hearing about this famous day? Listen and see! ------------ SOURCES Associated Press. “Letters Urge Maximum Penalty for Steinberg.” The Journal-News (White Plains, New York), March 24, 1989. Associated Press. “Woman Arrested Over Stabbing.” The Daily Sentinel (Sitka, Alaska), March 24, 1989. DollarDryDock Financial Centers. “The Better Mortgage.” The Journal-News (White Plains, New York), March 24, 1989. Fenton, Reuven, Elizabeth Rosner, and Bruce Golding. “Notorious Child-Killer Still Living in Harlem - and Shows No Remorse.” New York Post. New York Post, November 1, 2017. https://nypost.com/2017/11/01/notorious-child-killer-still-living-in-harlem-and-shows-no-remorse/. Gallagher, Susan. “Tanker Spills Oil in Accident at Valdez.” The Daily Sentinel (Sitka, Alaska), March 24, 1989. Gina Boubion. “Mom Accused of Using Tot in Thefts.” Philadelphia Daily News (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), March 24, 1989. “Hedda Nussbaum.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 12, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedda_Nussbaum. History.com Editors. “Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, March 9, 2018. https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/exxon-valdez-oil-spill. “Joel Steinberg.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, May 1, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Steinberg. “Joel Steinberg.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, May 1, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Steinberg. Lombardi, John. “Joel Steinberg's First Post-Prison Interview - Nymag.” New York Magazine. New York Magazine, August 6, 2004. https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/9607/. Lombardi, John. “Joel Steinberg's First Post-Prison Interview.” New York Magazine. New York Magazine, August 6, 2004. https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/9607/. O'Kane, Connie. “A Baffling Burglary Clue: Tiny Footprints.” The Philadelphia Enquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), March 25, 1989. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

https://www.swordandthescript.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bab_018_craig_hatcher.jpg Craig Hatcher joined the Navy as a Nuclear Machinist Mate looking after the reactors and associated equipment that powered the nuclear ship to which he was assigned. He later got out, and worked for UPS, until his wife’s interest and budding career in real estate drew him in as well. Today, Craig runs his own real estate brokerage. On this episode we talk to him a bit about what it takes to become an agent and the steps veterans can take if a career in real estate sounds interesting. We also ask about his take on the housing market and the associated benefits many veterans have earned like VA loans and IRRLs. *Links: * Find Craig on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-hatcher-963a0a14/) Craig’s business: Georgia Residential Realty (http://grratl.com/), LLC National Association of Realtors - certified military home relocation professionals (http://www.militaryrelocationpro.org/find-mrp/why-use-mrp) Department of Veteran’s Affairs info on VA loans (https://www.benefits.va.gov/homeloans/index.asp) Military.com: IRRRL Facts for Veterans (https://www.military.com/money/va-loans/irrrl-facts-for-veterans.html) Nerd Wallet: VA Streamline Refinance (VA IRRRL); A Fast Way to a Better Mortgage (https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/va-streamline-refinance-or-irrrl-what-is-it-how-does-it-work)

Shawn Low is a co-founder at Better.com and part of the core leadership that built and integrated home ownership tech company (mortgage, real estate, insurance) from zero to over 500 million in annual revenues. Since its inception, Better has originated over 15 billion in loans and made home ownership more accessible for thousands of Americans. Better.com is backed by a story investor group, including Goldman Sachs, KPCB, Ping An,AmEx, Ally Bank and Citigroup. Better has been named to Forbes FinTech 50, CNBC Disruptor 50, and is listed by both Fortune and Crains as the best place to work. Shawn recently began the transition out of Better to be closer to family in Singapore, and he currently serves as an advisor to the executive team. Over the years, he has worn many hats at Better. In his immediate prior role as head of operations, he oversaw 10x revenue growth in two years, while simultaneously improving margins and profitability. He was responsible for the backbone of Better's global workforce comprising 2,500 plus professionals across Better Mortgage, which does sales and loan fulfillment, Better Real Estate, offshore services, and business operations and strategy. Outside of Better, Shawn is a co-founder of the Black Belt Project, a community initiative that trains kids at the Vatsalya Orphanage in India into award-winning karate black belts. He had also previously co-founded Audible Hearts, a peer to peer crisis support platform for use in Singapore. In his free time, Shawn can be found playing the New York Squash League, teaching Cantonese classes in Chinatown and cooking Singapore and delicacies in his kitchen. Shownotes at www.jeremyau.com/blog/shawn-low

Welcome to another episode of Develomentor. Today's guest is Kamil Sindi.BiographyKamil Sindi started his young professional career as a financial analyst before getting into tech.Currently, Kamil oversees engineering, data science and design at JW Player, the world’s largest independent video platform. Prior to being promoted to CTO, Kamil served as VP of Engineering responsible for infrastructure and data at JW Player, Lead Data Engineer at Better Mortgage, and as a senior technologist at a quantitative hedge fund. Kamil received a B.Sc. in Mathematics with Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).If you are enjoying our content please leave us a rating and review or consider supporting usA note from GrantIt’s often said that the best way to get the CTO title at a company is to found the company. In fact, that’s exactly how I did it, but it’s not the path Kamil Sindi, our guest on today’s show took to get into that role. In fact, Kamil worked his way up at his current employer JW Player from Data Science Manager to Director of Engineering to VP of Engineering before taking on the CTO role last year. Kamil’s journey, however, didn’t start at JW Player. Prior to there, Kamil did a degree in math and comp sci at MIT before launching his career as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs. Along his journey, he’s also spent time at Nebula Capital Management as an Analyst and Better Mortgage as Lead Data Engineer. -Grant IngersollQuotes“When I was graduating from MIT, I think I was 19 years old. A lot of my focus was in math and I was really interested in theoretical math. But I also wanted to make sure that I was employable long term. So I also did a focus in computer science.”“I really wanted to specialize in quantitative finance. Over time I started realizing that I really wanted to be not a specialist but a generalist. You get to wear many hats and be good at many things, maybe not necessarily an expert.”“I still sometimes code in my free time if its side projects. But for me I’m just so interested in the business aspect of things and the product that I never felt like I was giving up coding too much because I could always do it on the side.”“When you think about your career path, 5-10 years from now how does that look like? How immune is it to the changing technology landscape?”—Kamil SindiKey MilestonesWhy did Kamil pursue a math and comp sci degree?Kamil’s first few roles had the title of Analyst and were at financial companies. How did he end up in finance?Why did Kamil decide to transition into tech?Kamil tells us about his path moving up the management chain.What’s been the most surprising thing about joining the C Suite?You can find more resources in the show notesTo learn more about our podcast go to https://develomentor.com/To listen to previous episodes go to https://develomentor.com/blog/Connect with Kamil SindiLinkedInTwitterGitHubFollow DevelomentorTwitter: @develomentorSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/develomentor)

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with impressive fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the remarkable stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio.   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Liza Benson, partner at Moderne Ventures.   Modern ventures is an early stage venture fund focused on technology companies that are innovating within real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance, hospitality and home services - multi-trillion dollar industries that make up well over 20% of the US GDP and are ripe for innovation.  We've had some of Moderne Ventures portfolio company founders on as guests such as Farhan from Bento for Business, Eric from Better Mortgage and Nicky from Nova Credit.      Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now on iTunes, Google , Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio to hear next Tuesday’s all new episode with John Eley from GoldenSource.     About the host:   John, is the host of the ‘Bank On It’ podcast recorded onsite in Wall Street at OpenFin, and 'Before the A' podcast recorded onsite in Flat Iron at Barclays/Techstars Rise NYC.   He’s a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He’s in the center of the fintech ecosystem, keeping current with the ever-innovating industry.  Stay in the fintech know by subscribing to ‘Bank On It’, ‘Before the A’  Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

Featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Inc, and Business Insider, Amanda Abella is a Latina Millennial Finance Expert who created an online community where millennials can learn how to make money online and actually enjoy their financial journeys. Her ever growing community is currently made up of over 40,000 individuals across social media and email subscriber channels. The world’s fascination with money – and her own need to learn about healthy financial habits – led her to start her career as a freelance writer who focused on financial topics in 2010. Since then her company has expanded to creating content marketing for companies like Credit Karma and Discover. In 2014, Amanda launched her Amazon bestselling book, Make Money Your Honey: A Spirited Entrepreneur’s Guide to Having a Love Affair with Work & Money which has been featured in Yahoo! Finance and Seventeen Magazine. The book has also appeared on top business and finance podcasts like John Lee Dumas’ Entrepreneur on Fire and Farnoosh Torabi’s So Money. She launched the Make Money Your Honey podcast on iTunes in 2016. Since 2017, Amanda now dedicates herself to influencer work with brands like Intuit, Capital One, Relay Rewards, Florida Prepaid College, TransUnion and Better Mortgage. She also coaches bloggers on how they can create their brands and monetize them through her bestselling programs, including “How to Make Your First $50K As An Influencer” and Persuade to Profit. How to stay connected with Amanda Abella: www.AmandaAbella.com Twitter: @AmandaAbella Instagram: @AmandaAbella The links we mention in this episode: Persuade To Profit http://www.amandaabella.com/persuadetoprofit https://events.genndi.com/register/169105139238449195/103ab420d7 If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the Wealth Stylist, share it with a friend and leave a review. To connect with the host, Natasha M. Campbell: Visit my website: www.wealthstylist.com Follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/wealthsytlist Connect on Facebook: www.facebook.com/wealthstylist Tweet me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/wealthstylist Pin me on Pinterest: www.piniterest.com/wealthstylist

Jordan Goodman, better known to many in the financial world as America’s Money Answer’s Man, is a successful investor, entrepreneur, and leading authority on investing, mortgages, and real estate markets. Today, Jordan joins our host and attorney Scott Smith to spill some of the secrets to optimizing your mortgage, crowdfunding your real estate investment, and […]

Today's Thoughtful Entrepreneur is Amanda Abella, award-winning Latina millennial money expert. Featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Inc, USA Today and Business Insider, Amanda has created an online community where millennials can learn how to make money online and actually enjoy their financial journeys. Her ever-growing community is currently made up of over 30,000 individuals across social media and email subscriber channels. She was a finance freelance writer for almost a decade and now does influencer work for companies like Capital One, Intuit and Better Mortgage. In 2014, Amanda launched her Amazon bestselling book, Make Money Your Honey: A Spirited Entrepreneur's Guide to Having a Love Affair with Work & Money which has been featured in Yahoo! Finance and Seventeen Magazine. That book has now turned into coaching programs for bloggers who want to become business owners. Her most popular program, Persuade to Profit, has helped small business owners make tens of thousands of dollars within a few short weeks. www.amandaabella.com

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them and their creations. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. In this episode John chats with Eric Wilson from Better Mortgage. During the interview they discuss the technical feats Better Mortgage had to overcome in order to build a client centric digital mortgage platform and the story behind it all.  Better Mortgage has some amazing investors, Goldman Sachs, Pine Brook Partners, Kleiner Perkins and Moderne Ventures to name a few. Eric Wilson LinkedIn Better Mortgage LinkedIn - Twitter Subscribe now to hear next weeks episode on Women in fintech with Joy Schwartz from Lendit, Jennifer Barrett from Acorns, Andrea Gellert from Ondeck and Casey Taylor from Digital Currency Group.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or on Medium

Episode 27 is a Guerrillapreneur News show where we bring you news, views and predictions about the Gig and #sharingeconomies that are expected to grow to $335B by 2025. We discuss how the Empire is striking back, again. Mainstreet companies like Amazon, Walmart and Facebook are buying and partnering their way into the Gig Economy. Facebook announced that it was adding a "Marketplace" tab to its platform that will allow users to connect with service providers like #Handy, #HomeAdvisor, and #Porch. #Amazon is launching a pilot in Seattle with a cleaning company and #Walmart is also partnering with Handy on furniture delivery and installation.We also discuss how a new startup, #WhyHotel, is impacting the real estate market. WhyHotel creates "#Pop-Up" hotels in newly developed apartment buildings that have not leased all of its units. WhyHotel provide luxury amenities and high-tech features including Amazon Echos in each room instead of telephones.We also discuss a new startup in the real estate space called Loftium. Loftium will contribute to your mortgage down payment if you agree to allow them to collect Airbnb income off your property for three years. This innovative solution is helping Millennials own homes. Airbnb is jumping into this space as well by offering existing home owners the opportunity to re-finance with it's banking partners, Quicken Loans, Citizens Bank and Better Mortgage. Airbnb essentially offers a letter of credit for those home owners to generate Airbnb income from their residence. Are you an artist/singer/songwritter? Want to feature your new song on my podcast FREE OF CHARGE, tweet me @guerillapreneur. Please support the show by contributing at www.patreon.com/guerrillapreneur. If you can't donate, please share, like and comment on the show or your favorite episode. Join the tribe by subscribing and encourage other like minds to do the same. Remember, we only want "Mavericks!" Non-Mavericks don't have to go home, but they got to get up out of this podcast.Keep fighting, Guerrillapreneurs!!!Host: mark anthony petersonHost Social media: @guerrillapreneur (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Periscope). @ceyeroconsltg (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Periscope).Sponsor: Ceyero Consulting: www.ceyero.com

On this episode, we linked up with Erik Bernhardsson (@erikbern), creator of Luigi and CTO of Better Mortgage. We chatted about everything from the motivations behind Luigi's creation and his current thoughts on Airflow- we hope you enjoy! Check out: - Erik's blog at erikbern.com - Our open-source library of Airflow plugins at github.com/airflow-plugins All podcast feedback is hugely appreciated- feel free to email me at pete@astronomer.io if you have any thoughts.

It’s 2018, and if you ask me, it’s time to do things better and definitely more affordable. Thanks to technology, we’re seeing a lot of our money transactions transform before our eyes. Think about how we save money with apps like Acorns, invest online with companies like Betterment, and on this podcast episode we’re talking about redefining the banking and mortgage process with two companies (BankMobile and Better Mortgage) that are using technology to do it better! On This Podcast Episode:This episode is dedicated to doing money things better. We’re introducing you to Luvleen Sidhu from BankMobile and Vishal Garg from Better Mortgage to unlock your thinking about two industries that were in dire need of some serious modernizing.Luvleen Sidhu had enough with big banking fees and wanted to do it differently. In 2013, Americans spent $32 billion on overdraft fees, which is three times as much as they spent on breast cancer and lung cancer combined and more than they spent on vegetables. Additionally, the underbanked spend approximately 10 percent of their salaries on fees for alternative financial services. Together with her father Jay Sidhu, she launched BankMobile in January 2015 to offer this banking experience all through a smartphone or tablet device, utilizing cutting-edge technology to make banking seamless. BankMobile offers completely fee-free accounts—checking, savings with a guaranteed higher savings rate than the top four banks in the U.S., and line of credit, access to over 55,000 surcharge-free ATMs nationwide (BankMobile VIP customers have free access to every ATM in the U.S., which is more than 400,000 ATMs), a personal banker for all customers, and a free financial coach for VIP customers.Vishal Garg is the Founder and CEO of Better Mortgage, working to make the mortgage process simpler, faster and much much better for all Americans – especially the new generation of first-time homebuyers (aka millennials). Better is a digital mortgage company focused on improving access to home financing. They’re using tech to make home buying better by speeding up the process, bringing down the cost and ensuring our customers get the best possible mortgage. Their mission is to make home buying more affordable and accessible for everyone. And that’s built into Better’s DNA - from their zero commissions approach to their 100% transparent process.Ask Shannah - My career journey as a female CFP® - it hasn't always been easy but it's been one of the best decisions I've made. Read more about my journey here.Thanks for Tuning In:Thanks for tuning in to listen to this episode of Millennial Money. You’re awesome and mean so much to us. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it on social media using the hashtag #millennialmoneypodcast.Also, please leave an honest review for Millennial Money on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and much appreciated! You’re awesome!Millennial Money is more than just a podcast, we’re all about family here. Join us each weekend for our Sunday Brunch Email Club, where we’ll share bonus episodes, money tips, life hacks, exclusive music drops, travel deals, breakfast treats and a whole lotta’ fun!Have an Ask Shannah question, submit it here.Want More:Shannah on TwitterShannah on Instagram

Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Anyone who has applied for a home mortgage (unless it is from one of the new fintech lenders) knows how painful the process still is today. It is somewhat crazy in our instant, on demand world that it can take 60 days to close on a mortgage today. Our latest guest on the Lend Academy […] The post Podcast 138: Vishal Garg of Better Mortgage appeared first on Lend Academy.

Anyone who has applied for a home mortgage (unless it is from one of the new fintech lenders) knows how painful the process still is today. It is somewhat crazy in our instant, on demand world that it can take 60 days to close on a mortgage today. Our latest guest on the Lend Academy […] The post Podcast 138: Vishal Garg of Better Mortgage appeared first on Lend Academy.

State-funded banks are offering less competitive mortgage rates - so can you get a better deal at a building society? Buying privatised companies has proven a better bet than the FTSE since the 1980s - so what deals should you consider now? And where's the best place to put your EIS money? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Amanda Abella is an award-winning content creator, keynote speaker and business coach who specializes in helping business owners activate their persuasion prowess so they can make more money and live a more affluent life. Her clients go from hating sales and marketing to achieving 90% close rates and closing multiple five-figure deals. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Univision and many more. Since 2017, Amanda has dedicated herself to helping women coaches and course creators master systems, influence and sales so they can earn more money while having more time. She does this through her best selling products and programs like Media Pitch 365 and Persuade to Profit. Since Amanda is passionate about financial freedom she works with brands like Intuit, Capital One, TransUnion, Relay Rewards, Florida Prepaid College, and Better Mortgage on financial education campaigns. She's also the Amazon bestselling author of Make Money Your Honey and has created a community of over 60,000 people across social media channels. Website: https://www.amandaabella.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-dave-pamah-show/donations