NEXA Fest - Top Producer's Panel - Derek McGowan

Derek, how about you?

Yeah. Michelle's nuts when it comes to that. She lives for this kind of market and that's why she's crushing it. No, I mean, really, the last couple years, there's no lying, no matter how great or, you know, whatever somebody's done. The last few years, it's been tough. You had to work three times as hard to get half the reward, it seems like. I think we all know there's like a light at the end of the tunnel. It'll burst loose and all this work for the last couple years will be well worth it. I think we're at the right spot for that. I think everybody in the room knows that's why you're all here, where it kind of plays right into the broker and especially the NEXA world where we have so many options. Consumers need that these days. There's a reason why so many banks and lenders and credit unions are trying to dabble in non qm. And heck, we just heard like, you know, a straight up, you know, non QM lender up here talk about how they're like, deep, deep into it. There's different levels to it. I think other LOs and different banks and lenders think they have options. They don't have the options we do. So I think it plays right into our strengths of what we have here at Nexa. And I think what we've tried to do, I mean, honestly, Tao and I have just tried to adapt quickly. And talking about, like, the platform that Nexa gives you, you're your own business owner. You know, most banks and lenders, if any of us in the room have worked other places, you have to answer to somebody above you, Hey, I want to change this thing on my business. Well, it's not your call. It's not your decision. I love that part about how, you know, Cordis has set up Nexo, where it's just if I want to make a decision on my company or my business, I can just do it right then and there. My team has a good idea, Tao has a good idea. We just implement it and go. And I think in all reality, when I kind of sit back and look at that, that's part of how Nexo grew their business. I mean, think of how quickly Nexa pivots and makes adjustments and, hey, this makes sense. All right, Ship rolling out tomorrow. That's, you know, sometimes quarters rolls it out too fast, but. But it all works out at the end, you know, But I think that's the beauty of it. We can do what we want with it. And I think that's played. I mean, sure, the market is not, it's not what any of us would have wanted the last couple years, but I always think it plays right into our hands because there's a lot of other lows are feeling it a lot harder than we are.

Oh, for sure. Well, there's a lot of guys that used to say they were mortgage loan originators that were just app takers and now they're back to swinging the hammer building houses or you know, changing exhaust.

On a, on a vehicle.

So Nori, how about you?

Beautiful. So, yeah, I feel like this is an objection we all hear, you know, every day. So yeah, I mean, I would just let that person know that one. What, what exactly are they waiting for? I think sometimes like just the simple questions go unanswered. Where. Right. We wait for rates to go down. Why? What are we looking for? Your lower payment. Okay, great. Well, let's look historically and keep that one. When rates go down, do you think you're the only person that knows rates went down? No, it's over. All over the headlines, every which way. So now you're going to have a rush of buyers coming in and I almost think it's somewhat perfect that just not that long ago, four or five years ago, we did have that rush in the market where 2019 through 2021 were crazy. Rates were at an all time low. Is that what you want? Because a lot of the people that are talking about it now, they didn't buy then because they didn't like that market.

Sure.

Rates were 2 or 3% and they didn't buy because it was too busy, it was too competitive. There was a line down the street for open houses. There was 20 offers, 50 grand over asking price and they didn't like it then. So it's like you're not going to find low rates and low house prices. It just doesn't exist, you know, it is with how short we are in inventory anyway. There's so many. And I tell, I try to tell people like, hey, we have more people in the hopper that are on the sidelines right now the last couple of years that are pre approved and just waiting for rates to go down. So all right, I try to level with them. I'll add you to that mix. But just a heads up, I can tell by looking at this that we have a few hundred people in our small just my team's database that are just waiting for rates to go down. So if you want to join that Mix. There's millions across the country that are waiting. You know what? There's the stats. You can see every 1%, the rates drop. Like 5 million more eligible home buyers come in the market. I think it is like, you want to be part of that, then you're going to be paying an arm and a leg more than you want to for that house, and then that's going to be the problem. But the thing is, you know, as we all know, I know it's cliche, but the rates do go up and down. The house prices you buy, you lock that price in now, you're never going to get it back again. So we. We've seen even. And I also think the other good stat that they're out there is, well, I think we all could say 2022, 2023 are about the worst years in, like, history. Well, in our history, recent history for the housing market, we had everything thrown at us. You know, not enough houses. Rates just skyrocketed. What? They went up, like, the fastest pace they went up in 40 years. Inflation hit the fan, and still house prices went up, on average, 5 to 6% each of the last two years across the country. It's like, what else do you want? They took every punch, every blow they could take, and they're still standing. Houses didn't crash. The market's not going down. So what do you think is going to happen when rates do drop? Like, it's. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it's going to accelerate way more than 5 to 6% per year. So it's like you want to pay, you know, 50 grand more for the house in this, you know, this upcoming spring, or do you want to get the, you know, the house now while you have a chance to do it? This is your window. If anybody watches any of the videos. I do. I talk about that, like, once a week. I feel like with my clients on. This is your window of opportunity to get the deal. Lock and lock it in now. We'll refinance you later. And. And I think there's actually more oomph behind that. I know people have been saying that for a while, you know, marry the house, date the rate kind of deal. I know that's a little too hairy fairy, but I think we actually can see rates have started to go down. Inflation's getting better. I think buyers are understanding it. So it's. What do you want? You want the rate or the house price? You can't have them both.

I mean, how heartbreaking is it you, you are a young couple.

They have the 2 to 3% rates. They're waiting for rates to maybe get around 5% and then they jump back in. But think of how much equity those people have in their houses the last three, four, five years. So could you be that's what kind of pings me there is 3% down payment, first time homebuyer. They're doing their best to make ends meet, save up their 3% and they're just going to get dwarfed by somebody like, hey, here's 20%. You know, I've got a crap ton of equity in my house. I'm going to roll over to this one. So do you want to wait for those big whales to come back into the market and compete with them? You're going to get knocked away every time.

It's going to take your heart right out of it. So that's our job. We're the experts, right? It's our job to educate them. Now retr.

It's like MMI where you can search realtors or LOS, like easily pull data, but that's like 10 times reader is the way to go. It's 10 times better than MMI. Same price, 100 bucks a month, something like that. Well worth it.

But it works.

Love it. Yeah, so I also use Monday and then Tao introduced us to Slack and that totally changed the whole dynamic of my team earlier this year. So that's been a whole game changer communication wise. But yeah, Monday is like a graduated Excel spreadsheet that does like, it's way more modernized. So definitely an easy way to just stay on task, make sure things don't slip through the cracks. Barry Habib's MBS highway is awesome. I think that gives us good knowledge of the market. What's going on? Good talking points because we all need something to talk to our clients about. The phone rings. What's going on? It gives you something up to the moment. It's like, how did that report yesterday? Impact rates today Clients, the right clients, that's important to them. MBS Live is another good one that gives good mortgage info every day. It's easy to track the markets. What's going on? Reader definitely like I said, I used to use MMI. Totally replaced it with Reader. I think it's 10 times better. It's like the Google version versus like a Nokia phone. And MMI was great to me for a while, but I think they found a way better, way better option there. We use Bonzo for kind of campaign text and emails. Like Monday does our organization. And then Bonzo fires out the text and email messages and yeah, that's kind of our tech stack.

So you guys are all seeing the value.

How about Los? So I use Reader and I was paying $250 a month for it before it got integrated into Los. And Mike worked them down to 100 bucks a month to match MMI. So that's a win. I mean, that's huge.

And if you haven't researched in there, there's actually a new refinance tool that they just introduced recently in there. So if you guys haven't got it, go in and get, you know, Eric.

Yeah, so we do a little bit of both. I think there's some things that automation can be good for. Like I mentioned, like Bonzo, and there's a lot of other things that work like Bonzo, but something that drips text and emails. Now I've taken time to kind of craft out. I want it to be my voice on it. I think some you can just have the out of the box version and that's fine. It's better than nothing. Then it's over the last couple years we try to tailor it and if things are going on the market, I can change my message on a couple different campaigns and then every thousands of messages go out that month, all with the updates on it. So I think automation from that perspective can be good. But then I think automation only goes so far. I think there needs to be the human touch like you and Dave are talking about. And like everybody up here, you know, there's. Honestly, there's a lot of people, tons of brokers, thousands of brokers. There's a reason why you guys are on the stage because you sell it differently. So I think that's the human element of it, where we all have the same loans behind us, but that's the separator is does that person trust you? So talking about the Facebook part, you know, Tao runs our whole social media and a whole lot more, but that's been a huge aspect of of our business to kind of gain trust right off the rip, you know, whether it's a realtor referral, whether it's somebody that saw a video of ours, they feel like they kind of know me, whether that's good or bad. They at least get to know if I'm their cup of tea or not right off the bat. And then I do have, you know, Tao and a whole team of awesome Eloise that help. But we got to drive the business in. I got to gain the trust right off the bat and then kind of warm them up for my team to kind of take it from there. And they do a fantastic job of running it, you know, to the finish line. But then, you know, our. A lot of our team meetings are about, hey, this is a human element. You know, it's a touch contact sport. Here. We're playing where they want to hear they could go, I mean, click a button and get a pre approval from Quicken Loans. But is it the same, you know, do they actually get to talk to that Ello. And actually get to dive in? And I think more so in the current market, there's a whole lot more than just, oh, 800 credit score, 20% down, you get a loan. It's. It's more, hey, how do I repeat repair my credit? How do I save up? How do I get crafty? Those are conversations. A computer and automation can't do that. I'm sure Michelle's over here dissecting loans left and right. People need to talk. They need to talk through that. There can't be a computer that can replace that. So I think it's both sides of it. Automate what you can automate. But then I look at that to my team as this frees us up to dive in deep on the parts we need to dive in deep on 100%. I agree with you.

Double triple X. 30 seconds, big boy. Three.

18. Got it. Got it. Okay. Yeah. So I feel like Tao and I, the last couple of years have just been going like, doubling down. Long nights, weekends, all of it, to. It's all market share. You know, we're closing some loans now. Great. But I want next year to be double that, and I think the market should allow for that. So now it's. Our focus has been on beefing up and making sure we are staffed up. Because I know even right now, as I'm doing this right now, my team, bless their hearts, they're holding it down back home. I know they're kind of to the strain. So we're trying to get more good help on because, I mean, I could think even. I had a call with Dave Brown and Dave Brown and some of his coaching clients just the other day. And my little question to the group was, because they're talking about scaling and growing the business, which Dave helped me structure my business there. And Tao's just lit it on fire since then and blown it up since then is okay, guys, you want to scale your business? Well, if starting tomorrow you got double the amount of loans, would you be ready for it? Could you close those? Oh, crap. No, I'm not ready for that. Well, okay, then you gotta like, be some have some capacity to grow into it as well, which is a risk. But all of us in here are risk takers. You know, we, we, we're self producing. Los. We're not getting fed leads by a bank or something. We, we're doing it ourselves. We're taking a risk. We are entrepreneurs. It's just more right into that same cloth there. So are you ready to grow? And I think once people stop and think about that, oh, crap, I need to be, you know, build a system, build a team and, and have that growth available. How about you? So I'm in the process.