President’s Letter
The National Association of Mortgage Brokers is the voice of the mortgage industry, representing the interests of mortgage professionals and homebuyers since 1973.
November 2023
BY VALERIE SAUNDERS NAMB MEMBER & E4 SARGENT EDDIE HILLIARD WAS HONORABLY DISCHARGED FROM THE USAF IN JANUARY 1990. READ MORE ON PAGE 6!
VA Committee Update NAMB Celebrates Its Veteran Members
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Social Studies
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by JILLY MAC DOWELL
Rent to Own
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by MICHAEL COLLINS
NAMB STAFF MARKETING:
Jilly MacDowell OPERATIONS:
Brandie Starks PUBLICITY:
Josh Steinfeld
INDUSTRY PARTNERS & BENEFIT PROVIDERS IN THIS ISSUE mloflo 4 Windsor Mortgage 4 Originator Success 9 Goosehead Insurance 11 Change Wholesale 12
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Happy fall, y’all! I’m excited for cooler weather, shorter days – yes, I’m one of those folks who prefer it to get dark earlier – and the holiday season! The first month of presidency has been an exciting one! I’ve done interviews with a variety of media – publications, podcasts (thank you Irene Duford, Loan Team Training & everyone at National Real Estate Post) and participated in panel discussions (thank you Mike Kortas, Mat Grella & Rana Mortensen, NEXA Mortgage, for inviting me to be part of the Women’s Panel at the LO Summit and Bobbie Wasserman, Single Lady Estates, for including me on the panel celebrating the 49th anniversary of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act & women’s homeownership). However, NAMB’s success relies on the support of a group of dedicated mortgage professionals who have agreed to serve to help advance the association’s goals & initiatives. I would like to take this opportunity to thank this year’s Board of Directors (see page 2) as well as this year’s Committee Chairs who have agreed to serve (see page 10). If you are a NAMB member & would like to learn more about serving on one of our committees, please visit namb.org/committees for detailed information. Feel free to email me at president@namb.org to talk about how you can participate! And thank you for being a part of a dedicated organization whose existence is dedicated to the advancement of mortgage professionals throughout the country. If you’re not a NAMB member, please consider joining. Click here namb.org/membership to take advantage of the benefits, discounts, education & events NAMB has to offer! NC
TVLO Award application deadline: Wed Nov 8, 2023!
November 2023
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What Does NAMB Do? A VETERANS AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
Applications now being accepted for NAMB’s next recognition award: Top Veteran Loan Originator! Are you a state-licensed or federally registered loan originator who has served or is currently serving in any branch of the military? NAMB wants to recognize & thank you for your service! You have dutifully served your country, and your community & NAMB want to spotlight you. Submissions will be accepted until Wed, Nov 8. Award recipients will be notified on Fri, Nov 10. Must be a NAMB member to apply. Visit nambawards.org to complete the application! ★ NAMB is pleased to support the Love Lives On Act of 2023. Presented by U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) introduced the Love Lives On Act. This legislation would allow spouses of deceased service members to retain their survivor benefits if they remarry, and was co-sponsored by Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) & Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) NAMB believes there’s a national responsibility to ensure the well-being of our service members & their families – especially our Gold Star families who have lost a loved one while serving. “We should never hesitate to provide these heroes with all the benefits & support they need,” says NAMB President Valerie Saunders. “We've undertaken efforts to protect our military families by working with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to introduce the Military Families and Surviving Spouses Benefits Enhancement Act. Additionally, we support similar measures such as Senators Jerry Moran & Raphael Warnock's Love Lives on Act of 2023.”
NAMB.ORG/SPONSORSHIPS 4
November 2023
“NAMB will always support any legislation that ensures that Gold Star spouses retain their survivor benefits,” Saunders adds. “We applaud any effort undertaken by lawmakers and very much look forward to working with them to have these measures signed into law.” NC
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November 2023
KEYNOTE SPEAKER BARRY HABIB
IMBF DELEGATES
October 2023
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Social Studies BY JILLY MAC DOWELL
AI tools can be used to manage social media, save time & improve customer engagement. There are many AI-powered tools available that can automate tasks such as:
the mind-boggling, ever-expanding AI arena that can give you an idea of its potential usefulness in your social media, and likely elsewhere in your work & life.
• Content creation: generate captions, content ideas & even entire posts for social media platforms
• perplexity.ai: Just type in the topic or question you’re thinking about & see what comes up. Use it as a tool for improving your writing while making short work of content for not only your social media, but your website, your bio (you must have one!) & your emails!
• Analysis: monitor & analyze social media channels for insights into audience behavior & preferences • Advertising: write ads optimized for clicks & conversions using predictive technology • Content recycling: recycle content & create new posts from existing content • Video creation: transform video creation for social media by helping users create engaging videos from text When using AI for social media, it's important to stay mindful of the risks and take steps to protect both yourself & your brand. It's also important to choose AI tools that align with your goals & needs, and to evaluate & test them before implementing them into your social media strategy. I used perplexity.ai to write the preceding paragraphs, simply by asking the question, “How do I use AI in social media?” Not exactly scintillating prose, but it’s concise & comprehensible. AI can’t be ignored. I’ve been trying but it’s unwise to be left behind. “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally changing the way we interact with the internet,” says Geoff Gates, in a recent Association of National Advertisers blog. “In the coming years it's going to shape social media & the way people use it more than any other variable.” So, if you’re slow to adopt new tech too, never fear. I found a few totally free apps in 8
November 2023
• Picsart AI Writer: This impressive interface allows you to plug your business or marketing data, Mad Libs-style, into a form with such headers as Description, Character Limit, Business Type & Tone (choices include Friendly, Luxury & Persuasive). You can also use AI for fun! Play around or reinvent your life with Picsart’s “Side Hustle Generator” (under Business in the left nav). • Zapier: What can’t Zapier do? Start with its recommended first 5 things you should automate: Streamline your social media, yes, and “notify your team about new leads, message your customers, automatically create calendar events & consolidate information into a spreadsheet or database.” But what can I *really* do with it, you ask? Hit the ”What to Automate” quiz page for direction. Free plan includes 100 basic tasks per month. “Content no longer needs to be highly polished & carefully curated, but rather engaging, witty & of the moment,” says designer Ferran Feixas, in Creative Boom. Start with these free tools & be the LO who’s riding the AI wave instead of watching from the shore. NC Jilly MacDowell is NAMBʼs social media manager.
Converting a Renter BY MICHAEL COLLINS
Did you know that first time homebuyers historically initiate approximately 40 percent of all home purchases? And that that percentage has been constant for almost 30 years? Or that approximately 75 percent of first-time buyers rented an apartment or home prior to buying their home?
Put a plan together where you consistently market to the apartment dwellers. Postcards every month work great; there are even companies that will do it all for you as well as provide you the list! Even if the tenant on your list moves out, the postcard still gets mailed to the address as you can include the tenant or “current resident” on the postcard. You’ll hit your target market either way. Some of the messaging you can deliver would be as follows: 1) Why pay for a home you don’t own? 2) When your lease is up, do you know where you will live? 3) What will you do if your rent goes up? 4) Free home buyer seminar. Organize a seminar. 5) Don’t renew your lease until you talk to me!
A study was done where 318 renters were asked if they would like to be life time renters. All but one said no!
The key with this program is to be consistent with marketing as you will gain credibility & traction over time. Remember, people need to hear something 6 or more times before they respond. It will take time. And it will involve an investment.
The typical first-time homebuyer is 33 years old. The Millennial generation is approximately 80 million strong – the age range in that group is 25 to 40.
However, the numbers & percentages are too high to ignore this market. Plus, think of how popular you will be when you start bringing pre-qualified buyers to your Realtor partners. NC
Yikes, that is a huge opportunity! Those apartment building represent a gold mine for leads. You have a captive audience for your marketing. The addresses never change and with the average turnover of approximately half per year in the rental market, a marketing campaign will always get new eyeballs.
Michael Collins is a business strategist, success mentor & creator of “Street Smart Marketing for Loan Originators.” Email coach@michaelcollinscoaching.com or call 732-620-8541 for a complimentary strategy call.
SPONSORED CONTENT
How to Expand Your Realtor Relationships If you’re listing your business goals for 2024, make sure “expanding Realtor relationships” is one of them. In July the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that almost 90 percent of homebuyers used a real estate agent to purchase their home.1 Many of these same buyers, of course, required financing – financing that you can help provide.
Closing STATEMENTS Here are some easy ways to do that without reinventing the wheel: • Evaluate their website: Is it user-friendly? What’s the quality of the content? Perhaps suggest a content-sharing agreement that lets your expertise shine through on non-QM products, interest rates & other high-interest lending topics. • Review their social media profile: Are they on Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok? Do their posts resonate? If you happen to be an Instagram wiz, share how they could better use the platform’s visual power to showcase their listings.
Understanding “why” you need to expand your Realtor relationships is the easy part; “how” to make it happen so they become constant referral sources is the real challenge, which involves more than simply handing out your business cards & rate sheets at a Realtor’s open house.
• Assess their CRM capabilities: From tracking leads to scheduling client communications, an easy-to-use customer relationship management (CRM) system is indispensable. If you never fail to email every client in your database a personalized birthday greeting, show your Realtor prospect how you perform the magic.
Rather than adopting a product-first or rates-before-relationship mindset, reverse the order – think the “Humble, Helpful Honda Guy” (or Gal) filling a need before making the sales pitch. What tasks could you take off a real estate agent’s hands to make their life easier? What timesaving technology tips, tricks & innovations could you provide to help them be more productive?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is not just a futuristic concept. According to Techjury, only 33 percent of people know they use AI in their daily life when, in reality, nearly 77 percent do so multiple times a day – to shop (Amazon), stream (Netflix) & navigate (Google Maps), etc.2 For example, Top Shot, an AI-aided/machine learning feature on Google smart phones, captures 90 images in 1.5 seconds before & after you tap the shutter, which could save your real estate agent prospects from posting a blurry photo ever again.
Share what’s been working for you. If you can provide even one, you’re going to win more of their business. Being a real estate agent isn’t all glitz & glamor. There are lots of unpleasant chores that need to be done. Some ways to help: • Put up & take down open house signs: Staking open house signs on street corners & taking them down at the end of the day can be time-draining & physically exhausting. Think about hiring a high school or college student to handle this unpopular chore. • Furnish agents with disposable booties for their open houses: Besides adding a touch of class, protective shoe covers will prevent the parade of guests passing through their client’s home from literally leaving behind their dusty or muddy footprints. • Take Petey or Pickles for a walk: As adorable as a home seller’s dog may be, a calamitous canine may make some homebuyers uncomfortable. The onslaught of technologies hitting the market can be overwhelming. If you can bring some calm to the chaos by helping a real estate agent implement a single, timesaving tech process, your initiative will likely earn their gratitude, loyalty and future business.
If there’s any aspect of AI you use that could improve the productivity, communication & creativity of your prospective real estate partners, share it with them. Here are three AI-assisted tools that they might find especially useful: • Pictory: This AI video generator creates, edits & turns blog posts into high-quality videos without the user needing any editing or design experience. Jasper: Provide this AI writing assistant a few seed words & watch it grow into a 1,500-word article in 15 minutes. Fireflies: Fireflies eliminates the need for laborious notetaking by automatically recording, transcribing & converting meeting notes & conversations into audio files for future listening. Don’t just hit your Realtor prospects over the head with products & rates. Be prepared to do & follow through with the little things, knowing it’s often the little stuff out of which big dreams & future earnings grow. NC 1 https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/ highlights-from-the-profile-of-home-buyers-and-sellers 2 https://techjury.net/blog/ai-statistics/
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November 2023
NAMBʼS MARKETING, SALES & TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE NAMB.ORG/FOCUS BARRY HABIB CVLS CLASS CARL WHITE JASON JEFFRIES NAMBPAC LOUNGE