Latest / Chrisman Commentary - Daily Mortgage News / 9.10.26 Credit Score Models; UWM's Mat Ishbia on Growth Strategy; Treasury Technicals

Transcript

9.10.26 Credit Score Models; UWM's Mat Ishbia on Growth Strategy; Treasury Technicals · Chrisman Commentary - Daily Mortgage News

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Chrisman Commentary, Daily Mortgage News Podcast.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Robbie Chrisman.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Topics on today's episode include some new conventional conforming changes.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Why oil going over $100 a barrel means rates are going up.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: And after 1,400 plus episodes of this podcast, we finally have UWM's Mat Ishbia on as today's interview.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: He's here to talk UWM's growth, the expansion of the mortgage broker channel, recent financial performance, future plans, key challenges, and how he and the company defined success.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Here, take a listen to a little preview.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of press about UWM recently, a lot of people taking shots at UWM.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Anything to say to the broker community?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Just kind of like, hey, we're good, we're strong, we're gonna be great.
• 0:52
  Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I don't need to say it to the broker mean, they all know the loan option, the broker mean know that UWM's got their back, and UWM is stronger now than we've ever been.
• 0:59
  Speaker: But let me tell you this.
• 1:00
  Speaker: I told the brokers, I go, get ready.
• 1:02
  Speaker: Because when you're on top, people love taking shots.
• 1:04
  Speaker: Like, there's no there's no article about the 14th biggest mortgage company out there.
• 1:07
  Speaker: Nobody cares, no disrespect to them.
• 1:09
  Speaker: It's just there's not gonna be articles in every article, they're gonna talk about the biggest ones.
• 1:12
  Speaker: And also, everyone, and you know our industry a little bit, people like to take shots, and it's okay.
• 1:17
  Speaker: Everyone would love to see UWM fail because if UWM fails, it hurts brokers.
• 1:21
  Speaker: And brokers are the ones out there winning.
• 1:22
  Speaker: And so when I tell my brokers, it's like, get used to it.
• 1:25
  Speaker: You know, a couple of years ago, they had a big article.
• 1:26
  Speaker: I'm sure you saw it, Robbie, a couple years ago, there's some article, some company was suing UWM saying brokers are this, and they lost the lawsuits, they lost all that stuff.
• 1:34
  Speaker: But guess what?
• 1:34
  Speaker: No one writes about that stuff.
• 1:36
  Speaker: They don't write that, they just write exciting stuff about all this negative stuff.
• 1:39
  Speaker: So I didn't, I used to ignore the noise, but now I embrace the noise.
• 1:42
  Speaker: Now I'm like, I love it.
• 1:43
  Speaker: Like, if you stop talking about negative about me when I have a bad month or a bad quarter or something perceived as bad, well, then guess what?
• 1:50
  Speaker: I know I'm not that relevant anymore.
• 1:51
  Speaker: Like you're gonna still talk about me just like you're you you've been successful in this business.
• 1:55
  Speaker: Your father, Robbie, has been extremely successful.
• 1:57
  Speaker: If something bad happened to your dad, like or someone didn't like him, or something, they would take they would take shots at him.
• 2:02
  Speaker: And you know what happens?
• 2:03
  Speaker: If you're on top, that's what happens.
• 2:04
  Speaker: People want to.
• 2:05
  Speaker: I'm sure the other media outlets take shots at you, or they don't like your podcast, or they come doing things like that's life.
• 2:10
  Speaker: That means you're doing good things.
• 2:11
  Speaker: And so the more they talk about us, I know I'm doing great things, and UWM has never been stronger.
• 2:16
  Speaker: We went public in 2020 with a 16 billion dollar valuation.
• 2:19
  Speaker: We are stronger today than I am back then, and so brokers are stronger, UWM is stronger, and we're gonna continue to win.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: My own mother barely likes this podcast, but I appreciate you saying some that with homeowners sitting on record equity and clinging to low first lien rates, offering a streamlined digital HELOC has become the single best strategy for originators to capture immediate volume and defend their client database.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: But tapping into that demand only works if you can actually close the loans, which requires a strong buy box, fast closing speed, and dedicated processing teams that fight to save complex files.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: When originators receive white glove support for themselves and their borrowers, plus an integrated client success team focused on driving production, HELOC's turn from an operational headache into a primary growth engine.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: See how Nifty Door elevates the home equity conversation at niftydor.com slash partner dash application.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: The US Federal Reserve is likely on hold for the September meeting given current data, and on hold in October given the meeting is a few days before the midterm election.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Our Mortgage Bankers Association recently moved its mortgage rate prediction higher and brought down 2026 volume and unit predictions and estimates that 2027 is expected to be close to this year's production.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Providers of private mortgage insurance are fully prepared for the credit score transition to Vanished Core 4.0, according to Seth Appleton, president of U.S.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Mortgage Insurers, a trade group.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: He told Inside Mortgage Finance that it's critical for lenders to be able to identify which credit score model was used when they transmit loan data to a private mortgage insurer.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: The key is integrating that technology with new guidance tied to private mortgage insurer eligibility requirements set by the government-sponsored enterprises.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Some lenders have their own technology integration platforms and can manage those integrations themselves.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Others go through third parties.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure as the rollout gets expanded, there will be additional work with those third parties.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: The capital impact to the PMIRs guidance from the GSEs for VS4 send up acronyms for you, will be minimal.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: All of the MI companies are holding billions of dollars in excess of the minimum required assets under PMIRs.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, forgetting that investors' acceptance of changes is vague at best, and often using informal social media channels rather than official letterhead, FHFA director Bill Poulty continues to make waves.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Talk from both Freddie and Fanny personnel have morale reaching low levels as stress and anxiety mount about business practices and uncertainty.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: The MBA supports ending the tri-merge requirement and moving to a single-file approach for borrowers and strong credit profiles, which would further promote competition and reduce costs for borrowers.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: These important updates will give lenders greater flexibility, enable more consumers to be scored accurately, while maintaining prudent risk management and expand sustainable access to home ownership.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Changing subjects slightly, in the old days, world events often triggered a flight to quality, with investors around the world buying dollar-denominated assets like bonds, including mortgage-backed securities.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: No more, apparently.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Renewed Middle East tension triggered a global bond sell-off, lifted oil prices, and revived concerns that inflation could keep interest rates elevated for longer, pushing tenure and shorter duration yields to fresh 2026 highs.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Geopolitical tensions around Iran added initial pressure before the Treasury's announcement of a tripling in its next longer-dated debt buyback.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: The six billion dollar operation covering 10-year to 20-year notes, alongside an additional $4 billion in purchases across 10-year notes to 30-year bonds through early November, was apparently less aggressive than some investors anticipated.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: In response, the ten-year yield rose as much as six basis points to 4.85%, its highest level since 2023.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: A strong $38 billion tenured note auction offered only brief support, leaving ten-year treasury prices near their lowest levels since late 2023.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Traders are watching closely to see whether prices bounce back or even fall further in in an important technical test.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Technically, Treasuries look oversold and positioned for consolidation or a tactical rally, particularly if this week's auctions are absorbed well and larger buybacks provide support.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: This week's Treasury auctions have been generally strong on demand.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Tuesday's three-year was solid, and yesterday's $39 billion tenure was notably strong, with a 2.71 bid to cover ratio and low dealer participation.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: But yields remain elevated.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: More concerning was the performance of the mortgage-backed security basis, the extra yield investors demand to own mortgage-backed securities instead of comparable treasuries, reflecting the additional risk of mortgages, which cheapened across virtually every coupon versus both five-year and ten-year treasuries, indicating that yesterday was more than a simple rate-driven sell-off.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: The broad base widening points to genuine dislocation in the basis amid uncertainty over the scope and effectiveness of Treasury's buyback strategy, while also indicating growing investor sensitivity to the scale of U.S.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: government debt and its servicing costs.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Put another way, the market appears to be reassessing how much support buybacks can realistically provide.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Treasury can potentially dampen volatility at the margin, but the program is unlikely to offset broader concerns about around the supply, valuation, and fiscal trajectory of the Treasury market.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: For today's interview, I wanted to welcome to the show UWM's Matt Ishbia to talk about UWM's growth, the expansion of the mortgage broker channel, recent financial performance, future plans, key challenges, and how he defines success.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: He's the president and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, UWM, and the majority owner of the MBA's Phoenix Sons.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: He joined United Wholesale in 2003 and scaled it into the top wholesale mortgage lender in America, taking the company public via a major SPAC deal in January of 2021.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Your father, very successful in the mortgage industry.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: My father, very successful in the mortgage industry.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Lessons learned.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: My dad is much nicer to people inherently than I am.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: And it's been a good, it's been a good role model in kind of like, hey, you know, being good to people is good.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Reporting on the news, not trying to put subjective bias into things.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And obviously that's for what we're doing with our media platform.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: But learning from your dad, big lessons you learn, takeaways, ways that that it still impacts you today.
• 8:59
  Speaker: Yeah, you know, my dad's a great guy, and just like your dad, you know, you can learn from them by just sitting down and talking to him for 30 minutes about anything in the world, right?
• 9:06
  Speaker: And you know, you we relearn that as we get older, is and I'm 46 years old, you're younger than me, obviously, but figuring that out.
• 9:11
  Speaker: But on the mortgage side, my dad's never really been a mortgage guy.
• 9:14
  Speaker: He had a mortgage company, kind of like a side hustle.
• 9:16
  Speaker: He's a lawyer, actually.
• 9:17
  Speaker: So you still could talk mortgage with me anytime.
• 9:19
  Speaker: But uh the most stuff I learned, I learned less mortgage from my dad, more like you said, how to treat people, going out of our way to do the right thing by people.
• 9:27
  Speaker: My dad put that stuff in me, where I go out of your way, help people out with no expectation, anything in return.
• 9:33
  Speaker: And that's what we've really done in our business.
• 9:34
  Speaker: Think about mortgage brokers.
• 9:35
  Speaker: We give them technology, we give them tools, we give them all this stuff with no requirement or expectation, anything in return.
• 9:40
  Speaker: And obviously, we like their loans, we'd like to help them build, but he was really always there's an abundance.
• 9:45
  Speaker: Take care of everyone, do the right thing all the time.
• 9:48
  Speaker: And I learned that from him at a young age, and I and I learned that still from him to this day.
• 9:52
  Speaker: Like always do right by people, care about people, not only your clients, which is what I was just talking about, but also my team members.
• 9:58
  Speaker: I got you know, eight, nine thousand people are here at UWM, and like go out of your way to do the right thing, do what's right, don't always expect something in return.
• 10:06
  Speaker: You know, I think in our industry, some people are like, Oh, I helped, I referred this loan to the refer the real estate agent.
• 10:11
  Speaker: They what do you give back from me?
• 10:12
  Speaker: It's like, how about just do right by the consumer and help the real estate partner out?
• 10:15
  Speaker: And good stuff always works out.
• 10:17
  Speaker: And if not, you feel good about helping people.
• 10:19
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Over the last several years, United Wholesale has seen immense growth.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And this is kind of a natural sense.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: What do you feel like contributed to that?
• 10:29
  Speaker: I think it goes back to the four-letter word that we talk about here all the time, which is care.
• 10:32
  Speaker: You actually care about your clients, you actually care about your team members, and that's differentiated us where everyone else, you know, runs in and we're a public company now.
• 10:40
  Speaker: So I don't run it for return on investment on every single it's how do I take care of our clients?
• 10:47
  Speaker: How do I take care of my team members?
• 10:48
  Speaker: You know what happens?
• 10:49
  Speaker: Money follows, success follows, and that's what we've run our business.
• 10:52
  Speaker: And so our growth is really about doing right by the brokers, believing in something.
• 10:56
  Speaker: So we have a belief system that the loan officers at broker shops are the best place for a borrower to get a loan, and we have data to support that, and so we support them in every way we can with technology, with services.
• 11:07
  Speaker: And so, yeah, I really believe our growth is about the care factor.
• 11:11
  Speaker: We care about our clients, we want to make sure the process is great.
• 11:14
  Speaker: So the consumer at the end of the day has a great experience, and that's it feels good doing that too.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about brokers a little bit.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Here's a fun philosophical question for you because obviously, with your help, the broker channels increase its market share.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Do you ever think it could reach 100% of residential originations?
• 11:32
  Speaker: I think it should be 100%, but I don't know if it ever really could or will.
• 11:36
  Speaker: Right now it's about 29%, 29.8, I think is the number, whatever it is.
• 11:39
  Speaker: It's in that range.
• 11:40
  Speaker: It's grown, it's more than doubled in the last five, six years.
• 11:43
  Speaker: But can we get to 50?
• 11:44
  Speaker: My goal is hey, you know, UWN has been number one wholesale enter for 11 years, been over on overall for four years.
• 11:50
  Speaker: And quite honestly, I don't care about that stuff at all.
• 11:52
  Speaker: I don't care about being number one.
• 11:53
  Speaker: I want brokers to be number one.
• 11:54
  Speaker: And brokers be number one means 50.1% market share.
• 11:58
  Speaker: And that's the goal, that's the North Star for me is help the brokers get there by educating them, by helping more consumers know that brokers are a great place to get a mortgage, helping real estate agents find brokers, like all those moves.
• 12:10
  Speaker: And so, yeah, 100% is probably not realistic, but shoot, we get to I always tell people we'll get to 50.1, we'll throw a hell of a party, and then we'll go, how do we get to 70?
• 12:18
  Speaker: And then how do we get to 80?
• 12:20
  Speaker: You know, and how do we keep moving in?
• 12:21
  Speaker: And that's what's fun.
• 12:22
  Speaker: This industry, there's no, there's no end game.
• 12:24
  Speaker: It's like, let's keep working.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no end game, it's it's like a a shark, you know, you always gotta keep moving forward, sort of thing.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So let's step back and look at the wholesale landscape a little bit.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: When you look at the brokers out there, what's going on with them?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: What's what's kind of the the buzz you're hearing on the street, latest and greatest?
• 12:40
  Speaker: Yeah, the biggest thing for brokers is like you gotta keep building your business.
• 12:43
  Speaker: Like you said, you just use your analogy.
• 12:44
  Speaker: I've never heard that one with the shark, but you're always going forward.
• 12:47
  Speaker: Like, listen, rates go up, rates go down.
• 12:49
  Speaker: I'm going forward.
• 12:50
  Speaker: I'm gonna keep getting better every day.
• 12:52
  Speaker: And I think mortgage brokers have been resilient through up and down markets, and they've been doing a really great job of building their brand.
• 12:59
  Speaker: Every single day is another day to build with a real estate agent, every single day is a day to follow up with a past client, every single day is a day to take good care of a consumer, send them a closing gift, do the little things to build your business.
• 13:10
  Speaker: And I think the brokers that are focused on that and focused on getting better every day are the ones that are winning.
• 13:15
  Speaker: And regardless, like I say, I don't care what if rates are eight percent or four percent, I'm gonna win either way.
• 13:22
  Speaker: Maybe it takes me 22 hours a day to win when rates are eight percent versus only you know 12 hours a day when rates are 4%.
• 13:28
  Speaker: But either way, I'm gonna be working towards it.
• 13:30
  Speaker: And brokers are doing that right now.
• 13:32
  Speaker: I really feel good that in the purchase market, it's been very strong.
• 13:35
  Speaker: The purchases are actually up this year over last year, and we're the largest mortgage company in America, and we're still 40%, 35% of our business is refined.
• 13:43
  Speaker: So it's not like there's zero refines out there.
• 13:45
  Speaker: I think some people out there saying rates are high, there's no refinances, there's no purchaser this, affordability, this, that mindset you'll lose with.
• 13:54
  Speaker: And brokers have been pretty good with staying positive and grinding.
• 13:57
  Speaker: And you know, hey, it's it's if it was easy, everyone would do it.
• 14:00
  Speaker: It's not an easy business.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to belabor the point too much, but I want to ask how UWM is helping brokers today and into the future.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Obviously, technological advancement has been rapid here.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And when I do a word association game, the first thing when somebody says broker channel, I think UWF.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And so obviously you're instrumental in what's going on.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: When it comes to helping brokers today, thoughts there?
• 14:22
  Speaker: Yeah, well, I think the the key thing is you got to find out what do they need, right?
• 14:26
  Speaker: And so what we believe is in anyone, any business, you need one, you need to be motivated, right?
• 14:30
  Speaker: So motivation is part of it.
• 14:31
  Speaker: Two, you need to be trained and educated.
• 14:34
  Speaker: So we're doing a lot of training, like we're doing success track training.
• 14:36
  Speaker: I just ran a meeting, we have 850 loan officers fly out to Michigan every single week, some 100, some weeks a thousand.
• 14:43
  Speaker: 850 were here today in getting better and learning.
• 14:47
  Speaker: And so they got to get better, they got to get trained, they gotta, they got to get motivated, you know, and that's part of my job is to help.
• 14:53
  Speaker: We have to give them the tools to be successful.
• 14:54
  Speaker: Technology, you know, in an AI world, how do I help them compete with the with the big retail lenders, the banks, giving them better technology?
• 15:01
  Speaker: And then, of course, you know, we talk about all that cool stuff, but at the end of the day, the blocking and the tackling the meat and the potatoes is underwrite the loan fast, close it fast with great rates and a great process so that they look good to the consumers and real estate agents.
• 15:14
  Speaker: And like sometimes people forget that, you know, UWM could be doing all these cool stuff, training and helping people.
• 15:19
  Speaker: If we weren't the best in the world at what we do about underwriting loans fast, closing them fast, make giving great rates, great, great process to the consumer and the broker, we wouldn't be where we're at.
• 15:29
  Speaker: But all those things are tools we're working on and like coming out with new stuff.
• 15:33
  Speaker: We came out with an income calculator where AI generated and it comes out, actually tells you what the income is with 1040s.
• 15:39
  Speaker: Like we have to keep giving them the tools to helpfully create more time and efficiency for them so they can go out and get more business.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Without giving away any secrets, anything you can share about what UWM has planned for the future to keep helping brokers?
• 15:54
  Speaker: We're doing a lot of things to help them build their brand.
• 15:57
  Speaker: I believe knowledge and branding.
• 16:01
  Speaker: So brokers have a lot of knowledge and understanding of the industry and understanding of the products and services, and then they can brand themselves and help them with a marketing perspective of getting in front of more people.
• 16:10
  Speaker: Because there's what it comes down to if a consumer talks to a loan officer in a broker shop, they're gonna do the loan with them.
• 16:15
  Speaker: The problem is we don't get enough consumers talking to them.
• 16:17
  Speaker: And so I think that that's the key is helping them with their branding, helping them understand how important it's to get themselves out there, whether it's on social media, whether it's wearing their t-shirts as Crispin Mortgage when they walk into the gym in the morning, like whatever they got to do to get themselves out there to talk mortgages, because if someone talks to them on a mortgage, has a business conversation about it, they're gonna work with them because brokers, in my opinion, are best.
• 16:38
  Speaker: They can do it faster, easier, and cheaper, but they don't have access to talking to as many people.
• 16:43
  Speaker: They don't have a lead source.
• 16:44
  Speaker: And so, how do we help them with that?
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: And generally speaking, what can the industry expect from UWM going forward here?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: What's what's coming from UWM for the mortgage industry?
• 16:55
  Speaker: The big stuff is leadership and and and we're gonna help brokers dominate.
• 16:58
  Speaker: That's what we're gonna do.
• 16:59
  Speaker: Like, I nothing is different with my plans as we continue.
• 17:02
  Speaker: Is like, how do we continue to lead?
• 17:04
  Speaker: You know, we're gonna innovate, we've come out with different things that no one else in the industry does, whether it's AI stuff or whether it's stuff on you know, track, which is a way of doing something rather than using title, you know, or there's different things on marketing and branding, like there's things we're gonna innovate and lead with.
• 17:18
  Speaker: But then the same thing is we're gonna help brokers win, right?
• 17:20
  Speaker: Like we are one, like I'm a one-trick pony, right?
• 17:23
  Speaker: We help we do wholesale mortgage lending, and that's all we do.
• 17:26
  Speaker: I don't have an insurance business, I don't have an AMC, or we don't have all these other things.
• 17:30
  Speaker: All we do is help brokers win.
• 17:32
  Speaker: And our only focus is if loan officers can win at broker shops and help them grow their business, we'll grow.
• 17:37
  Speaker: And if they fail, we'll fail.
• 17:39
  Speaker: We're a team and we're partners, and so I'm really big on everything we think about is how do we help the brokers win?
• 17:44
  Speaker: How do we help loan officers, mortgage communities, real estate agents, all of them win at broker shops?
• 17:49
  Speaker: And if they win, we'll win too.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Last month you announced second quarter earnings.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Any numbers there you think the industry should focus on in particular?
• 17:59
  Speaker: We didn't have a great quarter from an earnings perspective.
• 18:02
  Speaker: But the thing is that people should notice about all of our months and all of our quarters is we are consistent with originating the most loans in America, but the best quality loans, the most loans, and we're helping brokers.
• 18:13
  Speaker: So the big thing we focus on is being consistent with it and being great.
• 18:16
  Speaker: And whether your income is up or income is down, like that stuff happens every month, every quarter.
• 18:21
  Speaker: But our key is to make sure we're winning and helping brokers win.
• 18:24
  Speaker: And so we look at how many loan officers are working with UWM on a monthly and quarterly basis.
• 18:28
  Speaker: We look at how many loan officers are joining the broker channel on a monthly and quarterly basis.
• 18:32
  Speaker: We look at how many real estate agents are now referring loans to brokers on a monthly and a quarterly basis.
• 18:36
  Speaker: Like these are keys to being successful.
• 18:38
  Speaker: And we focus, we're, you know, I would say laser focused, but I don't know what's bigger than a laser, but like even more than laser focused on it.
• 18:44
  Speaker: Like that's all we think about is help the brokers win.
• 18:46
  Speaker: If the brokers win, UWM wins.
• 18:49
  Speaker: If brokers don't win, UWM will not win.
• 18:51
  Speaker: But luckily for me, the brokers have only 29% of market share, and we're gonna keep growing to 50.
• 18:56
  Speaker: And like if they win, I'm gonna win because we're aligned with them.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: What keeps you up at night?
• 19:02
  Speaker: One thing, only one thing.
• 19:04
  Speaker: The only thing that ever keeps me up at night.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: One thing, only one thing.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: All right, let's see.
• 19:09
  Speaker: Honestly, the one thing that I think about and I worry about the one thing is people, loan officers, brokers, my my clients, even my team members, adopting and adapting to the new stuff, trying new technology, trying new processes.
• 19:25
  Speaker: If you're stuck in the way it's always been, you're gonna look like they always been.
• 19:29
  Speaker: You're never gonna be better.
• 19:30
  Speaker: Like, I'm big on change and optimizing new ideas.
• 19:34
  Speaker: And if the new idea is not good for you, Robbie, then don't do it.
• 19:36
  Speaker: But at least try it five times.
• 19:37
  Speaker: And so I'm worried that people like to kind of keep doing what they've been doing.
• 19:41
  Speaker: And I use examples all the time.
• 19:43
  Speaker: Like, hey, 20 years ago, how many people used to meet a client face to face as a loan officer?
• 19:47
  Speaker: And like, oh, that's how I meet him.
• 19:49
  Speaker: I go to the Burger King and and and we we we take the application and I go to Kinko's, I make copies and I fax it back to them, or even like that's 2005.
• 19:57
  Speaker: No one does that anymore.
• 19:58
  Speaker: Same thing's gonna happen in 2030 and 35.
• 20:00
  Speaker: You'll be like, I can't believe I used to do that back in 2025.
• 20:03
  Speaker: I used to go to a closing table and sit there and sign documents.
• 20:06
  Speaker: Like, that's ridiculous.
• 20:07
  Speaker: It's virtual closing now.
• 20:08
  Speaker: Like, how do you advance?
• 20:09
  Speaker: And so, my concern is loan officers and mortgage people in general are not advancing with the time quick enough.
• 20:15
  Speaker: Change is happening, and you have to adopt and adapt to the new changes or whatever it is.
• 20:19
  Speaker: And if you don't, you will lose.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I guess it begs the question, man.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: What does the future of mortgage lending look like?
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: You mentioned no more closing table.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: One could say maybe we get underwriting decisioning in real time when we clear conditions in real time.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: What is what does the mortgage of the future look like to you?
• 20:35
  Speaker: Faster.
• 20:36
  Speaker: Faster, right?
• 20:36
  Speaker: Like right now, I think the industry still closes loans on average of 42 days or something like that.
• 20:40
  Speaker: UWM, we're at like 11 or 12 days.
• 20:43
  Speaker: Like, and I told my team, I go, they're like, oh, we're so much, I go, we got to be at three days, five days CTC, two days CTC.
• 20:49
  Speaker: Like, how do we accelerate the process and make because no our industry is cool, nobody wants a mortgage.
• 20:55
  Speaker: You know, think about the products we sell.
• 20:57
  Speaker: Anyone like, hey, let's get a mortgage today.
• 20:59
  Speaker: No, no one wants a mortgage.
• 21:00
  Speaker: They want the house or they want the savings.
• 21:02
  Speaker: And so we have to give them a product they don't want.
• 21:04
  Speaker: It better be fast, easier, and cheaper.
• 21:06
  Speaker: And that's what we do.
• 21:07
  Speaker: And so the mortgage industry is gonna be like margins are gonna come down, percentage margins.
• 21:12
  Speaker: So people that are making 400 basis points, like that's gonna get that's going away.
• 21:15
  Speaker: Like anytime any industry that you have technology comes into an industry and efficiencies happen, no matter what industry, margins come down.
• 21:23
  Speaker: Well, the thing is the people with the highest margin are gonna get hit first.
• 21:26
  Speaker: So people that make 400 basis points or 300 base points alone, that's not gonna last.
• 21:30
  Speaker: It's gonna come down.
• 21:31
  Speaker: Now, the nice part for us is although even if you go down to 200 or 150, where to me, a lot of my brokers are already there.
• 21:37
  Speaker: So we feel like we're in a good spot with that.
• 21:39
  Speaker: But 200 basis points, well, the average loan sizes go from 350 or 400 to 600 over the next 10 years.
• 21:45
  Speaker: So you still might make the same amount of dollars, but you're not making the same amount of percentage, right?
• 21:50
  Speaker: And so dollars is what you focus on.
• 21:52
  Speaker: And also you're gonna take and used to take you 20 hours to the original loan, now it takes you two hours.
• 21:56
  Speaker: And so I think the world is changing where you have to realize that if you try to hold
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it reminds me of a Steve Jobs story from Apple.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: He went to the engineer responsible for the disk driver and file system.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: He was talking about boot time.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: He says, You got to make it faster.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: You know, and the guy's going, What?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And he said, if you can make it 10 seconds faster, you know, five million people each day are going to be booting up their Macs.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: 10 seconds for 5 million people, that's 50 million seconds saved every single day.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And over a year, that's dozens of lifetime.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And so that that guiding leadership, that pressure to make diamond make diamonds, that led Apple in just a you know it's a small little case study.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: But that leadership is very important.
• 22:37
  Speaker: Speed speed always wins.
• 22:39
  Speaker: Faster, faster, faster.
• 22:40
  Speaker: Even like a client calls you, call them right back, right away.
• 22:43
  Speaker: Don't wait an hour.
• 22:44
  Speaker: Someone emails you responding to like speed will win in every industry.
• 22:48
  Speaker: I'm a real big believer of that.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: You are great at responding to emails in a timely manner.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I do appreciate that.
• 22:53
  Speaker: I always do.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:55
  Speaker: I do the same with text.
• 22:56
  Speaker: That's how you that's how you win.
• 22:57
  Speaker: Like you have to respond to people.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Let's let's close with this.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Since we talked about what keeps you up at night, I guess we're going inside the the bedroom of Matt Ishbia here.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: When you put your head down on the pillow at the end of the day, what do you view as a successful day at the end of any given day?
• 23:14
  Speaker: That's a great question.
• 23:16
  Speaker: The way I look at it is every single day, and I actually break it down to every single hour like, what am I accomplishing?
• 23:21
  Speaker: What's this looking like right now?
• 23:22
  Speaker: Am I moving more towards my goals or not?
• 23:25
  Speaker: And so there's three things I focus on in my life.
• 23:27
  Speaker: Number one is my three children.
• 23:29
  Speaker: I'm divorced.
• 23:30
  Speaker: I have three amazing kids, and I spend time every minute I can be with them.
• 23:32
  Speaker: How did I impact my kids today?
• 23:34
  Speaker: Did I help them in some way?
• 23:36
  Speaker: Second thing in my life is my mortgage company.
• 23:38
  Speaker: And I can go through all the stuff with the kids.
• 23:39
  Speaker: I'm not gonna, I know it's a business podcast, but I can talk about more stuff.
• 23:42
  Speaker: But second thing I'll talk about is mortgage.
• 23:44
  Speaker: Like, how do I impact team members here at UWM and brokers?
• 23:47
  Speaker: How am I helping move the ball down the field in a positive way, helping make things faster, easier, cheaper, helping brokers win more loans, helping my team member achieve that uh promotion, like impact I can make on people, I think about it all the time and like I measure my success on those things.
• 24:02
  Speaker: And then the third one is my basketball teams.
• 24:04
  Speaker: I have the Suns and Mercury, and like how do I impact that in a positive way?
• 24:08
  Speaker: And what I've really done with that is I've just really copied a lot of UWM stuff and I'm putting it out with the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury, my men's and women's team.
• 24:14
  Speaker: And how do I impact moving that in a positive direction?
• 24:16
  Speaker: So impact is the word, and then the question is which is a much longer answer, is how do I measure that?
• 24:22
  Speaker: How do I measure the impact every single day?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: But if I'm we have we have a couple, we have a couple minutes.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you measure that?
• 24:28
  Speaker: Oh well, I I can go so granular, like I'll do I'll do the kids one because everyone here probably has a is a family or at least has a personal life.
• 24:34
  Speaker: So that one's an easy one to think about.
• 24:36
  Speaker: People say, like, how do you know if you're a great dad?
• 24:38
  Speaker: Are you doing the things that impact your kids in a positive way?
• 24:41
  Speaker: And the way I look at it is how much time am I spending with them?
• 24:44
  Speaker: Do I measure that?
• 24:45
  Speaker: And when I'm spending time with them, am I completely engaged?
• 24:48
  Speaker: And so what I do when I watch a movie with my kids, like last night, I put them to bed and we watched a movie beforehand.
• 24:53
  Speaker: I don't have my phone out.
• 24:54
  Speaker: I'm completely locked in.
• 24:55
  Speaker: That 45 minutes, and we were watching Mario Brothers last night, the movie with the three kids, and I could easily be on my phone and texting and scrolling and doing things.
• 25:03
  Speaker: I'm completely locked in.
• 25:04
  Speaker: So when my daughter laughs at a certain part or my son asks a question, I'm engaged with it as well.
• 25:08
  Speaker: That 45 minutes was, and then I put them all to bed, tell them bedtime stories, you know, for my little one, but my bigger ones, they just say, take my phone and then we talk about the day for a minute.
• 25:17
  Speaker: But that's you know, and I had I had dinner with the kids last night.
• 25:20
  Speaker: Like I measure my minutes with my kids on every day that I can be with them.
• 25:24
  Speaker: And if I don't measure it, then I don't know about it.
• 25:26
  Speaker: And then even like she, and I tell people all the time, like, I have three things in my life my kids, my basketball teams, and my mortgage business.
• 25:32
  Speaker: If I'm not doing something in all 18 hours that I'm awake, tied to one of those three things, I'm not doing a good job.
• 25:38
  Speaker: And so I measure that.
• 25:39
  Speaker: For instance, I gotta go run there and go pick up some band-aid from the store, I take my son with me.
• 25:44
  Speaker: We'll talk on the way.
• 25:45
  Speaker: Well, if not, I'll call my basketball coach, talk to them, or I'll call a client.
• 25:48
  Speaker: Like every minute's got to be managed.
• 25:50
  Speaker: So that's how I can measure the impact is like, how do I do it with my kids?
• 25:53
  Speaker: How am I impacting them?
• 25:54
  Speaker: What conversations do we have?
• 25:56
  Speaker: I I have my goals are tied to how many one-on-ones I have with my kids, how many days I have with my kids where it's just me and them, and we do something special.
• 26:03
  Speaker: I try to create memories, and so I measure it, I have goals, my assistant helps me keep track of it, and I'm very focused on it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Very sage advice.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you, you've always been so kind and caring to use that word to me, much more so than the way lesser people in the industry are.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It means more than than I can express to you.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you doing this interview, and and uh hopefully this is the first of any.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: So thank you.
• 26:27
  Speaker: Well, I'm happy to do it.
• 26:28
  Speaker: I'm proud of what you're doing.
• 26:29
  Speaker: It's not easy.
• 26:30
  Speaker: You've your dad's been successful, but you know you're making a great name for yourself.
• 26:33
  Speaker: You've done an amazing job so far, and you're just getting started.
• 26:35
  Speaker: So hopefully I can help you.
• 26:37
  Speaker: I love seeing you succeed in this industry and doing great things, and we want everyone to succeed together, and I'm proud of you.
• 26:42
  Speaker: So keep up the great work.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Today's economic calendar kicked off with August PPI, up 0.4% as expected, and up 5.4% year over year versus a prior reading of Unchanged.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Core PPI was up 0.2% month over month and 4.6% year over year.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Weekly initial claims came in at 206,000.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Continuing claims came in about where they were last week.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Later today, we'll bring wholesale inventories, August existing home sales, weekly crude oil inventories, and a $22 billion 30-year treasury bond reopening auction results.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: After the inflation data, agency MBS prices are worse an eighth to a quarter versus Wednesday's close, the two years yielding 4.48, and the 10 years yielding 4.89 after closing yesterday at 4.84%.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Let's wrap up with a joke and some housekeeping.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: The Cleveland Browns football team visited an orphanage in Parma, Ohio yesterday.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: It's heartbreaking to see their little faces with no hope.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Said little Jackson, age six.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Thanks again to Nifty Door for sponsoring this week's podcasts.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Nifty Door is the MLO's favorite HELOC platform.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: A broad buy box and hands-on mortgage expertise means more loans close faster for banks, credit unions, and brokers.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Clean files close in as little as zero days.com.