ADIM LIVE at Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals (FAMP) Event

Welcome everybody. Thank you. We're back here now with a day in Miami and we are at the at the FAMP. So before we get into anything, I want I want Sammy to give us a little bit of a of a background. Sammy, where where are we? What do we do here today?

Right now we're at the Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals, the Miami Chapter. This is our annual winter conference where we invite down some of the best lenders in the space, nonQM, conventional. We talk about just create a space where people could network, build reports with new vendors, new lenders.

Okay.

Touch base with current lenders that they have and really use as an opportunity for networking, furthering the relationship beyond the screen and in person.

What What year is this here already?

This is This has been going on for how long already?

Probably a good 10 years.

10 years. You noticed I threw it to your beginnings because I don't know what fam stood for, right? I was going to say this. This is this is why I threw, you know, okay, go ahead with fan because I I didn't want to go ahead and say something stupid that I didn't know what the hell I was going to talk about. So, I want you to introduce our special guest so we can go ahead and get into a deep dive of what this conference does and what comes out of this conference.

So, I could talk about what the conference does and I'll let the guests introduce ourselves. We have some very special people today. These are some of our VIP sponsors. But

we love VIPs.

This is Miami and VIP go hand in hand. Yes, sir.

Uh, but I'll let you want to start us off, Randy. Tell us a little bit about

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Uh, my name is Randy Ree. I'm the Is that two? Two.

There you go. Perfect. Right.

There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So, name is Randy Reese. I'm the uh senior vice president of sales uh for Newi Wholesale. Uh, and uh, yeah, I flew in this morning and uh, looking forward to the show. But, uh, I've been I've been in the subprime nonQM space since 1993. Wow.

So, uh, okay.

I've been I've been slinging around a little bit, been hanging out a little bit. Uh, so

a lot of people weren't born yet here, Sammy.

Well, yeah. You weren't born yet.

Yeah. Can we keep that at this table?

Cut that out.

No, but 1993. Yeah. So, so I got into it right out of college and uh I'm I'm uh mid-50s and still still doing it and having a great time. Love it.

That's great. What about you, Manny?

Yeah, same. Uh here um I work for Lens Financial. I'm a regional sales manager there. We are actually located our corporate office is here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. So, we're right down the block. Uh, we love uh the invite here to be able to sponsor a booth. F has been doing it actually quite a long time, even in the '9s. But, there's a lot of energy coming back. Last year, it was a great show uh being a regional and a chapter uh for the whole state of Florida. It they really put uh the mortgage business back in on the map and um we I think there's going to be a great turnout. We're looking forward to it.

That's for sure. For sure. So tell me a little bit about the fact of about not only the networking that's here, right? But what what's the biggest takeaway that a lot of people can do when they leave this conference?

I I I

any of you can go ahead and answer.

I I I I think uh when you come to this conference uh you should have a a plan. Uh what are you trying to do for your business?

Are you looking for a specialty type of lender? Are you looking for some uh types of engagement with someone that you want to build a relationship? I think we're in the relationship business. There's a lot of loss that come here and and those are the ones that are walking around in the booth and uh we as as wholesalers uh sometimes it's the first time that we get to see them.

Correct.

So, it's important to uh make that connection, make that contact and and expand on that. I think uh when you leave here sometimes uh you find new products, you build better relationships uh and just the unknown. You find something that you didn't know before and you leave with something that's promising.

Yeah, Randy, you want

Yeah, I would add on that. Um I mean just uh so you're going to have a different a lot of options on product, but I also think that the the golf event and the after events uh you could just you could shake hands and have a discussion with with uh with your fellow industry people, right? and and just get their ideas of what they're doing and what makes them successful. Uh so there's a lot of camaraderie here and uh there's there's a lot you get to pull from that.

Right. Right.

I would even add another layer too on top of that is a lot of good education, a lot of good ways to learn about what's happening in the markets and recent trends and the kind of products that both and newfire are offering to their investors or to their clients to help them grow their business. So these brokers are out here, they might know one thing, not knowing how many other revenue streams and revenue sources are out there, which I think would be a great topic of discussion to get into.

Yeah. Well, before we do, I want I want to say something. Where are we with this year? What what's what's good this year? What's what's what's happening this year that we can tell people that we're looking forward to? I mean, we hear all this all the stuff with the Fed and and and the rate cuts and this that, you know, everybody was always waiting for um is it a good time to buy? Is it a good time to sell? I mean, I don't I I never know when the hell is a good time to buy or a good time to sell because you you you know, you take this risk.

What can we educate our listeners and our viewers out there from from expertise from you guys on that?

What what I could add to that is is that 2025, the nonQM space had a record year.

Okay. Uh, and in 2026, we're we're looking uh they're they're saying we're going to do about 125 billion.

Wow.

In nonQM loans in 2026.

Okay.

Uh, so there's there's kind of two ways to go to market with that. You could do a securization and then you could do some of the some of the insurance companies and the and the and the equity groups that'll that'll add into that. Um, and both both uh ends of that are very very thirsty and very hungry to uh to get in our side of the business. So I we're we're expecting very good things in 2026 uh going forward.

Okay.

And I would maybe it's also important maybe to take a step back maybe Manny if you want to explain the difference between what's nonQM and QM for people that are like you know wanting to grow their different avenues of business.

Sure. Sure. Well we specialize solely on uh nonQM. That's all we do. Uh uh we want to be a subject matter expert in that field. we are conveying a lot of the information to the loss uh because I think there's a lot of business out there that is being missed. Uh nonQM basically I think is geared towards the self-employed individual.

Okay. And and if you look at data,

it's a lot of Miami people.

A lot of Miami people and after co even a lot of people got into some type of business on the side of course.

So there's a lot of schedule C type employees that falls

nonW2 non is like not the easy to qualify.

I I mean we could do that right in certain circumstances and it could be a collateral issue but we are geared towards I think self-employed people that have either bank statements for income have a P&L. very important to listen to this. This is very important. That's that's very very important. Continue.

Yeah. And uh you know at at the end of the day, there's so much business out there that even uh and we could get into sources and referral sources and and how to engage them. Uh but this business is here to stay. I think the the mortgage industry it's I think it's never been better than it is today for both the consumer and the flexibility of true products. M

and back in the days they talked about subprime and they talked about the problems with it. No is a totally different product. Uh

there subprime was basically uh no credit a no p if you had a pulse you had a you had a loan right

today we are uh the main factor in the sub in the nonqm world is the ability to be able to repay and that is done through income uh verification. So, it's basically, so what are some ways that, you know, nonW2 employees can be verifying their income? Maybe if you want to touch on that a little bit.

Yeah, sure. Um, so you could do a couple different ways for a self-employed borrower, uh, who who, you know, doesn't is writing off on their taxes, they could do a 12 or 24 months bank statement loan. Um, if I could back up just a little bit on on the QM and the nonQM piece. Basically, a nonQM loan is is something that the that the government's not involved. It's not governmentbacked. So they're not purchasing that paper like a performing loan.

Does that does that cap the amount of leverage that they could go up to? Is it like capped at 80% or does nonQM go a little bit higher?

No, it goes higher. Yeah, for sure. So the loan amounts are going to be a little bit uh laxed than a conforming loan.

Okay.

So uh but yeah, so it's it's basically to to for for somebody mortgage 101, it's it's everything that the government's back is not. So now now dial in to the the self-employed borrower. Uh yeah, so we are going to uh

you guys should all speak into the mic so we can hear you.

Yes, sir. Uh yeah, it's uh so no so so so options are uh self-employ self-employed borrower. Uh you know, we could do a 12 or 24 months bank statement on that. Uh we could do uh you know, as long as they're uh same line of industry, if they're a W2 employee, we could do a 1089 on that. Um and then on the on the investment piece, we uh we use the the uh it's called a DSCR loan. Uh, and then basically we use the input of rents to offset the mortgage.

So looking at the debt service coverage ratio, making sure that hey, these rents are enough to cover all the carrying costs of owning this house. But I think going back to I think it'd be interesting to learn a little bit more about the bank statements and because like you mentioned earlier, Manny, Miami's got a lot of interest. Like you could look at a bank statement, you have cash, you might not have enough deposits that are consistent, but using a bank statement could help qualify someone's income to make it qualify for a loan. Well, not only that, but I I want to touch on something that you guys said very important. You know, a lot of people have this misconception of mortgage brokers. You know what I'm saying? I I I'm I'm I'm not one of them because I feel that everybody needs a mortgage broker. You need a mortgage broker. I mean, you need somebody to guide you through all these things. I'm one of those people that I'm saying, "What? Just tell me what I need to do. What paper do I need to give you? What do I have to give?" You know, people need to understand the mortgage brokers are really, you know, the most important factor in order between you and getting that purchase. I mean I and and with all due respect to you know banks and everything out there that people will say oh you can just you know come to a bank I don't see anybody just walking off the street and walking inside a bank and say I need a loan. I mean, it just I feel it's a little bit more complicated than sitting down with a mortgage broker and a mortgage broker saying, you know, I work with five and seven different, you know, I've I've purchased properties before and every time I purchase a property, I I have my go-to mortgage broker as well, and he'll tell me, Manny, look, you have with these people this, with these people that, you know, depending what is right for your pocket. And I think it's so important for the audience to understand that we are in in in in a moment right now that you have to you really have to give faith in all those people like those mortgage brokers and everything to to guide you because there's a lot of misconceptions out there and there's a lot of people steer you wrong and I think it's important for people to understand that mortgage brokers are important and that you just it's it's makes life easier I believe in that sense. Well, if you I mean, if you put yourself in a if you go to the local bank, right, it's going to it's going to put you in a box, right? So, the the local mortgage broker is going to have access to conforming loans. They're going to have access to uh, you know, hard money loans, they're going to have access to DSCR, you know, they're going to have a broad array. So, if something happens where they don't qualify in on the income piece,

instead of going to a different resource, they could they could roll that right over to another lender. So that's that's I mean it's a great point that you make Manny and uh yeah it just gives them some some diversity where where they're going with the paper.

I if I could add to that it's also availability and service. I think the mortgage broker is uh they partner with realtors that work on weekends. Um they partner with different contractors and you can't really have that relationship with a banker because they're closed. They're working banking hours and in today's world a lot of banks don't even have personnel in the bank. That's what I was just going to tell you that right now. I mean, you can't even How many times has anybody really walked into a bank right now and just say, "Oh, I I don't even know if there's tellers anymore." I mean, I'll probably get a whole bunch of flack for this on banks. Oh, we have tellers. But still, I mean, I don't even I haven't gone out in my life to cash a check or anything. I just, you know, you know, they take a picture or whatever. So, then in that point, I think life just makes it so much easier. And I think that for, you know, Miami, especially this market, you know, uh, the one thing that I always say in our podcast, we're Miami, USA. I don't believe we're part I I think we're our own country because, you know, we just believe in in in Miami, USA. So here, everybody comes here to uh make it better, make it bigger. And I think it's so important to know that that there, you know, companies like you guys companies exist in the sense because there's a lot of entrepreneurship. And then we interview so many upand cominging entrepreneurs which I think is that's that's one of the reasons why we did this podcast because we wanted to really shed spotlight on all those people that have dreams and that wanted to you know here you guys are helping those guys and those women making those dreams come true. Could it be a cookie company? Could it be uh you know whatever company they're doing? I mean, I think that's, you know, something that's so important and I really think that you guys should elaborate not only on that, but the importance of the sense of what you guys can do for them in the sense of listen, we can get you a better rate. We can help you um you know, how how much you going to come in down with, you know, all those little knickknacks that are so troublesome for other people. I think it just makes life easier for for for everyone in that sense.

Yeah. Let let me dissect that a little bit. Well, please do.

Yeah. We're we're in the wholesale industry, so we are wholesale lenders.

Correct.

Uh the folks that you're speaking about, the retail loan officer, they're the ones walking around. Correct. And trying to gain profit,

but they have the relationship with you guys.

They do have the relationship with us.

That's the important part.

That is exactly right. So, what we try to do is uh what we don't forget at Lens is that at the end of the day, we're all in this together. We're a conduit to the end result. So we try to preach to the L and our internal staff, everyone together that at the end of this there's a family. We're putting people in homes and although we're disconnected a little bit because we're not on the front end, the LL's is the relationship and the client.

Uh we're we try to make sure that we we are very involved with that.

Uh we're changing lives.

That's

we're expanding products. So education is a big piece. uh every LO that we structure loans for and there's a loan for everyone. I always say it's not what the consumer uh wants, it's what he qualifies for.

I like that.

Okay. So, uh that's something that every loan I I tell the loan officers, let let's see why it worked, why we needed to adapt, why we needed to make changes, and let's learn from that. This is a career. This isn't just for going out there and doing loans without learning and expanding your growth.

So, what let me ask you this. What's what are some things that we could share with some of these loan originators, these loan officers to help them grow their business, not only their business, but enable these families to move into these houses and then

I could feel that. Yeah. Um, so let me tell you a little bit about the the the nonQM space. So, so separate from the subprime years ago. Um, we're our average FICO score is a 780.

Wow.

And our average LTV, I think, is an 82% LTV.

That's not bad.

No, it's not.

That's great. That's tough. So, we we uh

I don't know where the hell I'm at. I got to check mine. But anyway,

so we uh we approve at Newfi, we approve about 80% of the loans. We we approve about 80% of the loans on the pull through and we close from start to finish in about 24 days. So, if if you think so there you go. Uh, so I mean if you think about what you know 10 years ago, we couldn't go as a wholesaler, we couldn't walk into an office without having a very in-depth conversation on why they should use a wholesale uh nonQM lender, right? Uh, and now we're the shiny object

because we're putting underserved people who can't get a loan at the local bank. We're putting them in houses. And again, we're doing that with uh you know, the scary things about uh you know, the things that could really ruin a loan are are are are credit, collateral, income, right? We're doing the income piece up front. Uh so, and then we know the credit up front. So, there's really uh to scare anybody, this is really a uh this is once you're into this loan, it's a very easy loan. Again, 80% pull through in 24 days. So, it's a uh it's a product that is um is is is up and coming and it's it's continuing. I think I think that 80% is a I mean at the end of the day I mean execution certainty is one of the most important things you know you're not you don't want to be spinning your wheels and going through all these hoops and a deal fall apart in the fourth quarter because something was missed and I think maybe another interesting thing what are some advice and tips that we could give some of these loan originators to keep that 80% pull through to keep moving the ball forward in the earlier stages of the process so that success is on the other side

I I I will say this uh I I was having a conversation on a couple days ago with one of a very successful mortgage broker that has been very successful for a long time and he was telling me that he's slow. I don't see the slow environment. So I started asking him why does he think he he's slow and he just comes up with the same old common answer, you know, just the business isn't there. But I I think he's a victim of his own success. So what happens is when you're in the business for the very first time, you're grinding. you're doing the the work that is not the most comfortable. It's not the the most rewarding work, but it turns into success, you start making a lot of money and you tend to once you have success, you tend to abandon that and you forget the grit. You forget the hunt.

Yeah.

And and I think that's very important because we have young people that he's telling me that he's slow, but I see the young upand cominging people that are not slow. They're adapting.

They're adapting and and what is the what's

there's hungry sharks out there, my brother. Trust me.

Yeah. And what's missing for the successful guy is that they don't have that energy.

No, but I got you. You're right.

So, so they have to either go back in and relook at their plan and their process or they have to hire some of these young guys so they can bring that energy back. There's a lot of energy. You're going to see a lot of energy today in this show. uh this business is it for those that have been in this business and those that haven't or or transitioned into it. There's nothing like the energy of the mortgage company, especially once you close that deal,

right? And and and that person, whoever it is, I I mean, I I I guess I have to differ a little bit, too, because at the end of the day, everybody's people are graduating. People are every day, you know, every year somebody's graduating from college, has a, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever. They want to want to get married. Everybody's looking for a home. You know, there's never, like I told you in the beginning, when is it the right time to buy your house? You know, I said everybody thinking, "Oh, should I rent first? Should I buy first?" You know, we I come from the Cuban mentality of, you know, the old family, you know, you have to own own. You can't rent because you're throwing away your money. So, at the end of the day, I don't I don't understand his philosophy in the sense that I don't see it moving. My my nephew just bought a a home this year um last year, the ending of last year, and he was always renting because he was always waiting for that right right moment. And, you know, one day I just told him, you throw away that money every every month and you have nothing there.

Yeah. So, we've we've done some uh we've done some research on that. We've took a we've took a 10-year window, okay,

to see what the unemployment rate is and what the G and what the GDP is. And and over the last 10 years, it's pretty it's been pretty flat.

So, uh my advice to any LL out there when they're having a conversation with their borrower, uh it's now is the time to buy.

Yeah. You're you're again you're you're wasting, you know, you're wasting dollars uh if you're if you're renting at this point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Manny.

Yeah. the same. I you know I think hindsight is 2020 when it comes to the to the buying uh scenario. When I got when I first bought my home there was a time where homes were expensive at that time relatively speaking. Right. And today I look back and I was like the best thing I ever

Right. Right.

So and I think people our age can

of course of course

it's you look for that perfect time and it's almost never there. What I can tell you is that now there's so many products and with the new MQM, there's so much flexibility that you can't buy your own. Uh it's just the you got to have the right fit for it. Um I don't know about that timing. I don't know if we can all really determine the best time.

Nobody has a crystal ball.

But Manny, I would I would say that uh my advice to any loan officer here is to reach out to your local account executive. Um they're very hands-on. Uh the new model is to have a local AE.

Okay. uh and they will they will come in and they will go over a a marketing plan with them. Um we have resources for flyers and and and videos where they could they could really if they want to jump into the nonQM space, they can do that and our AES will help them do that. They'll do they'll do sales calls uh with the loan officer with realtors. Um and we'll we'll help them, you know, go from a sometimes a scary process to being very very fluent in uh in the nonQum space.

I like that. I like that. And I think that take that speaks a little bit to what you were talking about earlier with your friend that was in it, understood his product, and then the market shifted and they got left behind a little bit. So adapting, learning it, the first one's always going to be the tough one. But having good account executives, someone to help you through the first two, three, four, then you're off to the races. Then the world's your oyster. There's so much money behind these products and so much resources to help you scale your business that if you're not leaning into it and tapping into the resources that are right there in front of you, that's almost on you. I mean, knowledge is power, especially in this environment. You know, we're the cheese is moving, right? So, we have to be we have to Yep. We have to be ahead of the cheese

and you you have to be creative.

When when when we're talking to our loss, we're also giving them ideas on how to build their business, right? I think that's important. It's not just asking for their business, but how can we build them and monetize their business?

So, so I'll give you a perfect example.

There's so many outlets. There's so many outlets out there where you can get referral uh business. Everybody goes to the natural realtor market, right? But there's How about like today's world, you have a pool contractor and he's uh out there uh trying to build pools for people. A pool today could cost $100,000,

right?

So, if they don't have financing for that, imagine an ELO that's starting this business and going to that pool dealer and saying, "Listen,

when you can't obtain financing, we have a product that we can do that through the equity of a home." Now, now, now there's two things that you you've done. You've secured that pool dealer's job and you've gained a client. Think about that referral source now, that pool dealer. You're not asking him and telling him, "Hey, I have a product. Please send me the business." You're telling them, "I'm going to build your business." Yeah.

Think about that partnership going forward.

Secondly, what people miss is that pool dealer would be a client of yours. Yeah.

Because they're self-employed

in the nonQM space. He's going to be a client of yours. Now, now you won, right? So, those are creative things that we try to talk to the young loos and saying, "Hey, there's always a way to get the business. Just be creative about it." If you're just out there sending out flyer and making emails and whatever it may be, you have to show that there's value to the person you're trying to get the referral. I have done this for a long time and it's always worked in in the 90s and the 2000s. It it's show value and the referral partner would be stickier and and I think that's what we try to u adapt and show the younger folks.

I I want to ask a question that I know that everybody's our our viewers are going to ask where or have you seen AI incorporated with with with what you guys are doing? So, uh, and on the bank statement piece for sure. So, we're you're going to be able to in the near future, you know, send your 12 your 12 months or 24 months bank statements and have them calculated immediately and as the income source. So, I think that that uh that piece is good. Um, we do a uh we do something uh an instantle, so on the LE piece of it. Um, and then we have a uh it's called uh IQ income IQ. So, uh, so those things are going to calculate your income faster and it's going to take you from start to finish and and and again, it'll make you uh it'll cut your your your margins down, uh, on on your employment.

So, it would make it easier.

Absolutely.

100%. Make it easier.

It it'll actually make it easier for the loan originator. Correct. Because now they're not going to be going through and trying to calculate this by having a good partner with an account executive that has these resources. they'll be able to turn that information around and help the borrower know what they could qualify with the technology of calculating income fast.

The next 12 months is going to be eye opening.

Yes.

And what's happening in that space?

Yeah.

I I think when it comes to the uh technology front, AI is here and it's here to stay. It's not going anywhere.

Um what I do see is a lot of people use AI uh and that's what they call their technology. It's just an AI platform and say, "Hey, we got technology." At at Lens, we are being uh led by a lot of young innovative folks that really understand the tech world. So, we don't our our tech process is utilized from A to Z from the moment you enter uh pre-qualification to the moment you close. Everything is tech based. It's built by them. It's beyond the tech the AI technology. So, our we do our pre- calls in 10 minutes. We do our underwriting in 24 hours from there. We register. We submit loans for the bro uh broker. We're trying to make sure that they have the time to go out there and build those relationships and let us handle the hard work.

And that's what I love to tell broker. You focus on what you're good at, bringing in business, right? And then and then we as lenders will help get this deal across the finish line. You keep bringing in business and we'll help with the back.

If I could add on that piece is uh on the underwriting side, we're we're the exception process. We're having exceptions on about 30% of our of our submissions. So, uh, if it doesn't fit the box, call your local AE is what I would suggest.

Flexibility is important. Not everybody fits in the box, and those exceptions are essential. I mean, there's always going to be a couple yellow flags here and there, but the sooner we're able to get comfortable with it, the better it is for everybody.

Okay, so I'm going to do now a little crystal ball for both of you. Do we get another Fed rate cut?

Who wants to take a crack at that one? Well, uh, this morning was a little bit of a eye openener. So, we we thought yes. Uh, I I I'd say probably, you know, I'm not in that industry, but I would say probably one or two small.

Yeah.

Yeah, that would be my guess.

Manny,

I think we're living in a geopolitical world and uh,

who knows? Uh, it there should be one.

Yeah.

Uh, but for some reason,

but in in your guys expertise, you think there should be should it be lower? I mean, I mean, it's not that, but you know, it does affect you guys.

I I will say this. I I think we're we got accustomed to rates that really shouldn't have been there. We're in a zero interest rate environment. Okay,

that's really not sustainable. It's it's even for just the the market, the prices of homes, it's just not a sustainable uh thing. But, uh right now, if you look at historically, our rates are below the average if you take back the last 30 years. Okay? So, we're in a good rate environment, but I do think that a quarter here, quarter there may help and stimulate more, especially with a high uh

But you got to also remember though when those rates come down,

prices go. Sure. I mean, nobody's going to lose.

It's never really I get it. But for some reason, people see it the other way. Even though the prices go high, but people feel like, oh, the rates a little bit lower. I can afford that now. You know, I mean, the person was going to pay maybe 7,000 now know is going to pay five. Oh, I could, you know, it's Miami. Remember, it's Miami, USA. Everybody wants the best.

No, and that's why it's important what these guys have been saying to have a good relationship with your account executive to help them in the process earlier on so that people know what they could qualify for.

Yeah. You you know, Manny, I said earlier, I'm not going to predict timing. You know, when is the greatest time to buy, but I will say this, when they do cut the rate, do it quick before the sellers find out.

Yeah. Okay, there you go. Well, on that note, thank you guys very much. I mean, we're gonna continue with the next guest, but you know, um, Randy Manny, thank you so much.

Appreciate Appreciate your insights and the whole situation, and we will continue with our next guest. Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Good job. That was

welcome to a day in Miami podcast. We're here at the FAM Convention at the Lowe's in Miami Beach. Uh, Sammy, start us off here, man. Tell us tell us what shop you're with. Tell us uh what it is you're doing here and what what you're trying to accomplish. So, FAMP, Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals. So, this event is set up for our local mortgage brokers that are looking to grow their business, network with vendors, really establish better and stronger relationships with people in the industry. Today, we're joined by two great guests, industry leaders. We got Scott with AMD Mortgage and we got Mark

Mark with A&D Mortgage and Scott with Angel Oak. I'll let these two gentlemen introduce themselves.

My name is Mark Glazer. from wholesale team manager producing wholesale team manager at AD Mortgage when agency and Fanny May say no. AD Mortgage says yes with our nonQM lending.

My name is Scott Rubel. I'm an account executive here with Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions. Been with Angel Oak for nine years now, serving primarily Broward and Dade counties. We serve nationwide at AD Mortgage, but we have a lot of good things going on Southeast Florida.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I think I think a big premise, a big topic of discussion the past couple months, years, past five years has been the growing nonQM space. I mean, especially here in Miami and Southeast Florida where we have a lot of borrowers and borrowers that are, you know, working multiple jobs, have a side hustle, might not be your traditional W2 employee, but still have income that could qualify them for a home. So, I think a big point of today is to really help educate some of the brokers that have been on the more traditional conventional side, some tips and tricks that they could do to grow their business because they're leaving a lot on the table. They're leaving a lot on the table. And so, I mean, maybe we could start on on your end, Scott, and what you think some of the more interesting trends you've been seeing.

Yeah, you brought up some great points, Sammy. Um, the nonQM space as a whole is projected to grow 25% in 2026, year-over-year, which is huge. that's going to outpace the overall mortgage mortgage origination market by almost double digits. So the the expansion will continue to be robust and there are a number of nonQM lenders A andd Angel just being two of them that are going to be able to help facilitate all of that volume. The point is that there is massive opportunity for a loan originator. massive opportunity and it's really just a matter of opening up your mind to understanding that nonQM can help you grow your volume, grow your customer base, serve an unserved market like you mentioned all those people, gig economy workers, self-employed borrowers, investors, etc. So the point and I think that's really important for everybody understand is just look at the opportunity when you look at your 2026 projections and where you want to be at the end of the year. Where is that growth going to come from? Well, you have a space here where you're going to see double digit growth. More than likely, that's probably where you want to focus your energy.

That's nice.

So, what we do find here is that AD Mortgage and Angelo, we're we are trying to mainstream the market. So, right now, if you're an agency lender, you keep thinking agency. We want you to take the agency hat off and understand that nonQM is the way in order to get loans closed. So don't despair with agency. Think of nonQM mainstream it. When you have a customer, ask them questions. Are you what do you do for a living? You're self-employed. Are you a nail technician? Are you an Uber driver? Are you a very large company, but your tax returns don't work? think, listen, speak, communicate with your loan officers and your and your realtors and your borrowers and put everybody together and say, "Okay, well, if they're self-employed and their tax returns aren't working, go to AD mortgage in order to do nonQM lending." You can offer a self-employed individual a bank statement loan.

You could offer them a P&L loan, no bank statements. In case of investor loans, you could do DSCR loans on investor where it all about the rentals and it doesn't even matter whether they have income whether they don't have to show no income, no employment, no employer. So nonQM is there to solve problems.

And also nonQM is a door opener. So you could approach realators and you could say, "Hey, you've got a condominium that may be non-warable." Okay. Well, the nonQM lenders out there are able to do a non-warable condo. Like today, uh, a lot of the condos are having issues with insurance.

So, nonQM can mainstream you into a condo, open a door where realtors think they can't do it, and the loan officers have the ability to do that condominium, and hey, you're not carrying windstorm or not enough. AD Mortgage has the ability to put it, let's say, on an HO6 policy.

So, you're able to do that. You're missing flood insurance, separate flood policies. You offer this to realtors, nonQM. You mainstream it into your life. Don't just be agency. Be nonQM. And you're going to get into realtor doors that weren't open to you before. They're going to be open to you now.

Let me ask you this, Scott. from some of this nonQM stuff. What are some things that mortgage brokers should be asking aside from, you know, pre helping pre-qualify someone who might not have that standard W2 employee status or have the the 12 months bank? What are some questions that the broker should be asking?

Before you start that to some of the people that don't know,

please

what you're talking about mean,

can you explain what nonQM?

Absolutely.

Okay. Uh, who wants to go first? Me or you?

Go for it.

I'll go and you're next. So, uh, nonQM is nonqualified. So, when you're doing an agency loan, those are qualified loans. Usually, it's ATRs are big ability to repay and they're looking at tax returns, W2s, payubs. So, a lot of people today are very entrepreneurial. So, W TWS, payubs, tax returns may not meet qualifying that agency, Fanny Freddy loans meet. So what do we do? NonQM. You could do a bank statement loan. You could do a P&L loan with bank statements and not investment loans. No income, no employment, no employer. If the property if the property works, it works. There's collateral.

Understood. Thank you.

That that that's me. I'm I'm a 1099. So I have the whole tax return problem.

You're the perfect customer.

Well, yeah. I mean,

you're

you know, he's paying taxes, you know, but you know.

Sure. The nice the nice thing. Of course, you know, but the nice thing with a 1099 employment is, you know, you have your deductions. And so, you know, if you have these deductions, you're not going to be able to show and and count all the income that you could be generating. And and that's where I was going with Scott. What are some questions these brokers could ask?

That's correct. So, to Mark's point is exactly that is as a self-employed borrower, business owner, 1099, schedule C, um you're taking advantage of the tax laws that you should be taking advantage of and writing off your expenses. So, we know as lenders, we know that your tax returns are not a true indicator of your cash flow, of your income, of your revenue, but your bank statements are going to tell that tale. We're going to be able to look at your bank statements and see your deposits, if it's personal or business bank statements, and we're going to be able to do a calculation on those deposits to qualify you for that loan. So, our loans in the nonQM space, to answer your question, Marcos, we sell our loans to the secondary markets, right? Hedge funds, institutions, Wall Street, etc. versus conventional loans which are sold to the government. Fanny May, Freddy Mack, FHA, etc. Got it. That that's that's pretty much the difference from your qualified mortgages and non-qualified mortgages.

Understood. And then if you have an account executive like Scott or myself, uh we're going to look at your bank statements first. And if we see the deposits and we see there's issues, then we pivot to a profit and loss loan.

Correct. So where bank statements may not be because even deposits can be coming and they may not meet the standard. So then you say okay profit and loss no bank statements but the income is there. Profit and losses are generally done by certified tax preparers or CPAs. So it's up to them to give us the determination of a gross income and the operating expenses that we would work with. So, and they sign date and they attest to a P&L and then we're able to use that.

Got it. So, I I'm I'm assuming that when the returns are off, for example, uh what kind how are you getting penalized there? You have to put more down.

What do you mean by the saying, hey, okay, you might not be you might not be qual you might not be generating enough income to qualify for a loan.

Exactly. You basically end up having to put more down.

There's some mitigating factors. Scott, what were you going to say?

I was going to say, I mean, it's not really penalized. depends on how you look at it, right? Because

No. So, I mean, uh, nonQM lenders for the most part go up to a 90% loan to value. So, you can put 10% down, buy a property. The pricing is slightly higher than what you would see on the conventional world, but that gap has been shrinking. So, for example, if it's an investment property, most times it's often common that we price better on the nonQM side than we're seeing on the conventional side because of what's called loan level pricing adjustments that conventional has kicked in on a primary residence will be slightly higher. But to your, you know, when you said penalized,

the other way to do it would be show all your income, pay Uncle Sam, or just take a little bit of a higher rate, which you're going to be able to write off on your taxes anyway. So I don't I don't really see it as being penalized.

When you put it that way, then I I get what you're saying now.

But but you know, Marcus, you want that house. Okay. So nonQM is a want loan. Agency Fanny May, I'm sorry. Agency and Fanny May are want loans. NonQM are need loans.

So nonQM need loans. And under those circumstances, you want to buy that home. You need to close on that house. If you don't, you're gonna get yelled at by your family. I'll be sleeping on the floor for three months.

Yeah.

So, but

or worse at your in-laws.

And so, like real I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mark.

But, but as a need loan, nonQM, as a need loan, you need to close on that home. You may have gone agency to look and it's no. The agency said no. Then again, here it is. AD Mortgage says yes when agency says no. and it's to your need, I want to close on that home. And if you have tax returns that you have worked and within normal guidelines, but you're not paying a lot of taxes because you have a great accountant, there you are. A bank statement loan or a profit and loss loan will get you through because you want to save money on the IRS. So, AD mortgage nonQM need loans. That's the deal.

Yeah. And and I to add to that, Mark, because that's a good point is, you know, you could qualify for a conventional loan using your tax returns, what you show on your W2, but that might only qualify you for a $400,000 property, $500,000 property, but you know, you make way more than that, right? So, when we look at your bank statements and we tally up all of the deposits coming in, we do our calculation. We're going to see your true buying power. And it's it's often, right, we'll look at tax returns, qualification, maybe 10,000 a month in income. We look at the bank statements, we bumped that income up to 30,000 a month. So we've literally more than doubled the buying power. So you can buy the house that you really want.

Got it. Great point.

And we're following the bank statements. So to his point, the bottom line is is that again, not we are not making anything up. We're not bumping. We are looking at the gross deposits in your bank account. Yep.

And if the gross deposits are coming from the business that you're doing, it's valid.

Tell a different story. Absolutely. No,

I think I think that's really creative. I think another interesting point maybe we could share some tips to these brokers that are trying to get into the noncum space. I mean, it's it's the stuff that we're talking about. It's pretty heavy duty stuff. P&Ls, CPAs, you know, looking at different sources of income. What is a step that a broker could take to kind of start building out this line of business and generating revenue?

You take that first question. I'll do it after.

Thank you. Um I think I think that the step is just like they did when they dove into the conventional space. You want to educate yourself on the products available in the marketplace. Um every lender ad angel mortgage solutions we all offer plenty of information on our website where you could go in learn about the different products and programs. Bank statements DSCR profit and loss only 1099 only asset qualifier loans. I mean we can go on and on. Home equity lines of credit qualifying with bank statements. The list, the list goes on and on.

It goes on and on. And it's really just a matter of investing the time to educate yourself on what those programs look like. From there, I always recommend building a relationship with an account executive at a nonQM lender that you feel comfortable with and then adding to that because no one nonQM lender can do everything.

No. And and that's why we're here today. That's why this FAM convention exists is so that brokers could come and educate themselves and learn a little bit more about what's out there so they could continue to grow their business because it is overwhelming. I mean you say open the website it's tough but that's why these events are very very important to build those relationships to network and build relationships.

Well also to understand this

you are an agency lender. I'm going to quote a great movie Disney. Let it go. Let it go. agency needs to be available, but you need to be able to have time to let it go and address and understand that you could mainstream nonQM. You could make it part of your thought process. So when you're thinking an agency, you're thinking, oh my god, I can't do it. No, you're thinking initially, oh, it doesn't look this, but pivot to nonQM. And the likes of Angel Oak, the likes of AD Mortgage, we're there to help you do that pivot. You should be doing it in a minute, in an instant in your head when you're looking at a loan and say, "hm, this is an agency loan or hm this is a nonQM loan." And have that decision and then move forward. You shouldn't you you need to be able to add it to your thought process and I always say mainstream nonQM in your process.

Let me ask you this. So, what are some tips and tricks that brokers can do to increase the probability of execution? What should they be doing up front to be, you know, getting rid of some yellow flags ahead of that?

Read.

Read.

Reading is fundamental. Oh my god. Absolutely.

You mean you got to work. You got to work a little.

You can't watch YouTube videos.

You have to be able to make yourself or educate yourself. Let's say on a bank statement loan. Do yourself a favor. Instead of just sending the bank statement in and not looking at it, read the first, let's say, read the last two months of bank statements and get to know the customer. the curtain back. Peel the curtain back a little bit. Look under the hood. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. And then listen. So, you got reading is fundamental and listening. Listen to the needs of your borrower. What do they want? And then finally, ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions to your borrower about who they are. And of course, the collateral. What are you buying?

So, if you know about the collateral, there may be bumps in the road there. you know about your borrower, how they conduct business, and then finally read guidelines and compare them to the material that your borrower has given to you.

That's a great tip. It's it's you have to interview your customer a little bit more in depth when you know you have a self-employed borrower. And Marcos is a great example because he's an entrepreneur and you have income sources, I'm assuming, from many different areas, right? Um, so if I sat down to interview you for your loan as a loan originator, I need to know all of that information. Where are you drawing income from? What are the service you're providing for? How often and how frequent are they? Right? So, it's just asking those questions, interviewing your borrower a little bit more in depth when you know that they're a self-employed borrower or an investor or a 1099 entrepreneur, side hustle, whatever the case may be.

And and that's what's nice about working with A&D and working with Angelo. have account executives out there that know this inside and out that could help you get up to speed and get that those lines of questions that you need to get for them to help you get the loan across the finish line. And that's the very important part of having a good account executive, someone that you could lean on and rely on. And that's both you guys are powerhouses when it comes to having a Thank you.

Question. How how soon before a purchase would you recommend people to start getting their ducks in a row?

Great question. That's a great question. I would say as much time as you possibly can. At least 60 days. If you can do 90 days, even better. You want to be able to sit down with your loan originator, go over your scenario, and they can start to structure what your loan's going to look like. Then they can get with your account executive, get with Mark, get with Scott and who your account executive is and start to calculate the bank statements, see what your buying power is, look at your credit, look at your 103 and your overall profile. And then we can say, "Okay, Marcos, based on the information we have, we know you can afford a house of a million bucks or whatever the case may be, and now you can go out shopping with your realtor." So, you want to give 60 90 days time frame ideally. Doesn't always happen that way.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's ideal.

But also, Marcos, you're going to want to get together and understand your family, where your money is for, you know, when you're when the L is speaking to you. Let's say you're the borrower. We're going to find out where your money is located. Is your money available currently? Are you needing to wait a month till you get uh invoices paid in your business? Uh is your money here or ad mortgage allows funds abroad. We count money overseas.

Oh yeah,

like any other transaction for nonQM agent a nonQM overseas funds are fine. Agency has issues but we don't care. So it's pretty cool doing that. So know where your money is and then uh get where it's about. At AD Mortgage, we only need one month's bank statement. So understand, get ready, be ready with your funds. And then next, the second thing is know where your money is and know how you're earning the living. And then when you're going to be talking, uh you want to find out your your LO is going to be addressing you and you're going to find out how you make your money. And then that's where bank statements come in. That's where profit and loss come in. And if you don't show anything, if it's an investor loan, debt service loan, and you're you're good to go.

That's all good stuff. Now, if someone a mortgage broker listening in, tuning in right now, where's the best place to find you guys at?

Well, you could find Mark Glazer at AD Mortgage. I'm at 954309 2960. And I'm at M A K. G L A S is in SAM E R at admortgage.com. Once again, 9543092960. You could reach me. I'm a producing manager there and I take on clients and I could give them my 35 years plus experience in getting the job done.

That sounded like a voicemail.

No, he's done this before. He's done this before. What about you? Where can we find you as

uh best thing to do is is make note of our website angel oak msm like mortgage siksolutions.com. You can find any of our account executives there, myself included, all of our contact information, our loan and product information, uh guidelines and details about our products. And then for myself, um I'm very active on social media. I'm at SGE on all social media platforms. You can reach out to me directly there.

Byebye. You can find me on Instagram at Kawo 305.

Thank you guys very much. That was awesome. Appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Good morning. Good afternoon. I'm not really sure what it is, but we are here at the FAM event here at the Lowe's Hotel in Miami Beach, and we have a beautiful panel sitting here in front of us today. So, I'm going to go down the line and let everybody introduce themselves and uh tell us what they're doing here today at the FAM conference. My name is Ray Duran. I'm a senior VP at Quantic Bank based in New York City. We're here just to talk to everybody and share our great news and all the great programs that we have to offer.

Hi, my name is Milia Castiano. I'm with BB Americas. Um, I am VP of sales and wholesale lending. I also run the division and I'm here also as an exhibitor showing our programs and educating our brokers on what we do.

My name is Robert Beno. I am the Miami chapter president for the FAMP. Um, also CEO of Elite Lending. I'm just here to kick it with you and ask some questions.

So, Robert, chapter president. What does that entail?

A lot.

So, I mean, are you the man behind the scenes here today hosting everybody? 800 people here, the biggest money makers in Miami, all the power players.

I'm a small piece of that. We have a massive team of uh of uh people helping out um that are doing this for a good cause. So, it's a this is a big uh there's a big team behind putting this event together and um we're obviously uh gracious for all of our sponsors and all of our exhibitors for being here and happy for you guys to be here and and um to show what it what what this is all about and um adding value to all the motor professionals in South Florida.

And this is an annual event that you guys host, correct? every single year. We are actually the oldest mortgage association in the state of Florida.

Wow. Beautiful. And what year is this conference? Are you sure?

Uh older than me.

Can't count them.

It is older than me.

And Ray, what about you? How many years have you sat on the board?

Just this year.

This is my first year on the board. I've been actively in the mortgage industry for longer than I care to say.

I'm not trying to date anybody here. Well, I've been in the business for 40 years and I started doing loans when I was five. Just saying.

So So you've seen it all. We've we've been through the ups and downs. What would you consider this market that we're in? I know a lot of people have questions. Right time to buy. Is it a good market? Where would you place it today, Ray?

This is a great opportunity for investors. This is exactly when everybody wants to buy.

So you would say it's a buyer market.

Absolutely. Somebody's intelligent buys right now.

Beautiful. And Milva, what about you? Obviously, you're seeing a lot of deal flow coming across uh your desk and your team's desk. Would you agree with Ray? Is today the time to buy?

Absolutely. Definitely.

I wanted to uh piggyback on that. I wanted to go back to um just to let everybody else everybody here know what what kind of what what uh what loan programs does BB Americas offer? Well, BB Americas offers a we specialize in anything between $250,000 to $10 million in loans and we do both domestics and foreign nationals. We are owned by the biggest bank in Brazil. So, obviously foreign lending is our specialty. We know the ins and outs and how to financially qualify them and make it easier for a seamless process.

And Ray, what about you? I work for my bank is based in New York City and it's owned by mortgage professionals. So the owners of my bank used to own New York Mortgage before the crash. They actually sold the bank before a year before the crash, made a lot of money, went out and bought a federally chartered bank when when the crash happened. And that's basically who we are. So we specialize in light dock owner occupied uh in 100% in gifts for investors on DSCRs and light docks VOE's um prepared by the the employers that don't get really verified with tax returns and that's basically our bread and butter. We also do a lot of heloans um also stated like doces P&Ls prepared by tax preparers that's basically our bread and butter. That's what we do. And you both are wholesale lenders, correct?

We're wholesale and retail.

Okay, fantastic. Because we throw the the word bank around a lot. And we're at a mortgage brokers conference, so a lot of people get confused. Why are brokers sometimes brokers like to say brokers are better, right? Um would you agree? Obviously, you have some retail side, so you got to play defense there.

No, not at all. Not at all. Mortgage brokers bring a lot to the table because they give the clients a lot of different products. They have the opportunity to go to mean to to BBA BB Americas and they have the opportunity to go to different uh players. So they actually bring a lot to the table. Mortgage brokers are very essential to our business.

And Milia, how do you feel about mortgage brokers?

Well, I live off them. They're my boss. So honestly, it what it does it it brings options. It brings options to your customer because not every customer is going to be tailored for a specific bank. So a bank has one, two, three products. The broker has 15, 20. So it just brings options. So definitely brokers are very important in this business.

And Robert, from a broker's perspective, why are brokers better?

I I'll piggy back on what both Melvia and Ray said. I mean, we have options galore. Like we can place loans anywhere. We're not tied to a specific box, a specific lender, a specific set of guidelines, a specific set of underwriters. We have the opportunity to shop for our clients and get them the best deals, the best rates, and the best programs. I mean, it's the best for the consumer and it's the best for for for the broker community.

So, here in Miami, I know nonQM is probably the standard, right? Um, what percent would you say is coming across your desk, Robert, that is a nonQM loan? And how valuable are partners like these two wholesale lenders?

They are the reason why we stay alive. I would say a good 40 to 50% of our business is nonQM and um within those nonQM fall in the four nationals all all those different types of buyers that we deal with but in Miami everybody's an entrepreneur

right I mean to qualify for a house here with with today's rates and the property values you either have to have four W2s or you got to be a nonQM borrower right

absolutely

that is that is correct

a little bit of you know side hustle everybody they used to say fraud uh you I know that's a hot topic. You guys probably figured out how to spot a fake pay stuff by this point. AI has been helpful. What are you guys seeing in the nonQM space that is still concerns for the business?

Well, I I'll say in my aspect, I mean, I don't do true DSCR loans, but I do do foreign nationals. And our process is very simple, very logistically put together. So we qualify the borrowers with a CPA letter. So you know sometimes you get a CPA letter that doesn't collaborate with the amount of liquidity. So that's a risk. It's a risk. And so we have to obviously determine these loans and make sure they make sense. So that's where I come in, look at the loans and make sure that everything

and you're coming back with the conditions to

conditions, you know, conditional approval and then we take it to closing. So if you follow my league, I'll get you to the closing table.

Oh, I like that. Follow her lead and she'll get you to the closing table.

That's a slogan. We got to put that on the shirt.

Oh yeah. put print that all over. And Ray, what about you? How how would you say you guys are, you know, making sure that the deal is a kosher deal despite it being a nonQM loan?

We we look at the client's credit history. It's very important to us. It gives you a background. It gives you a a history of the client. Is he worthy? We look at his assets. And that's basically what we're looking at. Because if you look at a client and he's he's buying a $2 million home, he has a few hundred,000 in the bank, has an $800 credit score, he's self-employed, he makes the money, he just has a very good accountant. So, this is the kind of thing that we look for. We work for client that makes sense. And I think the last panel did an excellent job in highlighting that is, you know, El Cavayo called it being penalized for being nonQM, but the reality is there's tax advantages. And that's why people are typically leaning into a nonQM product is because like you said, they have a great CPA, they have a great accountant. And so when people see, you know, or think they're getting penalized on the rate, the reality is they're really just taking advantage of the tax code and saving a ton more on taxes.

You know, the reality is in today's market, you're really not getting penalized too much anymore.

What would you say the difference in the spread between

Depends? you have a good if you have a good down payment with a good credit score, it isn't that much. Maybe a quarter or a half. In some cases, it's priced even better.

And the LTVs, I mean, you're still able to great get great LTVs. Not the 3%, but

well, you're going to see a bigger adjustment in the LTVs. When you have a a light dock program or something like this and your LTV is high, you're going to pay for it. Absolutely. But if you have a good LTV and you have a good credit score, your rate's going to be pretty good. In today's market, it's not like it was a couple years ago where it was a point and a half difference in the rate. It's not like that anymore.

And you guys aren't also just looking at the borrower, right? The property matters, right? And and a big thing in South Florida here is the condo market and the condo must qualify. And a lot of people don't understand that that the condo itself has to qualify. So, do you guys have already approved condo associations that you have everything filed and it's an much easier loan? Are you still qualifying condo associations? What is that process for the brokers tuning in here that maybe don't have a qualified association? Can they still get the loan done?

Well, I'll speak for myself. BB Americas doesn't have a approved condo list. We that's what makes us different and that's what makes us a portfolio bank. So, we determine every condo at the time of underwriting obviously a little before just to determine the condo meets our criteria. What meets our criteria is make sure the condo is at least 50% sold. there's no alarming um delinquencies that should we should be aware of, but it doesn't have to be Fanny May approved as long as there's no nothing again alarming. We will take a look at it. The only thing the only type of condo that we don't do is a condo um condo hotel. Everything else we will look at in a case by case basis.

And alarming are you talking like structural damage? Uh

well, structural litigations, stuff like that. you know, if there's HOAs are more than 15%, you know, delinquent, that's that's a concern for the building for itself. So, it just depends case by case, but right now, you know, all the new buildings that are up in Miami, we're doing all of them. There's a numerous about seven new buildings going up and I'm probably the only lender lending in all seven.

Wow. You heard your favorite for first.

Yeah, that is great. One and one thing that I did want to add to that that part or that I wanted to circle around is is um talking about like uh loan amounts and and LTVs like for both of you guys. cuz I know Milia uh I know Milia personally. I've worked with her on plenty of deals. So that's something that's that's it's a niche in her in her business of of their loan amounts cuz they're you know in today's market you can't buy a house in Miami anymore for less than a million dollar. So

yeah and I feel like $10 million if we were talking 10 years ago didn't sound like much by the way. So in efficiency

Yeah. or Yeah. Nowadays but I'm probably the only lender the only bank I'm not going to I'll call myself a bank. I'm the only property bank in this room that can that has a legal lending limit of $54 million.

So that means so obviously loan limit of 10 million but that means the same borrower can buy several

I have an advertised loan limit of 10 up to 10 million. However case case by case we have a l let l let l let l let l let l let l let l let l let l let l leting capacity up to $54 million.

So here in South Florida almost nothing's off limits for you.

Nothing.

Beautiful. Ray, what about you?

Not 54. Definitely not 54 million.

Yeah, that's kind of a high number. Sorry, we we should have asked you first. That's hard to beat.

No, it's okay. But look, there's a lot of things that we do. This is why mortgage brokers are so important, right? Because she's looking at 50% pre-sales. We're not

We don't do that. You know, we'll do nonQM. We'll do

Do you guys have a limit or requirement?

Uh, no, we don't. We have to deal with the sponsors. In New York, they call them sponsors. Down here, it's the developers, right? So, as long as the developer has assets set aside, we'll work with it. The financials have to make sense. If there's a litigation, it depends on the type of litigation it is. Usually, you get an attorney's letter, opinion letter, things like this. But we work a lot with condos, you know. So, if it's not warrantable, we'll do it non-warrantable. We'll do non-warrantable up to 80%. You know, which is pretty good. And that's a light doc stated program, too. So, there's a lot of things that we do that they don't do, and there's a lot of things that they do. 54 million.

I don't do that. That's a that's a good program.

You win 54 million.

And and that is the benefit of a broker, right? Is is we're here to educate them today and I hope they're tuning into the podcast, hearing the difference between the loan programs that are offered so that they know when to pivot. You know, one of my favorite scene from friends is when, you know, they're going up the the the staircase with the sofa and ROSS IS GOING PIVOT, PIVOT. I my wife is is a mortgage broker. Um and I yell it to her all the time I hear talking to a borrower on the phone, I JUST YELL, "PIVOT, PIVOT."

YOU got to you got to be light on your tools here.

So, we talked about loan limits. Uh we talked about, you know, qualifying um the condo associations. So, those are both residential. Do you guys offer any commercial loans as well?

We don't at this time. We don't.

I I run the residential department, but we do have a commercial department. So if any broker wants to get a hold of me, I can put you in contact with commercial.

Okay. Excellent.

Robert, was that a hand raise? No hand raised,

man. I mean, you got an open mic here.

No, no, no. But Robert does commercial.

I I do I do commercial. Yes, I we do have a commercial division. Um we do both residential and commercial division. We have uh a full-blown staff for both uh both of divisions of the company. So yes, we do and any types bridge, fix and flip, ground of construction, new development, multif family. So we we have a full spectrum uh residential and commercial brokerage, business lending, all of that from A to Z. We can cover any single borrower. Again, it lends itself to our business because of the amount of non that we do. Um we have a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of uh a lot of business owners in the market that always need that commercial lending aspect of it. So we do offer all those products.

So you know this going social media and you guys want clicks, right? So we got to talk about one thing. I want to hear the most difficult or what seemed to be the most difficult or impossible deal that you guys still got done and why it was only going to get done with you guys.

We've done one we've done a different man. Those eyebrows went up, man. Yeah, we've we've done uh we well the biggest the biggest deal of my career that did it with Noville, so I got to I got to definitely thank her for that. Uh

yeah, and and the borrower took us for a ride. Yeah, definitely.

All right. Yeah, but we're we're we're celebrating today. So, what made that deal so hard and how were you guys able to work through it together as a partner and get it done?

Um I'll let you take the lead on that.

Yeah. So we had a Mexican borrower made you know half a million dollars a month had $142 million in Meil Lynch. Little did we know that they were out pledged building a de he was uh building a development back in his country in Mexico owed money to half the world. Obviously nobody knew when he closed all this fell on top of us. All his assets were pledged you know but we made it look pretty. We got it approved again. He provided us what we needed. Who knows what was real, what was not. At the end of the day, we struggled for three years, but thanks to Robert,

we worked together and we got him off the books and we got paid. He got paid. We all got paid. So,

we lived happily ever after.

And that's the point of the story. We got paid

and that was $9 million, guys.

Wow. Nice long. Good for you guys.

Yeah.

Ray, what about you coming out of New York? I'm not going to limit you to a Florida horror story. You probably got more of them in New York. Honestly, every single deal you do is like a can of worms. You ask for one bank statement, you get five deposits that have to be sourced, and then you ask for that statement, and there's another deposit from other bank. Every deal is very different, and every deal has its own little challenges. So, for me to limit one, honestly, I don't know. There's so many. There really is.

Gray is right. Every deal is a challenge. And not only that, but you ask them for one thing and they give you four things. Nothing of what you asked for and it opens it up,

which opens up the bag of worms, which now you have another six conditions to clear that one condition. That was simple

and just a few letter of explanations. And yeah, exactly. This business is is like that. You could have, we say it all the time. I could have two borrowers, identical, same pay structure, same buying the same house and it could be a completely different deal because of one document.

Yeah, that's it. That's just the way it is. That's the nature of the beast.

All right. So, um, Ray or I'm sorry, Robert, chapter president hosting a beautiful event here. Close us up. Last few words.

Non-mortgage related.

Perfect.

Who you guys taking for the for the game on Monday? That's what we need to really talk about.

I don't want to get in trouble getting out of here, but I'm a gator. Dieard gator. And uh

it's he doesn't have to say anything else.

Let my eyes say it. But you know, I got a lot of M fans in in the friend group, so I got to go for M.

All right.

The you, baby.

The you.

The you.

I hope this doesn't make it to the final clip. I I'm not throwing up the sign, but I got to pull from my hometown.

I That's what that that's that's what I wanted to hear. But listen, in all honesty, um I appreciate every every single one of you here. I appreciate everybody that um that exhibited, sponsored, all the attendees. Without all our team at the at the Miami FP chapter, this none of this could have been possible. Um and I appreciate every single one of one of you here.

Congratulations on the hard work. It paid off and beautiful event.

Thank you guys.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much.

Ready? Three, two, one. And here we are coming to you live from the uh Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals Winter Conference here in Miami at the Lowe's Hotel. This session is going to be focusing on government affairs, touching on some of the latest legislation, some of the lobby work that we're doing, and filling in some brokers on some of the latest and greatest stuff that we've been working on. I'm joined with Orlando, our current president. We have Sean, who's our lobbyist over here, as well as Rick, who manages the government affairs. So, if you want to give us a quick introduction about yourself, Orlando.

First of all, it's awesome to be a day in Miami. I I I follow you guys for a long time. It's a it's definitely a pleasure to be on. Um, a little bit about FAM. We're we're a 65year-old association. Uh, we represent 55,000 licensed originators in the state of Florida. And uh at the FAMP, not only do we educate uh uh we also advocate and and market for the mortgage professional. Uh what what this crew, this is our our legislative crew here,

the dream team,

the dream team and what we're able to do in uh you know with with the time that we have cuz we're all you know we all have our own businesses. So this is time that we dedicate to the association. uh we've been able to do a lot of uh very important legislative issues that have helped the mortgage broker and by helping the mortgage broker we're helping the consumer because at the end of the day you know what we're what we're doing is open up avenues so uh we can make Florida more affordable and affordability is the big issue in Tallahassee and all the state of Florida and that's what FAP's on top of also you know you could have as many uh realtors finding new houses as much as they want, but if you can't fund them, you can't get them. It's

a type dream.

It's so we we help people get into the American dream. So, this crew right here that we have together, what we focus in is advocating for not only our mortgage brokers, but also our consumers, which is the home buyer, the one who's trying to get the American dream.

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you, Sean.

Yeah. Sean Stafford. I'm uh with a firm Meguire Woods Consulting. It's actually a a Richmondbased firm, but we have the Tallahassee and the Florida office for lobbying and consulting. And uh we've been with Famp now for almost four years. Started a partnership about four years ago of uh of assisting them in Teleahassee and across the state in government affairs and trying to help them push through initiatives uh and and really defend the industry. Um and it's so awesome to be in this great location in Miami. There's some serious energy. serious energy in this building. This is a very loud, cool place. But, uh, but yeah, no, it's it's it's great working with with everybody here. Uh, it's a it's just it's hundreds of very type A personalities. They're all in sales, you know, they're all aggressive and I think it's it's it's it's fantastic.

Great. Great. What about you, H? Well, I am the government affairs chair and when I came on, I had this idea of getting involved early, not waiting for the legislators to decide what the bills are going to be, but getting involved early and making an impact early on the legislative process so that we can affect change that helps the mortgage broker and by extension helps the individuals that are looking to buy and finance homes. So the big focus that that that we've done in the last uh two years since I've been on the government affairs is to have ideas to speak to the people that make decisions on those ideas and then from there try to affect change on current legislation or possibly write legislation that fits what we're trying to do.

And I'm assuming this kind of the legislation that we're talking about I mean Orlando mentioned affordability. What kind of legislation are we working on in 2026 that the people should be aware of?

Well, first and foremost in in in Florida, as you know, the the biggest thing right now is taxes.

They they they are talking about

the property taxes are out out there.

There there's a dozen bills out there. They they're they're all over the place. And um I think there's going to be movement on this one way or another. Um I think the governor wants it. I think that this is going to be a huge impact to the consumer and it's a badge that he's going to be able to carry on whatever future uh he decides to do with uh with his political career after being governor. So, I think it's a big focus of his in the next year to get this done and I think it's going to end up on the ballot in November.

I mean I mean we've been hearing about it in mainstream news about you know potentially getting rid of property taxes, helping with the affordability. Is this the stuff that you guys are talking about? That's some of the stuff we're talking about. And we're talking about small stuff, too. Stuff that impact the the individual uh loan officers, stuff that has to do with compliance with with uh with everything. We we we focus on the bills that impact our customers. And by extension, if it impacts our customers, it impacts the consumer. And whatever helps our customer makes homes more affordable. Cuz if we streamline the process for a mortgage broker, it means that he has less costs that he has to defer to the consumer. So whatever we help, it helps at the end the consumer. Oh,

that's amazing. That's amazing. I mean, I guess Orlando, what are some of the things that, you know, mortgage brokers should be aware of that coming into 2026 in terms of legislation that they should be helping educate their clients, their borrowers?

Well, there's a there's a couple of issues um and that, you know, we're advocating for. Obviously, the property taxes is a is a big one. uh but it's more that we have a seat at the table now to be able to discuss uh property taxes because of the work that we did for condo reform. So when condo reform was was coming up, we were lobbying legislators and and saying that you know you needed to soften the blow for some of these associations and uh luckily through um you know Sean's contacts um and constantly hitting going to Tallahassee speaking to legislators we became a stakeholder in that bill and uh we were getting in all the iterations of that bill uh prior to it going on the floor and uh you know we were putting our input into what we felt was the right thing for for associations because we do obviously a lot of condo.

I mean Miami is probably the the largest condo market in the country

and that has absolutely and that has really spearheaded our uh legislative efforts to now where we are speaking with legislators about the property taxes. But it was the condo reform bill that actually put us on the map in order to be able to discuss these issues and have an actual say in what happens uh with with property taxes which again affects affordability.

It does. It all it all trickles down in and maybe Sean we can talk a little bit some about the condo legislation that Fab has helped work on.

Yeah. So uh as you all remember the tragedy that occurred in Surfside years ago, there was a significant effort to reform and improve the uh the condom the condominium associations, improve the building structures. That's been pretty successful over the last few years. And the challenge has been how do you soften the blow with assessments for people on fixed incomes and seniors who've been in a condominium for 25 years now they're faced with a $180,000 assessment. So, uh, what happened was over the last few years, the legislature put a number of initiatives in to to give more flexibility to allow to stretch those, uh, uh, stretch out the timelines a bit and soften the blow a little bit so that you don't have folks having to walk away from the condominiums. One thing I know that uh a very important issue that we've all been working on and Orlando and Rick really really spearheaded is the uh the limited review issue which is probably the probably if if we're able to get this over the finish line will be the biggest impact on affordability in in this state in a very long time. And I don't know if y'all want to talk about it and we can talk about our work with uh with with Congressman Donald's on that. Yeah, I'll talk a little bit about, you know, what the problem is and then Rick, you could probably come in and chime in and where we're at. So, um, and this would really affect everybody in the in the state of Florida. Uh, if you trying to get a conventional loan, which is a Fanny May or Freddy M loan, and the condo does not get approved for XYZ reason, uh, somebody will have to put 25% down to buy that condo to get a Fanny May Freddy M loan, which has the best rates in the market. That's okay. That's a rule, that's fine. But for all 49 other states, it's 10%.

So Florida's the only one that's been singled out and had to pay 25%. And this has been a rule that's been there forever. Um, so when we started our legislative agenda, you know, Rick brought it up to my attention and I was like, "No, we got to kill this and we got to go after this. We got to make sure that that that we make it even. We They call it geo targeted. they have geoargeted Florida as the only state that has to put a bigger down payment requirement for condos that don't meet certain requirements. We felt that was not fair and we're not and we're asking that we be treated just like every other state. So we put you know we put a plan in place uh you know uh we we've flown to Washington DC. We have met with Congressman Donald's uh which is the front runner for uh the governor of of Florida. He's running for governor and he's a front runner right now in the Republican party. He has uh been instrumental. He has penned a letter to the FHFA director PY and uh to let him know that this is this is not right. Especially right now with the affordability issues that we have, how could you limit people's down payment when the rest of the country is is is has a 10%. Why would you and not even and going from 10 to 25? That's a huge jump. And we just feel that it's that it's unfair. I don't know Rick if you want to put some more color into that. Well, so when we spoke about me joining the government affairs team, I I I've thought that this was unfair for many, many years, and I'm like, well, if we're going to do it, this is what I want to do. This I this is the one thing I want to go after. So, this doesn't just impact the buyers either. If you think about it, if if there's an old lady, for example, that owns a condo that she's had for 20 years, the assessments go up and she can't afford to make the assessments, she puts her her home for sale, and now she's limited to buyers that can put 25% down. that lowers her market. So that lowers the price. So people can come in and say, "Hey, I'm I I need to put 25% down. I'm going to offer you 10% less on your condo." So it it affects what she can get out of her condo. So it doesn't just affect the home buyers. It affects the home sellers and it affects entire neighborhoods and projects and their ability to borrow as well. So it it's it's a big issue. And what I tell legislators when I speak to them, this is the single biggest thing that they can do for the housing market in Florida, that doesn't cost taxpayers a penny.

It doesn't. No, you're right.

And it's a it's not even a bill. It's a guideline change. So, it's something that they can make right away to change it. And that will do more for affordability than a lot of the stuff that's going on in the legislator legislature right now. Now, the property taxes will make a huge difference because you have your principal, interest, tax, and insurance. principal, we can't really do much about the the value of homes, you know, that's market based. Uh interest, yeah, they tend to be starting to go down a little bit, but it's market based at all. Taxes and insurance are stuff that we can uh uh that we can legislate for. So, you know, that's why we're hitting up the the taxes. But this one issue will help affordability more so than a lot of stuff that's going on right now. And that's why we took it on as our main singular issue, and we're this close to making that change. I think that's very very important for I mean F like you mentioned we have thousands and thousands of members so it's really important for members to know hey this isn't just a networking get together meet some lenders meet some vendors there's a lot of behind the scenes action that's being taken where dues and fees are going to to help support these other broader efforts that are going to help them and their business and I mean shame on me for not being as involved in it because this is some serious serious matters I mean when you talk I I live in a condo from 2015 to Now, it's it's crazy how much the the the HOA, the special assessments, and I look around my neighbors that are on fixed income. It's not easy. It's a real problem. These help these hit real people, and it affects their families. It puts them in uncomfortable situations. So, that's great work. I mean, what are some things that maybe mortgage brokers can be doing to helping I mean, getting involved. I mean, we have many, many chapters in Florida. So, where are maybe some other chapters that mortgage brokers should be looking at to get involved with FAM?

Well, we have a combination of chapters and regions. So we have we have uh a Broward we have obviously Miami who puts together this show every year which is phenomenal. We have Broward that does their own great trade show as well. We have uh regions in Tampa. We have regions in Fort Myers. We have Orlando Sarasota. Orlando has actually the biggest chapter uh the chapter president is here today. She does a phenomenal job over there. So I would say the first thing is to do is to step one join. you know, just with with those funds, we're able to put together these educational events, uh, trade shows, networking, and and we use it as well to, you know, to travel to Tallahassee and, uh, and be able to affect, uh, change. The step thing, the second one is is, uh, participate, you know, come to these trade shows, uh, you know, start to see, talk to other, uh, mortgage brokers to see what they're doing. Sometimes you have a problem and somebody knows how to fix it and, uh, and vice versa. And then the the the third step is participate. That's where the stages we got in there. We decided to not only uh um just do the step one and step two, we decided that we wanted to come in and get involved and make and make change. I came in 7 years ago when I said I wanted to know what FAP was doing for uh for the small business owner. And then when I realized that there was an opportunity there for me to have my voice and uh and seven years later you know I ended up as president of the association but but that it wasn't the initial plan but it kind of worked out that way and and uh and this is the industry that put puts uh food in our table. This is what has put my kids through college. So I am loyal to this industry. I'm alive to this industry. I want to give back to this industry. and Rick and Shauna are they do the same thing. So I would say the first thing join just join and uh and start coming out to some of the events. You know we also have webinars as well. We have continuing education. We do a lot for the mortgage broker community and all you have to do is just participate a little bit. Pay us your your your dues of $149. It's not going to break the bank, you know, but $149 with the amount of members that we have does allow us to to to work. So, I would say that's what you got to do. Come to these events. You know, this event took a year to plan.

And then for those that aren't here, my gosh, we have over 1,800 registered people that are coming to be here. Probably around at least half are here. We have over a 100red exhibitors around and a lot of great great continuing education, specific breakout sessions, and amazing people to meet. So, if you didn't come this year, make sure you put it on your calendar. Keep a lookout. Broward has one, Orlando has one. There's other regions. And then the main state uh the state trade show which is in August August 15th which is in in Orlando. That is three days of this.

Wow.

So and that is that is a phenomenal event. And uh but Miami always sets the tone.

Miami always sets the tone. How Miami trade show goes is how the rest of the year goes. And right now great indicator

and right now it's looking good. Right now it's looking good.

No that's awesome. Maybe Sean, can you touch on maybe what what we could do as mortgage brokers in the space to help raise awareness, to help your lobbying efforts and push the needle a little bit further?

Yeah, I think what what Orland I'll back up what Orlando said, which is first of all, get involved, join, and then once you join, you can become a part of a team that essentially helps educate members, legislators around the state. Uh there there are, you know, key legislators in in all different pockets of the state where we have a lot of very active uh members. you know, some of the the best lobbying is done through grassroots uh grassroots efforts, emails, personal phone calls. If you know a state state house member, we have a lot of brokers who have personal relationships with uh with their legislator. They've known them through different business clubs and community clubs, and if there's a problem, which there inevitably will be, you know, you can call them and and weigh in. That's a very meaningful, you know, it's it's it's it's not a lot to pick up the phone and make a phone call or two, but the, you know, the dividend on that could be huge and the ROI is is significant. So, I think getting involved and sort of staying attuned to what's going on and we'll push out information for this legislative session as it comes in. It's going to be 60 days. It just started this week. Uh the legislature actually cranked up on Tuesday. Uh and then they're going to go all the way uh until uh the second week in uh the second week in March.

You know, I mean the work that you guys are working on and doing is it it's it's I don't want to say the Lord's work, but it's pretty close because, you know, it's one thing to qualify for a house and to make the payments, but when you're talking about taxes, you're talking about insurance, you're talking about these special assessment, these are costs that aren't really too too predictable. Sometimes with the taxes they can be, but I mean to be able to save households thousands of thousands of dollars and help them continue to grow their family. I mean that's what it's all about. We put people into homes and they're growing and they're helping their local economies out.

Yeah. And you know we're we're pretty lucky too as an association because we've got a a couple things going for us. Number one, when we met with Congressman Donald's last fall, you know, he was he he he came from the financial services industry. This guy knows what he's doing. He's very smart. when we laid out the issue, he understood it in about five seconds. And so, it's great to have people like that who understand these issues who can then push them. Also, our state CFO who was recently appointed by the governor, Bla1 Golia, came from the mortgage broker industry. So, we've got, you know, a guy in at CFO in a statewide position who, you know, is is a member of the cabinet who came from this industry and that, you know, that goes a long way. When we sat down with him, what, two months ago? Yep. Rick, he you know he knew exactly what we were talking about. He understood like limited review all these issues he understood them you know almost instantaneously because of his background. So we're lucky that we have some you know the industry has some great people in the association and we just happen to have some really great allies outside who have been able to uh who've been able to help push the agenda for the uh for the industry forward and ultimately save customers money

in the end.

I mean and they don't even know the work that's going on behind the scenes. So, it's really really appreciated and it's it's moving the needle. It's moving the needle. I mean, some other topics that come to mind are the insurance. I mean, we have a insurance a big problem, big issue. Is that something that FAMP gets involved with too much or you Rick, you want to take that?

So, so FAMP has been involved in the insurance piece as well. So, there was tort reform a few years ago. This this is something that that we advocated for because the there used to be one-way fees. So if you lost even by a dollar on a lawsuit, you owed the other side their attorney's fees as well. That's why there was prolonged litigation in Florida. Florida was the number one state for litigation in the country. We had more litigation in Florida than all the other states combined. When toy reform came out, that helps the insurance industry because there were there were lawsuits for a leak that ended up replacing entire roofs and giving hundred thou thousand dollar kitchens to to people because it went on forever. So tort reform is important part of what's going on with the insurance market and FAP was a a supporter of that bill when it came through.

Yeah. I think another issue that that we were instrumental in is the hometown heroes. Um, Hometown Heroes as as uh viewers uh may or may not know is baby is down payment assistance for those that are in uh you know whether they're firefighters or teachers and stuff, but though they opened that up to pretty much uh anyone and uh before it was only one lender that was able to to do that loan. Um and the mortgage brokers weren't able to access it yet. You know 60 70% of all the loans are going through mortgage brokers right now. We couldn't access it. So FAM went and lobbyed D Santis and uh and other legislators and they were able to move that over to the mortgage brokers and it was very successful. Now the fight that we have is to try to get that continuously funded every year and uh we we were trying to get it funded initially at 200 million and um and then we we ended up uh at 50 million. So, we were we were that's a battle that we're going to have to continue uh for next year and and we're going to continue to fight to see if we can get that up to $100 million because $50 million goes away.

I was going to say I'm not too familiar with the Hometown Heralds, but I have heard about it and it's one of those things when you do hear about it. Every mortgage broker's broadcasting because it does feel like a first come first serve.

Yeah. And that's the that's the things that we do. We see those things that are that are happening. We attack them and we feel that if we don't do it, who's going to do it? Mhm.

And uh and that's exactly what what you know with with this what I call my dream team here is that what we focus our attention on is is the those issues that not only we're not there to say oh we're going to enrich the mortgage broker or enrich uh you know a mortgage lender. Don't they make enough money already? No, it's not about that. It's about our consumers. It's about the fact that we are helping and we are really picking the items that do help with affordability and we brought that over to the legislator. So you make this change and this and this change that will change affordability not some of the other stuff that they're talking the property taxes is one that will do that I'm happy that they're that they are discussing that but a lot of times they talk about other issues that really don't move the needle the issues that we talk about really do move the needle

I mean it's it's amazing to have you guys in there representing giving a voice to to the consumer to the brokers letting them know what the important things are um as as they build their business as they build their business and try to get more people in I guess looking at 2026 I mean what are some things that that mortgage brokers should look out for. Keep an ear out for it. Stay involved and kind of stay on the forefront of knowing where legislation is.

Two things cuz we're short on time. Property taxes. Look to see where that's going to end up. And obviously this 25% rule that look out for those things cuz that's what we're actively working on.

That's amazing. Any last words from you gentlemen down there, Sean and Rick?

Get involved. That's the important piece. If you got anything out of this, get involved and support FAMP. We are the only association that exclusively represents Florida interests. Every other organization answers to a national association. We don't have a national association that we answer to. We are exclusively Florida based.

Yeah. And there's an old adage, you know, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. So, FAMP has done a great job at pushing it forward to get the industry and get the association at the table involved in the major discussions and all the the major major issues that are going on in and not just Tallahassee, but obviously, you know, federally.

No, I mean, and and as you mentioned earlier, Orlando, everyone here has full-time jobs is working. So, on behalf of FAMP and the members, thank you guys for taking the time and and putting this agenda forward and and making sure that we have a seat at the table. Even if we might not know about it, there's someone representing. So, for those that are out there, get involved, show up to the events, meet some people, and learn more about what's going on in your community. But thank you guys for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you guys. Okay, and we're back again over here. So, Sammy, talk to me. What do we have now?

All right, we're back to you live from the FAM pointer conference down here in Miami, Florida today. FAM Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals.

We got a great turnout today. A lot of great exhibitors, great vendors, and a lot of networking happening. So, if you're not here, don't miss it next time.

You You know what that's called before we go to the people? That's called a lot of STLing in this place.

STLing?

Yeah, that's called Squeeze the Lemon, baby. That's our squeeze the lemon mindset. That's what's going on here.

How to squeeze the lemon. That's what it is.

I like it. I like it. Well, why don't we introduce yourself real quick, Phil?

Yeah, you got it. Thanks, Sammy. Uh my name is Philip Schultz. Uh I'm with TLS, the loan store. Uh we are fullervice uh wholesale lender. Uh we do uh nonQM and agency business very very well. We're uh currently number fourth largest wholesale uh lender in the country. Uh and uh we've done that in a very short period of time uh in just two and a half years at at the lone store.

We we I definitely have to have your number on your number on speed dial. Phillip

y

biggest lender. That's the one we want.

I like did I like Orlando?

Uh my name is Orlando Diaz. I'm the state president for F. Um we're, you know, we're the group that puts this uh show together. This is the Miami chapter show. This is a a phenomenal show and how this show ends up is how the rest of the year ends up for us. And right now it's looking pretty good.

I I love what you do here, brother. I love what you have done here. I mean, this is this is our first year. Hopefully, it's not going to be our last.

You know what I'm saying? And I do want to do a shout out because you have been a a this is guy is a strong advocate and a true true true follower of day in Miami. So, he loves our episodes and it's it's guys like him that make this show happen. So, thank you, Orlando. Thank you, my friend.

I'm always looking to see who's next.

Oh, well, guess what? His time is now. Here you are. It's going to be you. It's going to be you and Phil.

And when I found out you guys when we finally booked you guys, I was like, "This is awesome.

This is going to be great."

We appreciate it. Listen, I think we we we we really take stride in knowing that we're we're we're spotlighting a lot of great events that happen in Miami to the regular people out there because not not many people know what's going on. So, I think that we're, you know, we're bringing this voice to all the people out there and and they love it. Before we continue, we were talking off, you know, before we got on live. For the regular people out there, I know that I'm just here now, but what the hell do all these things of QM, nonQM, DBB, PPP? I don't know. Could we could we go ahead and do the definition of all this for all, you know, all our viewers out there going to look at the P, okay, what does, you know, what does QM mean? What does this QM mean? You know, so could

Yeah, I you know, I break it down. I'm going to try to simplify it. So when uh when the financial crisis hit in 2008 uh new rules uh came out and one of them was the DoddFrank Act. Yes. And I don't know if you have heard of that. I do. But

how many people are happy with that?

Yeah. No. So then that caused basically saying that if you qualify a client uh under these certain rules that becomes a qualified mortgage.

Got it. Okay. So that's QM

QM. If you do not

it becomes a nonQM loan. Okay. And uh so what the difference between one or the other is that you have safe harbor. You have safety as a lender to lend money. If you lend a QM loan, chances of you getting sued are very slim.

Okay.

Now, if you go outside of that, you're basically risking your capital and those are that's the nonQM world. However, that world has been very successful. Correct. And uh right now the average I think the average uh credit score is in the 700s for people in that

for non for non. Look at that. Look where I'm at already. Really? NonQM.

And before uh you know the rates were very different. Like you if you would got a a QM loan, the rates would you know be at a certain level and then about two or three points higher would be a nonQM loan. But now that margin has shrunk. So you can get a conventional loan in the low 60s, but you can also get a bank statement loan where we qualify the banks the how much deposits you put into into your account and we use that as income.

That the the rates are in the 60s as well. So that's the really the difference. It started off with what you can defend in court and what you didn't. But so then basically and another way to put it, the nonQM market is is what took over the old subprime. You remember that?

We we we just, you know, same character, different name. Yeah. More or less.

They changed names. They you know, but they but before you you they check your pulse and if you had a pulse and give you a loan,

they give you a loan.

Today it's not the case. They fully underwrite these files and and they've sold them and they perform and they're and they're great. So that's really where

an EKG requires a whole bunch of different stuff.

Exactly. So now you look at at at guys like him in his nonQM world that uh those that market has become big and huge and uh and has been playing a major factor in uh in affordability in the state of Florida.

Yeah, that really simplifies it.

Yeah. And I would add I would add too just the biggest difference right between subprime and nonQM is is like you said credit score. You're talking 700 credit score. uh these loans perform. That's why it it makes uh this product a lot more attractive for investors looking to invest in this in this business. Uh and so you know you've got uh hedge funds, you've got insurance companies, you've got all these outside investors that are are love the performing like how these loans perform and and that's why this this um this segment is blowing up the way it is because again unlike it was where you needed you know could fog a mirror and and get a loan. These are way different in terms of qualification. Uh it it's alternate document cu uh documentation. Bank statements is a is a big uh big part of it, but but it's one of those where it's such a a um you know, quality product for that right individual. Uh and and it's that individual that hasn't been served. Uh you know, even I I would even say some of these borrowers, you know, would would overqualify for a subprime loan way back in the day. uh because again, high credit scores, good reserves, low LTV, a lot of cash in the in the deal. So, it's it's a

I I think that's a great point. I think one thing to keep in mind is for mortgage brokers that are listening out there. This is going to help you close more loans because the trends in the broader market, people are getting jobs. They're also being solo entrepreneurs. They have side hustles. They have gigs that in a qualified mortgage isn't going to go towards how they're calculating income. The nice thing about the nonQM space, they get a little bit, you know, flexible. You know, you have a side hustle that generates a couple of thousand dollars a month. You deserve credit for that because that could be income that could go towards you qualifying for a house. So, as the economy changes to more gigs, more entrepreneurship, small-time businesses, the nonQM place is going to be a place where brokers really need to understand so that they could continue to serve their clients.

And could we just add something that Miami is the side hustle capital of the world?

Absolutely. And and and you know this program is made perfectly like for example

you there's so many business owners in in do you think they all claim all the money they really make.

Oh for the love of God no.

So then you know they're like you ask them hey how much money do you make? I make a million bucks and then you go get their taxes and they qualify for pack of gum

and uh because they don't claim anything. So so the bank statement programs actually shows how much revenue is coming in. You take an expense factor out 20 30%. And you use that as income because that's real money that they're generating on a monthly basis. That tells you better the health of that company more so than tax returns.

Yeah. And they shouldn't be penalized for taking advantage of tax deductions, making sure that they're not paying Uncle Sam. And they should still be able to qualify for

That's why they do the loopholes.

Yeah, that's right. And and the the spread and the pricing is is getting squeezed every day. I mean the the you know between a QM and a nonQM loan you know you're you're not talking big discrepancies like you had in the past in subprime you know it it is you know rates that are maybe a quarter half 3/4 higher than what you could get on an agency product. So again it makes sense for a lot of these borrowers that um you know write off all their income but you can see the cash flow in the bank statements.

That's what counts.

Absolutely.

That's the end of day you know they can pay. That's right. You know,

and there's there's another program in the nonQ market called the DSCR.

So, here we go. Another one. Another

agreement. DSCR, debt service coverage ratio.

Okay. Listen to that, guys.

This is important.

Okay. Wait, wait. What happened here? Somebody I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. No, no, for the love of God. I mean, your viewers can't see anything, right? We can't

This is so Miami, right?

I don't know. Miami. Yeah. I don't know what Miami. This is so Miami.

I think I'm choking. I think I need I think I need a CPR. I don't know, but I I don't know. We had Well, we are close to the beach.

Let's focus, guys. I'm sorry. Focus. The DSCR program is basically saying that if you're going to buy this is important if you if anybody wants to get into buying investment properties. So, what they're basically saying is if you buy a property that the rent of that property coming in covers your mortgage. That's all you need to qualify.

I mean, isn't isn't that everybody's, you know, all those investors out there, you know, that are looking for properties? I mean at the end of the day I've always again I always say I come from old school my dad cubic you know the home mentality hey you pay your house you don't rent you know we can we can argue this to the other day also with this whole renting or owning situation but then you have the people with investment properties that say as long as it covers everything you're you're you're good because you're making money on the value of that property.

It's credit score driven. So if the person has a history of paying before that the chances of them paying that loan are great. But if they have revenue coming in to cover that debt,

then that's really all they do. Now, the pricing on that is slightly a little bit higher. But it's the difference of going that or trying to go through a bank and spend 45, 60 days trying to get that and looking for every reason to deny your loan. These are simple, clear-cut loans that perform, and that's the important thing. They're performing. So, the reason why there's so many nonQM lenders here giving that program is because it keeps performing.

Absolutely. So that's that's another great knock on product

and it's an easy end to write. I mean it's it's cut and dry black and white. It either covers it or it doesn't and and this is why I always say Philip it's so important for people to have their mortgage brokers.

That's right.

Because you know some people try you know everybody's trying to save money. So I was listening today and and and I I don't remember the name. I was I was watching Fox Business today in the morning and they were talking about this new AI uh thing for housing. you know, not not necessarily to cut out the the realtor, but to make it easier, you know, now we know the AI situation is here. It's going to stay here. It's just going to even get, you know, worse. How do how do we how do you guys stay up to par with everything that's going on with AI? Where where where have you seen AI being implemented now in this world? I think one of the ways is uh there the way you underwrite a file now the the AI is coming in and and they're being added for for underwriting purposes. So uh you don't have to have a physical person looking at every document that comes in. You it kind of reads it reads your bank statements. It uh it it reads uh your payubs. So now you don't have to have a physical person. I mean we that gets into a whole broader conversation of of whether even us would get wiped out. you know it it because it's going to get to a point that that you know it's going to know everything and somebody's going to get approved in 5 minutes and get get for a loan that may be two three four years out I mean it is affecting white collar jobs and uh but what we're doing is we're educating we had educational seminars on on AI and how it's affecting it um usually even finding the clients AI is helping uh companies find clients as well through marketing efforts it I mean you just you can go chat UBT ask it uh I need a marketing uh campaign uh to capture first time home buyers and then it produces for you sets the emails and gets everything ready uh for you. I mean how is that going to affect all white collar jobs in in in the future? I don't know. But it's it's it's not looking good.

Well, but but we still need the banks and we still need the lenders, right? You still need the money because AI cannot produce the money for you. I mean they could go ahead and tell you but so Philip are we are are is your institution you know

embracing absolutely and to his point uh as well from an underwriting perspective it makes us more efficient it makes us more uh you know you know our underwriters and and you know AI does the majority of the work but but then our a you know our underwriters second set of eyes on it just to bless it kind of thing but but but that that increases efficiency for those underwriters that were doing two to three loans a day are now doing 8 to 10 to 12 loans a day. And so that from a cost perspective, from a lender perspective, that means we can, you know, because of that technology, it makes us more efficient. We don't have to hire additional um people that that has, you know, that that brings down your expense side of the house and and and really um you know, we're able to have a sharp price, you know, in the market for there. I think too uh AI from from that perspective comes out uh you know we have tools that that uh loan officers and originators can use that you know to your point you just put in the scenario and it'll give you the answer based on our guidelines right

and so that that makes originators a lot more efficient uh from their standpoint because they're not waiting for a call back from an account executive or an underwriter or anything like that. Hey, is this deal going to work? Is it not going to work? um you know so that uh there's some efficiency gain there as well.

I mean it's it's not it's a lot to digest. It's a I mean you're talking about all these acronyms the DSCR QM nonQM conventional. I think it's very important that the brokers that are listening and tuning in that are you know been used to working on these conventional space and and you know understand it inside and out. They need to get with the times. They need to understand that hey you know you were there's brand new tools out there

and programs and I think that's what that's how Philip became the fourth largest wholesaler for nonQM. I mean, there's resources out there for these brokers to expand on their revenue streams and help grow their business. And I think it's very important. That's why we host these events and have people come here to learn more because it is overwhelming, but it starts with a good account executive. It starts with a hungry mortgage broker who wants to learn more and provide more for their clients.

Yeah, absolutely. And and I I think, you know, to the degree that you're, you know, the the originators, you know, uh that are on the fence about it, it's not going away. I mean, It's only growing. It's only growing.

It's only growing. This is this is a segment of the market that

got to embrace it,

you know. Got to embrace it. You got to get on the bandwagon. It's It's really But it comes down to education.

Yeah. For for clarity on that, you know, before you would have a mortgage broker would have 10 clients and nine of them would go to Fanny May Freddy M FHA. Right. Okay.

The traditional traditional route. And one loan would be uh would be a nonQM loan. Right now it's 50 60% of their of their product mix. It's huge. Sometimes it's just easier to put somebody in a bank statement program than it is to go through a conventional correct conventional

and that that should be probably in their line of questionings. When you're filling out a 103 and you're kind of going through it and asking your borrower questions, you need to be able as a mortgage broker to adapt a little bit. All right. Hey, they might not have the job, but they representing that they have this much liquidity. How did you get that liquidity? Then you find out they might have a side business that is raking in money and they could simply get another non-conventional mortgage and get the get to where they need to go in a different route. Different route.

Yeah. And and one thing that that folks don't realize that and and your comment uh you know jumbo loans, right? Typically agency product or not agency product but but a secondary product but uh you know you had tax returns to qualify all the things, right? Typically banks were the ones that kind of own that market. You know, our our mortgage brokers, you know, our originators, you know, in the wholesale space, uh they had a hard time competing with the big banks because the big banks wanted their assets, right? But they made it hard to qualify because it you know of all the documentation we we are seeing you know and we offer a jumbo product but uh as we evolved you know with our nonQM product and bank statement product uh you know uh we're we're actually getting less documentation you know we'll go bank statement route on a that you know four years ago they would have come in asking for a jumbo loan. Yeah,

they come in and ask for a jumbo loan. We say, "Hey, well, you know, here's jumbo pricing. Here's nonQM pricing. We're going to make this easier for you. I'm going to get 12 months bank statements and and this thing's going to fly through and you're not going to have the hiccups." Not to mention those nonQM prices compete with the big banks. So, those deals that you were losing before because the bank wanted their assets, they they you know, they were uh they go down the jumbo route. uh our our partners, our originators, you brokers out there are able to do jumbo loans in the nonQM space for uh really attractive pricing.

I mean, it's very important. What are some what's the message that some of these brokers should hear to get more involved and to kind of broaden their horizons on products that they're offering? Ed

ed education. I mean, I think that's the key with anything, right? You know, educate yourself. I mean, you're, you know, mortgage professionals, you know, act like a mortgage professional. Do your do your homework, you know, get in You mean you mean we have to read and read guideline? I can't just give it to you and you put it for me.

Back to AI. AI makes

that's why we hire the mortgage brokers.

That's right.

AI makes a lot of that learning a lot easier than it was for sure. But but yeah, I think education has to be the biggest part of that is just really understanding the product.

Yeah. I think that also on top something that he mentioned a bank is a huge bureaucracy that has a lot of regulation.

Yeah, that's what I was going to tell These are these are privately owned companies that that are able to be more nimble. They're they're able to make decisions on the spot. Even if if it doesn't meet certain criteria, they give exceptions as opposed to a bank. It's clearcut. Nobody wants to make a a decision and it's going to take you 45 60 days. It is common to close a loan in 13, 14, 15 days.

That's right. I

I think that's a very important part, the exceptions. So, I mean, you know, hey, it might have a couple green flags, but maybe there's a yellow flag or two. What's a couple exceptions that we could get

to add on that really quick? Do do banks don't don't see this

or or they don't want to be in the business.

I would already say this has been going on for so many years. I mean the fact of like so many people always say I don't want to deal with a bank brother. That's why I prefer saying no no I prefer my mortgage broker. Oh, but they made a little bit. I don't care. I'll pay that little thing. I don't want to go through the headache of of a bank. You would think that banks already have you know I know I'm going to get some flack from people that work with banks. Oh, what are you talking about? Well, but listen, it's the truth.

The truth.

I mean, if you really go perception is reality. If you go outside there now and we start doing a survey of how many people have had bad experience with their banks versus saying, "I I got my house thanks to a mortgage broker. I went through a private lender."

I mean, the banks just I don't know, they just give you so much hassle.

[ __ ] And I speak to a lot of bank presidents and uh uh and go to lunches together and and they and we speak about this exact point and I asked them that why is it that you guys make a change? They don't want it.

They don't want it.

They don't want it. They want to do the vanilla loan for the clear client. And what they really care about is deposits. How much you deposit in the bank because the amount of money you deposit into the bank is the amount of money they're allowed to lend out.

So they don't really care if it doesn't fall in their box,

right?

Go. And that's fine for us. Private capital has stepped up

100%.

Not only in the residential but also in the commercial private capital

investment properties that everybody wants to do. I mean, I you know, you would think by this time um that the banks would say, "I get it." You know what I'm saying? But listen, we we don't want to promote. That's what I was going to say. We're not promoting. Keep keep doing what you're doing. We're doing a good job. We're happy. We're happy with that.

We like our money market.

That's right. So, I guess one of my one of my last questions would be to Phil,

we just started the year.

How's it going?

Amazing. Yeah, we you know, and and you know, it it's not to sound cliche, but but the the beginning of the year started in December. uh if you're not building, if you're not preparing for the new year, uh if you're waiting till January 1st to to start working out and and you go to the gym for the first week or two and then, you know, you you can't get on any of the machines, um you know, and then by the 15th, by today, you know, you're walking in and there's nobody in the parking lot, right? So all those empty promises on January 1 is is, you know, it's just like that. If you're not preparing going into uh the new year in December, you're missing the boat.

No. And and I think as a mortgage broker, you need to know that there's a lot of resources out there. And you have teams and lenders like the Loan Store, like mortgage brokers around here that are here to help you. And you got to lean into that because there's so many resources. You're not alone. You got to build a team and they will help you close more deals. You focus on what you're good at. bringing in business, get better at pre-qualifying them, understand what the potential red flags are, and then the rest, no one gets paid until a deal closes anyway. You know,

that's right.

I guess another one that I that I know a lot of people out there are thinking about. So, I like to ask those questions. I know my my viewers are thinking about I'm not getting into a polit I always say we're non-political here but do does the regulations affect this the industry like when when you have different administrations does it make it worse or could it make it easier you know what I'm saying you know do you know because a lot of there's no doubt

there's there's different and again it does I'm not getting into that the fact that if you're a Democrat Republican depend I don't care it just depends on regul ulations. I know that, you know, when there's a lot of red tape because when there's people that can understand it, they say, you know what, you need to eliminate some of this red tape so people can get their first home,

you know, in the sense of the banks. So, I guess that's my question. Does that does that really depending on on on different administration, how they think and how they view things, does it affect,

you know, Philip and your and your situation?

Especially because I handle government affairs. Um when a change of an administration happens and if it's switches party correct it affects how we uh how we lobby. There's no doubt whether you like the current administration or not the current administration is pro uh or less less regulations. There's no doubt about it. We feel that there's an environment right now in the White House and and uh in the in Congress that is looking to lower uh regulations to do business

and help out maybe those firsttime home buyers.

Yes, absolutely.

You know what I'm saying? Maybe even help out those people that have been dabbling to see if I want to get into, you know, in investments in in in real estate. You know, does it make it easier?

Affordability.

Affordability. There you go.

That's the biggest thing, right? It's just doing those things as the administration to make things easier to get more people in homes to get, you know, to to get the economy back on track.

So, I think it's safe to say for any of those viewers out there, they're going to be looking now to, you know, buy their f first home. You got about what? Three years.

Three years. You got to get

You got about three years to go and get a good get a good deal. You know what I'm saying? Maybe. I mean, you know.

Yeah. And I will say with this last thing, I know we're short on time, but uh you know, right now everybody mobilizes whether the rates are starting to go down. Now we're seeing more business because the rates are starting to go down, but the right time to buy is now before it starts going down even lower because what happens when the rates go down? The prices

that's what Sam, we were talking about that a little earlier. But I I I I challenge that in the sense of saying I know the prices go higher, but I think people are okay with the fact of pay it, but I know I'm paying a less, you know, amount of money. There's the marry the house, date the rate. There you go. That's what I'm saying. Because at the end of the day, the person that said, "Oh, but I can afford that."

You know what I'm saying? I can get into that house, but I can afford, you know, four grand. I can't get, you know, I can't afford seven. So, I think people with the fact that they can do it, I think I I think it's great. Well, listen, I I this this has been fascinating to me and and and you know, this is this is great. I'm I'm glad you you know, we were able to clear up the lingo of the QM and the whole thing.

Are you ready for your test?

I think I'm ready for the test. Worst case scenario, I'm just going to chat between that damn thing. Anyway, um thank you so much for for for all this. I mean, this is great. I think that we gave great information to people out there and this is what our viewers at Day Miami are looking for.

Awesome.

Orlando, Philip, if people wanted to find you. What's the best way to find you?

Uh the lonestore.com is how to get in touch with us and and we can uh we can help you out.

Yeah, you can uh you know, best thing is Instagram uh ODS314. You can reach out to me there. You can find everything that we do.

When you when you see Manny asking for loans, that that's me.

Okay.

I got a job for you, man. You can work for me any day.

No, thank you guys.

Thank you guys so much. And we'll continue continue. Stay tuned.

Welcome to a day in Miami podcast. We're here at the Fam Convention at the Lowe's in Miami Beach. Sammy, outside of the happy hour that we're about to hit up.

We're working hard towards it.

You know what I'm talking about. What's the most exciting thing you've seen out here at the convention so far?

You know, it's been a great turnout. I think we had over 1,800 people register. We have almost 1,000 people here.

1,800

registered. 1,000 here. We have over 85 90 exhibitors, some of the best vendors, lenders, mortgage brokers, legislation, title, and the country. So, if you're not here, you really missed out. But make sure you check it out for next year. We'll be back. But today, we're joined by some of the best of the best. We got Deep Haven. We have Tom and Leslie here to talk a little bit to talk a little bit about some non-conforming mortgages, some not nonQM, I should say, and how we could help educate our brokers to bring more business, grow their pipeline, and get deals done.

So, without further ado, you want to start us off with an introduction?

Yeah, sure. Uh Tom Davis here, chief sales officer at Deep Haven. Deep Haven is a pioneer in the nonQM space. Uh we uh were uh the folks who brought liquidity into the non- agency space firstly securitized non- agency loans or nonQM loans. Uh we're one of the largest investors in the space. Uh and uh we we uh uh focus on nonQM equity products uh second leans as well as RTL residential transition loans which are your fix and flip groundup construction and and bridge loans.

That's amazing. and Lesie.

So, yeah, Leslie Rudd. Uh, I'm on Tom's team, uh, wholesale executive, account executive here in the South Florida area. So, uh, kind of just, you know, serve the local market, South Florida market. Again, introducing non- agency, um, loans, uh, and, you know, all the different options you can close, uh, those loans that, uh, don't close agency.

That's fair. I mean, and with all the products that you're offering, all the brokers that you work with, y

what are some of the lowhanging fruit that these mortgage brokers are missing out on by not learning, not taking the next step of engaging with an account executive or rolling their sleeves up and learning a little bit more?

Yeah, I I would say if you're not doing non- agency or nonQM, it's a big mistake. Uh, in early 2025, this space was projected to hit about 70 billion. We finished the year at 120 billion.

Billion billion. That's right. And so, um, and that's that's that's just a segment in the non- agency space. So, that's 120 billion. In 2026, we're forecasting that space to hit about 150 to 108 billion. 180. So, that's another about a 50% increase. So, non-EM's 180 billion, let's call it, in 2026. Then you had an equity, which I think is a generational opportunity. Um, that we expect to hit about 120 billion in in in fundings in 2026. So now you're at like let's call it 300 billion. And when you add in RTL which is fix and flip and bridge in 2025 one out of every three deals was a investor transaction. It's the highest on record since it's ever been recorded. So 30% of transactions were investor deals. If you're a mortgage broker, you're an originator, you better have a full suite of nonQM, which includes like the DSCR, a second lean, a fix and flip and bridge. So you could offer investors endto-end solutions to in the market. And once again, if you don't have non- agency, you're not focused into space, you're missing out on a $400 billion market in 2026, which is 20% of the overall origination market of a $2 trillion market. So the the folks who do do nonQM and focus in nonQM, they're thriving in a challenging market. They're the ones that are taking share. You know, you know what I love about Miami is very entrepreneurial spirited. uh uh uh uh uh town down here. Uh there's a lot of folks that come from all over the world that come uh and live down here. Uh you know, it's just you feel the energy. People are are are self-employed. If you look at in in the United States, this is an interesting fact. Of the 10 cities in the United States with the highest self-employment concentration in the United States, six are in South are in the state of Florida. in the number one city with the highest self-employment concentration is Hyia.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah, bro.

Hia, baby.

Halia. Yeah.

They hustle. They got multiple jobs, side hustles.

Yeah. The the the

No more fun.

No, the Cuban Americans down here, they they grind. They came here for an opportunity. I I'm Cuban myself, and I I think, you know, they they come here, there's plenty of opportunity. Either you take it or someone takes it for you. And you can see it in the brokers and the energy here. It's just unbelievable.

Those numbers you mentioned, those are nationwide or this market down here.

Which one? The uh

300 billion.

No, no, the 400 billion is nationwide. But in in in in nonQM or non- agency, South Florida is like one of the top markets outside of California. NonQM dominates. Like if you go out to this show, this is not a this is a nonQM show. All the vendors out here are nonQM providers, right? That's where the That's where the production's being done. Look, in in the United States, you have 18 million self-employed people that account for over 30 million people or or 30 million businesses or excuse me, there's 18 million uh um self uh businesses, right? In the United States, it's it's And then um on the investor side, there's 19 million investment properties that account for 49.5 million doors.

So, there's actually more more self-employed people. There's actually more uh investors than veterans. So

So you're telling me you don't if you don't have a W2, you could still get a mortgage. That's

Absolutely. Yeah. You qualify. Yeah. There's multiple ways you could qualify. And this is our expert industry expert in South Florida, Lesie Rudd. Lesie, tell them how you qualify on nonQM. Multiple ways to qualify.

So multiple ways. And you mentioned W2. And I and I I love that you said that because if there's one takeaway that an LL can take from this is know your borrower inside and out. Okay. So bank statement oppatement loans for self-employed borrowers. So if if you got obviously self-employed borrow is not W2. He owns his own business. Okay. Um guy shopping for a house wants to finally um you know reap the rewards of all the hard work he's done. really wants to buy that trophy home, you know, for the family. Finally, they find a beautiful home, 2.53 million, $5 million home. They're super excited. They're stoked. They want to put an offer. They meet with their broker, the L. And they says, "Okay, well, bring me your tax returns." That brings his tax returns, man, with that income, maybe I can get $500,000.

Yeah.

Now, the old LO would say, "Sorry, that's all I got for you." the new LO now because of the emergence of nonQM and non- agency how it's exploded almost everybody knows now the the power of the nonQM space so a good L now knows you know what sounds like you really run a successful business everything you're telling me your credit profile is fantastic I mean do me a favor forget about forget about those tax returns bring me your business bank sim let me take a look at that we're looking at the top line your top line deposit totals for us is your revenue. Okay, obviously every business has certain expenses and we'll apply an expense ratio, a reasonable expense ratio.

99.9 out of 100,

you get way more bang for your buck with those business bank statements that guess what? That guy can now buy that $5 million home. Bank statement, borrow, self-employed,

hands down, number one.

And the the self-employed person, right, very entrepreneurial spirited, what do they do? They go to their CPA or their accountant and what do they do? maximize deductions.

They maximize they leverage the CPA to optimize their tax strategy, right? And so they have a lot of write offs, right? So what we do is we look at the bank statements and you take a forensic view into the cash flow of the business or the person. So you're looking at the deposits and the expenses and you you actually have a better view than a W2 borrower because you see everything coming in and out, right? And so it's another way to qualify the borrower from an income standpoint. And what what what's really interesting is this subset of borrowers well-healed um uh usually higher net worth borrower these borrowers they they they when you look at the profile of the transactions that the loans that are being originated in nonQM bank statement on a national basis you're looking at a LTV of about like 66%. And so there's a lot of embedded equity in the deal. DTI are in the low30s and FICOs are 740. So you have performance, you're showing the income, solving for the ability to repay, and the borrower that has 35% skin in the game, they're not going to walk away versus a a W2 borrower that's pushing high a high LTV, uh, you know, lower FICO, those loans tend to default more than nonQM because you have so much embedded equity. If I'm buying a house and I'm putting 35% down, I'm not I'm going to sell that house. I'm not foreclosing. I'm going to get my money back, right? But you could put you could get a little bit higher leverage with the nonQM side.

Yeah, you you can I mean we could get we you could do deals up to 85 90 LTV. But but what's what I'm telling you what's being done, right? The like the 90 LTV on the nonQM like that's that's a fourleaf clover. Like the guy that's buying like the the you know the that that's taking advantage of the bank statement the vast majority is under 70 LTV.

That's good to know. And for some you know for the people out there that don't that only know this on the surface level

like me. Yeah. How

how do you calculate debt to income?

Yeah. So basically you just take deposits minus expenses, right? And then you use an expense factor. So let's say our the our average is 50%. So let's say you're showing 20 grand in in uh you know in income, then we would use a 50% depending on your deposits, right? Uh we would use a 50% expense factor. So you could use 10,000 for income,

right? Got it. But that's why it's important to have a good account executive though, Marcos, because those questions are very, very key and that will drive the size of the house, the loan amount, what they could qualify for because

at the end of the day,

these investors need to understand how are you going to repay this loan and that's how they'll do it. The account executives at Deep Haven, excellent.

Yes. So, so being an account executive at Deep Haven, right? Uh I I think we're known for our expertise, knowledge, and focus, right? We just like if you're a financial planner, a really good attorney or a surgeon, the reason you go to, you know, a c the the reason you're going to pick a surgeon or CPA or financial planner, you want to go with someone that has been doing it a while that has expertise that could help you, guide you through structuring of the deal and and and making sure that when you structure it, it's going to close. If you don't have expertise and focus, then that deal more than likely is not going to work, right? because the it they're not they're not good at structuring it. So having it someone that has expertise, knowledge, and focus is what sets you apart. And I think for loan officers, the loan officers that that really embrace and adopt nonQM, whether it's bank statement, DSR, profit and loss, asset utilization, whether it's 5 to9, whether it's equity products, you know, equity right now today, we're at 35 trillion in equity in the United States. It's the highest it's ever been. Then we also have debt, consumer debt is at a high of like 5 trillion. Credit card, auto, student loans, all-time highs. Um, and then the average age of a home in the United States is about 40 to 50 years old. So, um, and and and so, so what's happening is, you know, about 85% of Americans have a mortgage. They're under 5%. And it doesn't make sense for them to refy cash out. So what you're what we're seeing is people tap into their equity, keep that 3% mortgage because it's cheap money. Like if I could borrow 100 million today, I'd borrow 100 million at three all day long. I borrow a billion because I would invest it at higher, right? So if I have a 3% $500,000 mortgage and I need $50,000 to consolidate my my my debt or I need 50,000 to do that, another 75 to do a home renovation cuz the average age of a home is 40 to 50 years old. there. We're seeing people tap into their equity and doing in a second lean. So I personally think

and and Deep Haven could help with the second leans.

Yeah, we we have the most robust product offering and second leans in in in the market hands down and and so we offer a closed end second which full dock uh uh alternative docks to qualify. So bank statement, P&L, I have a DSR for uh for uh investment properties uh and then also we have a dig our own digital HELOC too. So, we have a full suite of equity products. And look, for all the originators in this space, it's a huge mistake if you're not offering equity products to your borrowers because every single loan that they're closing today, that loan's being sold to the serer. And you know what the serer is doing? They're soliciting that borrower for their second lean. And if that serer owns the first and the second, when it's time to do the refi cash out, the serer has an 85% chance.

Wait, wait, but so time out. You're telling me that, you know, these homeowners that have been in Southeast Florida that have bought homes in 2010, 2000, that have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in price, they have their mortgage from 20 years ago, 15 years ago, the great or 10 years ago at that

and they have that equity. They could tap into that equity, still have the same mortgage that they have at the great rate, low price,

and still make progress on bettering their lives without having to do too much.

Well, well, I mean, yeah, it's it's amazing. Not only can they could renovate their home, they they could consolidate their debt. They could use the equity to fund their business. They could use once again I talked I talked to

send kids to school. I mean whatever you need that money down here are not cheap.

There's 19 million investment properties in the United States that account for 49.5 million units. Investors, you know what they want? They want cash flow. So if if someone has an investment property at 3% and they cash out to buy another investment property, like it doesn't make sense to to give up a 3% rate. I'd rather take out 200 grand equity, use $200,000 deposits, go buy two more deals. So, if you don't stay in front of your borrowers and don't engage with them and don't offer these products as an originator, but the problem is you're going to lose that borrower today and then in the future when it's time to do the refi cash out, the serer is taking your borrower. So, you you you lost two deals.

I mean, it's very important for those brokers out there. You got to know these products. You got if you have to listen to what your borrower and your client want and you have to be able to help them get what they need otherwise they're going to go to someone else.

Yeah. And I'll talk about here's another thing too. So in the United States as you guys know we've had this massive migration over the last 15 years. Over 40 million people in the United States were not born here. And I think you know uh having people from uh you know other countries I I was not born here but having people from other countries uh is what makes us the United States right and and so very entrepreneurial people. they come here for opportunity. So, um saying all of that, those those uh those people when they come here, they they they want to buy investment properties. And we've seen folks that come here uh leverage our products, foreign nationals leverage our products to buy investment properties. And so we've had this mass massive migration and the home builders haven't been able to build new homes as fast as the demand that that because of all this migration. And now what we're seeing is like a seller strike uh in the market. Everyone that has rates under 5%. And they're and they're in the threes. They can't afford to trade into a bigger home at a higher note rate. So they're staying in their home. So there's this locked in effect. But we have a o under supply of homes in the United States of 5 million homes in the United States. So originators should be embracing uh solutions or products to help builders build new homes to help uh uh uh property investors renovate new homes and bring new inventory into the market. And so that's another opportunity. Um you could go you could offer financing. We have a product that we could do groundup construction up to 15 million and and also

I was just going to go there. So now, so we took care of now talking about the homeowner, homeowners, people that live in their own home, four nationals, other DSR. Shifting gears a little bit to the investor side. You just brought up the groundup construction. I mean, this under supply of homes, strong demand. How can we help these builders build more homes so that they can make a profit and help, you know, contribute to the the solution? Well, if if I'm an originator myself, I'm working with every builder, developer, re and real estate investor in South Florida, and I I'm saying, "Hey, I can help you do more deals next year because I have strong liquidity, reliable liquidity, and I could help you build new inventory or rehab existing inventory and bring it into the market." Now, if you could help the builder, the real estate investor, and you could help them finance those projects, you're getting that fin that deal to finance the project for the investor, right? When that when that propertyy's done, then I'm going to do the takeout for the consumer or I'm going to do the takeout loan for the investor. So now I'm getting two deals for that with for for that investor. And the average investor in the United States, they do five to 10 transactions. the average investor if a consumer might buy a house every five every 5 years. So if I if I want to grow my business, I'm focusing on 30% of the market and and which are, you know, moving the the transactions and has repeat business, right? So saying all of that with all these products, I know time's running short. I'm going to give a takeaway for for all the loan officers on how to grow their business in 2026. So here's what I would say. The top 5% of realtors in the United States, the top 5% of the realtors control 95% of the listings. They're the ones that move that are moving weight in real estate.

Five.

Yeah. 5% of realtor realtor teams, they're the ones that have 90% of the listings. The bottom the bottom 95% of realtors only have 10% of the listings. So, I would tell the loan officers at this show and across the United States, don't call on realtors that don't have deals. Don't waste your time. Call on the top 5% who have the transactions and become a product knowledge expert with nonQM second leans. uh uh investor transactions and become a a a a an industry expert and leverage that those those products to tap into the people who are moving weight in real estate. That's how you're going to grow your business. Work with people who are doing deals. Become a product knowledge expert in your backyard and be the first call for these alternative mortgage solutions. And that's what we do at Deep Haven. And and and I would connect with Leslie. He's our industry expert down in South Florida. He's the one going to help you make more money in 2026. Leslie, what's the best way they can get in touch with you?

Uh 3057251247 deephavenmortgage.com. Uh look us up. Um

yeah,

it sounds like I mean if you're not doing if you're not involved in this, this is something you need to get involved in. Learn, understand your products. You're going to come to these top producing offices. You got to know what you're talking about. That starts with knowledge. It starts with time investing. Get in touch with the account executive. Learn a little bit more and start making more uh transactions come to fruition. Absolutely. Thanks for having us, man. I appreciate Sammy. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, guys. You guys,

welcome back. We are here starting another panel for the A Day in Miami podcast here at the FAM Conference in Miami. Closing it out today on the podcast, we have two amazing guests, and we have Sammy, their co-host. Aaron, I'm going to hand it over to you and let you introduce yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. Just thrilled to be here. Uh, I'm Aaron Samples. I'm the chief operating officer at Logan Finance and I've brought uh Paul Jones with me. I'll hand it over to Paul.

Sure thing. Paul Jones um senior vice president of business development for Logan Finance.

Perfect. Well, thank you guys for being here today. I mean, a lot of action coming from out of town. You're in Miami. Probably one of the largest nonQM spaces in the country. So many self-employed people, so many hustlers down here that might not necessarily qualify for these traditional W2 loans. And Logan Finance is one of, if not the largest nonQM loan provider in the country. And as the operating officer, I'm sure you've seen a lot of growth the past couple years, if not double digit, maybe doubling each year the past couple years.

Yeah, it's been actually incredible. We've just seen uh uh almost 2x growth over the last several years. You're absolutely correct. I think that uh Florida in general, certainly down here in South Florida, is really a hot bed for nonQM, but we we have markets all over the nation now that have uh really turned into nonQM markets.

That's fair. That's fair. And on your end, what do you like to focus on?

So, my biggest uh thing with Logan and NonQM in general is just focusing on the training um uh helping people see the vision of what they can use these products for, how to reach the real nonQM borrower instead of doing some of that accidental nonQM. The key to growing in nonQM today is education. Just understanding the products at a deeper level and uh not just throwing things against the wall to see what sticks.

No. And you can't afford that as a loan originator. If you're trying to make it in this market as a loan originator, you really need to know what options you have available when you're speaking with the borrower. You need to double click on some questions, understand where their income is coming from, what side hustles they're working on, how their bank statement looks, how their liquidity, because these kinds of products, there is a space for them. You can be a homeowner and not be on a W2. So I think that's

well I mean it's no longer space. It's it's it's own industry in its own right almost right um the space nonQM space has grown to be over 50% of the borrowers and here in Miami it's probably 99.9% of the borrowers um because it's so hard to qualify with a W2 job at today's home prices. Right. So uh and for those that don't know what's going on in the background here we got lifeguard shirtless. We we we got a party. We got whistles going on. I mean it is absolutely electric here. We got two boys from Philly just taking in the Miami.

I know. We got Dallas. We got Dallas and Nor were rivals, but you know, we know how to work together.

We're working together today and they are taking in the Miami Heat, which we got a cold front. You guys brought it down with you a little bit.

We'll take it.

But I mean, you guys probably travel the country talking to um you know, mortgage brokers. What was your purview of today? What did you see in the room today? And what excites you here at the F conference? Well, for me, look, I see a real acceptance in the nonQM space. If you think about the space in general, we got about 10 or 12 years of of really uh tenure in terms of nonQM. So, you have uh a liquidity market that buys this product that's gotten really comfortable with the asset. Whereas in the beginning, you used to see liquidity come in and come out of the market. Now, you have probably the best liquidity that I've ever seen in a decade in this space. So the the adoption of of loan officers and brokers coming to nonQM uh has been immense over the last 24 months and I think you can see the excitement here in this show.

It might as well be a nonQM show out here. I mean, at this point, I mean, with more liquidity coming in, that means better pricing for your client as a as a broker, better pricing for your borrower, better rates, less expenses, and and more ability to get through some exceptions that might trip up along the way, knowing that the other side, the investor that's going to be carrying that mortgage is comfortable with the asset, comfortable with the borrower.

No question about it. Let Let me throw this stat out there. Would you believe if I told you that only 10% of LO's or brokers that have NMLS licenses have done a nonQM loan?

How do we fix that, Aaron? What? They're sleeping on the wheel. I mean, this is double digit. You said 2x. I thought it was this 2x year over year. It sounds like it might be another 2x in 2025.

And you have only 10% of loss doing it.

How do we educate them? What do they need to know?

Paul, that's what Paul told you. I think is is it's about education. There's, you know, there's loss out there that still have a subprime or they have some connotation in their mind that's negative.

Yeah.

Uh, and you've got to, you got to put that aside. It is not that business by any stretch. If I told you the stats of our portfolio, you're talking about a 760 FICO borrower with a LTV below 70, right? Take a look at an FHA portfolio and tell me, compare those two.

Oh, yeah. They're super leverage, 97% LTV, 620 credit scores.

Right. So if if you're an elo out there and you're uncomfortable with it, you need to get comfortable with it. You need to find somebody like like Paul's organization with us. I think we have the best business development group in the country. They will go out, they'll sit down, they will teach you how to do 9QM, teach you the products. More importantly, they'll teach you where to fish. It doesn't do any good to go fish someplace where there's no fish, where to go find these products, where are these opportunities? And we we invest a lot of capital and time and resources into that for our brokers and our MLOs's.

Yeah. If you take a look at your, you know, DSCR product, maybe you just need to focus on DSCR. You don't necessarily have to understand everything right away. But if you start in that market where there's an investor, that investor probably does have other income streams that will also be served by nonQM or vice versa. So, a lot of times people try to just jump in and learn it all at once. The way we approach it is is more strategically taking a look at individual pieces of the product and teaching them the basics all the way out into what Aaron referred to as where to find that business. Because if you're expecting to learn it just in one 15inute session, you're not going to learn it. So we sit down and strategize with the leadership at our partners and figure out what they want out of it. What's the long-term plan? And then we execute that plan and we follow through with a lot of other materials to help them stay aware and educated.

I think long term you hit the head on the nail. This is not going anywhere not going away anytime soon. And I feel like the sooner you get aware of it and learn about it little by little you'll become a product expert in it and be able to help your clients out better.

That's right. I think if you look at the new nonQM market, you know, it's we don't get the same data that you get in the Fanny Freddy and the conventional markets. You know, I think anybody that you talk to thinks that nonQM is about 10% of the overall uh mortgage market in terms of size. There's some uh forecast out there that it could be as big as 15 or or north of 15% in the next 3 to 5 years. That's a major piece in the market and just about any economist you talk to right now, whether they're with the agencies or MBA or or friends on Wall Street. Uh we see a market size growing overall, right? I think there's two growth uh trajectories to focus on. I think mortgage markets are growing overall. If we look at 26 verse 25, everybody's projecting a larger market, so there's more opportunity. And then there's the market share of nonQM within the overall market and we're seeing that grow as well. So again, if you're not doing it, you you're just not in the in the market in my view.

And Aaron, you've talked about the expansion of the space, Paul, you talked about the education, uh the liquidity coming into the market. What do you think is really a driving force? Has it been a combination of brokers getting to know the product more? Are brokers taking over more of the traditional mortgage lending market? Why is this space just catching fire so quickly?

Well, in my view, the brokers have adopted nonQM way better, way faster than what we see the big retail shops doing. And I think that's because they had to. Um, I think when you look at uh most shops today, if you look at their P&Ls and their and their pipelines and balance sheets, they're not growing with with conventional loans. Uh, so brokers did it because they had to and and now they've really cornered that market. And I think we see some of the big retail folks trying to catch up in terms of the nonQM and and alternative, you know, lending space.

And I think Paul said it perfectly. My wife is a broker. Um, when she started a retail shop 8 years ago, she didn't touch nonQM. She learned the first product when she became a broker. Uh, now she probably does 10, 11 nonQM type products, learning them one at a time, right? And and I think Somebody said earlier that you could look at two exact same borrowers and they're going to go through a different loan process each time. Um,

absolutely.

Because even though it's the same product, not every deal is the same.

No, I think crawl, walk, run, crawl, walk, run, learn it little by little. What were you going to say?

Well, I think here's another stat I'll throw at you, though. You know, look, I look at the market every single morning, 6:30 a.m. in the morning with my team. I'm looking at the overall market size, locks coming in, where they're coming at in which buckets, products, FICOs, LTVs, looking how we index against the market. Pretty sophisticated view on it. Um, if you only did bank statement and DSCR, you're covering about 89% of the nonQum market.

There you go.

So, if you were a broker,

so just with those two products, they could cover 89% of the nonQ market. If you're a broker and you just focus on on DSCR and bank statement and and there's some iterations within those, right, you're you're nearly covering 90% of the overall non-final market and I look at it every morning.

Well, let's double click on those only two that we're going to cover today. So, let's double click. So, on the DSCR, when I hear DSCR, I'm thinking, you know, debt service coverage, but my head just goes straight to investment property. Is that the case?

It's not always the case, but that's certainly what we're seeing today. And I think uh you know look I'm an investor in real estate and candidly the the the big tax bill uh this year has made it almost uh criminal not to go invest in real estate and we have just seen that business purpose investment property DSCR space just explode. Uh we used to probably outindex DSCR with our DTI products our bank statement products. I think last month DSCR was over our DTI products.

And that bill is only going to further DSCR because of the depreciation, the benefits from it. It only pushes those borrowers back into nonQM for the next property. Right.

100% bonus depreciation. You're you're begging me to go buy a a property, then you're giving me money back to go buy another one.

Exactly.

But an agency, they can't do that. No such thing, right?

I like that.

I mean, powerful tool.

I like that. So, that takes care of the DSCR. Now, from the bank statement, when I hear bank statement, I'm thinking, okay, you know, I have a job. I take advantage of my uh I don't have a job. I have a side hustle. I have a couple of entrepreneurial things I like to do. I generate income. I have a CPA. He's good. He makes sure I get my max deductions. So, I'm not looking the best on paper for, you know, a traditional mortgage. But you're telling me with a bank statement loan, I could qualify for a better house that's not necessarily looking at my after deduction income.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, most people that are self-employed, ultimately when you run them on a bank statement calculation, they had no idea how much income they could use to even get the house they were looking for. They can actually get more house or they start thinking about getting a second home. There's so much more that they can do. And uh frankly, you have more certainty looking at someone's bank statements real time, seeing their cash flow than what you see on a tax return. Anyhow,

once a year that's delayed. Yeah.

Ultimately, the rest of that loan is exactly what an LO is used to. Mhm.

If we're going to do the heavy lifting and calculate the income for you and give you the income you're going to use.

Logan does that for you?

We'll do that upfront before you even have a property.

So, as a mortgage broker, I could I could now have a qualified borrower that they can work with an agent to go shopping around for their next house.

And everything else on that loan is the same that they're used to dealing with. We're still looking at the same credit report. We're still looking at 60 days of season assets, same appraisal. Nobody's invented a nonQM appraisal, luckily, right? So everything else they're used to, we're taking the nonQM out of the deal up front and they're getting more opportunity. And then once they're able to do that, they can build their network with an entire cavalcade of self-employed borrowers, CPAs, tax preparers, everyone that's out there right now supporting and working with small business owners are their target mark market now to get more self-employed borrowers and do more loans. And as Aaron mentioned, that ALB is on average much higher than your traditional loan as it stands right now. average loan balance for a nonQM asset is much higher.

Okay?

So, why would you not chase after that and get those borrowers to

and it goes back to our first conversation when we're talking about, hey, you got to know what options you can take your client to. And this is a and in Miami specifically, people got multiple businesses and you have bank statements. You could you could do multiple bank statements.

You can do multiple bank statements and you can also stack multiple incomes together. So you could have someone who is 1099 on on the co-barorrower, but someone else wants to go P&L, you know, on on the borrower side and maybe they do have a W2 job as well.

You can I always say stack you can stack all your incomes together on a nonQM product maximize maximize that and even leverage asset utilization if you need to on top of that to use assets as qualifying income without liquidating the asset. So at the end of the day, it's about income and the nonQM space gives the broker power to maximize the income of their borrower in different manners aside from the traditional conventional route.

That's right. And and is Logan looking at just 12 months bank statements, 24 months bank statements? Like for the borrower tuning in, you know, the whole thing used to be you have to work for somebody for 2 years, 3 years, show stable income. What does it really look like for the firsttime home buyer that is maybe going nonQM? they have the down payment um but maybe they really just got that business perin for the first time. Are they able to come at 12 months and really qualify? So you're going to look at 12 or 24 months of bank statements where that self-employed borrower we do like to see someone in self-employed for at least 2 years, but there are instances where someone may be self-employed less than two years where you're going to consider that if it's in line with uh the line of work they're in self-employed. Yeah, they just went off on their own for the first time.

Worked for a house painting company for 10 years and now I own my own business and I'm 18 months self-employed and I have great credit, great assets, compensating factors. This is where you get to make deals work and be flexible. Then we'll consider that person as an exception for being less than two to your self-employed.

And that's where nonQM lenders really come in, right? Is that flexibility don't have to fit in the box. Like Sammy said, I feel like we're at the nonQM conference here more so than anything because this is the hot topic, especially in Miami. This is a perfect place to talk about the nonQM borrower.

Here's some more stats for you. If you just look at 25 through November of last year, there was 5.1 million new business applications filed.

Wow.

That that is almost at a co historic pace. And if you look month over month, it actually it actually exceeded it grew faster from October to November. So that trajectory tells us that there's going to be more and more self-employed borrowers uh as we go forward into 26 and the years beyond that that's five or six million new this last year not to count everybody else out there that's currently self-employed. So that's why we continue to see and think that the overall wallet share if you will of the nonQum space is going to continue to expand.

That's exciting. I mean

and so what is the plan for Logan Financial into 2026? Are you guys looking to double increase the space? what what is your capacity? What do you guys want to achieve in 2026?

Yeah, look, we've built a really scalable platform and and Logan's only about a four-year-old company in terms of nonQM. We were actually founded in 1949. You don't see that much in the morning space,

but we've grown at about a billion a year clip. So, we're

that was with a B. Let me clarify for our listeners. Billion with a B.

That's correct. And, you know, 26 we're forecasting another billion to billion and a half of uh additional volume growth uh in the organization. Look, at Logan, we are really focused on quality. I really want to uh stress that. I hope all non-commun lenders are because that's what keeps the space stable as well as brokers. We're really focused on quality, but yeah, we think there's another built a billion and a half of market share that we'll grab uh in 26. Opportunity is, you know, endless. It's exciting. I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'd love to learn. I mean, if you have a pulse on the market every day and getting an update on the market, where other things are going, what's something that excites you excites you about 2026?

You know, I think there's a lot of uh there's been a lot of pent-up demand, right? We've had affordability issues there. The general view on rates has been that they're just too high. Uh I think today they you know, you're almost seeing prime rates almost below six if they haven't dipped below six. So, you're you're starting to see some of the inventory build up. You're starting to see some of that demand come into the streets. Rates are coming down. And you're seeing some pressure on home prices in different places, affordability issues being kind of taken care of. You're also hearing the government talk about the housing issue, right? And you you've heard recently that um you know, maybe there's going to be some restrictions on the big private equity companies buying uh homes. Um you know, some other other things the government's looking to do, some quantitative easing, buying mortgage bonds.

That is just jet fuel in the the mortgage space and and there's so much pent up demand. Um, you know, look, I think there could be a real explosion uh over the next few years and I think nonQM is positioned really well in that market.

No, I think that's I couldn't agree more and I think especially with this administrative this administration and what they're doing to increase afford help with the affordability pro process increase affordability for people to buy houses. Now's the time to get involved. And if you're a broker out there and and you're you're hurting to get in business, it's it's on you. It's on you because they're out there and and Logan's hungry to take it. A lot of these lenders are hungry to take it. So, do the step. do the work, reach out, go online, try to find them. Where where is the best place to find and connect with with an account executive at Logan?

So, you can just go to our general website, Logan Finance.com, and then we have our different segments of business build out there that you can, if you're a broker or you're a correspondent lender, even a commercial broker, someone who's not NLS licensed that wants to originate in investment uh loans can utilize our our recently uh uh enhanced platform.

That's a big statement. We have, you know, we have we run across all major channels of of TPO opportunity there. So, just Loganfinance.com would be where I would say go.

And look, Paul will come out to your shop if you want. His group will come out. They'll wear your shirt if you want and uh they'll go to they'll go to to realtor uh shots and uh they'll train. So,

Paul's here for an invitation back to Miami. Is that what I'm hearing?

Hey, I'll come anytime. Maybe the weather will be better next time.

That was pretty nice.

We'll we'll turn up the heat a little bit for you. Aaron, what do you think is the most important thing that we did not talk about that we should talk about?

You know, look, I think it's important to choose your uh we talked about the space in general and the opportunity and I think that's really clear, I'm sure, through the the rest of the podcast earlier today. I think as a broker be really thoughtful in terms of who you utilize as a nonculum lender. We talked about the liquidity in the space and liquidity liquidity is really good, right? But there's different executions of liquidity. There's securization market. There is a big insurance bid out there right now and there's balance sheet and at Logan we really focus on all three executions because at any given time in the market one of those executions will back out and that's what we used to see in the past when when when private money got soft in the space. So if securization backs out a little bit we know we have insurance and balance sheet and and vice versa. So make sure you're with a sophisticated lender. We're owned by a very large private equity firm. We're on Wall Street all the time. We understand the market. We understand the different liquidity executions. We know how to train you. I think choosing that lender that will be there for you and make sure that you take care of that client because that's what it's really about at the end of the day is taking care of that client and you have execution certainty that that's going to get done and and you're not going to ruin that relationship because of some loan that you haven't done before. And I think there's nothing's more frustrating for a broker to start a relationship um with a wholesale lender and then all of a sudden they say they have all this capacity, but they really start turning it down little by little. They start conditioning the loan more. It's not stable. So you go off selling based off your prior experience on your past loan and the next process isn't the same. Right. So

that's right. And and our real focus to be candid is that we want to be a constant source of liquidity and consistency for the brokers in the market. That's great. Well, I appreciate you guys taking the time today. It was really, really good. Very informative. We appreciate all the statistics that you guys are sharing with us today.

Oh, I got to get on the brief that Aaron gets every morning. I think that the president of the United States gets that and Aaron here from Logan Finance.

I'll send out invites. It's quite early in the morning, but you're all welcome.

Thank you, gentlemen, for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. We appreciate it.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.