Greg Sher on the Power of Connection in Lending | Market Updates | July 21, 2025

Jim (: 00:16

Welcome to Optimal Insights, I'm your host, Jim Glennon, Vice President of Hedging and Trading Client Services at Optimal Blue. Our clients and industry partners have long relied on Optimal Blue for trusted insights and commentary, and these podcasts are an evolution of our commitment to keeping the industry informed. Let's dive into today's episode. Today is June 21st, or sorry, July 21st.

I want it to be earlier in the summer, but we're getting late in the summer already here. hot everywhere. Kids are out of school still. People are taking vacations, but still a lot going on, a lot to talk about. the interest of keeping everybody informed, always going to strive to bring you up to the hour current events and just things that we should be thinking about as originators and as hedgers and capital markets folks. today to do a market update with Alex here in a couple of minutes.

And the market update, we have a rare treat. You may or may not be familiar with Greg Scherr, influencer on LinkedIn, also long time originator, runs a mortgage bank at this point and it just has a lot of really good observations and around the industry. Kevin and I will talk to him here in a few minutes. just have him for a short time, but in that time.

We hope to get some guidance from him on what he's focused on and what we should be paying attention to as well. a little bit of data, OBMMI a little bit lower, 6.74. So getting closer to that, you know, around that six and a half, six and three quarter level. I'm actually seeing a bit of a rally this morning as well. So rates should be even a little bit better by the time this podcast comes out later today

still good And just seeing you know pretty good volume flowing through this summer despite what some of the headlines might be telling you All right, let's transition over to Alex. See what's going on in the market

Jim (: 02:07

welcome Alex.

Alex Hebner (: 02:09

Thanks for having me as always. Good morning.

Jim (: 02:10

Alex

is chilling outside, getting some sun. I hear the birds chirping. That's not a bad deal.

Alex Hebner (: 02:17

I was surprised how naturally these mics pick up wide range of sounds. might even hear some cars going by in the background.

Jim (: 02:23

Yeah, they're really

Quiet week coming up with a few things to think about, but pretty good data last week. least nothing earth shattering, right?

Alex Hebner (: 02:35

Yeah, nothing earth shattering. It was inflation week. we got both CPI and PPI. CPI came in a little higher back in the range we were seeing throughout last winter. North of two and a half CPI came in at 2.7 % year over the market reaction of that seemed to really just kind of take it in You know, more so than anything, the market didn't freak out by it. And I think really what it is, is everyone's expecting inflation to go up at this point.

at least even if they don't expect it to they've been told that the market broadly expects it to go up even if they personally don't think it's gonna go up so again, it was really just taken in stride. We're still south of 3 % which is good And then I think PPI which was released the day after CPI really kind of tempered any any panic that there might have been out there smaller circles in that regards that 2.7 number PPI came in flat and still two and half percent year-over-year

is right in the range that's been coming in for past few months.

Jim (: 03:29

Yeah, it's just still a paradox, isn't it? We're being told and the math supports, these tariffs have been out there for months at this point, enormous tariffs that were initially announced to kind of shock the system and bring people to the negotiating table, but there's certainly higher tariffs we've had in many decades in effect right now and you're seeing the surplus at the treasury, they're bringing in that cash, yet prices have not broken north of kind of that two and a half to three percent.

inflation number year over year. It's being absorbed somewhere for the time being or it's being worked around or we're still waiting for it really to hit.

Alex Hebner (: 04:07

Right, I mean, you see the almost vertical line on the graph tariff revenues going into the treasury this year. They've raised already over $100 billion this year in tariff revenue. yeah, prices at the checkout counter aren't much worse than the same time last year the consumer. So what you have to imagine is that, as we've kind of talked about on the show multiple times now, that for the time being, companies are just absorbing it

trying to be that last mover when it comes to finally having to price them forward into the market, the counter. for the time being, it's kind of just business as usual. You know, on the topic of tariffs, you know, we are approaching August 1st deadline, which every member of the administration is saying is the final deadline there. They're saying we'll continue to negotiate after August 1st, but all the numbers we've thrown out there will go into effect August 1st, and you'll begin paying those rates on August

And you know, we're still lacking deals with our largest trading know, China comes to mind. We've touched on them. They put together a framework back in April. But as far as I'm Xi and Trump haven't personally signed off on it, which is what's necessary get that framework into reality. then kind of the EU is the major trading zone that we've been talking about or the news have been talking the recent days. They're facing down 30 % tariffs come August 1st.

some of their finance ministers were saying, know, anywhere in range of 15 to 20 would be pretty devastating to their export volume. there's definitely, I think, you this goes for every country, but there's incentive to get a deal done. see what gets done here in the next 10 days or so.

Jim (: 05:39

Yeah, so much good stuff comes from Europe too. I guess, and a lot of it's high end stuff too. So I don't know, maybe that plays right into the narrative that we will just buy less stuff, but we'll pay more for it. But if you're talking about things like fine wine or, I don't know, super high end textiles, you know, maybe that's what was needed. I guess we'll find out what kind of deals we get done in this last, this final 10 days.

Alex Hebner (: 06:05

Yeah, a lot of their agriculture is kept internal to the EU. But yeah, a lot of what we receive from the EU is higher value add items, like you said, those fine wines. I think the number one thing for me would probably be the auto sector. think that'd be pretty devastating to specifically the German auto sector. BMWs and Mercedes are very popular in the United States.

Jim (: 06:17

Right. German cars. Yep.

That's right. That's right. Okay. So more to come on that week. I'm sure we'll be talking about the deadline quickly approaching. If there aren't deals done right by next week, guess procrastination is in effect.

Alex Hebner (: 06:37

Yeah, seems to be. Hopefully they get something

Jim (: 06:43

So otherwise this week is pretty quiet, right? I mean, we'll continue hoping for some news headlines about tariff deals and we're obviously looking forward to the Fed meeting next week. They're in the blackout period right now. But what else, rest of this week, anything we should be paying attention to?

Alex Hebner (: 07:00

No, it's pretty quiet. say, as I've been saying, keep an eye on those initial jobless claims. We saw that kind of spring back the last two weeks to ⁓ closer to away from that 250 that we've been noting. morning, we got leading economic indicators which is just a collaboration of about seven different economic outputs and forecasts. It technically showed us approaching a recession.

see if that pans out. It's south of the 100 mark. So anything south of 100 is in an economic contractionary type environment. But yeah, aside from that coming out this morning, so that's already dropped. And then in addition to existing and new home sales, really I just keep an eye on that weekly employment number. I guess on the subject of existing new home sales, we usually don't give it too much time.

Jim (: 07:29

Mm-hmm.

Alex Hebner (: 07:48

just because it's released so frequently and again, it's a drop in the bucket at the end of the day. we did see some headlines last week that new home builds, we saw some pricing cuts fact, in June, 40 % of home builders reported that cutting prices, which was interesting. You you and I were having a side conversation in one of our chats about, you know, what does this exactly mean? Because it seems that inventories are quite low, not at, you know, any sort of historical low for the past five years, but they are, they do remain low. So,

If there's such a demand surplus, why are they cutting prices? And it seemed to be potentially that just new home builds are priced at a price point that just isn't affordable even for a relatively high demand environment.

Jim (: 08:27

Yeah, there's still an imbalance there, obviously. As of now, we're really just seeing, in some markets, seeing a decline in home prices and at least a flat line in others. We're not going to see those double digit increases year over year, but there does still seem to be a bit of a stalemate between the builders, between buyers and sellers in general, but especially with these new homes that are being built, that are generally high end, as you've pointed out before. That's where the margins used to be historically for home builders was the higher end homes.

they're just not flying off the shelves anymore. The builders are not only having to pay big money to buy down rates for for borrowers so that they can afford the payment, but now they're actually having to lower the price, the sales price of the home, which is further eating into their profits. ⁓

Alex Hebner (: 09:10

Right, I would say that's

definitely a leading indicator for potential downturn of sorts. We keep an eye construction jobs in the home building industry, that's been historically one that pulls back pretty early I would throw in price cuts to completed home builds as well.

Jim (: 09:28

Yeah. And that number has finally started to pull back a little bit. The residential construction jobs. That's one that Logan Motoshami has pointed out as a kind of a leading indicator of potential recession, especially if the recession is led by the housing market. And just the rest of it, the narrative, as you mentioned earlier, some of leading indicators are technically showing recessionary signs or contraction signs, but there's so much noise today. Is it

Consumers pulling back because of the unknown because of the uncertainty and that's what how a lot of people kind of wave off Some of these these more dour numbers that come out It's just it's just consumers being careful and they're starting to bounce back by some measurements And it's just seeing that with earnings too. This is a big week for earnings you do want to watch some other numbers come out that aren't you know, like government economic numbers There are some actual

Big corporations still putting out earnings right now and those are generally showing signs of resilience as well. just strong economic tailwinds is what it feels like even though we have all this news that says that we really shouldn't be in a environment right now given all the noise going on.

Alex Hebner (: 10:36

Right, mean, bank and technology companies, make up a of, that's where the US economy is strongest, is in financial services and technology. Their earnings season were quite strong. So I'm in agreement there there's a lot of static out there. I think just in regards to the new cycle and what tariffs specifically are gonna do, I think we're well beyond impacts of the government.

Jim (: 10:48

Mm-hmm.

Alex Hebner (: 10:59

specific layoffs that we saw early in the year with Doge, but I think tariffs are really that remaining point of that we're seeing in the data.

Jim (: 11:06

Right. Hopefully we get through that this summer. Otherwise I think, you know, I'm still watching somewhat with morbid curiosity, the continued drama around the Fed between Bill Pulte and President Trump and mostly just Jerome Powell just continuing to take a beating on social media. And you have to wonder what the end game really is, you know?

And today I think it was, you know, Trump saying, Beasant didn't talk me off the ledge. still kind of want to fire this guy. And it's just a lot of, anyway, continued rhetoric around this. We've talked about it quite a bit, but it still is very loud, I think in the news and feels like there has to be a conclusion at some point, but I'm not sure what that's going to be.

Alex Hebner (: 11:49

Right, think I was reading this morning about how Besant was saying we needed to kind of put the Fed, the Federal Reserve, as an institution under the microscope and look at its track record. He was saying, got all these PhDs over there, what's their track record look like was essentially what he was saying. think that more so than even just firing PAL is.

maybe not the best signal to be sending to the market, or the United States, we've gone over multiple times in the history of the Fed. been multiple iterations of the Federal Reserve. It's come in and out of existence. in its modern incarnation, definitely, in my opinion, looking at the track record, they're not always perfect on their timing, I think that they've been able to limit the scope of economic downturns. Because if you look at the history of the 19th century when

this this this iteration of the Federal Reserve, very cyclical downturns that were there were quite deep the economy operated in a much different fashion back then I think you can see a distinct turning point with the Federal Reserve's outside of maybe the Great Depression but you were seeing you know approaching depression level pullbacks in the economy throughout, 19th century, so Just just something to keep an eye on in regards

a full review of the Federal Reserve, yes.

Jim (: 12:57

Full review,

which has to be difficult, right? I mean, you basically have to compare how the Fed has helped or hurt the economy versus the alternate universe of what would have happened if monetary policy was done differently or not done at all, right? How would we have performed through the great financial crisis, if at all? Would the markets have collapsed during the initial days of COVID, right? Just to cite a few recent calamities that looking back, we think

The fed saved us and they probably did, but how could they have done better? then with the resulting inflation that came out of, you know, the pandemic, how that's probably the thing they're going to focus on the most. Cause it's the most recent, the most recent damage. And it's just the easiest one to pick apart maybe because of the, lingering effects of it. the, and the fact that timing is an issue right now for the white house as well. think that we're behind the ball on, on cutting rates.

Alex Hebner (: 13:50

Yeah, mean, speaking of time, I think that seems to be their whole argument. It's a timing issue. They're not exactly at odds with the tools that the Fed deploys. It's more so they're arguing that you should cut rates a long while ago.

Jim (: 14:03

Okay. More to come on that. you're, you know, I don't really use Twitter, but occasionally I will look at it just for things like this. it's, it is probably the quickest way to get some of this news. Cause I find it, the rest of it is, it'll hurt. It's bad for your brain and your mood, but it is, it comes out six hours before the news articles do on the, on the traditional media outlets.

Alex Hebner (: 14:13

Yep, I have to keep myself off there. ⁓

It absolutely does. It definitely helps you have an edge if you're simply following public figures.

Jim (: 14:29

Right.

All right. Anything else, Alex? ⁓

Alex Hebner (: 14:34

No, no, that really covers everything. I said, next week is the week I'm excited for. We're going to get a Fed meeting on Thursday. Everyone's looking forward to not expecting any cuts there. more Fed drama. But in addition to that, the calendar falls really nicely. We're going to get the final week consumer confidence, GDP for Q2, the Fed's preferred inflation metric. And then Friday is the first of August. So we'll also get non-farm payrolls for the month of July.

Jim (: 15:00

Very nice. Okay. Slow week this week, but we're going to pick it up next week with a lot of good information. So we'll give you a fresh look at that here a week from today as well before the party gets going.

Alex Hebner (: 15:11

Beautiful. Sounds good. Thanks, Jim. Have a good one. Thank you.

Jim (: 15:12

All right. Thanks so much, Alex. Enjoy the weather. Take care,

Jim (: 15:16

All right, gang, as promised, we have a real treat today. We're joined by Greg Scherr, tens of thousands of followers on LinkedIn. you don't happen to know Greg or follow him on LinkedIn, he's a major influencer in the mortgage industry and the housing industry and beyond. also a former radio host, which I thought was pretty cool, and a fellow podcaster. So welcome, welcome, Greg.

Greg Sher (: 15:37

I appreciate you getting my name right. Most people pronounce it sure. So you've done your homework, I appreciate it. Good to be with you.

Jim (: 15:42

Sure.

Right on. again for, we thought it was just a good time to meet you. I get a rapport going and so we could collaborate even more in the future, but many of our listeners probably already know you, but in case they don't, you just kind of run down all of your top occupations right now and generally what your mission is?

Kevin Foley (: 15:47

Yeah, great to have you, Craig.

Greg Sher (: 16:05

Yeah, sure. Well, in title, I'm the managing director of NFM Lending. So we're a top 12-ish retail only lender. Meaning, you know, when you take out affinity groups banks and lenders that have multiple channels, just retail only, we're somewhere around 12th in the country. And I handle marketing, business development.

me and a couple of other people, the founder, the president and CEO and chief legal counsel, we sort of spearhead the efforts at the company. And I've been here a long time, about 16 years. And obviously I do a lot online. Last couple of years, I've been much more present, particularly on LinkedIn. And I've been pushing advocacy, something that the late David Stevens, I got to know really well.

encourage me to do and to continue doing, because we just don't have that many voices in our industry at a C-suite level that are for whatever reason willing to step out and stand up for the entire industry beyond what's in between their own walls. So I just dipped my toe in those waters with several things and it started to take off and I started doing more and the more I did, the more people came. So

And I've been doing that and trying to use my growing influence to encourage other people to join me. I'm a big fan of Kevin's and what he's been doing online. I told him very specifically the last time we talked that he's very thoughtful in his posts, does his homework. He's extremely intelligent. He won't step out unless he's got something really important to say that people should listen to.

So, ⁓ you know, made sure to let him know that. And I want to encourage as many people like Kevin, like the next generation to keep taking chances and to be brave and to stand up for this incredible industry that's done so much for so many.

Jim (: 18:02

Love, fam.

Kevin Foley (: 18:02

Yeah, I

appreciate that Greg, from you who's industry icon right back at you in terms of putting the level of thought into your post, the way you engage with people, the way that you drive conversation. mentioned the way that I see your role on LinkedIn these days is you're sort of curating a virtual water cooler for the industry to have important meaningful conversations.

Greg Sher (: 18:08

Hmm

Kevin Foley (: 18:28

And the advocacy piece is a huge part of that. know a lot of folks have seen the hashtag all of us. I'm curious about your shirt today, actually. Of course, that's another angle or you got something else that you're-

Greg Sher (: 18:42

No, no, this was given to me by

someone in the industry. There's a lot of these, there's a lot of these going Yeah. No, I mean, I have, I have, I have my, all of this gear right here. actually was thinking of wearing it, but, ⁓ you know, I don't want to overwhelm or over saturate with all of us. Right.

Kevin Foley (: 18:45

Okay. Okay. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to do my homework there.

Maybe

you could talk a little bit about the journey. I'm sure folks have seen it, right? Hashtag all of us. It's, it's everywhere.

Greg Sher (: 19:04

Yeah, it's

It's been very successful. it was born from, ironically, I'm, I work at an IMB, but I was attending the broker action coalition conference in Washington, DC about a year and a half ago. Katie Sweeney was running it at the time along with Brendan McKay. And they were kind enough to invite me. I think largely because I had been talking about all of us.

had not memorialized it, like officially with a hashtag or anything like that, but I had talked about this idea of let's stop fighting one another. Let's start fighting for the reason we all got into the industry and that's to help as many consumers as we can. So I was standing there in the audience and I was listening to Katie and Brendan interview these people and they were talking about things that are important to every one of us in the industry, all of us, how veterans are treated.

credit scoring, all these different abuses that are in the industry and headwinds that face us. And I just thought to myself, wow, they're talking about the same things that everyone's talking about. This is about all of us. I'm gonna start using that hashtag and try and bring as many people together as I can. And it worked. I stepped out and started using it. And then ever since, there've been a lot of people that have used it. We've got some really cool t-shirts made.

and sweatshirts and hats taken on a life of its own and I love it. And I think we really can make an impact ⁓ when we're unified. I believe that what's going on with VantageScore being introduced into the mainstream by FHFA, I can't prove this, but I believe that the All of Us movement had a lot to do with

The NBA obviously has the Mortgage Bank Association. They've got a great relationship with FICO. Can't blame They're a sponsor and they're important to the industry, The credit scores are the lifeblood to get us to a closed loan. really weren't stepping out a lot on that. I think it was delicate and

The minute we all started to coalesce around this idea of, on, enough is enough. Where are your, where's your voice? Stand up. The NBA started to get more vocal. it's a coincidence. I mean, they would claim that they were saying things all along. Now they were making comments like, we'd like somebody to look into this, you know, what is the justification of, of these costs? fortunately, I don't have to straddle that.

politically correct Look at, you know, look at all of these costs. Nobody can explain it. You've got the right hand blaming the left hand, who's responsible, who's culpable. Let's raise the volume on this some. And Bob Brok Smith, the president and CEO of the NBA, started to speak ⁓ up more about it. And former director of the CFPB, Rohit Chopra, talked about it at a conference.

Jim (: 21:35

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Foley (: 21:44

Mm-hmm.

Greg Sher (: 21:57

And now everyone's talking about it, right? ⁓ Senator Hawley started talking about it and people are outraged. And then it gets to the desk of Bill Palti, the FHFA director. And suddenly he's talking about it. And before you know it, vantage score is accepted now by the agencies. Now they're accepted, meaning it's a green light, but you can't really drive the car through the intersection yet because there's so much to set up. You've got to get the MI companies.

Jim (: 22:06

Yep.

Greg Sher (: 22:24

ready to go, you've got to get the system set up. Really, IMBs aren't set up yet. ⁓ We're waiting for the call from the bureaus who are going to be the ones to facilitate getting it ready. And then you have the agencies, which they say they accept it, but how is it packaged? Will the secondary market have an appetite for the vantage scores? And now what you have is pricing. now you have, do you need one report, two report, both at the same time? Buy merge, try merge? Did the cost just double?

Kevin Foley (: 22:31

Mm-hmm.

Jim (: 22:41

There's no guidelines.

Kevin Foley (: 22:47

pricing.

Greg Sher (: 22:54

There's so many more questions than answers. All this to say that I believe had we not gotten together as an industry to elevate our voices, I'm not sure we're at this place right now. Again, it's not something you can prove, but it gives me a lot of wind beneath my wings to keep speaking up. And it should give a lot of other people wind beneath their wings to continue to do the same thing.

Jim (: 23:19

Yeah, that's great. mean, competition is coming. That's the message too, though, with the FICO score piece is once we figure it all out, that it was an area where I think everybody who heard about it wasn't familiar with our industry realized that there's actually a business that sort of has a monopoly on credit. Maybe that's a strong word, but certainly there was not any competition there for a very long time. Yeah, it may fit

Greg Sher (: 23:38

Wait, wait, stop. mean, it is a monopoly. wasn't. It's a monopoly. I mean, a monopoly.

They've got all the market share. They know it. They can keep raising prices because they're the only game in town. There's no limit. There's no policing. There's no governors on that. That's a monopoly. That's what that is. yeah, you step out, man. Come on, let's go. Monopoly.

Jim (: 23:57

Yeah, just wasn't,

no one took the opportunity to compete with them and now they felt empowered to do that. And then the Vantage score comes to the forefront.

Greg Sher (: 24:06

Well, I mean, I think

n early, it was introduced in: 2018

Democratic administration came in, didn't do enough in my opinion overall in housing. you know, so it's being reintroduced right now, but I think, you know, advantage score has been around for some time. They're well adopted in other verticals, credit cards, car loans, a handful like the Bank of New York, you know, the home loan banks.

There's five of them now, Dallas, San Francisco, and a couple of others that have been using Bandit Square, but they're also portfolioing. So anybody can step up and say, I want to compete. doesn't, none of it matters unless the agencies will, yeah, unless they accept it and say, all right, enough is enough. And the Biden administration didn't really do anything about it. They didn't seem to care.

Jim (: 25:08

The GSE is accepted. Yeah.

Kevin Foley (: 25:16

And so Greg, if we take Vantage score and we sort of dig into that story a little bit, I'm curious, it kind of goes back to the bigger question is how do you affect meaningful change within the industry? And I'm curious your thoughts on the role that the online conversation versus the offline conversation plays in it. Is it something where the nuts and bolts are really happening offline or the online conversation drives what's happening offline? Like what's your take on

Greg Sher (: 25:46

when it comes to vantage score.

Kevin Foley (: 25:48

Yeah, it comes advantage score and I think even just more generally like affecting meaningful change, but let's take advantage score as an example.

Greg Sher (: 25:56

You know, it's hard to, it's hard to move the ball down the field when you've got politics involved. I think we all know that. social media, think, is becoming more and more powerful. So the conversations all happen in the back room. And then

to start your, you to answer your question. It starts back there with strategy and whiteboarding and how do we get this through? then, and then like an entity like VantageScore was doing everything they were supposed to do. They were trying. They did a test of 45 million loans, and Freddie, to see how their score modeled out and they submitted it by the deadline. FICO never did, right?

Then VantageScore started to develop some relationships with people that are out there on social media. I'm one of them. I got to know Richardson, who runs PR for them, and Tony Hutchinson, who runs policy. And I started to hear their story and to dig into it. And that's when I felt confident enough to really elevate the case for VantageScore. So to answer your question, it starts in boardrooms. It starts whiteboarding. It starts with

doing what they can do. But then when it comes to politics, obviously it's very hard to get anything done. So you hit a wall and then you need the advocates to come in and start speaking up so that more people hear it. It's elevated, things get shared. And particularly in this administration, like Bill Palti, whether you like what he's doing or not, he's all over X. So I mean, what I've done, what I'm in the process of doing is redoing my X page because I had never been active on Twitter.

I'm a horse racing fan. would like replay the Kentucky Derby and other, and other things on there. But, know, I didn't really use that as a vertical to say who I am and what I do and what I'm passionate about professionally. So I'm so encouraged that he's looking that Mark Calabria is looking who's very active on X and potentially even the president.

is looking that I'm redoing my X page so I can start to put stuff out there that is important to our industry, which is a perfect segue into what I've been posting about the last two days, which is this report by the National Association of Realtors, which shared that in the last 12 months, or April to March, April of last year to March of this year, something like 78,000 properties were purchased in the United States foreign entities.

And so, you know, yesterday I said, you know, enough of this shit. And then today I backed that up with some stats, you know, and also not just stats, but talking about China's policy. And I'm not picking on China, but you can't you can't do there what they can do here. And there you get one house at a time. You can only have one house. It's a leasehold, not a freehold. You have to live there for 12 months before you can buy anything. Meanwhile, the United States, there are no limits. Do whatever you want to do. Hey, I don't care where you're from. You got cash. You're good.

Kevin Foley (: 28:24

Mm-hmm.

Jim (: 28:38

Mm-hmm.

Greg Sher (: 28:51

You get the same rights as our citizens. Meanwhile, we have a surplus problem. We have an affordability problem. And every time these foreign entities come in ⁓ and are willing to pay more than anybody else, what do they do? They drive the price up. What does that do? It hurts the affordability. of goes hand in hand.

Kevin Foley (: 28:54

Mm-hmm.

Jim (: 29:07

So yeah, I certainly appreciate your, you know, your call out for people to get out there and be more vocal and more brazen. I think that social media has worked kind of both ways with everybody. Or I think some folks are worried about what very conscious and what they say out on social media because there is this idea that you can get canceled or that there's a lot of risk in that if you say the wrong thing, that can go viral against you. But I also think that that is a problem, right? Cause people are afraid.

to say things that might be controversial. And I do appreciate that you get out there with a lot of great observations and takes on things that may be controversial or not. I'm sure you have at least half of the people that hear it agree with it. And I would bet that more of your followers than that agree with it. And these are great topics we've brought up already.

Greg Sher (: 29:38

Sure.

I don't really worry about that.

worry about that. I feel like as long as I'm coming from a genuine place and that I don't have a self-interest behind it, and I marry that that I'll end up okay. And certainly, I'm sure there plenty of people out there that read what I write and go, you know, what an a-hole. Like, can't stand that guy. And that's cool. People can turn the channel, right?

I'm trying to help the industry out. 54. I've been in this industry for 27 years. I stumbled in it by accident. and I'm in what I call the legacy phase of my career. What can I do to bring along the next generation? What can I do to inspire people and leave the industry in a better spot than that? I found it in particular in the last couple of years. So I've gotten sort of feel like I've been uh, rejuvenated a lot. And, you know, I want people to follow me on LinkedIn. see my name, Greg share.

Jim (: 30:44

Mm-hmm.

Greg Sher (: 30:45

you know, go to LinkedIn, look me up, you know, follow me, ask to be connected and I'll accept your request and, agree or disagree. Like I just want to create, I love the way Kevin puts it's a water cooler for important topics in the mortgage business. And, and I'll spend 30 minutes, an hour offline with someone that wants to learn how to do what I'm doing. And I can tell you that in order to make an impact, you have to do the things that I just mentioned. You have to be fair, balanced.

Jim (: 30:59

Mm-hmm.

Greg Sher (: 31:13

No self-interest, do your homework. But there are other fundamental things that you need to do. You need to be consistent. You can't be a helicopter poster where you come in and dump something, topic in, and expect that everyone's gonna look at what you have to say. You also have to go into other people's or posts and make a lot of comments. Show up, be accounted for. And if you do those things, I just gave you the ingredients to being able to influence in a very positive way an industry that you care a lot about.

Jim (: 31:21

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Foley (: 31:42

I think that's great advice. just, you know, I think the consistency piece is really important. know, visible, kind of reminding people that you're there, you've got things to say, you've got your own thoughts. I think that's great advice. I'm curious on the topic of advice, you know, one of the things that you talk about is mentorship within the industry, outside of kind of the things that we've been talking about here.

Jim (: 31:42

That's a great roadmap.

Kevin Foley (: 32:07

more or being more visible, using your authentic voice. What big pieces of advice do you have for folks who are making this industry their home and want to grow or get to the next level?

but.

Greg Sher (: 32:19

let me

take this in a different direction, because I think I did just answer that question. I'm giving people, I've just gave the road map. So if you rewind this and you listen to what I said, I told you how to go about it, how to think about things, do your homework, post consistently every day, every other day, in other people's threads, comment.

whether you agree or disagree like that, that is the roadmap to anyone that wants to elevate. I just gave it to you. So go back and listen to what I said. I will say that something that I'm very passionate about, opportunity I think, is to elevate more women in our industry. We have some incredible women. Many of them are afraid to speak up because it's a male dominated industry. And part of what I champion is the women in our industry and doing what I can. I encourage my good friend, Jennifer Beeston.

who's the top VA purchase lender in America to get up on stage with me at HousingWire. She had never been on a stage like that. And she was up there with me at the gathering and I interviewed her. And I'm going to champion her, own Chief Legal Officer, Latasha Waddy, encouraged her to get on stage. She had never been on that stage before. She wrote a book largely.

because on financial literacy, largely because of a group that she was in being mentored by the great Patty Arvielo. And so I encourage Latasha to get up on stage. And so I think we have a responsibility as, it's us in numbers by a lot. And you listen to Mpower and what Marsha Davis is doing at the MBA. You want to be a great leader advocate for our women. Give them the courage, give them the fuel.

give them the permission, not that they need it, but support them, encourage them, push them out onto more forums like this, more stages, because I'm biased. I owned a mortgage company prior to coming to NFM, and every person in leadership was a woman. I just know that there's a lot, there's like a pent up.

There's a lot of pent up more impact that they can be making if they just feel comfortable. And it's a real thing. Like I talk about permission and things like that, that women don't need any permission, part of the perceptions, part of the bias is that whoever they work for, mean, Marsha talks about this, like in conference rooms, a lot of women are afraid to speak up because you've got, you know, males that come over the top, cut them off, do things like that.

Like we got to work at being better there. So that is an opportunity. You're asking me for how people can elevate, get behind the great women in our industry. If you're, if you're a man and, and push more women out, in the limelight because they're gonna, a lot of the greatness in our industry is, is because of the women that are in it. And we need to tell that story more.

Jim (: 35:10

Hear, hear. Yeah, it's definitely an issue that's been in our industry beyond the hundred year history of mortgage banking and in the finance industry in general, I think there's not nearly enough women. I think you're right about the reasons for that.

Kevin Foley (: 35:11

Yep.

Greg Sher (: 35:24

Yeah. And I, and I know a lot of the women in your, in your great company and, ⁓ what Optimal Blue does. You guys, think are, you show up, you you go to industry events, you support the industry in a big way. I've sat across from several people in your organization, women at functions, ⁓ and just keep doing what you're doing. You know, I love, I love this idea, ⁓ that you're, you you're out here, you know, on this podcast talking about things that are relevant.

to the industry and really putting a different, more thoughtful spin on the things that you talk about. I went back and looked at a bunch of your podcasts and you guys really do a great job. You're not just out there talking about the normal run of the mill stuff. You're very thoughtful. mean, even in this, Kevin approached me and said, Hey, you know, what do you think about this? And you presented five topics. And then he, got on the phone with someone, with someone in your organization to talk about how it might look once we got on the

Podcast so that that's like two three steps beyond what most people do to get prepared and that's how much you care So, you know hats off hats off to optimal blue

Kevin Foley (: 36:27

Yeah.

No, we appreciate that. And hey, you really appreciate you coming on Greg. It's been great getting to know you more and just following the things that you're talking about. always look for that. What's that next big topic that you're sinking your teeth into? So I'm following what you're talking about with foreign ownership of housing in the US and very interested to see where that conversation goes.

Greg Sher (: 36:35

Sure.

I

appreciate it. Thanks so much for the support and this is a great opportunity for me and for the industry. So thank you.

Jim (: 36:58

Thank you so much, Craig. Great conversation.

Greg Sher (: 37:00

Pleasure.

Let's do it again.

Jim (: 37:02

All right, let's wrap this thing up. Big thanks Alex, Kevin, and Greg. Really had a good time talking to Greg. I particularly appreciated the conversation about the lack of women in our industry. I do think we're missing opportunities there to hire more strong, brilliant women, but that's why we're talking. You know, we can always do better. That's it for today. Join us next week for another episode of Optimal Insights, where we'll continue to provide you with the latest market analysis and insights to help you stay ahead.

Check out our full videos on YouTube. You can also find each episode on all major podcast platforms. Thank you for tuning in to Optimal Insights.