Shutdown Signals, Affordability, and the Future of Mortgage with Anita Padilla-Fitzgerald | Nov. 10, 2025

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 00:00

you have to trust the technology that's working for you

loan officer or the relationship manager, want to be able to trust it. But you also, as an owner, you have to lower your cost and you have to produce quality and you have to have a loan that you can deliver into the secondary market. mean, that is all mission critical,

Jim Glennon (: 00:41

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. Welcome everybody. It is November 10th. Good afternoon. to talk about today. Really good show for you as usual. We'll start out with a market update. We'll talk with Alex and James.

Got a little bit of data last week that we'll talk about from University of Michigan. We'll talk about some fed speakers. We'll talk about the hopefully end or partial end to the government shutdown story, which seems to be unfolding here on Monday. And also just discuss a little bit of what we've been seeing on social media over the weekend from Donald Trump, from Bill Pulte, and then some of the reactions to it. Around a 50 year mortgage, around just more creativity surrounding home affordability.

that, we have the rare honor of interviewing Anita Padilla Fitzgerald. Many of you know her in our industry. She is the CEO of an extremely successful mortgage company called Megastar. She's also the founder of Take3 Technology, includes a platform called LoanMaps. Anyway, we'll get into just a ton of good content with Anita about the mortgage industry and about technology in ⁓ the mortgage industry.

All right, before that, let's talk a little bit about data. OBMMI 6.2 right now, still stubbornly high above that five handle. 10 year is at 411. So it's still continuing to see that spread tighten a little bit between those two numbers, but still not quite hitting that five handle that we'd all like to see. But good volume the industry right now. Pretty steady purchase volume, but seeing a good spike in and term and cash outs in the OBMMI data.

All right, let's go talk with Alex and James about what's going on in the market.

Jim Glennon (: 02:33

All right, James, Alex, lots to talk about today, which is a welcome development. We don't have a ton of data. We actually did get a little bit of data that we'll talk about with the Michigan consumer sentiment. we'll start with hopefully some good news from the weekend. The government might be reopening is what we're hearing. The votes are starting to move their way through and at least on an interim deal, right? Through end of January. Is that you all are hearing?

Alex Hebner (: 02:58

Yeah, yeah, had eight Democratic senators kind of flip to get them straight to a 60-40 vote and they need a 60-40 vote to pass Senate bill. There really were not major concessions made or rather it seems that the Democrats have conceded on the Affordable Care Act that they've been holding out for that wasn't included in the bill that they sent back to the House.

James Cahill (: 02:59

Yeah.

Alex Hebner (: 03:26

for approval. were were provisions in there regarding SNAP benefits. So it seems that they've maybe kind of struck a middle ground, but they've definitely not gotten what they've been they've been holding out for.

James Cahill (: 03:37

there is a provision in what they've put forward that a vote into summer has to be done on whether or not to extend the ACA, but that's whether or not to do it. So we'll cross that bridge again, you know, 30 days from now, but everyone can agree, right? Just in time for travel for the holidays and everyone who's on Snap should be getting it. So these are definitely positives. And for us,

Jim Glennon (: 03:53

Right.

James Cahill (: 04:04

A little bit more data will be coming out very soon here. So I'm going to approve of that.

Jim Glennon (: 04:05

Mm-hmm.

Yay data, right on. Yeah. So furloughed workers are going to get back pay here soon. So hopefully that means, yes, especially folks like the air traffic control workers who have been slowing down a little bit and causing some travel troubles for others. I guess that impact will be minimized here with hopefully with folks getting paid again as they should be. But the Affordable Care Act, which is essentially Obamacare, right? That's been the most contentious item in this whole.

shutdown and they're kind of kicking that can down the road to around Christmas when we'll have a vote on that. So hopefully get something in place before the, this bill expires, which would be January 30th, they said, right? So we're just sort of an interim path to reopening the government.

Alex Hebner (: 04:54

Yeah, definitely. wouldn't say we're out of the woods yet. One, this bill has to go back to the House. The House will make any changes that they deem fit. to pass the House again, and then it'll get sent back to the Senate for a final approval. So not out of the woods on this round of the government shutdown quite yet, although things are looking good from what everyone's saying in the media. And then on top of that, as you say, we could be back here again in December and January facing another And then once the holiday travel season's by, they might deem it.

a little more okay to keep things shut down for longer periods of time. think it really did seem like the two sticking points for lot of Americans were SNAP benefits, which makes a lot of sense for getting food in your stomach. then the second major point really did seem to be the fact that people just can't get places air travel. So maybe it could be a little more politically convenient to keep things shut down a little longer in the spring. I don't wanna be pessimist about it and hopefully they can arrive at a longer term funding deal, but.

I could see that path or so.

Jim Glennon (: 05:54

All right. So more to come on that hopefully in the next 24 hours. So let's just stay on the government here for a minute. If you all have been following social media over the weekend, there was more talk about affordability from the president as well as Bill Pulte. And then that's kind of started a domino effect of folks opining on the latest idea or I guess the proposition to come from the White House, which would be a 50 year mortgage.

Something we've heard before, we've had 40 year mortgages before. We've had things like interest only, we've had creative vehicles to try to lower the monthly payment for borrowers, but this time around, 50 year mortgage was proposed and kind of thrown out there as a way to make housing more affordable, especially for first time home buyers. It did not land well, I'll say, at least in the circles that I've following, which is a pretty broad spectrum, especially on LinkedIn.

which is mostly people from our industry, didn't have great things to say about it. Obviously a 50 year mortgage doesn't exactly, you're going to pay a lot more over time is what that amounts to. Your monthly payment might drop by a couple hundred bucks because you're spreading out the principal over a longer period of time. for that reason, you're also paying a lot more interest in the long run, almost.

you know, 50 % more than you would be otherwise. So anyway, they got shot down pretty well the masses and maybe deservedly so. But I think that was, you know, that came on the heels of other discussion about LLPAs, which that saga kind of took a, I don't know, a turn last week as well, where the meetings with Barry Habib and others, I don't know if they fizzled out or they kind of ended with no real proposal that I could see other than.

They were discussing some ways to lower LLPAs on things like second homes and investment properties that had been jacked up during the pandemic, but that obviously doesn't help the first time home buyer or the want to refinance their primary residence.

I know, did you guys read much more on the, on some of this rhetoric coming out of the kind of the FHFA circle?

James Cahill (: 08:04

I

had a couple of the numbers written down. I thought that this was a good way to think about it is, so California, home price is $800,000, which that is something to sit with on its own, but $800,000 California,

Jim Glennon (: 08:18

Mm-hmm.

James Cahill (: 08:20

for a 30 year mortgage, you're paying like $4,800 a month. With a 50 year mortgage, you'd be paying $4,220. So it's like a $600 difference. ⁓ No one's gonna say $600 is nothing, that's worth it. But the interest payment that you're gonna pay over time effectively doubles. adds $1.7 million in interest to the payment that you're gonna do, which that's a staggering number. Definitely hard to swallow.

I think that's, you know, when people sat down and just did the math and kind of saw these, it's $600 a month really going to cut it for people when you're going to spend an extra 20 years paying $2 million.

Jim Glennon (: 09:03

Right. The math just doesn't make it that attractive when you put the pencil to it, which kind of makes sense. Like there's not a really good way to cheat this, this affordability issues. think what we're finding from all of these different ideas. So yeah, 600 bucks for a handful of years. I suppose that the idea would be with the hopes that rates dip at some point in the next decade and you can get out of that 50 year mortgage into a shorter term at a lower rate. But assuming you can't, assuming rates.

keep rising with deficits and taxes, presumably given the average first time home buyers in their late 30s, you're literally going to be probably dead by the time you pay off a 50 year mortgage if you actually take it to its term.

Alex Hebner (: 09:47

Absolutely. No, think I think what James said is spot on and you can play with the numbers, whatever state you're in, whatever your locales average home prices, it does come out to about doubling the cost of your loan. think maybe one caveat you could say is it's a bit of a, you know, taking out a 50 year, you know, 5 % loan or, you know, maybe by next year, you know, something a little bit lower, you could call it an inflation hedge. But that I think that's that's a tough sell when people are seeing, you know,

600 bucks and okay, like I need my property to double in value for me to break even 50 years down the line, know, again, assuming I'm still alive and making payments on that 50 year loan. So, maybe if your outlook is that rates are have a risk to the high side, and maybe inflation is in the game, you can make an argument for it, but I'm, I'm the same boat as you guys. I think it's, going to be a tough sell to, to a lot of people.

Jim Glennon (: 10:20

That's right.

James Cahill (: 10:37

paying so much more interest for so much longer, it takes much more time for you to have stake in the house, right? For you to be paying principal and actually taking ownership of it. So like if things start going wrong, I have been paying for 20 years and I still don't even own 10 % of the house, like,

Jim Glennon (: 10:43

Mm-hmm.

Alex Hebner (: 10:51

Yep.

Jim Glennon (: 10:52

Right? So, I mean, I applaud the administration for trying to make some moves here, right? And as we've talked about on this podcast over and over again, there's not a simple answer. LLPAs and G fees thing was an idea, but it would certainly, almost certainly eat into the profitability of Fannie and Freddie if they were to make major moves there. So that there are some reasons why that's not very palatable. And then you have the ideas of maybe getting the GSEs more active in the open market where they're buying.

you know, MBS for their portfolio, sort of like the Fed did during COVID and at other times during quantitative easing. What does that look like? Just to shorten that spread between like treasuries and mortgages, you could get a quarter point, three eighths of a point there, which would that'd be a few hundred bucks a month too, right? Without stretching the term out to anyway, nothing really concrete has come out of many of these discussions, unfortunately, but I like the fact that they're continuing.

to look for a better answer than what we see today, which is record low affordability.

of record low, we want to switch gears a little bit, we did get a little bit of data this week because the University of Michigan does put out some of their own surveys that don't rely on the government to actually come out. So Alex, you and I were talking about this with James before we started recording. What did we get last week and why is it terrible?

Alex Hebner (: 12:13

Yeah, no great pivot. ⁓ But yeah, it's the humish consumer sentiment index came out in not too hot of shape. Expectations were for it to slightly rise, which I don't quite see how they were expecting to see it quite rise in the past month with really no end of the government shutdown in sight. real number that came out was ⁓ a 6.2 % drop from the previous release. So near historic lows and it really just kind of

know, conglomerates all the trends that we talk about on the podcast here, the housing market, know, you have record low affordability, the labor market, have, you know, slow to hire, ⁓ slow to fire, you know, and just the general outlook on, you know, for, for, for like the, the lower, you know, 90 % of, of Americans is, not super high right now. If you're, you know, not in an asset owning class,

outlook is not super great. You just seem prices rise over the past five years or so declining improvements to your wages. So, you know, I think that just, like I said, just kind of captures the general gist of the US economy for that bottom half.

Jim Glennon (: 13:18

Yeah, it's that K shaped economy we keep reading about, Again, like you said, if you own assets, you own a home, maybe a second home, you own equities, maybe you own a business, generally things are looking pretty well. Prices are going up at pretty much four out of five days of the week, stock market's up. But if you're on the other side, which is a majority of our country, things are not going well. Prices are still going up. You're still getting squeezed. Jobs are difficult to find, like you said. Meanwhile, the government is shut down, so a lot of folks are literally not getting paid.

or not getting any sort of benefits from the government. Meanwhile, we're obviously still paying taxes, right? At a pretty good clip. So yeah, I'm with you. don't know why we would have expected some sort of increase in that number, maybe because it has been close to historic lows. So folks thought maybe we were due for a dead cat bounce, if you will. But like you said, we had a huge move to the downside and almost a record low. Even if you count the great financial crisis, you count

early days of COVID still didn't have a sentiment number quite this low. So I think that's something we'll be keeping an eye on and something that is going to get a little more attention because there's no government stats coming out. it's how do people feel? And that can drive an economy, that can drive spending going into the holidays, right? If people really feel lousy about their money and their prospects for work, you're probably going to cut your budget for Christmas shopping at the very least.

All right, what else do we have going on this week? We do have some fed speakers, is that right? Alex, like a ton of them.

Alex Hebner (: 14:47

Yeah, there's 11 on the good deal of voting members. The three I'd keep an eye on. We have Myron speaking on Wednesday. He's the guy who's been the most recent governor appointee. He's been calling for those 50 basis point cuts. He's deep in the Trump camp on that. have Waller. He's also speaking on Wednesday. I think it's Waller first and Myron different speaking engagements, but you can live stream them obviously straight into your home. Myron was the kind of the old guard governors calling for cuts back in July.

And then on the flip side on Friday, we have Schmidt talking. He's the Kansas City governor who was the one calling for a pause at the last meeting. So we should get a really good diversity of opinion this week just from all these different engagements.

Jim Glennon (: 15:27

Sure. Well, this will be the week where things kind of settle in after the bit of the minor bomb that was dropped by Powell after the meeting a couple of Wednesdays ago, Where he said, we're far from a guaranteed cut in December, but it is starting to feel like we're back to expecting that, right? You have one dissenter maybe, you have Myron on the other side kind of saying, I think we should cut 50, but 25 will do it, right? It does seem pretty.

Pretty baked in at this point that we'll get that quarter point to end the year in December.

Alex Hebner (: 16:00

Yep, and that's what the market show right now as well. You know, just expecting a.

Jim Glennon (: 16:05

All what else do we have here gents? Did we cover everything?

Alex Hebner (: 16:08

I just about. Hopefully, you know, I wouldn't expect data out as early as next week if we do get a government reopening, but if we do see it reopening hopefully here in two weeks, we should get some good data for late November.

Jim Glennon (: 16:10

You're good here, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, more to come on that. I'm sure there'll be some sort of plan to, to, either restart and probably start from scratch with things like the BLS numbers versus some other numbers. Maybe they would come out in arrears if folks are interested in what, you know, manufacturing looked like in September. Well, yeah, keep your fingers crossed. Look for the reopening here, hopefully at least partially over this next couple of days, watch the fed speakers and keep, yeah, keep an eye on, on I'd say on social media, especially.

around FHFA. It feels like something has to come out soon that's going to be at least somewhat interesting to our industry. All right, Alex James, as always, a pleasure. Thanks for talking today. Have a good week.

Alex Hebner (: 17:04

Thank you.

James Cahill (: 17:04

Talk to

Jim Glennon (: 17:05

Welcome everybody. We're very excited to have Anita Padilla Fitzgerald with us today. Anita is just an amazing person and visionary in our industry. You likely know her if you don't, hopefully you'll come away today with some really good information about Anita. Too many accomplishments to name on this podcast, but she's the founder of a very successful mortgage company called Megastar, actually here in Denver.

where I live. She's also the founder of Take3 Tech, which includes a platform called LoanMaps, which we'll talk about a little bit later. is a system that helps Megastar and other mortgage companies lower their costs to originate. also on several mortgage bank boards and somehow has time service in the community as well. So welcome, welcome Anita. Great to have you here.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 17:50

Thanks.

I'm happy to be here.

Jim Glennon (: 17:53

Okay, where to begin? Maybe just at the beginning of Anita's career. So you started ⁓ in the mortgage industry as a receptionist, right? So what motivated you from there just to keep climbing that ladder and eventually becoming CEO and founding multiple businesses?

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 18:11

I would say what motivated me...

was the fact I started as a receptionist and then I worked every position in the ⁓ manufacturing chain. So as I worked those positions, I found ⁓ opportunity and I've always been competitive. I'm curious about how to make things better. So each time I solve for a problem and try to gain efficiencies, help my manager,

the next door open, eventually taking me through every part of loan And that hands-on experience became the foundation for everything I followed. It gave me insight to start businesses, lead teams, and build companies and processes that solve for problems.

Jim Glennon (: 19:03

That's great. I mean, that's, I think that's a great lesson for young people, right? Just get into any kind of business. mean, most of us did not go to school or plan to be in mortgage, but we, got in and I mean, you, you've been in all the areas. A lot of us maybe did one or two. We started maybe post-closing and then we get into secondary. but you are all around the business, learned it, solved problems. That's a huge, I think, lesson for young people when you get out of school, whether it's out of high school, out of college, like be a problem solver.

Like figure things out rather than wait for things to come to you. Right.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 19:35

Yeah, and when you figure things out, it's really interesting is what I've learned is things really aren't that difficult words that people use if you take the time to study them, it's really no big deal. And that was very enlightening, enlightening for me because then I was able to say, I can do that or take something that people thought was complicated and make it simple.

Jim Glennon (: 20:02

Right.

Kevin Foley (: 20:03

Yeah. And I'll also just give a plug to something you said there about your curiosity. think that was, know, when we first met that was one thing that stood out to me is that you're always curious terms of how other folks might be solving problems. And you're very up to speed on the pulse of tech within the industry. really stood out to me, depth at which, you were

curious solutions from OB as well as solutions that we partner I just think that that's a very remarkable quality and a quality that I think a lot of folks should aspire to is to have that level of curiosity. So another plug there.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 20:48

Yeah, well, thank you. I think the love for people also, I just really love people, want to see them be successful how can you help them? And when you look at something that's slowing them down, they can't get access to information. So curiosity and really love, love for people and wanting to see them be successful. That's probably the way.

Jim Glennon (: 20:48

Agreed.

Sure.

Kevin Foley (: 21:13

That's wonderful.

Jim Glennon (: 21:16

That's probably a good segue. So you've been running, again, an extremely mortgage company for going on 27 years, I believe, which, the great financial crisis, COVID, through all of it, and somehow also found time to take three. What is the vision there? So you talked about just people being able to get it data. I know that's a big piece of it, just generally integrating all the different parts of your business and allowing people to work to their strengths. But what is the general vision of LoanMaps and the other...

the other tech that you provide.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 21:46

Yeah, so starting really with the rule tool, when the market

crashed and investors, banks, aggregators came out with so many overlays, there was really no consistency. So you had your core, the agency investors and then all these overlays. I'm very passionate about the self-source loan officer I look at our business being commoditized and hats off to the companies who have done that rocket

being one of them. They've done a great job building out their tech and bringing information forward to empower human beings and give them information. So the self-sourced loan officer, I think they bring a huge value to our business, but they need information. So for the rule tool, I said, well, I can just take all the agency guidelines. I can organize that data on the cloud, add the overlays, and then be able to

to provide the loan officers with the information they need on a Saturday afternoon without standing in line to talk to the underwriters. Underwriters are expensive, right? And our ability to manufacture quality is critical. So we have to provide information. And the rule tool now integrated with Optimal Blue, it's really powerful.

The loan officer's been able to see best acts based on PPE data, but best acts doesn't do you any good if the client doesn't qualify. So to be able to just click a button and get the information in terms of any type of overlays before they lock is critical. In particular, when you're locking a jumbo and the owners lock best efforts, they have to meet the guideline.

Jim Glennon (: 23:26

Mm-hmm.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 23:46

you know, it's just really empowering humans in terms of loan maps, same concept. Really, I just wanted a report as I grew up in the business and I was asked to manage things. If I couldn't get an accurate report, then it was difficult to manage because we had data in the PPE, we had data in the LOS, you had data here, there. So same concept. said, well, I can take all

of that data and build a system not is just a front end but an awesome back end. Management of your funded pipeline is critical, docs, all of those things, if you don't take care of them, that expense can become a burden. So I just took all the data, I call it a source of truth, organized it in a database and built an end-to-end

Solution reduce the fintech costs so you have one instead of four or five You have one source of truth Where you can provide? Reports you can launch AI that will work so you don't have a robot calling a client I think United Wholesale is doing this where you want to refi but the broker has the loan in process Well, they don't know that but you know, it's those type of things

Jim Glennon (: 25:09

Thank

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 25:12

that go on and on. So as I see these AIs built, I think to myself, you know, they're working off this core that they don't own, and then what happens if the core changes. you know, database, is everything.

Jim Glennon (: 25:29

Right. So it's that one stop shop for the originator, as you said, right? Not just self-sourcing clients, but self-sourcing the eligibility, the guidelines, then the resulting data. I want to see my pipeline. I want to report on it. And all of that's in one place, including soft guidelines. I think that's one thing you were alluding to, right? When you say Optimal Blue and a pricing engine is going to have those hard guidelines, know, LTV, FICO, but you're able to overlay other soft guidelines that...

Kevin Foley (: 25:30

Yeah.

Jim Glennon (: 25:58

get deeper into the credit report or deeper into the collateral. That's fantastic. Like you said, it streamlines it to where the loan officer's not spending time and others in operations are not spending time talking to them, yeah, mean, that kind of verbal discussion is kind of an old school concept at this point, especially at Megastar.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 26:00

Yes.

Yeah, and non QM makes it even more complicated, right? I mean, it's just a lot of information in our world and aggregating that into digestible content where people can apply human intelligence, make great decisions lower cost to produce.

Jim Glennon (: 26:19

Sure.

Right.

Kevin Foley (: 26:37

Yeah. And one of the things that I was most excited about with the rule tool when we first started talking about integration opportunities was ask Auggie AI powered question and answer capability within the rule tool. Cause I just think that's a great use of AI ask a question, a specific question and have the AI tool read the structured data.

from the rule tool and provide that specific response back. So you don't need to go looking tools or you might with keyword search, is still powerful, you still might have multiple matches and you got to figure out exactly which one is going to be most relevant you. But Ask Auggie I thought was really cool because it's just ask your question, get your response. And I think also shows the prowess that

Take Three has and Megastar has with AI. And so maybe just to segue on that a little bit, also mention that there's probably everyone's sick about hearing about AI in our industry or a lot of folks, it's AI everything. But I have to say the amount of folks that I have met are really in the weeds about AI, what it's good at, what are some of the challenges with AI.

I think still fairly small percentage of folks in our industry. So a lot of people who are in the process of getting up to speed, but Anita, think you and your team have really been at the forefront of understanding AI, where it's applicable, what it can do, then just going after those opportunities. And I'm curious just where you see things heading in the next, let's say, five or 10 years as it relates to AI.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 28:22

Yeah. Well, AI is a buzzword and where I think our industry is today, I think about the dot com phase, right? Anything with a dot com and all this equity, venture, mean, just crazy money coming at this stuff. The reality is AI is really not new. It's just a matter of grabbing data.

Jim Glennon (: 28:41

Mm-hmm.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 28:51

and then, know, applying, you know, querying your data, applying some logic, and then having the system produce a result. So it keeps going back to that core. If you don't have, I call it a skeleton,

which is the skeleton of the body is that data. And without one master data warehouse, one source of truth, I don't see how all of these AIs are going to...

stand the test of time and then owners aren't going to get the results they need, losing trust. mean trust in our industry is critical. The loan officers need to trust it. So I built loan maps for the industry and sure I owned a mortgage company and I thought to myself, huh, people keep telling me that we're rare in that we

have been profitable every month, every year since my company opened.

So I think the industry has been good to me and I want to give back. again, I'm very passionate about the self-sourced loan officers and the owners who serve them. So I built loan maps for the industry to help them. So in terms of the AI industry coming, I don't know. I would be afraid. I wouldn't build.

a company off of a course system that I didn't manage. I just wouldn't. But you know, some pretty smart people out there and I don't claim to know everything. I'm a common sense person, always have been.

Kevin Foley (: 30:40

Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. definitely see, see that challenge out there we're thinking about AI, whose data, you know, are we working with? does it paint a complete picture of what's happening out there? and then also there's just, there's naturally things that I think AI is better at or better.

you know, better position to solve problems. And then there are things that, AI still can't do. You still can't tell it to, Hey, you know, build me an LOS. And then it just goes and does that. That's, that's not, that's not a real problem that, that AI can solve for you. But, both, megastar take three and optimal blue have, you know, done a lot of work to identify where those opportunities are.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 31:14

Good night.

Kevin Foley (: 31:28

to ask Augie being one great example and also originate our originator assistant, is similarly, applying AI to, go look at rules, guideline and, and, uh, pricing rules within, a lender's PPE account to be able to produce suggestions for small changes in a loan scenario. So, you know, that's that core, you know, if you will, that, that, that we have that we can.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 31:30

Okay.

Kevin Foley (: 31:53

leverage AI to provide, you know, solve problems and provide a benefit back to lenders. And so I think that's very in line kind of with how we're approaching things with what you're talking about with Megastar and Take 3.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 32:06

you're absolutely right, Kevin, AI absolutely has its place. mean, we have AI all throughout loan maps, all throughout the liberal tool. And the goal really is to help people be smarter, faster, make good decisions, Ronald Reagan always said, trust, but verify. Well, you know, that's true. And you have to trust the technology that's working for you because if it's just taking off on its own and the

the loan officer or the relationship manager, I mean, that's a big deal, right? They want to be able to trust it. you also, as an owner, you have to lower your cost and you have to produce quality and you have to have a loan that you can deliver into the secondary market. mean, that is all mission critical, but I agree with you. And like with Augie in the rule tool, you can just ask them a question to your

point, the keyword search is powerful because it's a great trainer, bring in a new person. Speaking of training, LoanMaps, Augie, in LoanMaps will read your MISMO file and say, by the way, before you run your AUS, you're missing these fields. It'll coach the consumer who's applying, well, I need this data for a prequel, but if you want an upfront approval, I need this data. Then it helps the loan officer walk all the way, documentation. Let's talk about

day one certainty and aim. the validations are only with Fanny Freddie. But everybody's like, click, click, digital, digital, digital. Well, let's stop because first of all, it doesn't work for FHA, VA, USDA, and Jumbo. And it only works in some cases for Fanny Freddie. So Augie

will actually recommend a documentation path to the loan officer. Hey, this is good. This person could actually achieve D1C or AIM.

But do you want to pay for the work number because you're never going to get D1C or AIM because they don't meet the minimum qualification. But they're telling you, they're telling the owners just click, click, click, click, click. And every time they click, costs them money. So, Auggie's in there doing that and even telling if like, I don't know how to order a credit report. We'll just ask him and he'll tell you step by step in terms of using the technology.

Jim Glennon (: 34:25

Mm-hmm.

Right. So I mean, at the end of the day today, AI is still very young, but there are a lot of practical, you kind of have to start with practical applications. Where can I really use this? And you have to start with a very tight, accurate data structure, right? To your point, Anita, with loan maps, we've certainly done that, you know, B with things like the originator assistant, the P and L assistance. When we know the data is accurate and tight, like our eligibility guidelines, it works very well, but down the road, you know, I think it'll become.

a bit more imaginable, but if you go, if I think if you get ahead of your skis, you're going to run into issues where the AI gathers data that you either don't manage or that you can't rely on. And then you're going to get bad answers. And then the feedback loop becomes much less efficient.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 35:26

Yep, yep. So, you know, and back to digital validation, until the market, all the agencies accept it, right? And the rating agencies are with the result and the performance of the was based on a digital verification plus validation.

industry's not there yet so

I took that in mind when I built LoanMaps. thought, okay, these business owners need to make sure they are able to deliver the loan. So I started out with, going to partner very tightly with the agencies because they're the keepers of the goal. So we're the first organization that has the income calculator results back from the self-employed income calculator.

actually

get a day one certainty on self-employed. But my point is, it doesn't cost the owner money. So when I sit and I look at some of these companies paying $75 to run an income count, I think to myself, well,

taking data and moving it into an income calculator, the human being still has to go in and make sure that all the lines are appropriate. If they're not, they're not going to honor the aim or the day one certainty. So we work very closely with the agencies, keep costs down, show the loan officer the documentation path.

use the income calculator and you literally have a upfront approval. If you have the documentation that's required for self-employed and many ⁓ wage people, bonus, commission, whatnot immediately, and it's literally a certificate to deliver the loan into the secondary market.

Jim Glennon (: 37:26

Mm-hmm.

Huge.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 37:35

And

you don't have to pay $75 or $200 because it's part of the system. I

Jim Glennon (: 37:39

Right.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 37:43

the market still has a way to go with all the other agencies in the span of clients that can actually qualify. Then lenders don't use a lot of lenders that I've talked to about their manufacturing cycle. don't use day one certainty or aim. One person told me that their underwriters told them that it didn't work or something like that. He's the CEO of a company and I was just like,

Okay, the CU stores, mean...

Jim Glennon (: 38:12

Yeah. Doing it.

Kevin Foley (: 38:15

Yeah.

Well, that's very interesting. talked quite a bit about talked about some of the opportunity that exists. topic that's near and dear to us at OB and in our industry in general, our industry has many strong women like yourself, Anita.

But I think we would certainly be pegged behind other industries, just in the number of women, the folks in leadership and product roles. And what advice would you provide women looking to break into fintech, mortgage, financial services, help them reach that level of leadership? And what can the industry do?

support women who are looking to go down that role.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 39:07

know, I can give you the standard answers of the first one who has to believe in yourself is you, right? But what I have found in my career and, you know, I've had that question not only as a woman, but also a woman of color, has that been issue for you? you know, my answer is really no.

And because I think I have been curious and I brought value to my employers, they would give me opportunities. Now as an executive woman, I will tell you know, men have their

groups, whether they're golfing or smoking cigars or whatever it is men do. But you know, that's just our world. And you know, shame on us women for not having those same groups so that we can be collaborating and learning and sharing. I'm actually starting a group.

I'm going to call it Can I constant and never ending improvement for executive women? I'm inviting some women to my home in Park City so we can get together and just collaborate. So you know, women need to support women and I will tell you that in my community in Denver,

I have met other Latina women that are very, very successful federal judges appointed by the president of the United States, and we have really worked to help each other.

And so, you know, for women, I say, you know, be strong, be curious, and believe in yourself. And if you're working for a company that doesn't recognize the value you bring, then maybe you need to find another company. But you know, women are nurturers, we're organizers, we're hard workers. And you know, women just tend to really care about that human being.

Not that men don't, but you know, we're models. We're mothers. And we're avalos.

Jim Glennon (: 41:10

Sure.

Yeah, that's, that's a great, ⁓ powerful message. need to thank you. You articulated that really well. And I think you had some interesting, ⁓ an interesting take on this and excited to see how this new group shapes up. think, I think that's, that's a very proactive approach to take to, try and to just cultivate, you know, more powerful women in our industry and throughout, you know, just the working world. really appreciate that you're doing that and for sharing that with us.

And that's probably a good note to end on, think. I don't know what kind of question we could ask that would top that. thank you so much. This has been amazing interview. Thank you for taking time today. I know you're spending some time with your family this week and that's super important as well. So thanks for having a little discussion with us this morning and we hope to talk again real soon.

Kevin Foley (: 41:49

Yeah.

Anita Padilla Fitzgerald (: 42:07

right on. Well, Kevin and Jim, thank you guys very much. All right. Have a great day. Bye.

Jim Glennon (: 42:11

All right. Thanks again, Anita. Take care.

Kevin Foley (: 42:12

Awesome. Thanks Anita. Yep.

You too.

Jim Glennon (: 42:17

Okay, let's wrap this thing up. Huge thanks to Alex and James. Great discussion. And of course, Anita, what a great interview. Thanks again for being on the podcast today. And that's it. 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. Thanks again for tuning into Optimal Insights.