December 13, 2024 • 40 mins
In this episode, we're joined by Bekim Merdita. Bekim is the EVP and a Founding Team Member of Rocket Mortgage Canada from Windsor, Ontario, which originally launched as Edison Financial in 2020. Edison Financial rebranded to Rocket Mortgage Canada on August 8, 2022, doing business under the brand Rocket Mortgage™️ throughout the country. In 2023, Rocket Mortgage Canada also became a mortgage lender and created Rocket Pro Canada, a team dedicated to helping broker partners submit deals to the Rocket Mortgage Canada lending channel.
In this episode we cover: → Bekim's journey within Rocket Mortgage in both the US and Canada, his goal of going from a 4 to 400 person team, and the mindset needed to 100x your business. → What he's learned launching a mortgage lender and Rocket Pro, the importance of speed in mortgage approvals, and attempting to eliminate the emotional rollercoaster of home buying with client certainty. → Why Canada is behind the US in mortgage tech, why lenders aren't as flexible as brokers in their tech stack, and what's being done to address the gaps of the inefficient manual mortgage process.
Rocket Mortgage Canada Website: www.rocketmortgage.ca
Rocket Pro Canada Website: www.rocketpro.ca
Bekim Merdita's LinkedIn: @BekimMerdita
Bekim Merdita's Instagram: @bekim_merdita
Lending Thoughts Podcast: @lendingthoughts
Lending Thoughts YouTube: @LendingThoughtsPod
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, welcome back to anotherepisode of Mortgage Tech Talks.
Today, I talked to Bakim Marditafrom Rocket Canada.
This was a cool podcast because heactually did back-to-back
podcasts.
So I actually did an episode on
his podcast, Lending Thoughts.
You're going to want to check that
one out.
I heard a lot of great things
about it and I just did an episodewith him.
On this episode of Mortgage TechTalks, we talk about a lot of
(00:20):
great things.
We talk about his journey from a
four-person team for Rocket Canadato now his goal of being a
400-person team, the differencesbetween the two.
His new venture, Rocket Canada'snew venture of being a lender,
really the difference between alender and a broker.
We also talk about he spent a lotof time in the US, the differences
between technology in Canada andin the US and why those gaps
exist.
And finally, some of the things
(00:41):
he's doing specifically to addressthose gaps.
It's a cool conversation and we'llsee you on the other side.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome back to another episode of
Mortgage Tech Mortgage Tech Talks.
Bakim, great to have you here.
How are you?I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me, Tom.
(01:02):
Yeah.
Well, let's get right into it.
For all those listening, we just
actually got off an hour on ButKem's podcast of Lending Thoughts.
It was great.
I was the guest.
I gave some amazing answers.
So you're going to want to check
that out.
And now it's my chance to grill
him.
So I've been waiting an hour for
this.
So here we go.
But maybe to start, as I do, I dida bit of research and it seems
that you spend a good amount oftime really as a producer kind of
(01:24):
in the trenchers, so to speak.
And it seems that you had a lot of
success in those trenches.
Well, yeah, I guess maybe just to
start, maybe speak a little bit tothat success, you know, or some of
those keys and then to put thetech spin on it.
Was there any tech maybe that youuse specifically or the company
that you were with really used thekind of...
I'm always looking for that unfairadvantage, right?
That's always something that theysay, okay, well, if you're going
(01:48):
to market, you want to try, howare you unfairly better than
everybody else?So did you have that unfair
advantage or how did you thinkabout that?
So guess two parts, talked a bitabout that success and how did
technology play into that?So starting been that?
So starting out, I was a mortgagebanker, we call them in the
States.
That's where I started my career
at Rocket Mortgage, then known asQuicken Loans in 2012.
And sort of like rose up to theranks of the organization over
(02:10):
that period, then kind of startedover as a producer in 2020 when we
started this business.
We were just too small to have a
bunch of management layers.
So first thing I thought that we
probably could and should do isjust figure out what it's like to
be an agent in Canada.
And I got my license and started
talking to clients and figuring itout.
I think to answer your question intwo ways, something that I think I
(02:33):
excelled at was I was a reallygood communicator.
Some of that was probably natural,but I think there was another
component of it.
I was just a student of the game.
I had the advantage of growing upin that rocket ecosystem, which
was very training and developmentfocused.
Is it?Okay.
of Is it?Okay.
it?Okay.
Really get you to understand a lotaround human behavior and why
people make the decisions thatthey make.
You'll hear things like, you know,people make their decisions with
(02:55):
emotion and then they justify themwith logic.
And so how do we understand ourclients better such that we can,
you know, make sure that they'rewilling to make that decision,
which can be really emotional,especially around home ownership.
Yeah.
People need mortgages.
Like that's not going away.
And who do they get their mortgage
from?They get their mortgage from the
people that they like and thepeople that they trust.
(03:16):
And if they like and they trustyou enough, then they're picking
you over the hundreds orpotentially thousands of other
options that are available to themin the market.
And one thing I always foundinteresting is that at the time,
Rocket had hundreds of mortgagebankers in those days.
They, I think, have something over4,000 today, for example.
But two people can be sitting inchairs right next to each other.
Same leads, by the way.
One person might write one
mortgage for the whole month, andthe person sitting next to them
(03:38):
might do 30.
And it's like, how does that
happen?They went through the same
training and same everything.
And what you often find is that
one person is just deeplysystematic and focuses all their
attention on the communication.
So what do I mean by that?
I mean that they're going to lookat the way that they run their
business.
They're going to systematize the
whole thing.
So CRM, going back to the CRM and
(04:00):
the base layer of technology thatone is using.
And they're like, this is myprocess.
This is the way I run my business.
And once I've got that set up in a
really, really good way, I'm goingto spend no time worrying about
that anymore.
And I'm going to spend all my time
on the way I speak to my clients.
(04:20):
I want to spend as little time
processing as possible.
I want to spend all my time
basically in marketing and sales,which I really think marketing and
sales, they're fancy names forcommunication.
I'm going to spend all my time incommunication with other human
beings, and that's going to leadme to success.
And when I think about thetechnology that enables that, it's
a great CRM.
It's systematizing the whole
thing.
It's knowing when it should reach
out to your clients on your behalfwithout you having to go and
(04:43):
constantly press a button.
Like if you look at your week and
Thursday and Friday or yourfollow-up days, for example, and
the other three days of the workweek or the days where you can
actually go work your business,well, you're going to get crushed
by the person who can spend allfive days or six days working on
the front end of their business.
And that multiplies across the
(05:03):
year and across a tenure and makesa massive difference.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I difference.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, in that simple example
there, yeah.
You just say, oh yeah, Thursday,
Friday to follow up and, you know,whatever, just the last two days
of the week, I kind of mail itanyways, but that's a 40%
difference, right?Like that's massive, right?
What wouldn't, you know, any bigbusiness do for a 40% increase.
(05:24):
And if it's just building aprocess, that's, that's a huge
part of it.
So let me dig a bit and some of
the pushback I get, so I'm goingto push back on you.
I don't think it's fair pushback.
I'm going to transfer it over to
you anyways.
You know, I get here sometimes
where it's like, yes, I know thattrust and communication and
building relationships is so, soimportant.
And honestly, over time, that'sjust going to become more
(05:44):
important.
But try to do that at scale.
Or if I try to get a system to doit, it falls apart, right?
I'm not able to, you know, if I'mjust sending out some, I don't
know, I'll just use a simpleexample of some generic graphic of
a birthday cake on their birthday.
That's not the trust that I want
to build.
And so, you know, you can use that
example or not, but point being,how do you balance really good
(06:05):
communication and connecting tosomeone as a person versus balance
that against, you know, thesystems and being able to scale
and do those 30 deals in a monthversus the one deal in a month
that that other person would do?How do you think about those two
things and the trade-offs betweenthe two?
Or is there even a trade-off?Is that the right way to frame it?
That's a great question.
a great question.
(06:25):
I don't know that therenecessarily is a trade-off.
I think the best people are doingboth those things.
I think what you're ultimatelytrying to do is elevate the human
in the experience.
And that's how I think about a
great CRM or any great piece oftechnology.
It's not the technology itself.
When we describe ourselves, for
instance, we always say that weare humans helping humans powered
by technology.
This is why we don't really
identify ourselves as a technologycompany.
We're truly trying to figure outthe best methodology for helping
(06:46):
more people.
And I think that the less time,
again, that you can spend on thetechnology and the less time you
could spend systematizing, thebetter.
So one thing I talk about oftenwhen people ask me about the
mortgage business, or especiallyone like ours, which really
started with eight people, four ofus being on the front lines,
talking to clients, trying tofigure it out.
(07:06):
It's not so much like creating agood four-person mortgage
business.
I don't want to diminish that
because it's hard enough of a taskas it is to, you know, put four
people in a room and say, boom,mortgage business, go, go make a
living for yourselves.
That's really, really hard.
Yeah.
But even harder than that, I'll
argue is building that at scaleand making that repeatable is so
(07:28):
hard.
So, you know, I would have to look
to, you know, my partners in thisbusiness and say, like, if we just
wanted to have a four person team,I'm confident enough in my
abilities and, you know, the threepeople surrounding me here that
like, we can figure out how tocreate one of the best four person
mortgage businesses that the worldhas ever seen.
Could we create the best 400person mortgage business that the
world has ever seen?That's an infinitely more
(07:50):
challenging issue.
And the only way that you can
really do that is by having someprescriptive part of your process
that just says, this is the waythat we take care of clients.
This is how we act as advisors toour clients.
And culturally, if you're going tobe a part of this, there's just
some things that you're going toneed to accept that come along
(08:11):
with being a part of this team.
And it might not be the way that
you want to run your business andthat's okay.
But a couple of things that aregoing to be clear with our team is
like, we're going to have a reallygood data.
We are not going to cut anycorners on applications.
We are going to be really, reallygood to our lenders.
(08:32):
And what that means to us as abrokerage is making sure that
everything that we do is servingour lenders so that our lender can
serve us, which ultimately thenallows us to serve our consumers.
All of that stuff getssystematized.
All of that stuff gets put intoCRMs and our POS.
And then we rolled out a lender in2023, have a lending product on
(08:52):
the shelf as well, insured,uninsured today.
And we have to think about that interms of our own LOS as well.
It's like getting really good,systematic, clean, structured data
from one party to the next partyto the next party so that
everybody can do a really greatjob.
parties that everybody can do areally great job.
That is how we, you know, buildsomething that's scalable,
repeatable, and it's not relianton, you know, your eyes popping
open at three o'clock in themorning saying, Oh crap, I forgot
(09:12):
to call somebody today.
I better like, I better get on.
It's too late.
Like you should have a system
that's feeding you alongsidetelling you what you should do.
And we try to make sure that likeeverything's built in a way that
like client service never slips.
And if we take care of our
clients, our clients take care ofus and they come back to us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You on.
(09:32):
It's too late.
Like you should You know, I thinkfor a lot of people I talk to, a
lot of people listening, I think alot of them are at the four people
in a room sort of thing, goingback to your story.
So they have a lot of confidencein that core team and they've had
a lot of success, right?Especially past, you know, early,
you know, 2021, 2022.
And they've seen that success.
And I think a lot of people,again, that I talked to are
(09:56):
starting to look around andsaying, okay, well, you know,
where do I go from here?And a lot of people we talked to
is building their own tech system.
Other people, maybe it's, I don't
know, a lender, different thingslike that.
But other people is just saying,hey, maybe going from a four
person to a 400 person team.
So talk to me about your mindset,
like what's so different betweenfour and 400?
And is it so different that, youknow, you had to begin with the
end in mind, like if you just kindof started with a four person
(10:16):
team, and then you were doing yourthing for two, three years, and
then you lifted your head up andsaid, Okay, now it's time to go
400.
Is it already too late?
Like, do you need to be thinkingabout that 400, that goal in the
future as you're building up thebusiness already?
Or how do you think about thedifferences between that four and
400 person team?And I guess what processes and
systems and things need to bethought of at the business level
to enable that transition?So I think you said it perfectly,
(10:39):
I think you said it perfectly,which is when you're thinking
about building a 400 person team,you actually have to start with
the end in mind.
You do.
Yeah.
Okay.
Interesting.
You may be able to start with
post-it notes.
And as a four person team, you
might be able to run your entirebusiness off post-it notes,
frankly.
And maybe, you know, one little
sheet in front of you that says,don't forget to call the Hall
family back before you log outtoday type of thing.
(11:00):
But when you start to look atthings at scale, the difference
between closing three mortgagesper agent on average per month or
five mortgages per agent onaverage per month is the
difference between basicallywinning and losing in this
business.
And depending on your cost model
and your pricing model and allthose things, like it's extremely
sensitive to the slightestdeviations in your business and
achieving a specific layer ofproductivity at a specific, you
know, cost per acquisition at aspecific rate discount per loan.
(11:23):
And like really nailing that modelis something that you have to
really understand it.
Now, it doesn't mean that you
start from the end and that allyour assumptions are correct,
because I can guarantee you everysingle business in this world,
pretty much, I mean, unless youjust nail it, which is like, you
know, extremely rare.
And to anyone who's ever done
that, like this is the idea, theyget it right the first time, zero
pivots, and it just like, it justsmooths sales.
I haven't met them yet.
(11:43):
I'm sure they exist out there
somewhere.
I haven't I haven't either.
Yeah.
If you find them, let me know.
But yeah.
Absolutely.
I'll invest in their next venture.
But for most people, it is really
something where it's like youstart with an idea, you start with
a model, you start to build ahypothesis for how you're going to
get there.
And then you start really building
(12:04):
the base layer with the end layerin mind.
But what you'll find is thattechnology moves so fast.
People move so fast.
Your team changes so fast.
When you're trying to scale,things are just coming at you in
such a way that you can neverpredict the end.
So what you're actually best indoing is having the most dynamic
(12:27):
base layer of your business thatsolves for some of the biggest
future problems that you have.
And it's one of the reasons that
we've gotten the question manytimes in the past, but it's like,
you're a part of Rocket, you know,presumably you got some venture
funding to start this thing.
You know, we started as Edison
Financial and I think, you know,people had a misconception that
like, you know, we just had abillion dollars in the bank and we
just had to like, you know, go outand just build a business and
(12:49):
everything would just solve foritself.
It couldn't be further from thetruth.
In fact, you know, very scrappystartup.
It was like, just figure out ifyou can write and close mortgages
and then we'll, you know, we'llkeep going from there.
And we really just had to like getin a room, be entrepreneurial
about it and just figure eachthing out.
But coming back to my point aroundtechnology and how that plays a
(13:09):
factor.
One thing I think we did really
well was we set up our technologystack in a way that it's dynamic,
primarily based around third-partysystems with really good and tight
third-party integrations fromsystem to system to system to
system.
And why that's so necessary in our
industry is I don't think there'sanybody that has the entire value
chain completely nailed, right?So Blue is a CRM provider, for
instance.
It's probably the right option for
(13:30):
many, many people.
It might not be the best option
for 100% of mortgage agents in theindustry.
And by the way, that's okay.
You don't have to have 100% market
share to be successful, as you'veprobably learned.
And that's cool.
For some people, the next layer
would be their POS system and whatthey're using to basically submit
their applications and take alltheir client data.
A lot of them won't manage theirclients after the fact from there.
But then you start going furtheralong and then there's the POS
(13:51):
system.
There's the way in which you order
your appraisals.
There's if you want to build a
client portal for servicing and,you know, what do you do with
these clients who are on yourbooks?
Like there's so many things, butif you can build it in such a way
that as technology changes, you'renot managing such a massive code
base that doesn't allow you tomove with the times, then I think
you're setting yourself up to bemore dynamic, move a heck of a lot
(14:14):
faster as a business, not be ashyper-specialized in terms of the
type of developers you might needin future state.
You'll find companies that, youknow, have been around for a long
time and they're like, Hey, we'reon a 30 year old technology stack.
And like, we have to keep these 40people around for the business to
keep running because they're theonly ones who know how to fix it.
(14:35):
Right.
It's like your uncle or your dad
or something like that.
Who's like the only one at your
house who knows how to like fixthis old leaking faucet.
And like, they've got like thetrick.
And every time you try, I knowexactly I know exactly where to
hit the pipe to just, yeah ohthat's not a problem they hit the
just, yeah oh that's not a problemthey hit the pipe there every time
right but it's like you don't wantto live in a world where you're
(14:58):
reliant on something there everytime right but it's like want to
live in a world where you'rereliant on something like that you
want to be as dynamic as possiblemove as fast as possible i think
that's the advantage to a startupthat might be the only advantage
that a startup has playing againstpeople who have you know trillions
of dollars or billions of dollarsworth of mortgages flowing through
their systems.
Yeah, you you know, it's so right.
And I think it's this debate I'vehad on this podcast many times and
(15:21):
one that a lot of brokers come tous with, which is like this all in
one versus the, you know, many, abig toolkit where it's kind of
best in breed for all of them.
And, you know, for us, Blue, we
are very CRM focused.
We are kind of, you know, in our
lane there.
But I obviously get both sides
too, right?I get the appeal.
I'm not naive in that.
But I think that, I think you're
right.
You know, being able to be dynamic
is important today.
And it seems like it was important
(15:43):
for you to get from four to 400 orat least get on your journey
there.
But I think also, and we talked
about this when we chatted, howit's just going to be that much
more important going into thefuture.
Like there will be just so manymore tools.
I think the cost of developing newtools is going down.
So more tools, more things to use.
And with these new tools, you
know, if let's say something comesout that just completely changes
the game in terms of how youcommunicate with your clients or
underwrite a deal or book ameeting or whatever it is, it
doesn't matter how big or small itis in the process.
If something really kind of comesalong and revolutionizes that, you
(16:04):
want to be able to take advantageof that as quickly as possible.
And so, yeah, using systems thatare open and flexible that you can
just, you know, almost like a Legobrick, right?
Just click it in and you're offversus a big system that tries to
do everything.
And then you need to wait for that
system to build it in.
It's just a different paradigm.
And you know, that flexibility isso important.
(16:24):
So maybe thinking about thatflexibility, you can actually test
this theory that I have, somethingI say all the time, and I think
you're the perfect person toanswer it.
I always say to a lot of thebroker clients that we work with,
hey, one of the big advantagesthat you have is that you can move
so quickly, right?Especially when you're comparing
to lenders, especially let's talkabout big, big lenders who are big
organizations that have lots ofsteering committees and approvals
and this and that, you know, Ialways say, hey, a broker could
(16:46):
pick up a brand new tool and useit very quickly and learn if it's
a good thing or a bad thing fortheir business and either plug it
in or throw it out.
Whereas maybe a lender doesn't
have that advantage.
Now you being the perfect person,
because I think you see bothsides, both the broker and the
lender side of things.
So is my theory true or am I not
(17:06):
fully validated in that assumptionthat kind of that nimbleness that
brokers have versus a lender?Or do you guys just maybe approach
things different at your specificlender?
How do you think about thosedifferences between the two
different businesses and theirability to adopt new things?
Brokers are much more adaptable.
They have They have the ability to
flex much faster than a lenderwould.
Yeah.
It's a great question.
And frankly, something that Idon't even think I would have
understood myself until we hadgone through that journey on our
(17:28):
own.
And the real reason is that there
are very few loan operatingsystems or LOSs, not a huge
acronym guy, but I feel like I'vesaid a handful already.
I hate acronyms actually.
I'm sorry for that to anyone
listening.
A loan operating system, which is
just fancy way to say the placewhere deals get underwritten and
ultimately placed with anaggregator and then maybe passed
on to a servicer or service insideof that system.
But the connections that you haveto get in order to operationalize
(17:51):
a lender, it takes a long time tostand that up.
And there are very few of thoseplayers in the market today.
Whereas with brokerage technology,you could basically take it as a
standalone.
I could just take your CRM, Tom,
and the only place that I may haveto plug it in, I probably don't
even have to plug it in, but if Iwanted to, I could plug it in to
the POS, which is the point ofsale system that we're using.
(18:11):
So already.
using.
So yeah.
So the way to think about that is
like So the way to think aboutthat is like FIMO, Velocity,
Phylogix, whatever you want to usein that space.
But I can just operate from that.
I could just operate from the CRM
until I want to go and I want tosend the deal off into submission
category.
Or I could connect the two and I
(18:31):
get a little bit moresophisticated with my business
such that the two are speaking toeach other.
And you mentioned open APIs, moreacronyms.
What's API?God, I actually know this one.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
Application programming interface.
That's what it is okay thank you
in that world like when you canconnect systems to one another
then you start to make things alot faster and smoother the
trouble is once those systems allget connected inside of a single
(18:52):
ecosystem and every single personinside of that ecosystem are
players who I won't mention byname right now, but like they're
the established players and theydon't really, really need to win
on a new technology stack.
Like they've already won.
They're already in market.
There's tens of millions or
hundreds of millions of dollarsinvested into the technology that
they have.
It works.
They're profitable.
They've got a monopoly or a
(19:12):
duopoly or a triopoly.
Why do they need to change?
We already connected to yoursystem.
It's already working.
We're already getting your deal
flow.
We're good to go.
You would literally have to go toevery single person connected to
that underwriting software to say,I need you all to be better so
that I can be better.
Or you have to vertically
integrate to say, I need you allto be better so that I can be
better.
Or you have to vertically
(19:34):
integrate to say, I'm going to doeverything myself that everybody
else does.
Well, good luck.
Now you're starting a mortgageinsurer and an appraisal company.
You're becoming a bank becausethen you've got to be an
aggregator and you need a capitalmarkets desk.
And then you've got to serviceloans and things like that.
If not, I've got to rely on allthese pieces of technology
connecting to one single Andsystem.
then I've got to kind loans andthings like If that.
I've not, got to rely on all thesepieces of technology connecting to
(19:57):
one single system and then I'vegot to kind of live with it as it
is.
to service So to put it a
different way, it's not just atechnology problem.
Is that the way to put it?As you're saying that stuff, it's
like, oh, is this a place fordisruption, right?
Is this something that could bedisrupted?
But at the end of the day, itseems that, well, yes, but it's
(20:22):
not just tech disruption thatyou'd have to do.
You'd have to do tech, but then Xand then Y and then Z and then all
these things to the point whereany sane person would just say,
nah, forget it.
I'll just do what everybody else
is doing.
Is that the right way to summarize
it?Yes.
I'll give you a car analogy sincewe're based in Windsor, Ontario,
(20:47):
which is known for its building ofautomobiles.
And I'm originally from the otherside of the river in Detroit.
The assembly lines are right in mybackyard.
You can go and build a betterengine, but it doesn't matter if
you don't own the transmission andI won't even give you the list.
You get the idea.
Every other piece of a vehicle,
right?You'd said to me previously, like,
you know, you had a background inconsulting and engineering and
that led into mortgage, but it'smuch the same.
So like I can build one piece ofit.
It doesn't get me all the waythere.
(21:09):
And if I were to try to buildevery single piece of it to say,
I'm going to pull the Tesla,right.
I'm like, I'm going to to gobuild, I'm going to rebuild the
supply chain, which they did.
Right.
A hundred percent.
Right.
But they didn't start hundredpercent.
Right.
But they didn't start there.
Right.
They didn't start there.
And they sort of like took it insteps and then eventually got to
that place.
Well, how much capital would one
need to basically kick everysingle other player out of the
mortgage industry and basicallysay, here's the one-stop shop
solution for the entire technologystack and flow of capital
servicing, capital markets, loanmanagement systems?
(21:30):
flow of capital capital servicing,loan markets, management systems.
management systems.
I you look you the Tesla example
and you okay, Right.
mean, at, know, say, that was a
lot of capital for This would be alot of capital for But then you
say, sure.
sure.
okay, well, in Tesla's case, youknow, if you're a free market guy,
you say, okay, well, the amount ofcapital doesn't matter as much as
the ROI on that capital, right?Is there a return in Tesla and
there's a worldwide car marketthat goes along with it?
(21:50):
Well, then there's a lot ofcapital that justifies that ROI.
But for Canadian lending, youknow, that's a small market.
And so how much capital can bejustified given that ROI, right?
And so, you know, I think it's aninteresting paradigm that we live
in in Canada where I thinkthere's, you know, a lot of really
smart people, a lot of smartpeople building really cool tech,
but we're kind of overshadowed byour big neighbors from the South.
(22:10):
And it's something that's come upon this podcast a couple times for
sure to compare and contrast.
And so you mentioned you spent
some time in Detroit.
I think you said actually you're
originally from there, which isinteresting.
And let's go down that rabbit holea bit, I guess, maybe from that
tech lens, you know, making thatswitch, it sounds like, yeah,
you're a producer in the U S andthen you said, Hey, let's go do
(22:30):
this thing in Canada.
And you kind of went back to
ground zero and had to rebuildthings.
Or is there any kind of pointalong that rebuilding where like,
Hey, and then we'll just, youknow, plug in this thing.
And then you were like, what thatdoesn't exist in Canada.
Like, how do you guys not have,you know, X or Y or whatever?
Were there any moments like that?Were there any, you know, I guess
the bigger question being, whenyou look at the two markets in
(22:51):
terms of mortgage tech, are therereally big differences?
Are they more similar than youthink?
Or how do you think about the two?I think about about it every day.
Okay.
I love Canada for the fact that it
is so ripe for innovation, butit's also the rub.
Yeah.
In that when you come from the
(23:12):
outside and you see things beingdone in a way that you haven't
seen them done in 10 years, youthink you have all the answers to
all the problems.
It's not until you get really,
really into the weeds of thisbusiness that you really start to
understand why all these thingsdon't simply exist in the Canadian
market.
market.
Oh, that's why, right?Yeah.
That's why.
Like, it's like, oh my Yeah.
That's why.
Like, it's like, oh my gosh, don't
they know that you can justautomatically pull payroll and
bank data?Yeah.
(23:32):
You don't need to get pay stubsand bank statements anymore and
ask clients to like provide alltheir T4s.
Oh, it's regulatory.
And even if you pass the
regulatory hurdle, well, none ofthe lenders accept these things as
truth, despite them being likemore truth.
Yeah.
As we know in this industry, then,
you know, bank statements andthings like that, some of which
people can create on Worddocuments if they're willing to go
(23:53):
that far and risk their licenseand career.
But it is incredible.
You see things like some that, of
which people can create on Worddocuments if they're willing to go
that far and risk their licenseand career.
But it is incredible.
You see things like that every
single day.
And really, it took me some time.
I'm still not immune, but it tookme some time to stop accepting
things at face value for justlike, you know, hey, they don't
get it.
They don't get it, right?
(24:14):
Like, you know, I've lived inCanada for 10 years, but we
started this business in 2020.
So I had been here for six years.
I was still working for a U Scompany.
I was seeing the way that it wasdone.
And it was actually part of thatthat actually drove me to become a
part of, you know, the startupfounding team at Edison financial
was I bought my own house here inCanada.
I went through my own mortgageprocess.
Did you go through a broker?I went through a broker.
(24:34):
I went through a broker.
I actually got denied by two banks
because I wasn't yet a permanentresident or a citizen.
And they'd said like, oh, sorry,we don't have any programs for
you.
So a friend of mine referred me to
a broker like, hey, can run down asolution for you.
And sure enough, they actuallyfound me a solution.
(24:55):
That was what I got, you know,wise to the value of a great
mortgage broker to plug ourindustry here.
I went through that processthough.
And I was just mind blown.
I could not believe that they had,
you know, sent me a word documentsaying, please answer in red to
the following, like 63 questionsand like seriously black and
white.
And then I had to retype in red to
all these word document, reattachit and then send it back to the
(25:18):
broker who then like sent it offto the bank.
And then I hear anything forseveral weeks.
I'm like, I'm trying to buy ahouse.
And this is really, really bad.
I'm like, they do know that
technology solves for all this.
Right.
And yeah, turns out that, youknow, yeah, yeah, we know, but
there's really good underlyingreasons why these things aren't
(25:38):
there.
It's honestly a sad truth of our
industry, but maybe to put a bowon that as I think it's also the
most exciting thing of our butmaybe to industry, put a bow on
that as I think it's also the mostexciting thing about our industry.
Definitely have a long way to goin terms of digital verification.
Definitely have a long way to goin terms of document verification.
We have a long way to go in termsof getting faster approvals.
So I'll give you another littlepiece of technology that exists in
the United States, which does notexist in Canada.
I'll give you another little pieceof technology that exists in the
(26:00):
United which does not States,exist in Canada.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac havetwo tools.
One's called stay on this acronymDU, chain that stands for here,
Desktop Underwriter.
And there's another one called LP,
which is a Freddie Mac tool calledLoan Prospector.
And those are basically theCanadian equivalents to how we
would think about CMHC, Sage andCanada Guarantee, and that they
say, hey, as long as the loanchecks all the following boxes and
meets this underwriting criteria,we'll agree to insure that
mortgage.
So you're effectively underwriting
to their criteria such that youcan sell that loan off in the
(26:20):
secondary market.
It's not exactly akin to Canada in
that way, but the technology, whenyou think about it, what they do
is they bring the approvalforward.
So it's just basically a piece oftech that you as the mortgage
agent or broker can submit to.
And right on the front end, it
tells you whether or not that dealis approved or not approved.
Like if it's not approved, whatare some of the things that you
need to fix in order to get it toan approved status?
(26:42):
And what are the documents thatare going to be required to get
you not just a conditionalapproval, but the ultimate
approval?Still subject to some underwriting
in some cases, but it's pulledforward.
I'm not wasting any time.
I mean, we hear in our industry
every day, like BDMs, send me thedeal and let me take a look.
Like, let me spend all this time,you spent all this time now as the
(27:04):
agent, I'm the underwriter.
I'm going to spend all this time
as the lender trying to figure outif I could make this thing work.
When in reality, a single piece oftechnology could have just been
provided to the mortgage agent andthey just submit it.
They get all the answers that theyneed right there.
And then we're moving out withthat deal and we're moving forward
with that.
Like, why doesn't that exist in
our industry?Well, the answer is a lot of
(27:25):
reasons, but that's a whole notherpodcast for the, Oh, I could go
for days, but that is one of thosebeautiful things that, you know,
it exists in the United Statesexists in Australia.
It does not yet exist in Canadaexists in UK again, not in Canada.
It's coming.
It's coming.
I was going me but not I was goingto ask you though, right.
Is that, you know, we say there'sa whole bunch of reasons.
There's the regulatory.
Yeah, there's the technology.
Maybe there's the capital issues,right?
Business investment, not enoughpeople investing in Canada.
There's the long, long laundrylist.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Yes.
Is there one where it's like, ifwe could just solve this, so much
(27:54):
of the other things we can maybefigure out, is there one thing in
your mind or is it just, it's allthose, it's a death by a thousand
cuts where it's one, two, three,four, five, you know, the whole
list.
Like, how do you kind of think of
it?That's a great great question.
It is death by a thousand cuts togive you a very straight answer.
If it was one thing, somebodyentrepreneurial enough would go
(28:15):
out and they would solve that onething.
We have an ism here, which is theinches we need are everywhere
around us.
The reason why we speak, and it's
actually originally from any givenSunday, but it's like if it were
one thing we would just go do thatbut because it's a thousand things
it's like it's hard and it'sharder but it's also what makes it
(28:36):
beautiful because if you achievethat thing it really makes it a
lot harder to replicate as wellyeah yeah exactly right yeah yeah
exactly right if it was just yardseverywhere everyone would be
chunking those yards you win inthe trenches right you win inch by
inch what was it the six inches infront of you that was the the Al
Pacino, right?Or what is it?
Yeah.
You probably know better than me.
So, well, anyways, I think that,you know, in terms of you talked
about bringing the approvalforward, getting that super
(28:57):
quickly, and you talked aboutentrepreneurs coming along and
trying to address some of this gapthat exists.
You know, I'd obviously put youguys in that column of
entrepreneurs trying to addressthat.
And I think specifically, youknow, I see all over LinkedIn
under your lender specifically,you can correct me if I'm wrong on
this, I think, but I'm seeing alot of, Hey, approved in two days.
Hey, approved.
I think I saw one recently
approved in two hours, likesomething really, really
exceptional.
So again, correct me if I got any
(29:18):
of that wrong, but my question is,you know, why'd you choose to lead
with that?Why is that such a big part of
your, your marketing?Does that come from your days and
maybe your frustrations thatyou're describing?
Is it just something that kind ofis in your DNA of how you want to
kind of exist as a lender?Talk to me a little bit about
that, you know, campaign and thatidea of this very speedy approval
process.
I think it came from three things.
So the first is being a consumermyself and our teams being
(29:42):
consumers themselves.
The second is actually going out
and delivering on origination.
So being in mortgage sheet, the
mortgage agency, the mortgagebroker seat, I think that's what
makes it so cool is like, we arenot just, you know, a lender.
Some people might see that or hearthat and get a little bit scared
in that, like, Oh, like, wait, soyou guys are a lender.
So you're kind of my partner, butthen you also have a brokerage
too.
So you work with clients directly.
(30:02):
That's actually a tremendousadvantage because we actually know
what agents and brokers gothrough.
We've been through that.
We are that and rocket in the U S
took much the same path to wherethey are today.
And the third is just data on theclients and surveys that we've
done.
And it all came back to agents and
to certainty.
Forms, like you'll do surveys of
clients, like you'll go out andyou'll ask them and say, what's
your biggest pain point?Yeah.
Interesting.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thousands and thousands of closed
(30:22):
mortgages Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thousands and thousands of closedmortgages now give us significant
amounts of data on what clientswant.
We go in there and then we buildbar charts of why every client
backed out during the process orwhat clients are seeking from the
mortgage process.
And the overwhelming thing that we
get back from a data perspective,the overwhelming thing that even
we get from our internal team, andthen even from being consumers and
clients ourselves of our own homesand such is the faster that you
(30:43):
can give me certainty that mymortgage is approved and going to
close, the better that it is.
Yeah.
that it is.
If you can do that same day, if
you can do that in the sameminute, I would be delighted.
Because going back to even my ownmortgage, that process took weeks.
I've got a signed contract on ahome that I'm supposed to close on
in 30 days.
And I've wasted the first two
weeks just waiting to get ananswer back from you.
(31:04):
Yeah.
So now I'm like, think about all
the ducks that are like getting ina row from like a life perspective
to make a move happen two weeksout.
And I can't get an answer.
And I'm following up every three
days saying like, so what do youthink guys?
Like, am I getting this home or amI going to lose my deposit?
I you think guys?Like, am I Okay.
It's very stressful.
So clients are just very, very
(31:25):
clear in the data that they giveus.
They want certainty.
So we talked about how do we give
them that faster?And we started talking about this
concept of hours, not days.
Like I don't want to wait days.
I don't want to wait weeks ormonths.
I want to know inside of hours, ifI can order Uber Eats and I can
track that vehicle as it's likepicking up my food and then it's
bringing it to my house.
Why can't I track my mortgage the
(31:46):
same way?If I could track my pizza on
Domino's.
Yeah, that's Scott Peckford.
He always says the Domino's pizzatracker, right?
A hundred percent.
But like, yeah, I'm doing a
million dollar transaction hereand, you know, buying this
property and I've got a $700,000mortgage on it and I've got all
this money at risk, but nobody cantell me what's going It's Scott
Peckford.
He can tell me what's going on.
That is terrifying.
My family's sitting over here
waiting for a word and I'm the onewho's been talking to my mortgage
(32:08):
person on the phone.
So everyone keeps asking me
questions about like, so are wegood or are we not good?
We need to deliver that experiencefor clients.
We need to deliver that experiencefor agents and for brokers.
And we need to deliver thatexperience across the industry.
That is really what I thinkeverybody's relying on us on.
And it is not the great unlock,but I think it's one of the
unlocks to actually helping morepeople become homeowners in Canada
(32:31):
today.
That's our big mission.
Yeah.
You know, I was talking to Don Lee
two weeks ago.
You know, he said uncertainty is
actually the biggest stressor.
It's actually not necessarily bad
news.
Like if you got in that situation,
you know, you waited two weeks,you had no idea.
But if you got a no within anhour, that's actually maybe more
helpful than nothing for twoweeks, right?
Like hopefully you don't get thatno, right?
But then you know, and then youcan do something.
(32:53):
But it's, you know, it's thatuncertainty.
weeks, It's a bit of an ugly wayto compare it.
but like, you know, that's likekind of like the punch to the gut
where like, it kind of like hurtsin the moment, but you sort of
like move on and you keepfighting.
If you were to get like punched inthe back of the head repeatedly
over the course of like weeks,right.
It's like, I know this is, itcan't be good.
It can't be good.
(33:15):
It's been going on so long.
And that's what a mortgage startsto feel like.
And agents all the like, I be allthe time, like, oh, this client
backed out on me.
Well, like how long did it take
for you to give them certainty?It's the first question I ask
every single time, like not justthe approval, but like actual
certainty, we will close on thismortgage for you.
If you can deliver that at theconditional approval stage, and
then you can do it, deliver it atthe broker complete stage.
(33:36):
And then you can deliver it at thebroker complete stage.
And then you can deliver it at thelawyer's office and then
ultimately can have the keys.
Each one of those, if you truly
ask people how they're feeling,they will tell you that they're
stressed to no end.
A Zillow survey a few years back
found that over 50% of consumersadmitted to having cried during
the home buying process.
So was it 50% So was it 50% did
(33:57):
you say?Over 50% of people cry while
they're trying to buy a home.
This is supposed to be a
phenomenal experience.
You know, we celebrate these
things, right?All we ever see on social media is
like the keys and I got my keysand I'm so excited.
We just became homeowners, right?The sold signs and everything else
that gets highlighted in thatworld.
But more than half those peoplewere crying in the days leading up
(34:19):
to that.
They just didn't know that it was
going to happen.
If we can solve for that, we solve
for a lot.
Yeah, that's excited.
We just that's incredible.
Yeah, you don't see that.
And no one's posting those crying.
Well, some people do, but they're
more the exception than the ruleof the photos of them crying,
right?But that's interesting.
Maybe just to close out, I guess,I don't know if you have any quick
things to add on the tech side,but I think also maybe to close, I
(34:42):
think people also be curious justto understand, you know, just the
level of success that you'rehaving.
Obviously, I think, I don't knowhow much you're able to share or
not share, but obviously thislender venture is a new one.
And I think a lot of people havetheir ears up about it and I've
seen, you know, announcements andI've been seeing new brokerages
come online.
I just saw you had Mortgage
Wellness come online and we knowNick well, and that's great.
(35:03):
So congrats with that.
How's it going?
I mean, you have this hypothesisthat this speed is so important in
alleviating this uncertainty.
Are you seeing that now?
And being a data guy, are you kindof tracking, okay, we had this
hypothesis, is it right?Are we delivering on that?
We are getting feedback frombrokers every single getting
feedback from brokers every singleday telling us that they love it
or otherwise we wouldn't be doingit.
We also started with a pretty goodand proven hypothesis from the
(35:25):
U.S. in that our RocketPro TPObusiness stateside has been
focused on delivering a fasterapproval time and closing time for
years now.
And I was actually a part of that
business before I came over here.
So pretty well took my experience
and said, you know, this is whatbrokers want.
And then we validated that withour own experience here in Canada.
And it turns out it's even slowerhere.
So we know they want it even more.
And yeah, we have great partners.
You know, you mentioned MortgageWellness and Bricks Mortgage being
another one and Tribe beinganother one.
(35:47):
And HomeWise, we just rolled outwith them.
Nice job.
Yeah.
Great.
one.
And I think that's what's so coolabout our industry.
Like people are so willing topartner up and connect because
everyone wants the same thing,which is to deliver a better
experience to consumers.
So in our world, that's
Salesforce, it's Finmo.
It is, you know, Funmore is our
own operating system.
Those things sort of like enable
this experience that allows us tomove faster and provide a better
experience to brokers.
But at the end of the day, those
brokers are responsible forproviding a better experience to
(36:08):
their clients.
So if they can give their clients
what they want, which iscertainty, and we can deliver that
for them, they will continue towork with us.
The more that they give us theirbusiness, the more that we can
invest back into our business.
We grew this business from, you
know, just a couple of people in awar room to the 130 plus people
that we have today, really justlistening to consumers, listening
(36:29):
to agents, saying, what do youneed for us to make your business
better and for us to deliver abetter experience?
And we just show up every day.
So much so that I drive fast to
the office because that's how muchthis mission excites me.
That's how much fun we have doingit.
It's not to say it's always superfun and exciting, but the mission
is just so clear and obvious.
And it's so important, I think, to
Canadians.
People want to own homes and they
want to do so with a good level ofcertainty and comfort.
(36:52):
And if we can provide that forconsumers as a lender, especially,
then that's how we enable ourbrokerage.
That's how we enable otherbrokerages.
And I think that's how we win.
That's a great place to wrap up.
Thanks so much for coming on here.
This was awesome.
I know we pulled a double headerhere, but this was amazing.
I really appreciate it.
And yeah, we'll chat soon.
How can people find you if theywant to learn more?
A couple of places.
So my new podcast, which I'm
(37:13):
having a lot of fun with here atRocket is Lending Thoughts.
I'm on all social media platformsas well.
Tom, hopefully you follow onthere, but I try to stay pretty
active.
Probably best reach on LinkedIn.
Just my first and last name, BekemRadita on LinkedIn is popular
place to follow me.
I try to stay active.
I schedule it into my calendar andtry to do a decent job of just
providing information about me,the business, and what I'm seeing
in the world right now of mortgageand real estate.
(37:34):
So follow me there.
Awesome.
Thanks, Bekem.
Thanks, Bekem.
Have a good one.
Thank you.
Hello, welcome back to anotherepisode of Mortgage Tech Talks.
Today, I talked to Bakim Marditafrom Rocket Canada.
This was a cool podcast because heactually did back-to-back
podcasts.
So I actually did an episode on
his podcast, Lending Thoughts.
You're going to want to check that
one out.
I heard a lot of great things
about it and I just did an episodewith him.
On this episode of Mortgage TechTalks, we talk about a lot of
(00:20):
great things.
We talk about his journey from a
four-person team for Rocket Canadato now his goal of being a
400-person team, the differencesbetween the two.
His new venture, Rocket Canada'snew venture of being a lender,
really the difference between alender and a broker.
We also talk about he spent a lotof time in the US, the differences
between technology in Canada andin the US and why those gaps
exist.
And finally, some of the things
(00:41):
he's doing specifically to addressthose gaps.
It's a cool conversation and we'llsee you on the other side.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome back to another episode of
Mortgage Tech Mortgage Tech Talks.
Bakim, great to have you here.
How are you?I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me, Tom.
(01:02):
Yeah.
Well, let's get right into it.
For all those listening, we just
actually got off an hour on ButKem's podcast of Lending Thoughts.
It was great.
I was the guest.
I gave some amazing answers.
So you're going to want to check
that out.
And now it's my chance to grill
him.
So I've been waiting an hour for
this.
So here we go.
But maybe to start, as I do, I dida bit of research and it seems
that you spend a good amount oftime really as a producer kind of
(01:24):
in the trenchers, so to speak.
And it seems that you had a lot of
success in those trenches.
Well, yeah, I guess maybe just to
start, maybe speak a little bit tothat success, you know, or some of
those keys and then to put thetech spin on it.
Was there any tech maybe that youuse specifically or the company
that you were with really used thekind of...
I'm always looking for that unfairadvantage, right?
That's always something that theysay, okay, well, if you're going
(01:48):
to market, you want to try, howare you unfairly better than
everybody else?So did you have that unfair
advantage or how did you thinkabout that?
So guess two parts, talked a bitabout that success and how did
technology play into that?So starting been that?
So starting out, I was a mortgagebanker, we call them in the
States.
That's where I started my career
at Rocket Mortgage, then known asQuicken Loans in 2012.
And sort of like rose up to theranks of the organization over
(02:10):
that period, then kind of startedover as a producer in 2020 when we
started this business.
We were just too small to have a
bunch of management layers.
So first thing I thought that we
probably could and should do isjust figure out what it's like to
be an agent in Canada.
And I got my license and started
talking to clients and figuring itout.
I think to answer your question intwo ways, something that I think I
(02:33):
excelled at was I was a reallygood communicator.
Some of that was probably natural,but I think there was another
component of it.
I was just a student of the game.
I had the advantage of growing upin that rocket ecosystem, which
was very training and developmentfocused.
Is it?Okay.
of Is it?Okay.
it?Okay.
Really get you to understand a lotaround human behavior and why
people make the decisions thatthey make.
You'll hear things like, you know,people make their decisions with
(02:55):
emotion and then they justify themwith logic.
And so how do we understand ourclients better such that we can,
you know, make sure that they'rewilling to make that decision,
which can be really emotional,especially around home ownership.
Yeah.
People need mortgages.
Like that's not going away.
And who do they get their mortgage
from?They get their mortgage from the
people that they like and thepeople that they trust.
(03:16):
And if they like and they trustyou enough, then they're picking
you over the hundreds orpotentially thousands of other
options that are available to themin the market.
And one thing I always foundinteresting is that at the time,
Rocket had hundreds of mortgagebankers in those days.
They, I think, have something over4,000 today, for example.
But two people can be sitting inchairs right next to each other.
Same leads, by the way.
One person might write one
mortgage for the whole month, andthe person sitting next to them
(03:38):
might do 30.
And it's like, how does that
happen?They went through the same
training and same everything.
And what you often find is that
one person is just deeplysystematic and focuses all their
attention on the communication.
So what do I mean by that?
I mean that they're going to lookat the way that they run their
business.
They're going to systematize the
whole thing.
So CRM, going back to the CRM and
(04:00):
the base layer of technology thatone is using.
And they're like, this is myprocess.
This is the way I run my business.
And once I've got that set up in a
really, really good way, I'm goingto spend no time worrying about
that anymore.
And I'm going to spend all my time
on the way I speak to my clients.
(04:20):
I want to spend as little time
processing as possible.
I want to spend all my time
basically in marketing and sales,which I really think marketing and
sales, they're fancy names forcommunication.
I'm going to spend all my time incommunication with other human
beings, and that's going to leadme to success.
And when I think about thetechnology that enables that, it's
a great CRM.
It's systematizing the whole
thing.
It's knowing when it should reach
out to your clients on your behalfwithout you having to go and
(04:43):
constantly press a button.
Like if you look at your week and
Thursday and Friday or yourfollow-up days, for example, and
the other three days of the workweek or the days where you can
actually go work your business,well, you're going to get crushed
by the person who can spend allfive days or six days working on
the front end of their business.
And that multiplies across the
(05:03):
year and across a tenure and makesa massive difference.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I difference.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, in that simple example
there, yeah.
You just say, oh yeah, Thursday,
Friday to follow up and, you know,whatever, just the last two days
of the week, I kind of mail itanyways, but that's a 40%
difference, right?Like that's massive, right?
What wouldn't, you know, any bigbusiness do for a 40% increase.
(05:24):
And if it's just building aprocess, that's, that's a huge
part of it.
So let me dig a bit and some of
the pushback I get, so I'm goingto push back on you.
I don't think it's fair pushback.
I'm going to transfer it over to
you anyways.
You know, I get here sometimes
where it's like, yes, I know thattrust and communication and
building relationships is so, soimportant.
And honestly, over time, that'sjust going to become more
(05:44):
important.
But try to do that at scale.
Or if I try to get a system to doit, it falls apart, right?
I'm not able to, you know, if I'mjust sending out some, I don't
know, I'll just use a simpleexample of some generic graphic of
a birthday cake on their birthday.
That's not the trust that I want
to build.
And so, you know, you can use that
example or not, but point being,how do you balance really good
(06:05):
communication and connecting tosomeone as a person versus balance
that against, you know, thesystems and being able to scale
and do those 30 deals in a monthversus the one deal in a month
that that other person would do?How do you think about those two
things and the trade-offs betweenthe two?
Or is there even a trade-off?Is that the right way to frame it?
That's a great question.
a great question.
(06:25):
I don't know that therenecessarily is a trade-off.
I think the best people are doingboth those things.
I think what you're ultimatelytrying to do is elevate the human
in the experience.
And that's how I think about a
great CRM or any great piece oftechnology.
It's not the technology itself.
When we describe ourselves, for
instance, we always say that weare humans helping humans powered
by technology.
This is why we don't really
identify ourselves as a technologycompany.
We're truly trying to figure outthe best methodology for helping
(06:46):
more people.
And I think that the less time,
again, that you can spend on thetechnology and the less time you
could spend systematizing, thebetter.
So one thing I talk about oftenwhen people ask me about the
mortgage business, or especiallyone like ours, which really
started with eight people, four ofus being on the front lines,
talking to clients, trying tofigure it out.
(07:06):
It's not so much like creating agood four-person mortgage
business.
I don't want to diminish that
because it's hard enough of a taskas it is to, you know, put four
people in a room and say, boom,mortgage business, go, go make a
living for yourselves.
That's really, really hard.
Yeah.
But even harder than that, I'll
argue is building that at scaleand making that repeatable is so
(07:28):
hard.
So, you know, I would have to look
to, you know, my partners in thisbusiness and say, like, if we just
wanted to have a four person team,I'm confident enough in my
abilities and, you know, the threepeople surrounding me here that
like, we can figure out how tocreate one of the best four person
mortgage businesses that the worldhas ever seen.
Could we create the best 400person mortgage business that the
world has ever seen?That's an infinitely more
(07:50):
challenging issue.
And the only way that you can
really do that is by having someprescriptive part of your process
that just says, this is the waythat we take care of clients.
This is how we act as advisors toour clients.
And culturally, if you're going tobe a part of this, there's just
some things that you're going toneed to accept that come along
(08:11):
with being a part of this team.
And it might not be the way that
you want to run your business andthat's okay.
But a couple of things that aregoing to be clear with our team is
like, we're going to have a reallygood data.
We are not going to cut anycorners on applications.
We are going to be really, reallygood to our lenders.
(08:32):
And what that means to us as abrokerage is making sure that
everything that we do is servingour lenders so that our lender can
serve us, which ultimately thenallows us to serve our consumers.
All of that stuff getssystematized.
All of that stuff gets put intoCRMs and our POS.
And then we rolled out a lender in2023, have a lending product on
(08:52):
the shelf as well, insured,uninsured today.
And we have to think about that interms of our own LOS as well.
It's like getting really good,systematic, clean, structured data
from one party to the next partyto the next party so that
everybody can do a really greatjob.
parties that everybody can do areally great job.
That is how we, you know, buildsomething that's scalable,
repeatable, and it's not relianton, you know, your eyes popping
open at three o'clock in themorning saying, Oh crap, I forgot
(09:12):
to call somebody today.
I better like, I better get on.
It's too late.
Like you should have a system
that's feeding you alongsidetelling you what you should do.
And we try to make sure that likeeverything's built in a way that
like client service never slips.
And if we take care of our
clients, our clients take care ofus and they come back to us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You on.
(09:32):
It's too late.
Like you should You know, I thinkfor a lot of people I talk to, a
lot of people listening, I think alot of them are at the four people
in a room sort of thing, goingback to your story.
So they have a lot of confidencein that core team and they've had
a lot of success, right?Especially past, you know, early,
you know, 2021, 2022.
And they've seen that success.
And I think a lot of people,again, that I talked to are
(09:56):
starting to look around andsaying, okay, well, you know,
where do I go from here?And a lot of people we talked to
is building their own tech system.
Other people, maybe it's, I don't
know, a lender, different thingslike that.
But other people is just saying,hey, maybe going from a four
person to a 400 person team.
So talk to me about your mindset,
like what's so different betweenfour and 400?
And is it so different that, youknow, you had to begin with the
end in mind, like if you just kindof started with a four person
(10:16):
team, and then you were doing yourthing for two, three years, and
then you lifted your head up andsaid, Okay, now it's time to go
400.
Is it already too late?
Like, do you need to be thinkingabout that 400, that goal in the
future as you're building up thebusiness already?
Or how do you think about thedifferences between that four and
400 person team?And I guess what processes and
systems and things need to bethought of at the business level
to enable that transition?So I think you said it perfectly,
(10:39):
I think you said it perfectly,which is when you're thinking
about building a 400 person team,you actually have to start with
the end in mind.
You do.
Yeah.
Okay.
Interesting.
You may be able to start with
post-it notes.
And as a four person team, you
might be able to run your entirebusiness off post-it notes,
frankly.
And maybe, you know, one little
sheet in front of you that says,don't forget to call the Hall
family back before you log outtoday type of thing.
(11:00):
But when you start to look atthings at scale, the difference
between closing three mortgagesper agent on average per month or
five mortgages per agent onaverage per month is the
difference between basicallywinning and losing in this
business.
And depending on your cost model
and your pricing model and allthose things, like it's extremely
sensitive to the slightestdeviations in your business and
achieving a specific layer ofproductivity at a specific, you
know, cost per acquisition at aspecific rate discount per loan.
(11:23):
And like really nailing that modelis something that you have to
really understand it.
Now, it doesn't mean that you
start from the end and that allyour assumptions are correct,
because I can guarantee you everysingle business in this world,
pretty much, I mean, unless youjust nail it, which is like, you
know, extremely rare.
And to anyone who's ever done
that, like this is the idea, theyget it right the first time, zero
pivots, and it just like, it justsmooths sales.
I haven't met them yet.
(11:43):
I'm sure they exist out there
somewhere.
I haven't I haven't either.
Yeah.
If you find them, let me know.
But yeah.
Absolutely.
I'll invest in their next venture.
But for most people, it is really
something where it's like youstart with an idea, you start with
a model, you start to build ahypothesis for how you're going to
get there.
And then you start really building
(12:04):
the base layer with the end layerin mind.
But what you'll find is thattechnology moves so fast.
People move so fast.
Your team changes so fast.
When you're trying to scale,things are just coming at you in
such a way that you can neverpredict the end.
So what you're actually best indoing is having the most dynamic
(12:27):
base layer of your business thatsolves for some of the biggest
future problems that you have.
And it's one of the reasons that
we've gotten the question manytimes in the past, but it's like,
you're a part of Rocket, you know,presumably you got some venture
funding to start this thing.
You know, we started as Edison
Financial and I think, you know,people had a misconception that
like, you know, we just had abillion dollars in the bank and we
just had to like, you know, go outand just build a business and
(12:49):
everything would just solve foritself.
It couldn't be further from thetruth.
In fact, you know, very scrappystartup.
It was like, just figure out ifyou can write and close mortgages
and then we'll, you know, we'llkeep going from there.
And we really just had to like getin a room, be entrepreneurial
about it and just figure eachthing out.
But coming back to my point aroundtechnology and how that plays a
(13:09):
factor.
One thing I think we did really
well was we set up our technologystack in a way that it's dynamic,
primarily based around third-partysystems with really good and tight
third-party integrations fromsystem to system to system to
system.
And why that's so necessary in our
industry is I don't think there'sanybody that has the entire value
chain completely nailed, right?So Blue is a CRM provider, for
instance.
It's probably the right option for
(13:30):
many, many people.
It might not be the best option
for 100% of mortgage agents in theindustry.
And by the way, that's okay.
You don't have to have 100% market
share to be successful, as you'veprobably learned.
And that's cool.
For some people, the next layer
would be their POS system and whatthey're using to basically submit
their applications and take alltheir client data.
A lot of them won't manage theirclients after the fact from there.
But then you start going furtheralong and then there's the POS
(13:51):
system.
There's the way in which you order
your appraisals.
There's if you want to build a
client portal for servicing and,you know, what do you do with
these clients who are on yourbooks?
Like there's so many things, butif you can build it in such a way
that as technology changes, you'renot managing such a massive code
base that doesn't allow you tomove with the times, then I think
you're setting yourself up to bemore dynamic, move a heck of a lot
(14:14):
faster as a business, not be ashyper-specialized in terms of the
type of developers you might needin future state.
You'll find companies that, youknow, have been around for a long
time and they're like, Hey, we'reon a 30 year old technology stack.
And like, we have to keep these 40people around for the business to
keep running because they're theonly ones who know how to fix it.
(14:35):
Right.
It's like your uncle or your dad
or something like that.
Who's like the only one at your
house who knows how to like fixthis old leaking faucet.
And like, they've got like thetrick.
And every time you try, I knowexactly I know exactly where to
hit the pipe to just, yeah ohthat's not a problem they hit the
just, yeah oh that's not a problemthey hit the pipe there every time
right but it's like you don't wantto live in a world where you're
(14:58):
reliant on something there everytime right but it's like want to
live in a world where you'rereliant on something like that you
want to be as dynamic as possiblemove as fast as possible i think
that's the advantage to a startupthat might be the only advantage
that a startup has playing againstpeople who have you know trillions
of dollars or billions of dollarsworth of mortgages flowing through
their systems.
Yeah, you you know, it's so right.
And I think it's this debate I'vehad on this podcast many times and
(15:21):
one that a lot of brokers come tous with, which is like this all in
one versus the, you know, many, abig toolkit where it's kind of
best in breed for all of them.
And, you know, for us, Blue, we
are very CRM focused.
We are kind of, you know, in our
lane there.
But I obviously get both sides
too, right?I get the appeal.
I'm not naive in that.
But I think that, I think you're
right.
You know, being able to be dynamic
is important today.
And it seems like it was important
(15:43):
for you to get from four to 400 orat least get on your journey
there.
But I think also, and we talked
about this when we chatted, howit's just going to be that much
more important going into thefuture.
Like there will be just so manymore tools.
I think the cost of developing newtools is going down.
So more tools, more things to use.
And with these new tools, you
know, if let's say something comesout that just completely changes
the game in terms of how youcommunicate with your clients or
underwrite a deal or book ameeting or whatever it is, it
doesn't matter how big or small itis in the process.
If something really kind of comesalong and revolutionizes that, you
(16:04):
want to be able to take advantageof that as quickly as possible.
And so, yeah, using systems thatare open and flexible that you can
just, you know, almost like a Legobrick, right?
Just click it in and you're offversus a big system that tries to
do everything.
And then you need to wait for that
system to build it in.
It's just a different paradigm.
And you know, that flexibility isso important.
(16:24):
So maybe thinking about thatflexibility, you can actually test
this theory that I have, somethingI say all the time, and I think
you're the perfect person toanswer it.
I always say to a lot of thebroker clients that we work with,
hey, one of the big advantagesthat you have is that you can move
so quickly, right?Especially when you're comparing
to lenders, especially let's talkabout big, big lenders who are big
organizations that have lots ofsteering committees and approvals
and this and that, you know, Ialways say, hey, a broker could
(16:46):
pick up a brand new tool and useit very quickly and learn if it's
a good thing or a bad thing fortheir business and either plug it
in or throw it out.
Whereas maybe a lender doesn't
have that advantage.
Now you being the perfect person,
because I think you see bothsides, both the broker and the
lender side of things.
So is my theory true or am I not
(17:06):
fully validated in that assumptionthat kind of that nimbleness that
brokers have versus a lender?Or do you guys just maybe approach
things different at your specificlender?
How do you think about thosedifferences between the two
different businesses and theirability to adopt new things?
Brokers are much more adaptable.
They have They have the ability to
flex much faster than a lenderwould.
Yeah.
It's a great question.
And frankly, something that Idon't even think I would have
understood myself until we hadgone through that journey on our
(17:28):
own.
And the real reason is that there
are very few loan operatingsystems or LOSs, not a huge
acronym guy, but I feel like I'vesaid a handful already.
I hate acronyms actually.
I'm sorry for that to anyone
listening.
A loan operating system, which is
just fancy way to say the placewhere deals get underwritten and
ultimately placed with anaggregator and then maybe passed
on to a servicer or service insideof that system.
But the connections that you haveto get in order to operationalize
(17:51):
a lender, it takes a long time tostand that up.
And there are very few of thoseplayers in the market today.
Whereas with brokerage technology,you could basically take it as a
standalone.
I could just take your CRM, Tom,
and the only place that I may haveto plug it in, I probably don't
even have to plug it in, but if Iwanted to, I could plug it in to
the POS, which is the point ofsale system that we're using.
(18:11):
So already.
using.
So yeah.
So the way to think about that is
like So the way to think aboutthat is like FIMO, Velocity,
Phylogix, whatever you want to usein that space.
But I can just operate from that.
I could just operate from the CRM
until I want to go and I want tosend the deal off into submission
category.
Or I could connect the two and I
(18:31):
get a little bit moresophisticated with my business
such that the two are speaking toeach other.
And you mentioned open APIs, moreacronyms.
What's API?God, I actually know this one.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
Application programming interface.
That's what it is okay thank you
in that world like when you canconnect systems to one another
then you start to make things alot faster and smoother the
trouble is once those systems allget connected inside of a single
(18:52):
ecosystem and every single personinside of that ecosystem are
players who I won't mention byname right now, but like they're
the established players and theydon't really, really need to win
on a new technology stack.
Like they've already won.
They're already in market.
There's tens of millions or
hundreds of millions of dollarsinvested into the technology that
they have.
It works.
They're profitable.
They've got a monopoly or a
(19:12):
duopoly or a triopoly.
Why do they need to change?
We already connected to yoursystem.
It's already working.
We're already getting your deal
flow.
We're good to go.
You would literally have to go toevery single person connected to
that underwriting software to say,I need you all to be better so
that I can be better.
Or you have to vertically
integrate to say, I need you allto be better so that I can be
better.
Or you have to vertically
(19:34):
integrate to say, I'm going to doeverything myself that everybody
else does.
Well, good luck.
Now you're starting a mortgageinsurer and an appraisal company.
You're becoming a bank becausethen you've got to be an
aggregator and you need a capitalmarkets desk.
And then you've got to serviceloans and things like that.
If not, I've got to rely on allthese pieces of technology
connecting to one single Andsystem.
then I've got to kind loans andthings like If that.
I've not, got to rely on all thesepieces of technology connecting to
(19:57):
one single system and then I'vegot to kind of live with it as it
is.
to service So to put it a
different way, it's not just atechnology problem.
Is that the way to put it?As you're saying that stuff, it's
like, oh, is this a place fordisruption, right?
Is this something that could bedisrupted?
But at the end of the day, itseems that, well, yes, but it's
(20:22):
not just tech disruption thatyou'd have to do.
You'd have to do tech, but then Xand then Y and then Z and then all
these things to the point whereany sane person would just say,
nah, forget it.
I'll just do what everybody else
is doing.
Is that the right way to summarize
it?Yes.
I'll give you a car analogy sincewe're based in Windsor, Ontario,
(20:47):
which is known for its building ofautomobiles.
And I'm originally from the otherside of the river in Detroit.
The assembly lines are right in mybackyard.
You can go and build a betterengine, but it doesn't matter if
you don't own the transmission andI won't even give you the list.
You get the idea.
Every other piece of a vehicle,
right?You'd said to me previously, like,
you know, you had a background inconsulting and engineering and
that led into mortgage, but it'smuch the same.
So like I can build one piece ofit.
It doesn't get me all the waythere.
(21:09):
And if I were to try to buildevery single piece of it to say,
I'm going to pull the Tesla,right.
I'm like, I'm going to to gobuild, I'm going to rebuild the
supply chain, which they did.
Right.
A hundred percent.
Right.
But they didn't start hundredpercent.
Right.
But they didn't start there.
Right.
They didn't start there.
And they sort of like took it insteps and then eventually got to
that place.
Well, how much capital would one
need to basically kick everysingle other player out of the
mortgage industry and basicallysay, here's the one-stop shop
solution for the entire technologystack and flow of capital
servicing, capital markets, loanmanagement systems?
(21:30):
flow of capital capital servicing,loan markets, management systems.
management systems.
I you look you the Tesla example
and you okay, Right.
mean, at, know, say, that was a
lot of capital for This would be alot of capital for But then you
say, sure.
sure.
okay, well, in Tesla's case, youknow, if you're a free market guy,
you say, okay, well, the amount ofcapital doesn't matter as much as
the ROI on that capital, right?Is there a return in Tesla and
there's a worldwide car marketthat goes along with it?
(21:50):
Well, then there's a lot ofcapital that justifies that ROI.
But for Canadian lending, youknow, that's a small market.
And so how much capital can bejustified given that ROI, right?
And so, you know, I think it's aninteresting paradigm that we live
in in Canada where I thinkthere's, you know, a lot of really
smart people, a lot of smartpeople building really cool tech,
but we're kind of overshadowed byour big neighbors from the South.
(22:10):
And it's something that's come upon this podcast a couple times for
sure to compare and contrast.
And so you mentioned you spent
some time in Detroit.
I think you said actually you're
originally from there, which isinteresting.
And let's go down that rabbit holea bit, I guess, maybe from that
tech lens, you know, making thatswitch, it sounds like, yeah,
you're a producer in the U S andthen you said, Hey, let's go do
(22:30):
this thing in Canada.
And you kind of went back to
ground zero and had to rebuildthings.
Or is there any kind of pointalong that rebuilding where like,
Hey, and then we'll just, youknow, plug in this thing.
And then you were like, what thatdoesn't exist in Canada.
Like, how do you guys not have,you know, X or Y or whatever?
Were there any moments like that?Were there any, you know, I guess
the bigger question being, whenyou look at the two markets in
(22:51):
terms of mortgage tech, are therereally big differences?
Are they more similar than youthink?
Or how do you think about the two?I think about about it every day.
Okay.
I love Canada for the fact that it
is so ripe for innovation, butit's also the rub.
Yeah.
In that when you come from the
(23:12):
outside and you see things beingdone in a way that you haven't
seen them done in 10 years, youthink you have all the answers to
all the problems.
It's not until you get really,
really into the weeds of thisbusiness that you really start to
understand why all these thingsdon't simply exist in the Canadian
market.
market.
Oh, that's why, right?Yeah.
That's why.
Like, it's like, oh my Yeah.
That's why.
Like, it's like, oh my gosh, don't
they know that you can justautomatically pull payroll and
bank data?Yeah.
(23:32):
You don't need to get pay stubsand bank statements anymore and
ask clients to like provide alltheir T4s.
Oh, it's regulatory.
And even if you pass the
regulatory hurdle, well, none ofthe lenders accept these things as
truth, despite them being likemore truth.
Yeah.
As we know in this industry, then,
you know, bank statements andthings like that, some of which
people can create on Worddocuments if they're willing to go
(23:53):
that far and risk their licenseand career.
But it is incredible.
You see things like some that, of
which people can create on Worddocuments if they're willing to go
that far and risk their licenseand career.
But it is incredible.
You see things like that every
single day.
And really, it took me some time.
I'm still not immune, but it tookme some time to stop accepting
things at face value for justlike, you know, hey, they don't
get it.
They don't get it, right?
(24:14):
Like, you know, I've lived inCanada for 10 years, but we
started this business in 2020.
So I had been here for six years.
I was still working for a U Scompany.
I was seeing the way that it wasdone.
And it was actually part of thatthat actually drove me to become a
part of, you know, the startupfounding team at Edison financial
was I bought my own house here inCanada.
I went through my own mortgageprocess.
Did you go through a broker?I went through a broker.
(24:34):
I went through a broker.
I actually got denied by two banks
because I wasn't yet a permanentresident or a citizen.
And they'd said like, oh, sorry,we don't have any programs for
you.
So a friend of mine referred me to
a broker like, hey, can run down asolution for you.
And sure enough, they actuallyfound me a solution.
(24:55):
That was what I got, you know,wise to the value of a great
mortgage broker to plug ourindustry here.
I went through that processthough.
And I was just mind blown.
I could not believe that they had,
you know, sent me a word documentsaying, please answer in red to
the following, like 63 questionsand like seriously black and
white.
And then I had to retype in red to
all these word document, reattachit and then send it back to the
(25:18):
broker who then like sent it offto the bank.
And then I hear anything forseveral weeks.
I'm like, I'm trying to buy ahouse.
And this is really, really bad.
I'm like, they do know that
technology solves for all this.
Right.
And yeah, turns out that, youknow, yeah, yeah, we know, but
there's really good underlyingreasons why these things aren't
(25:38):
there.
It's honestly a sad truth of our
industry, but maybe to put a bowon that as I think it's also the
most exciting thing of our butmaybe to industry, put a bow on
that as I think it's also the mostexciting thing about our industry.
Definitely have a long way to goin terms of digital verification.
Definitely have a long way to goin terms of document verification.
We have a long way to go in termsof getting faster approvals.
So I'll give you another littlepiece of technology that exists in
the United States, which does notexist in Canada.
I'll give you another little pieceof technology that exists in the
(26:00):
United which does not States,exist in Canada.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac havetwo tools.
One's called stay on this acronymDU, chain that stands for here,
Desktop Underwriter.
And there's another one called LP,
which is a Freddie Mac tool calledLoan Prospector.
And those are basically theCanadian equivalents to how we
would think about CMHC, Sage andCanada Guarantee, and that they
say, hey, as long as the loanchecks all the following boxes and
meets this underwriting criteria,we'll agree to insure that
mortgage.
So you're effectively underwriting
to their criteria such that youcan sell that loan off in the
(26:20):
secondary market.
It's not exactly akin to Canada in
that way, but the technology, whenyou think about it, what they do
is they bring the approvalforward.
So it's just basically a piece oftech that you as the mortgage
agent or broker can submit to.
And right on the front end, it
tells you whether or not that dealis approved or not approved.
Like if it's not approved, whatare some of the things that you
need to fix in order to get it toan approved status?
(26:42):
And what are the documents thatare going to be required to get
you not just a conditionalapproval, but the ultimate
approval?Still subject to some underwriting
in some cases, but it's pulledforward.
I'm not wasting any time.
I mean, we hear in our industry
every day, like BDMs, send me thedeal and let me take a look.
Like, let me spend all this time,you spent all this time now as the
(27:04):
agent, I'm the underwriter.
I'm going to spend all this time
as the lender trying to figure outif I could make this thing work.
When in reality, a single piece oftechnology could have just been
provided to the mortgage agent andthey just submit it.
They get all the answers that theyneed right there.
And then we're moving out withthat deal and we're moving forward
with that.
Like, why doesn't that exist in
our industry?Well, the answer is a lot of
(27:25):
reasons, but that's a whole notherpodcast for the, Oh, I could go
for days, but that is one of thosebeautiful things that, you know,
it exists in the United Statesexists in Australia.
It does not yet exist in Canadaexists in UK again, not in Canada.
It's coming.
It's coming.
I was going me but not I was goingto ask you though, right.
Is that, you know, we say there'sa whole bunch of reasons.
There's the regulatory.
Yeah, there's the technology.
Maybe there's the capital issues,right?
Business investment, not enoughpeople investing in Canada.
There's the long, long laundrylist.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Yes.
Is there one where it's like, ifwe could just solve this, so much
(27:54):
of the other things we can maybefigure out, is there one thing in
your mind or is it just, it's allthose, it's a death by a thousand
cuts where it's one, two, three,four, five, you know, the whole
list.
Like, how do you kind of think of
it?That's a great great question.
It is death by a thousand cuts togive you a very straight answer.
If it was one thing, somebodyentrepreneurial enough would go
(28:15):
out and they would solve that onething.
We have an ism here, which is theinches we need are everywhere
around us.
The reason why we speak, and it's
actually originally from any givenSunday, but it's like if it were
one thing we would just go do thatbut because it's a thousand things
it's like it's hard and it'sharder but it's also what makes it
(28:36):
beautiful because if you achievethat thing it really makes it a
lot harder to replicate as wellyeah yeah exactly right yeah yeah
exactly right if it was just yardseverywhere everyone would be
chunking those yards you win inthe trenches right you win inch by
inch what was it the six inches infront of you that was the the Al
Pacino, right?Or what is it?
Yeah.
You probably know better than me.
So, well, anyways, I think that,you know, in terms of you talked
about bringing the approvalforward, getting that super
(28:57):
quickly, and you talked aboutentrepreneurs coming along and
trying to address some of this gapthat exists.
You know, I'd obviously put youguys in that column of
entrepreneurs trying to addressthat.
And I think specifically, youknow, I see all over LinkedIn
under your lender specifically,you can correct me if I'm wrong on
this, I think, but I'm seeing alot of, Hey, approved in two days.
Hey, approved.
I think I saw one recently
approved in two hours, likesomething really, really
exceptional.
So again, correct me if I got any
(29:18):
of that wrong, but my question is,you know, why'd you choose to lead
with that?Why is that such a big part of
your, your marketing?Does that come from your days and
maybe your frustrations thatyou're describing?
Is it just something that kind ofis in your DNA of how you want to
kind of exist as a lender?Talk to me a little bit about
that, you know, campaign and thatidea of this very speedy approval
process.
I think it came from three things.
So the first is being a consumermyself and our teams being
(29:42):
consumers themselves.
The second is actually going out
and delivering on origination.
So being in mortgage sheet, the
mortgage agency, the mortgagebroker seat, I think that's what
makes it so cool is like, we arenot just, you know, a lender.
Some people might see that or hearthat and get a little bit scared
in that, like, Oh, like, wait, soyou guys are a lender.
So you're kind of my partner, butthen you also have a brokerage
too.
So you work with clients directly.
(30:02):
That's actually a tremendousadvantage because we actually know
what agents and brokers gothrough.
We've been through that.
We are that and rocket in the U S
took much the same path to wherethey are today.
And the third is just data on theclients and surveys that we've
done.
And it all came back to agents and
to certainty.
Forms, like you'll do surveys of
clients, like you'll go out andyou'll ask them and say, what's
your biggest pain point?Yeah.
Interesting.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thousands and thousands of closed
(30:22):
mortgages Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thousands and thousands of closedmortgages now give us significant
amounts of data on what clientswant.
We go in there and then we buildbar charts of why every client
backed out during the process orwhat clients are seeking from the
mortgage process.
And the overwhelming thing that we
get back from a data perspective,the overwhelming thing that even
we get from our internal team, andthen even from being consumers and
clients ourselves of our own homesand such is the faster that you
(30:43):
can give me certainty that mymortgage is approved and going to
close, the better that it is.
Yeah.
that it is.
If you can do that same day, if
you can do that in the sameminute, I would be delighted.
Because going back to even my ownmortgage, that process took weeks.
I've got a signed contract on ahome that I'm supposed to close on
in 30 days.
And I've wasted the first two
weeks just waiting to get ananswer back from you.
(31:04):
Yeah.
So now I'm like, think about all
the ducks that are like getting ina row from like a life perspective
to make a move happen two weeksout.
And I can't get an answer.
And I'm following up every three
days saying like, so what do youthink guys?
Like, am I getting this home or amI going to lose my deposit?
I you think guys?Like, am I Okay.
It's very stressful.
So clients are just very, very
(31:25):
clear in the data that they giveus.
They want certainty.
So we talked about how do we give
them that faster?And we started talking about this
concept of hours, not days.
Like I don't want to wait days.
I don't want to wait weeks ormonths.
I want to know inside of hours, ifI can order Uber Eats and I can
track that vehicle as it's likepicking up my food and then it's
bringing it to my house.
Why can't I track my mortgage the
(31:46):
same way?If I could track my pizza on
Domino's.
Yeah, that's Scott Peckford.
He always says the Domino's pizzatracker, right?
A hundred percent.
But like, yeah, I'm doing a
million dollar transaction hereand, you know, buying this
property and I've got a $700,000mortgage on it and I've got all
this money at risk, but nobody cantell me what's going It's Scott
Peckford.
He can tell me what's going on.
That is terrifying.
My family's sitting over here
waiting for a word and I'm the onewho's been talking to my mortgage
(32:08):
person on the phone.
So everyone keeps asking me
questions about like, so are wegood or are we not good?
We need to deliver that experiencefor clients.
We need to deliver that experiencefor agents and for brokers.
And we need to deliver thatexperience across the industry.
That is really what I thinkeverybody's relying on us on.
And it is not the great unlock,but I think it's one of the
unlocks to actually helping morepeople become homeowners in Canada
(32:31):
today.
That's our big mission.
Yeah.
You know, I was talking to Don Lee
two weeks ago.
You know, he said uncertainty is
actually the biggest stressor.
It's actually not necessarily bad
news.
Like if you got in that situation,
you know, you waited two weeks,you had no idea.
But if you got a no within anhour, that's actually maybe more
helpful than nothing for twoweeks, right?
Like hopefully you don't get thatno, right?
But then you know, and then youcan do something.
(32:53):
But it's, you know, it's thatuncertainty.
weeks, It's a bit of an ugly wayto compare it.
but like, you know, that's likekind of like the punch to the gut
where like, it kind of like hurtsin the moment, but you sort of
like move on and you keepfighting.
If you were to get like punched inthe back of the head repeatedly
over the course of like weeks,right.
It's like, I know this is, itcan't be good.
It can't be good.
(33:15):
It's been going on so long.
And that's what a mortgage startsto feel like.
And agents all the like, I be allthe time, like, oh, this client
backed out on me.
Well, like how long did it take
for you to give them certainty?It's the first question I ask
every single time, like not justthe approval, but like actual
certainty, we will close on thismortgage for you.
If you can deliver that at theconditional approval stage, and
then you can do it, deliver it atthe broker complete stage.
(33:36):
And then you can deliver it at thebroker complete stage.
And then you can deliver it at thelawyer's office and then
ultimately can have the keys.
Each one of those, if you truly
ask people how they're feeling,they will tell you that they're
stressed to no end.
A Zillow survey a few years back
found that over 50% of consumersadmitted to having cried during
the home buying process.
So was it 50% So was it 50% did
(33:57):
you say?Over 50% of people cry while
they're trying to buy a home.
This is supposed to be a
phenomenal experience.
You know, we celebrate these
things, right?All we ever see on social media is
like the keys and I got my keysand I'm so excited.
We just became homeowners, right?The sold signs and everything else
that gets highlighted in thatworld.
But more than half those peoplewere crying in the days leading up
(34:19):
to that.
They just didn't know that it was
going to happen.
If we can solve for that, we solve
for a lot.
Yeah, that's excited.
We just that's incredible.
Yeah, you don't see that.
And no one's posting those crying.
Well, some people do, but they're
more the exception than the ruleof the photos of them crying,
right?But that's interesting.
Maybe just to close out, I guess,I don't know if you have any quick
things to add on the tech side,but I think also maybe to close, I
(34:42):
think people also be curious justto understand, you know, just the
level of success that you'rehaving.
Obviously, I think, I don't knowhow much you're able to share or
not share, but obviously thislender venture is a new one.
And I think a lot of people havetheir ears up about it and I've
seen, you know, announcements andI've been seeing new brokerages
come online.
I just saw you had Mortgage
Wellness come online and we knowNick well, and that's great.
(35:03):
So congrats with that.
How's it going?
I mean, you have this hypothesisthat this speed is so important in
alleviating this uncertainty.
Are you seeing that now?
And being a data guy, are you kindof tracking, okay, we had this
hypothesis, is it right?Are we delivering on that?
We are getting feedback frombrokers every single getting
feedback from brokers every singleday telling us that they love it
or otherwise we wouldn't be doingit.
We also started with a pretty goodand proven hypothesis from the
(35:25):
U.S. in that our RocketPro TPObusiness stateside has been
focused on delivering a fasterapproval time and closing time for
years now.
And I was actually a part of that
business before I came over here.
So pretty well took my experience
and said, you know, this is whatbrokers want.
And then we validated that withour own experience here in Canada.
And it turns out it's even slowerhere.
So we know they want it even more.
And yeah, we have great partners.
You know, you mentioned MortgageWellness and Bricks Mortgage being
another one and Tribe beinganother one.
(35:47):
And HomeWise, we just rolled outwith them.
Nice job.
Yeah.
Great.
one.
And I think that's what's so coolabout our industry.
Like people are so willing topartner up and connect because
everyone wants the same thing,which is to deliver a better
experience to consumers.
So in our world, that's
Salesforce, it's Finmo.
It is, you know, Funmore is our
own operating system.
Those things sort of like enable
this experience that allows us tomove faster and provide a better
experience to brokers.
But at the end of the day, those
brokers are responsible forproviding a better experience to
(36:08):
their clients.
So if they can give their clients
what they want, which iscertainty, and we can deliver that
for them, they will continue towork with us.
The more that they give us theirbusiness, the more that we can
invest back into our business.
We grew this business from, you
know, just a couple of people in awar room to the 130 plus people
that we have today, really justlistening to consumers, listening
(36:29):
to agents, saying, what do youneed for us to make your business
better and for us to deliver abetter experience?
And we just show up every day.
So much so that I drive fast to
the office because that's how muchthis mission excites me.
That's how much fun we have doingit.
It's not to say it's always superfun and exciting, but the mission
is just so clear and obvious.
And it's so important, I think, to
Canadians.
People want to own homes and they
want to do so with a good level ofcertainty and comfort.
(36:52):
And if we can provide that forconsumers as a lender, especially,
then that's how we enable ourbrokerage.
That's how we enable otherbrokerages.
And I think that's how we win.
That's a great place to wrap up.
Thanks so much for coming on here.
This was awesome.
I know we pulled a double headerhere, but this was amazing.
I really appreciate it.
And yeah, we'll chat soon.
How can people find you if theywant to learn more?
A couple of places.
So my new podcast, which I'm
(37:13):
having a lot of fun with here atRocket is Lending Thoughts.
I'm on all social media platformsas well.
Tom, hopefully you follow onthere, but I try to stay pretty
active.
Probably best reach on LinkedIn.
Just my first and last name, BekemRadita on LinkedIn is popular
place to follow me.
I try to stay active.
I schedule it into my calendar andtry to do a decent job of just
providing information about me,the business, and what I'm seeing
in the world right now of mortgageand real estate.
(37:34):
So follow me there.
Awesome.
Thanks, Bekem.
Thanks, Bekem.
Have a good one.
Thank you.
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