Ep #23: Mastering the Mortgage Markets with Barry Habib

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute. Your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimfer. Welcome back to another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Thank you for tuning in to what is going to be an epic episode. That's right. My special guest this week is none other than Mr. Barry Habib. And I'm sure many of you listening right now know who Barry is. He's been a prominent voice and advocate of the mortgage industry out there in the media educating not only us as mortgage professionals, but the consumers as well. For over 25 years, he's been a media spokesperson on CNBC and many, many other different media channels out there. What you may not know about Barry actually is that he's also got a very successful career in history as a mortgage loan originator with over $2.2 billion in personal production to his name. So there are definitely some insights and knowledge and some guidance and direction that we can glean from Barry and you never get tired of hearing those insights and the knowledge that Barry brings to the table. You may also know that Barry is the founder and CEO of MBS Highway, which he'll share a little bit about as a company that's created to help you interpret and forecast activity in the mortgage rate and bond markets so you can be more intelligent in the advice that you give to your clients and your referral partners. Now in the little side note, he's also the lead producer managing partner and majority shareholder in rock of ages. And if you haven't seen that show, it's been a theatrical production running on Broadway and London and it's also in Vegas, which is where I saw it. And I got to tell you, it's one of the top five shows that I have seen in Vegas. So this episode, tell you what, here's what we're doing with Barry. We are talking about the markets, the impact of the election, Barry's market forecast for Q4 and beyond. Barry's take on what it takes to succeed today as a loan officer in today's market versus five years ago and lots of really great insights about appreciation, about how we can adjust for the market accordingly and bottom line, how we can simply become a better, more informed, more professional, you know, mortgage loan originator doing great things for our clients and our referral partners. So I'm excited. Are you? I can't wait to get into the show. All right. So let's do it then. Let's get into the position into this week's episode. Barry Habib. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. It is our pleasure, you know, I like to say it's an honor actually because I've been following you, respecting your information and your advice for I'd say since 2003, roughly. So thank you for being here and I'm really pleased to bring you to our audience. Obviously many people, many loan officers know who you are because they've been following you for a number of years too. But for those that might be relatively new to the industry, what they may not be aware of because you've been the face and the voice of the mortgage industry, you know, on CNBC and all these networks for years is that actually prior to that, you know, you had a very long successful career as a mortgage originator with a lifetime volume of over $2.2 billion and you know, 25 years roughly, totally in the business. So kudos to you for that. But, you know, the other thing that people are aware with you is you've got interests outside of the mortgage industries too. So my first question I wanted to ask you if I could get you a loan is, all right, so how do you go from mortgage professional rights, see speaker or coach, you know, you know, television personality to rock of ages, how do you tell me about that road? All right. So I'll be quick with that. First of all, thanks so much. You're very kind. You do such a great job as well. And the respect is certainly mutual, man, appreciate you. So yeah, how do you, how do you do that? So getting involved in Broadway is pretty risky, you know, they say, how do you make a small fortune on Broadway? Well, you start off with a big fortune, but it's probably a good idea that I was inexperienced and ignorant, otherwise I would not have probably done it. So yeah, the transition was from doing TV, goodness since 1992, CNBC email and show them monthly mortgage report and haven't done a lot of stuff for Fox, somebody actually really liked my voice for a movie. So they put me in this movie, it's a kids movie. And they liked my voice and accepted a reasonable job of acting and you know, it's all networking like anything else. So I wound up being in like six or seven different Hollywood movies and I've done a couple since a small roles, but speaking roles and a movie that I was in called Barry Monday. The guy who actually was a director and writer, Chris Duranzo, he wrote Rock of Ages and got to know him there, got to know the property and myself and four other guys we took it off Broadway. By the way, that movie, Barry Monday actually made the trailer. It's a funny movie. A lot of star power in that movie, certainly not me, but there's a lot of star power in that movie. But so we took it off Broadway and then, you know, people want nuts for it. We decided to really take a big risk and take it on Broadway and we got really lucky. We got, you know, Fox Tony knobs and all kinds of press coverage and we like the cool show on Broadway. We ran for six years. In the history of Broadway shows, we're number 27 this far as the longest run. So proud of that. Got had a movie. I was actually in the movie Tom Groose started and it was a fun trip and it was really great. Oh, that's awesome. I have to tell you. So I saw Rock of Ages in Vegas, not on Broadway and I have to tell you, I was blown away. It was a great show. Great. The way it was put together and it being a fan of, you know, a group kind of in the 80s in high school. So a big fan of the music from that era and I thought it's probably one of the better shows. I'd say top. I'm not blowing smoke here. Top five shows I've seen in Vegas. Well, thanks, man. You know, like I said, we're the cool show a lot of a lot about these guys like our show. You know, a lot of times guys go to a show kicking and screaming, but guys really like our show as well as women. So it's about my wife. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun. By the way, I love music. So getting involved with something musical that was great. I actually sing in a band with Constantine, who is my star in Broadway in American Idol. So we have band rock of age. We have good times and stuff. So it's fun. Yeah. So you're speaking my language. You know, I'm a closet struggling guitar player. So I get it. Got a jam. Got a jam. All right. Cool stuff. Okay. So let's dive in here and talk about the wonderful mortgage business. And obviously you're well connected to what's going on in the market and you speak and meet hundreds of loan officers every single month. So one of the questions I wanted to open up with is especially considering you've got this very wide lens of experience. And so my question is, is succeeding today as a loan officer in today's market different than five years ago? How would you, what advice would you give to those loan officers of how they need to pivot for today's market? Well, first of all, that's a really, really well structured question. It's very, very insightful because it is totally different. Very different, certainly than it was, when we go back 10 years ago, not only because of guidelines, but it's a much more sophisticated business. You have to understand the intricacies of the business, but you have to be a much better resource to your customer. Especially millennials are far more comfortable doing things online, hence this evolution into things like rocket mortgage, which we're all familiar with. But we really, as mortgage professionals, have to add wisdom and insights because of the information everywhere. By the time you finish asking someone a question these days, they've already researched the answer on their phone, because that's just a way to especially millennial who now have become the largest demographic in the United States as of 10 months ago. So they're going to be driving the bus and we have to be able to market to them the way that they want to be marketed to. And they will do that research and then they'll compare shop and they're very comfortable with this stuff. In fact, younger people that almost lost the art of talking, they're heavily into text and things like that. It's difficult for people that are like baby boomers like me to fully grasp that, but we understand that that's the changing way. So what we have to do is not only understand the way they want to be marketed to, but understand what's going to differentiate ourselves and protect our business into the future. So we can't just provide information. It's not good enough to know your God that's going to be good on your business, heck that's the price of admission. What you really have to do is provide insights and wisdom and knowledge because people will pay for that. And the reason why they pay for us by giving you their business, giving you referrals and doing repeat business with you, if you can teach them something they can't Google, if you can give them insights that they can't easily find, if you can do that and blow away their competition, especially the online competition, which doesn't provide any of that, you'll have a really, really good stronghold of protecting your business and continuing your success for a long time into the future. Yeah, I've heard it characterizes sell on advice versus price. Yeah, but you have to walk here. You can't think that anymore. You have to really understand things like, what is going on with the local real estate market? What's going on with the local job market? Is this a good time to be a purchaser of a home in that particular market? And why? Why? Not just because I think the market's good. What are the demographics? What are the birth rates that are going to be happening? What's the job situation in that particular market? What are affordability levels there? If you don't have that information, the competitor does, you're in trouble. And then you better be able to articulate the opportunity and you better be able to do so in a very concise, well-constructed manner, just guess what, potential home bars going out there today and they have a lack of inventory. So chances are they're going to sell for a home. It's not going to be something that they're more than likely going to be able to have fulfilled all of their needs. So they're going to settle. Then they settle and guess what? They've got to pay full price because all their negotiations stripped away from because you can't go in the local law for today. And then guess what, you pay full price and somebody comes in over that price. So now, on a whole, you're settling for, you're paying more than the sellers even asking for. You're supposed to be happy with that. No wonder why people flake out. No wonder why when you hear media stories which are incorrectly constructed, people are not often times going to go through with that transaction. So how do we help the realtor explain the opportunity? How do we help the customer keep their eyes focused on the real price down the road by being able to correctly and accurately articulate that opportunity and analyze what's going on aside from the media garbage that's out there. And if you help a realtor do that, your competitors walking in there with a donut, okay? You're going to walk in there and help that realtor sell more homes or less more homes. You're going to have a great career going forward. Okay, so definitely get that. I think everybody agrees with that. And naturally through this, I think some people are thinking, you know, you talked about we've got to provide insights and knowledge. It's just not about providing information or even just providing advice. So how do we take that then a step further and go deeper? How do we really, you know, position that info so that it achieves what you just described? Well, I mean, that's the way I kind of lived my whole career and the mortgage business was by being able to do that. So look, there are tools out there that people could use that are tools of wisdom. You have to be sharp on knowing what's going on in the financial world. Do the research. You have to outwork your competition and certainly we provide tools, you know, but that's obvious that we do that. If people are accustomed with our tools, they know that. If they want to investigate our tools, they certainly can, but you need the right tools. You need to stay ahead of your competition and whatever is most comfortable for the loan originator, they have to find a way to help the customer see the opportunity in the real estate market, help that real estate agent sell the home and do things that their competition isn't from a knowledge standpoint. How good of a job do you think in general because you see, you interact with a lot of loan officers? How good of a job generally do you see the, you know, loan officers doing out there to make that adjustment? Well, I think that, you know, we've got a good crop of loan originators and I think they really try the thing if it is is that sometimes we don't know what we don't know, right? And maybe they're just not familiar with the fact that they need to understand affordability rates and demographics and supply rates and understand the job picture and being able to forecast rates of appreciation into the future to articulate the opportunity and get this information. Certainly, once loan originators eyes are open to it, they're very receptive and they want to adopt this way of doing business. But it's difficult for those who have not yet been exposed to this. Meanwhile, they need to be losing transactions to competitors who are just a little bit more sophisticated. So, do I think loan originators are doing a good job? I think they are doing a good job. I think loan originators are so much smarter today in general than, you know, loan originators when it was a lot easier to just say here, can you fog up this mirror and you're going to get approved? You know, so they are doing a good job, however, like anything else, but I'll take myself. I can always do better. I can always try and learn more. I can always try to advance myself. I never quit unlearning and try to be better. I strive for that every single day. I'll never reach that perfection level, but I sure want to try and get better every day. And I think that every originator should feel the same way. Yeah, I agree with you. So, you know, you mentioned technology, you know, the millennials and how they're engaging and how they buy and we know that technology is influencing the buying process and, you know, you see companies like Quick and Loans, Rocket Mortgage, trying to convince consumers that getting a mortgage is a push button away. And there's obviously, I think, kind of that expectation, perhaps, that A, mortgages should be easier and simpler and perhaps quicker to get. So how would you, I'm trying to think of the best question for you in terms of positioning against, you know, because there just seems to be with the disruption happening across other industries, right? Uber, Airbnb, right, those, there's obviously disruption coming, building in different ways in the mortgage industry, you could perhaps put Rocket in that category. So if consumers are looking, right, let me ask you two ways. If one, our consumers are looking for that quicker, easier process and then two, how do we sell against that, if you will? Well, consumers are looking for it and the disruption is going to continue to be a part of our lives forever. The thing too about this quick and rocket mortgage, which we point to, but we only point to it because it's kind of like the first of its kind that's gone out there in this manner. It doesn't mean that it's stopping there very soon and a lot more of this is going to take place. So how does the originator really protect themselves? Well, just look at the financial industry and when online trading began for stock brokers, a lot of the stock brokers who were there as salespeople, they went by the wayside and they had a very difficult time, but it didn't eliminate stock brokers. In fact, you can argue that so many of them are doing much better because it's a smaller pond and they have a much more sophisticated and deeper relationship with their clients. It's going to be the same thing in the mortgage industry that goes right back to the beginning. If you're able to quote rates and if you're able to quote products well and if you're able to understand guidelines and what it takes to get a lot of proof, that's a necessity. It's not a competitive advantage and that can be replaced technologically. It's going to be far more difficult to be replaced is that relationship that you have where that customer is learning from you and you're able to take in the needs and concerns of that customer and help them and you're also able to help that real estate agent articulate those opportunities that lie ahead for that home purchaser. So you really need to take that approach in my opinion now more than everything. It's going to become more and more difficult for those who don't over time and you know what? Here's the other thing too. It's kind of fat with all these refinances that are out there. But the refinance environment is it's fickle and it's fragile. You do this as I have been around this business. I can't believe what I said. It's just 30 years. Okay. 30 freaking years. Okay. I've been in this business. Wow. So. See a doctor. Yes. Exactly. Both old and crazy now. So here's the thing is that because I've seen and the people listening are experienced. They've seen how fickle the refinance markets are. Hey, look, just just all we have to do is go back three years ago, right? When everybody was doing so great, so great, so great. And then what happened? Rates went up very rapidly in a short period of time. Companies had difficulty. Loan originators had difficulty. People were swung away. I was just a future in this business for me. It caused a lot of struggles relatively quickly and there could be a lot of pain inflicted when refinances go away and it doesn't take that much. So it's easy to get complacent because we think this will last forever. I promise you it won't and I'm not saying rates go to seven percent or six percent. All rates have to do is go up three, it's to a half of a percent from here. Not a very dramatic move and that could cause a very big difference in the amount of refinance transactions that exist, which is why we need to always stay on that purchase side. In addition to the refinances and focus there, and that's what we're the sharpest. That's what we're giving the best advice. That's what we're helping to articulate the opportunity to purchase. That's what we're helping that real estate agent and being someone that they're going to continue to rely on. So I keep the focus there. Don't give up the refinances. Just keep focused on the purchase. Yeah, absolutely. And obviously as you pointed out, right, let's prepare for the coming shift in the market and even Gary Keller at a recent conference was talking about that. So let's get your take on this. I know you've come out and forecasted an adjustment. I'll call it in the market. I'll let you describe what you see happening over the next 12 to 24 months. Well, I think it's a potential poor recession. I think there's a relatively good possibility of recession that's going to occur. I think that stock prices are very frothing. We've had seven consecutive quarters of declining earnings as measured by the S&P 500. This, a stock led recession is certainly possible. We're clearly in a recession already in the manufacturing sector throughout the country. I think that there is some fragility in the economy. We are unable to grow at reasonable rates. I mean, our GDP, which may improve a little bit here, but I think it's going to be mostly due to an inventory build. So it's kind of like a head fake, but it's been hovering just above 1%. Could we head into a recession? We could have, and what that means is that two things we should bear in mind. One is interest rates typically decline rather precipitously during a recession, and yes, lower than they are now. And if you don't think they can go lower, just look at what's happening around the world. 40% of interest rates are in negative territory. Rates even in the very well-respected area of Germany and the German bone aren't just slightly above zero. So when you look at our 10-year treasury, about 1.5, that can drop. And by the way, when it was at 2.8, and I said it's going to 1.5, actually 1.36, I'm sorry, 1.39, everybody thought it was nuts on TV. Everybody knew it. They thought it all thought it was nuts. They said, Barry, what are you drinking? What are you, whatever? If you think that's not going to happen, sure enough, you know, so eight months later. But it did happen. If we do get this recession, you'll see the 10-year treasury yield a challenge 1%, you'll see mortgage rates about 1.5% lower than they are currently. I don't think we've seen the low end rates yet, but that does not mean it's a straight right now. We're going to have some turbulence between now and then. So we watch more. I think the stock market eventually is going to take a big haircut and that money will go into the bond market. Does that get triggered by the Fed starting to hike rates later on this year? It could very well be. Let's not forget what happened to December 16th, but hike by quarter and it really set the markets into some turmoil. That's just because of here, but that's a little bit deep here, Jeff, but your listeners are sophisticated. But nobody talks about this. The Chinese run in by their currency is pegged to the dollar. But when the Fed height rates on December 16th, the Chinese didn't like that wide because if they pegged their currency to the dollar which strengthened on a Fed rate height, then that hurts their exports. They got pissed. They de-pecked from the dollar and that really was what set the stock market into a tail spoon. That's what pushed money into our bond market. So could something like that happen? Yeah, this is what the Fed struggles with. There's a lot that can, it's going to be very turbulent in my opinion. We could see, if we hit this recession, we could see really, really low rates, but it's not going to be straight down. We could certainly see interest rates rise, three eights of a percent or so enough to disrupt the refinance activity for a period of time on the way to lower rates. Wow. Interesting. So a little uptick before we get back downward. Yeah. I think that's quite possible if inflation comes right here is the thing I worry about as far as inflation goes. One of the big drivers of prices is energy and oil. Now we see energy prices have declined dramatically, but when you look at energy on a year over year basis, and this is what goes into a lot of the inflation numbers, we were comparing oil prices when they're at 20s, high 20s, 30s, now in the 40s to where they were a year ago, when they were a 180, 60, so that was downward pressure on inflation. By the end of this year, energy prices will probably be higher today or higher at the end of this year than where they were in a previous measuring point from a year ago. So therefore, that will be upward pressure on inflation, which interest rates don't like. So we potentially could see some pressure on interest rates because of inflation, which has been almost nonexistent because of energy prices, which could cause some turbulence there. So I think that there's a possibility that it's a quarter or three-eighths push higher. We're not going to see six percent interest rates. That's not going to happen. We're not going to see five percent. But could we see four and a quarter on a mortgage rate? Yeah. And what would that do to your refinance market? You know, look at your own pipeline and ask yourself, probably slow things that a lot. Yeah. So then let's talk about then the impact that that would have on, right, the high depreciation that we've seen in certain markets. Obviously, we're running into affordability issues as well. So would there be an impact there as well on pricing? Yeah. So look, this is one area we've called really, really well. And we were December of 2011 on CNBC and they thought I was pregnant and they didn't think the real estate market would come back. What they said, you could pull up the segments, the beauty of YouTube and Google, they didn't think it would come back until 2015. And here I have it just the first guy, December of 2011 saying that the real estate market is making a turn here. The same tools that we use there, affordability, demographic supply, demand, household formations, household creations, those things are still in place today. So I really think that the real estate market in general has a lot of legs. And if we do have recession, 9 out of the past 10 recessions since World War II, real estate has done very well. It was already the last recession really led by the housing and mortgage bubble that real estate prices didn't do. Why do they do well? They do well because interest rates drop and that's kind of like a counter-balance. They act to help real estate prices, they bully. Okay. So we know that real estate is very, very local. So it's certainly going to be within your specific market. As you mentioned, have had hyper appreciation. So when you see that double digit, that 10%, 8%, is that sustainable? Very, very hard to do. One of the things that people point to and sometimes they point to it without a lot of accuracy is incomes aren't sustaining that level. Well, guess what? They don't have to. They never have and they never will because there's a specific relationship that people forget between income and payment. So let's just take a principal and interest payment, not taxes and insurance, principal and interest of 1,000 bucks a month. Old mortgage professionals listening can probably relate to this and say, you probably would see that customer have a $5,000 month income. Roughly, that would be okay for a $1,000 month principal and interest. Just a bull part number. Well, when you have that, if for whatever reason, person was able to purchase a home a year ago, a $1,000 month, they didn't, that home went up by 5% and assuming interest rates date the same. Now that payment goes up by 5%, so instead of 1,000, 1,000 to 50, for this to be net neutral, their income has to go up by 50 bucks a month. Well, that's not a 5% increase in income, that's a 1% increase in income. So if real estate prices go up by 5%, incomes need to go up by 1% to make it net neutral so long as interest rates date the same. The reason why affordability is so strong is because incomes are rising by right now 2.6% in the private sector by 4.9%. And home prices can actually be a lot stronger than that. And interest rates actually have gone down. So that's why affordability levels have improved and when you look at some of these areas like Silicon Valley and things like that, their income levels are going up much greater than that, which is one of the reasons why they can sustain. The other thing is, rents are going up by 4% a year. So wherever you're going to put a roof over your head, it's expensive and that's helping to keep prices sustained at these levels. You don't take it too hot for too long, but we do not see any bubble-like conditions for them. Okay, so when you say recession over the next, at some point, some level over the next 24 months, can you get a little bit more specific in terms of, because some people hear recession and they freak out. So what do you mean by recession? What I mean by recession is you have growth on GDP decline for two consecutive quarters. So instead of GDP growing, you have negative numbers. So GDP declines, I should say, for two consecutive quarters. Now that decline in GDP is oftentimes accompanied by stock market declines. It typically shows an if-outtick in unemployment, but unemployment is kind of tight right now. So I don't think for most people, it's going to be devastating, but it should help to push interest rates lower. The other aspect of it is that where is the best place to be if there's recession? Well, in the industry that we're all in is the mortgage business because the mortgage industry flourishes during recessionary periods because home prices, I'm sorry, yeah, home prices in the housing market tends to hold up pretty well, but because interest rates decline is typically an uptick in activity, in refinances, because people really are now focused on reducing their monthly payments, making cuts, consolidating, and they're able to do a lot more refinance business in that type of environment. So it's a great place to be if there's a recession. So I don't think it will be a deep part of recession. Interesting. And of course, a conversation about impact to the markets wouldn't be relevant at the timing of this recording if we didn't talk about the impact of the upcoming election. I was going to put you on the spot and say, hey, they're your Trump, but I'm not going to do that. Here's what I will say, we'll say that a country with 320 million people, is this really the best we could produce? Exactly. How frustrating is that? Yeah, it is. It is. Maybe there's something wrong with our system. Maybe it's just this over scrutiny, you know, look, we're all human beings. We all screw up. I mean, I think the people should be taped. First of all, I remember these are human beings, and then you got to look at the character and look, I'm not going to get into the political side of it on here. You know, I have my own personal opinions, but I will tell you that, you know, there's probably a lot, a lot of things that we could look at here and there's probably a lot better candidates on both sides that could be there. Well, you mentioned something earlier about China getting pissed off with stuff that we were doing with our dollar. And of course, you're Trump talking about them devaluing the currency. So is that an accurate statement by him? They have been to a great extent manipulating the currency. He just kind of has the guts to say it. And maybe he should be a bit more diplomatic about it. I think there's kind of a middle road there. You don't have to be as, you know, abrasive. Yeah. Look, here's the thing with Trump that is just by my humble opinion here is that I think he's got a lot of really good ideas. The problem is he lives in an area of rhetoric and the media, which maybe people agree, maybe some people might think there's a more liberal bias in the media. If that is the case, they're going to nitpick on a lot of that. It's like me saying to you, Jeff, you know, Jeff, I tried to call that guy a million times, you know, and look, that's the world of rhetoric. I didn't really call him a million times, but does that mean a bad person? I'm a liar. No, it's just the things we say, unfortunately, under the scrutiny of things Trump is saying like this, and it's really being nitpicked. I mean, maybe it's justified that he shouldn't say a lot of the things he says, and you cringe when you hear it. Yeah. But, you know, on the other side of things, you know, boy, oh, boy, there's a lot to look at on what Henry Clinton's done, which isn't exactly nice things or accurate things, or truthful things, you know, it's been proven as well. So, I think both of them have some issues. Now, what happens if either one wins, it's an important question. But finish your question first. No, no, no, I was just going to say, I like your question better, but I think the problem is it's a tough choice because, you know, there's nowadays it's so hard, especially when you've got the media, which is, I think, liberal in nature, and depends on which network you watch, you know, they're going to sway your, I think you have to be much more cognizant of the source of the information nowadays, because it's hard to separate the truth from fiction, you know, and that's the tough part. People will believe sound bites, and I think that's where people get mixed up. You nailed it. You're 100% nailed it, and those sound bites are going to be positioned, let's just say, by whatever the source is. But to the better question, yeah. So, the impact to if one of the other gets in. Well, if Trump gets in, I think that there will certainly be a lean towards a little bit more entrepreneurial shift and business being under a little bit less regulation, not too much, but a little bit less. Under Hillary Clinton, I think we can see a lot more regulation and a lot, a lot of the same things that you've seen. Now, look, regulation in itself isn't a bad thing, but boy, boy, let me look at our industry, I mean, what a role compliance has taken over, and how much of a cost is that ultimately to the customer and to business for a lot of these things that we all know is just a bit of overkill. I mean, it's just this, you know, so when we look at these things and we say, how do we really improve this economy? I'll give you my two cents. There's something called velocity of money. And velocity of money is something that I think is not discussed often enough, but I think it really holds the key to jumpstarting and fixing our economy. It really goes back to what made this country do so well for so long. And I think that that's been kind of strangled a bit. And here's what I mean by velocity of money. Let's take an example. Let's say a young individual goes out and they take out a car loan and that car loan winds up costing them, I don't know, I'm going to pick some numbers here. It's a $30,000 car loan and it winds up costing them $400 bucks a month. Now if they just go out and drive that car and have a good time and this and that, well good for them, but now that's $400 a month less that they have to put into the economy. But what if that individual said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to work part of the time for Uber or Lyft or whatever. Now they actually have an income of $2,000 bucks a month from doing that driving part time. So they pay their $400 debt on the car, but now they've got an extra $1,600 that they go and buy goods and services with. That's the entrepreneurial spirit that we need more of. That's what fixes the country. If entrepreneurs are appraised, if businesses are treated a little bit nicer, let's just say potentially, potentially. We could have more of that and boy, I think that that would be the magic formula to really get this country at a much higher level of GDP and production and wealth than we've seen lately. Yeah, and so, you know, now is, I don't know if your thought is on this, but now is probably a better time than perhaps in the history of this country to pursue those entrepreneurial activities. Would you agree? Completely agree. Technology has made all these things possible, but we've taken this wonderful technology and we've tried so hard to bottle it and rate it in and struggle it that we should be unleashing it to some degree. Look, the world is a perilous place and everybody shouldn't be wet nurse, okay? Everybody shouldn't have, you know, training wheels on forever. The buyer needs to make smarter choices and decisions and let business for the most part, look, look at the mortgage industry, it's like any other industry. We know there's a few bad actors, but for the most part, mortgage people are really good people. They're honest. They care about their reputation. They care about their customers. And there's some bad folks out there that do bad things, but that's everywhere. And guess what? When you make all these over-regulation rules, the bad guys still break them anyway because they don't care. You're making all these bad rules, all these rules for bad people, but only the good people follow them and it just strangle some of them and they were doing it anyway, so it can be a bit frustrating to watch. That's a can. And then, of course, I know you are, however, a believer in the entrepreneurial spirit in this country and that, you know, we may go through some tough times, we may, you know, experience some valleys, but we always bounce back and figure out a way to keep improving and evolving. Absolutely. Yes, we started with, I mean, we're very, very resilient, but you can't just always count on that. I mean, you can't say, oh, we've got to kind of keep working on that, too, you know? So yes, I have faith in it, but I hope that people really, really believe in that and really strive for it instead of saying, I have faith in it, so it will be okay. Well, the thing I'm fearful of is, you know, the powers that be trying to take away that entrepreneurial spirit and try and hand everything to, oh, you know, free college education, right? Okay. That's not going to happen or if it is who's going to pay for that, but it's, you know, you've gotten a bit away from our roots of us being, yes, self-reliant, and that's what America was built on, and then, you know, people want that, but yeah, if you put too many barriers in the way, you know, then people are going to be, you know, less inclined to pursue that. I completely agree with you, Jeff. I think that's a very, very reasonable foot process, and if you take it out over time, I mean, just look at any socialist country out there, they're all struggling. I mean, if you want to see how great, yeah, see, if you want, or anywhere, if you want to see how great America is, talk to somebody who's come from a socialist country, who's here. They'll all look at you and say, what are you guys nuts? We just left all that and you're heading towards that. Why would you possibly want to do it? I mean, so we lose side of these things that you're bringing into life here. Absolutely. And let's bring it back full circle because we can go on and on about that. Speaking of, you know, technology and tools that are available to help us, do me a favor if you wouldn't mind. Just take a moment and tell our listeners about MBS Highway and how does that help an originator better position themselves in today's market? Well, thank you. I'll be very brief. Look, weekly help you build an improving, vatting average. What does that mean? If you talk to 10 borrowers, we'll help you turn more of those into transactions. If you talk to 10 realtors, we will help you dramatically increase those, the amount of those realtors who actually wind up sending your referrals. We make it easy. We make it simple. This is not something that's hard to implement, hard to use. I was originated for a lot of years. This is a natural compliment that doesn't take away from what you do, but just as a natural assistant into what you do, better pricing executions, better marketing, better co-branding tools, help the realtors sell the home, help the realtors list the home, and give you insights and training in five minutes of coaching for me every day by video. So that every day you've got something to say, pick up the phone and some interesting sales techniques and tools that you could use. Try it for free. It's great. If you don't like it, understand. It's got nothing to lose and just a whole lot more income and happy clients to gain. Yeah. Well, if anybody knows you followed you for some time, we know that you definitely put together a quality program, so I can definitely vouch for that having used your various services throughout the years. So what's the best place to direct people, too? Is it MBShighway.com? Perfect. MBShighway.com. Hey, if you need to ask me a question or if you'd like to say hi, it's Barry at Barry Habib.com. I asked her all my emails personally, so you'll feel free if I could be of help. That's what it's all about. It's all about giving and helping others. Those people who get it in this world know what's about giving. Oh, absolutely. Be a go-giver, not a go-taker, right? That's right. All right. So I'm going to wrap it up with what I'm now calling, I guess, the lightning round. Three quick questions for you. Number one, business leaders CEO that you're following. Jeez. That's a hard one because there's... Who pops into your head first? You know, I always like Jack Welsh, you know, you know, he's kind of sorry, but go ahead. No, no, good one. Do you have a favorite business book? How the light was statistics? How the light was statistics? There's one that I haven't read. Some good reading there. All right. Lastly, this is one I didn't prep you for, so let's take you back a number of years. I wasn't prepped on any of these. Hey, you know, that's the best thing. We're flying live without a net. Take us back real quickly to your 20-year-old self. What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self? Trust your gut. Trust your gut and don't talk yourself out of ideas. You have an idea on it. Oh, this is going to be good. This is going to be really good. Get excited about the next one. Then I'm not going to do that. Don't do that. Okay? Trust your gut and go for it. Just go for it. Go for the opportunities. Okay, go for it. Great advice. Thank you, Barry Habib. It's an honor. Once again, check out mbshighway.com for more info there. I can't thank you enough, Barry, for being here. Oh, thank you. You're a pleasure. Thank you so much. May you do a great job. I really appreciate you. All right. And listeners, once again, if you haven't subscribed yet, please do so on iTunes. Give us a podcast rating so you don't miss out on future episodes, and I appreciate you. So thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. We'll see you on the next one, bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in Mortgage Marketing. Get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com. Hey, guys, what's up real quick? You've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before, and I just want to quickly remind you of that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchase loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our Mortgage Marketing Pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. 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