How to Become a Divorce Mortgage Specialist with Divorce this House

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. All right. Hey, everybody. What's up? This is Jeff Zinfor, host of Mortgage Marketing Live, and we're coming to you with a very special addition about how to become a divorce lending specialist, and we're going to get started in just a moment. And here we are. We're back. I'm not sure if the audio came through on that. It did. That's all. All right. Cool. Awesome. So I want to welcome my special guests. Thanks for being here. I'm going to allow you guys to introduce yourselves, both Graham Pruitt and Professor Kelly Murray. Professor Murray, why don't you go first? Which or my name is Kelly Murray. I am a faculty member at a top 20 law school. I have degrees from Stanford and Harvard law school. But for the past 10 years, I've focused my academic research on housing and financial justice and family court, divorce real estate, which has branched into divorce mortgage. And so that's why I'm on the panel today because we've been teaching real estate agents for a decade. But we've been teaching mortgage professionals specifically with a designated information since 2017. And so Graham has taken that program and we're really excited to share that with everybody. Fantastic. So Graham, obviously welcome back. We know each other, tell the viewers and listeners a little bit about your background. Sure. So I'm in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia area. I've been in the business since 2006. I don't have the education level that Professor Kelly Murray does. I went to culinary school. So I realized that cooking wasn't for me. And so I naturally just shifted it over into the mortgage business. And I love to learn. I love to educate people. I think if you're standing still, you're not doing it right. So I'm just excited to be here today and share what I'm doing with you guys. Yeah. Awesome. And thank you for being here. And you guys are both very busy. So a little backgrounder for people who don't know. And I know some people already know this and I'm saying hello in the Facebook feed. If you're watching this live, just type in hashtag live or let us know you're here. What questions you might have regarding becoming a divorce lending specialist. Get those in there now because I'm going to be looking at the questions in the feed. And so you want to get your questions answered. So I can see Kevin's here. What's up, Kevin? First you'll shout out to you, Joseph, Roland, glad you guys are all here. And actually, interestingly enough, or just earlier today, Professor Murray, I was on a member's only conference call with people that are, you know, members of, you know, kind of my mortgage-marketing program membership. And one of the people in there actually took your course as well. As a result of our podcast that we did roughly two years ago, and I know Graham, Graham, that's how you became a divorce lending specialist also, right? Exactly. Yep. But that podcast definitely has reached a lot of folks. So we've had a lot of mortgage professionals take our training after contacting us after listening to that podcast. Yeah. And so this is why I wanted you guys to come back on is that was roughly two years ago. And as the mortgage space has evolved, as it's gotten more competitive, you know, I'm always thinking about how do I, as a former originator, stand out and rise above the noise. And I've always been a big believer in niche, in specializing in a niche, and clearly divorce lending is a niche. But I think it's different in other niches that people might pursue, like rental loans or, I don't know, low down payment, first time buy, you know, all that stuff, that's fine and well. For me, being able to show up and speak intelligently about divorce lending and all the things that are involved in that, and then actually pursuing divorce attorneys to build relationships. To me, that requires special skill sets and awareness and knowledge. Let me ask Graham first. Would you agree with that? 100%. Yeah. You know, there's all these pillars of business you can have, you can see PAs, financial planners, divorce attorneys, but there's not really any education or teaching on how do you actually talk to those people when you get a chance to sit in front of them and captivate their attention and tell them something that they're actually interested in. So, yeah, that's one of the biggest hurdles I've gotten when I get feedback from other people. They're like, well, what do I say? How do I show up? There's a little bit of fear of intimidation. Yes. Professor Murdo, do you think that's healthy to have a certain level fear? Well, actually, you can say the wrong thing and you can do the wrong thing with lawyers. Let's just start with that. Lawyers expect less, not more. They don't want lots, they don't want long-winded, they want you to get right to the point. They also want to know why you're doing this, so your why is really important. We've been teaching live online, we've been teaching Lenders since the fall of 2018 and Realtors Live Online since January 2019, and my class this week with Realtors in divorce real estate. One is already working with divorced judges, and the judge asked him his why. Well, after taking our training, he has an even more succinct way of framing that, and so it's really important why you're doing this, and it cannot be, I'm looking for re-fies. That's, you know, hey, you're getting divorced great, let me re-fie you. That's the worst approach. You already know that, but that's what they think you're going to say. So, you need to say something other than the expected mercenary approach, really. You want me to tell them why? Why we do it? So, we really do this to help them preserve homeownership eligibility and protect the credit score of both divorcing spouses. That's, those are the two whys that we tell the attorneys of why we're doing this. It's not because we want to get a refinance, and we want the commission. It's really to protect, it's consumer protection, and it's to help them get through this tough time without, you know, messing up their ability to, number one, refinance or purchase a new home. So, for those who don't know, what have you seen? What are some of the negative effects of not having proper guidance and counseling through a divorce as it relates to the home? Well, I'll take it just from the litigation side. Why, as Wendy Wissler co-founder points out, we're training as a different point of view, and our point of view starts with courts and judges and how they rule on facts relating to a divorce real estate and a mortgage. That's our perspective, and we do that state by state because divorces state-specific, not federalized, even though mortgage a lot of it's federalized. And so, what I see going wrong is someone's keeping the house. And she says, oh, I'll refinance, and she doesn't check with a mortgage professional first. And then after everything's over, after all the mistakes have been made, and those mistakes become permanent as part of the divorce process, you can't do anything to help her. That's the worst time for a mortgage professional to get involved. And so, what I see in the litigation is the outspouse suing because the house spouse didn't refinance successfully, did not remove his name from the mortgage. So, that's just one of the mistakes. It's just saying you're going to refinance, so that means you qualify. And now we have the quarantine and the pandemic aspect to it. And so, they made me aware she can't refinance. And my concern is, people shouldn't keep the house just because they think they can't sell it. They can still lose it. And she can still not refinance, which you already know that of the effect that that's going to have on the other spouse, right? If she doesn't refinance, they both stay on this joint mortgage. And so, that's what I see is failing to sell or failing to refinance, which is the bigger problem. And how that continues to affect both spouses can damage their credit scores, and you cannot close a loan for either one of them for years. So, those are some of the biggest problems I see. Right. Have you personally experienced that since being involved in this niche as well, Graham? Well, that's kind of why I got into it. I had a few divorce situations that came to me for refinances, and I'm looking at it going, well, this wasn't properly put together. And you can't do this. And who did you talk to before you finalized this to see if you could actually accomplish this? So, there was a couple things that I noticed that prompted me to say, well, there's got to be a better way. And that created this sort of, and there's really a need for our expertise in the industry to help these people before they go and sign on the dotted line. So, that was something that I noticed. Since then, nothing specific to where what she mentioned, but it's out there. There is no doubt that mistakes happen, and then the person that wanted to keep the house can't refinance, and the other person doesn't want anything to do with it. So, then, obviously, the house has to get sold, or something else has to happen. What was your perception, Graham, about going after this niche or diverse divorce attorneys in particular, and was that accurate as you engaged, or what's different than your perception was? Well, I realized after doing some research that there is a, I mean, the light bulb went off in my head, and I said, there's nobody really specializing in this, and focusing on it, you know, obviously, the attorneys have maybe somebody that they know that it's in the mortgage business, and they just throw them a deal when everything is done, but there was no real, no real process or structure around it. Yeah, exactly. So, that's kind of where I started doing the research. I found this, and I just went, boom, this is it. This is exactly what I needed, because through the course, it teaches you what to say to the attorneys. And as you do it, and as you study it, and as you, it becomes more part of your vocabulary, and you have conversations with attorneys, you realize that, in most instances, they're going to say, this is great, this is exactly what we need. We'd love to implement this, and then you're, you know, and then some will pick little things out and say, I can see how this can be beneficial because of the home inspection. And I can see that, man, this is a glaring gap. We never pull title when we're doing, you know, when we're going through, you know, the part, you know, beginning stages when they're doing the research. So Professor Murray, why is it? And I know this. I've got the background, because I went through your divorce lining certification class live, you know, a couple of years ago in California when we fall first met. And so there's a lot of info. What surprised me and what really stood out to me is, you know, and I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I thought lawyers knew everything. Right. Well, and divorce lawyers know a lot about a lot. And so one other aspect of the pandemic and the quarantine is, you know, divorce is not decreasing, and you can see all the articles coming out. It's not a good thing. It just is. And so divorce is not increasing and lawyers are projecting in articles that maybe it's increasing. But also happen is lawyers who practice in other specializations will add divorce without knowing enough. So we have two pieces where your question was, is why aren't divorce lawyers doing more about house due diligence and mortgage due diligence? Why aren't they? My additional concern is that additional lawyers coming in who are just getting started as divorce lawyers because there's going to be an increased demand. And so both need you. The ones coming in need you even more. They may realize they don't know everything. But the first step, I know there's a longer answer, but the first step is, divorce lawyers have to know a lot about a lot. What I've seen in mediation circumstances, and I've taken the collaborative law training and the mediation training for the state of Tennessee. And so I've done the ADR, it's under dispute resolution methods, but what I see is they start with the easiest yes, that's what you've trained in mediation. You're not going to start with the hardest issue to have them in a fight. You start with the easiest well. If she wants to keep that house or now, like in 2008, someone has to keep that house, where will that mediate or start with the house? And she'll keep it. So it just, the short, the end of this long answer is they do what's expedient, what's in front of them to get to the tougher issues. And the house usually has an agreement without any data behind it. No one's gone to check for the lender to see if she qualifies on the refinance. What hadn't convinced her to do that? So it's a two, there are two parts. Your approach and outreach to lawyers, actually there's three parts then, your approach and outreach to lawyers, your approach and outreach to divorcing homeowners, but also your approach and outreach to real estate licensees. That's another key component to this. How do you find the lawyers and Graham can speak about this? One of the things we show you is how to leverage your team's lawyer connections, meaning you don't have to have all the lawyers. You're a support person to go with that real estate licensee, to meet with her lawyers and help her in that meeting, and that just expands your reach. So this is a substantive, but it's also networking and team building. And frankly, your team is the reason the divorce lawyer needs you the most. So if I heard you correctly, then we'll get to the question that I know I see Liz Reese, by the way, in the Facebook land. What's up, Liz? She's got a great question about what we'll get to in just a second. So the thing that surprised me is to your point about during the conversation about who gets the house, keeps the house, they kind of let it, the mediator, whatever. That thing gets settled, the attorney, the divorce attorney in a lot of cases, isn't aware of that decision and the impact to their financial future. Is that correct? Right. So they make a decision about what are we going to do with the house because it's the easiest yes to get. She's going to keep it great. She'll refinance great. We're fine. We get a yes. We have an agreement, right? And then we get to the more challenging questions, and there are a lot of challenging questions. And so what surprises, more good professionals in our classes, and what surprises real estate licensees in our classes, is that there isn't more attention spent on all of the issues you all are involved in winning mortgage closes. So when I always teach us, the documents needed to buy the house are completely different than what's used to divorce that same house. That's the actual answer. And how do I know this? In 2013, that's the only year since 2008, I did not teach real estate licensees. In 2013, I taught over 500 judges and lawyers in three states. And I surveyed them. And so that's how I know what's in use and what's not in use from actual surveys of family judges and divorce lawyers in three states. And most of the documents you, the lender, requires a closing, are missing from the divorce. So how do you get those in? You've got to tell people why it cannot just be a checklist. I learned this early on. Can't just give people a checklist here, do all of this. If they don't know why it's needed, it looks like more, more work, more work, and divorce is already document intensive on other issues. All your credit card statements, all your spend, how much did you spend on birthday parties in 2019 for your three children who go to an average of 17 parties a year? No one keeps track, but the other side's asking you for that, and you're a photocopying and trying to find a PDFs and contacting your financial companies. It's so overwhelming that that's another reason why the house is lighter on documentation. We need to increase it, but with a purpose, it's not, hey, let's just grab some documents from closing. Why do these matter? If you can't explain why they matter both substantively and the divorce and then the strategic use in a divorce, you're just given them a checklist, which does not work. Trust me. I tried that 10 years ago. It does not work. Interesting. You have to give meaning behind what you're asking for. Okay, so let's deal with the question that Liz Reese, by the way, applause to Liz Reese for asking the question. The probably most common question, which we talked about upfront, is how do you get in front of attorneys in the first place? I feel like they don't want to spend the time. That's Liz's question. Graham, do you want to take this one? Sure. Yeah, so I had a meeting with a group of attorneys before I had my designation, and it flopped. Okay. So what I realized was that what we're normally just talking to them about, they really don't care. Or there's no way to bring it full sort of, you know, you're not really sort of coming in with an approach. It's just a general, hey, I can do the brief finance. So I think with getting in front of attorneys and how we do it is we need to, we need to be able to talk to them about something that they're not thinking about that were experts in. So through the RCSD designation, you learn all those things. You learn how to control the conversation versus just being, you know, being there and having them ask you questions and having them control it. So I think it starts there as having the confidence to be able to talk about what it is that you want to show them and knowing your scripts and knowing what it is that why you're there and how you can help. Graham, have you been helping the real estate agents who have been, who received a designation and have you been going with them to their lawyer meetings? Yeah, absolutely. So that's another, that's a part of the answer to this question is that not all the lawyers are coming from you. They're coming from the real estate agents that you're working with. Yeah, I've had two, I had two Zoom meetings last week, three this week and they've all been from realtors that had the connections with those attorneys. And so in the beginning, in the beginning, you're really holding their hand and sort of leading that meeting so that they get their one, two, three, four on their belt and then they can actually, they can do it themselves and they can sort of not take over, but it becomes more of this back and forth natural meeting that you would have where you're, you know, both of you are adding what you're supposed to add to that conversation and it gets really smooth and then you can, you know, it looks really good to the lawyers. So the lawyers don't all have to come from you and your own efforts. We teach you how to contact your team members, your associates, your vendors because it could be your home inspector who knows the divorce lawyer. We teach you how to do that so you should be leveraging, even without the training you should be leveraging your own connections who, you know, one to two, you know, it's not six degrees of Kevin Bacon, it's more like one to two people away. It really is and I call it my, here's what I'm creating, I'm creating an army of realtors who are out there in their B&I groups, they're out there in their spheres, they're talking to their people and they're, and they've got the designation and now they're bringing up the fact that they're specializing in divorce real estate and getting those meetings and then calling me and bringing me in. And that's really the power behind this and I think the main reason that people want to listen to this podcast because it's, it's a great, and you're probably, I'm going to jump in on your next question, but Jeff, go ahead. You lead the, you lead the charge and then, no, man, keep going. Yeah, I mean, it's, for me, as mortgage people, we're always looking for a reason to be able to get in front of realtors to tell them something that's different and to try to bring some values so that they will trust you and send their clients to you. And this is the number one thing that I have going right now, it's the, it, I honestly, I ask it to every realtor because it's a simple ask, hey, have you ever thought about working with divorce attorneys? And most of them are going to say, yes, I have. And I said, have you ever worked with one or had a referral from one, no, I haven't. And so then it's just a natural conversation. Well, I've been meeting with a lot of divorce attorneys. I really found a designation that can, can I think help you in this area, which would love to sit down and talk about it? Okay. I like that. Let me pause on that for a second. Sure. We can come back to that conversation. People in Facebook land, you've got more questions about how do you approach realtors, how do you approach divorce attorneys? What do you say? Things like that. That's right going. But let's pivot for a second back to you for a moment, Professor Murray. This RCSD. Is that correct? RCSD designation? Yes. What does that mean? How is it different than other divorce like certs that are out there and stuff like that? Well, first, let me just give you one major takeaway. Okay. Lawyers ask, is this one of those fake real estate certifications? Lawyers actually ask this because they think those letters are fake. So my number one recommendation is, do not tell a lawyer that you're certified. Even if you've taken a training that uses the word certified, use the acronym, not the word certified. Because lawyers are education snobs and they think there's actually a class, not for mortgage professional, but for real estate agents, four hours claiming that you're certified. Do you think a lawyer thinks a real estate agent after a four-hour training is certified? No. So we have a designation because you don't need to be an expert. You're right. The specialized in divorce mortgage and to tell a lawyer, I specialize in divorce mortgage, you're not overplaying it, you're not overselling it. And so the lawyer, you keep your credibility, which is the most important thing. So that's why our designation is a designation and not a certification. The letters are RCS-D, real estate collaboration specialist divorce. And we started it with real estate licensees and then lenders that they were working with and wanted to sit in our class. So what we used to do is reorder it and have lenders audit a live, like a four-hour segment. And then in January of 2017, after I was forced by a training promoter to create a lender-specific class during my Christmas break between fallen sprints and nesters. So I did this under protest and it went so well that we've been teaching mortgage-specific training, divorce mortgage specialist, we call it the divorce mortgage blueprint, since January of 2017, we've been live online since the fall of 2018 for mortgage professionals. And so, but what's interesting about the designation, if you said to a lawyer, I'm in RCS-D, the lawyer doesn't need to know what that is, the question is, well, what is that? It's better than saying, let me refile your clients. That's what the lawyer thinks you're going to say, that's what the lawyer thinks you want, the lawyer has the lawyer differentiating you from all the other lenders who've asked. And so we have to give them what we're doing is providing a support, you're a colleague not a vendor, that's the main difference in what we do, we have this consumer protection approach, you are specializing, you're not an expert, you're designated not certified, so that you can break through the lawyer's barriers, one by one, you know, you're not saying what they expect and you're not the mercenary, I just want to refile approach, we feel like they need to protect their clients from that. Yeah, well said, or let's roll this back to what we left off with Graham there in terms of how do we even get an audience with the attorneys, what you're saying is we don't necessarily approach them solo or alone, we find the right agents to first team up with, have a conversation about the divorce specialization is part one, is that right? Graham, I'll let you take that. Yeah, I mean, well, there's a lot of different, there's, so what I tell, what I tell the realtors is, just like they're the spoke and the wheel of referrals, right? We all go to everybody wants to meet the realtor because they think it's title, it's mortgage, it's paint, it's, it's all these things, all these people, you know, are, but the realtors can refer, I say it's the same thing for the divorce attorneys, they're the spoke, they're the wheel and in the middle of that spoke, where you've got financial planner, CPAs, everybody's also trying to, I wouldn't say feed off of what the realtors do or what the attorneys do, but essentially, they create a lot of opportunities and business for other people. So you don't just have to go right to the attorney, you can go to that financial professional, you can go to the, whoever, you know, that's out there in your, in your sphere to, to then get that warm referral into the, into the attorneys. So it's not unnecessarily a direct shot right to them, it's sort of a, you're going through others to get to them. You can go directly to them, to the attorneys, but your best bet and the best approach that I found, number one is, well, it's, to get to the realtor, so as a mortgage person to get to the realtors, the easiest way to do that is number one is just do a lunch and learn through title companies. Hey, listen, we've got, I've got this designation. I'd love to teach your agents about it. Would you like to do something like that? So that's an easy way to do it. And then let's pause right there. Hold on. Sure. That's, that's a really big piece. And a lot of people my audience know is you, you know, know, well, I'm big on classes and educational platform. What's up? Mattello. Shout out to you, my man. So by you becoming RCSD designation, I'm going to send the C word, Professor Murray. It's, it's, it's, it's, what we have to do is speak to the lawyers in the way they expect. And so the real estate community is big on certification lawyers think it's fake. And they think it's overstated. So I'm just, I'm just making that clarification. So everyone's more successful when they do approach even a real estate lawyer or a divorce lawyer. Yeah. So am I hearing then that if somebody as a lender, I, you know, want to engage with the services of your company, divorce this house.com, I'm going to be equipped with being able to teach a lunch and learn class on this topic to realtors. Right. So what we have is when he was sell is our marketing person. So I'm the heavy lifting. I'm the research nerd on the lawyer. She's the razzle dazzle. And she's in the two years ago, the podcast with Jeff. So you can listen to her and hear and agree with me that she is our marketing genius. And so what she's created is an introduction to divorce real estate. It's, it's beautifully done. The slides are gorgeous. She gives you all the things you need to say, but you need to follow her script. It needs to sound like you, but you can't just riff off. So we watch video because we test you first before we let you run out and do it. So in our CSD mortgage professional, we make you send us a video of you doing it. And so when people follow the script, it works great. And when they try to riff off on something else, it doesn't because this is not, the takeaway is not, hey, realtors, you know enough to go out and meet with a lawyer because I teach real estate agents nine hours. So a 20-minute presentation is not going to take the place of nine hours. But what it does and what it's done for ground, it gets you in front of real estate agents with actual takeaways, an actual plan while we have more debt time while we are, you know, sheltering in place and we're online more and you have their attention and you are showing them your expertise, you're bringing them, Wendy says news, news they can use. And it's and a plan to add to their marketing as real estate agents. And so and as we said at the top, divorce is not decreasing, it's not. And my concern is people, divorce lawyers, divorcing homeowners and everyone else involved need mortgage professionals and need real estate licenses even more than they realize because of the new constraints. You know, we look every day at what's changing and lending and the secondary market and all of that. So it's a lot going on and it's not, it's not business as usual. It doesn't mean we're closed down. It's definitely not business as usual. So you're needed actually even more. Yeah, I like to say normal has been canceled. Normal definitely, that's brilliant. Normal definitely has been canceled. So Graham, all right. So you started by teaching this intro to divorce real estate lunch and learn in your local area, right? Correct. And so did you follow the normal process of getting agents butts in the seats where you more selected or did you just do the selection process post class? I've done a couple of different ways. Originally, I went to a title rep that I really liked and she hand picked the agents that she thought would be that would be interested in this. Funny enough, out of that first group of seven or eight people, three or four signed up to do the class, one of them has become the best RCSD realtor I have and she is fantastic. I'll take her on any any attorney meeting and and you know, she's great. So and then there's two or three other ones that have come from that that have finally have kind of understood the importance of it. I've gone the route of going to the title attorneys and just having them blast it out to their to their sphere and that doesn't end up being you know the right way to do it. I don't think I've gone to brokers and I've talking to brokers that have you know I don't know 80 or 90 people underneath them and they hand select people that they want to come to the events. So I like I like the hand selected piece. I don't like I don't like the cast a wide net. I like the people going to the ones that they think will be really good at this and and doing it that way. Let's just shout out to Grant was in front. Grant was in front of the managing broker. Yeah tell us tell us that quick story because I have the notes here. You got in front of a managing broker and that led to something very meaningful. Yeah, we did a we did a lunch and learn and she had 40 of her agents on the on that call and I think nine or 10 of them have signed up to become RCSD's. I think they did their training or most of them did their training and I literally have 10 people or eight or nine people just to call and talk to. Hey, what did you think of the training? When are you ready to get started? You know, when can we start doing some training videos together? You know, so the conversation doesn't just become, hey, do you have a buyer? It's like, hey, when are you ready to get started on this? Let's meet with some attorneys. Let's do this. Let's get some business going and it's it's just a totally different conversation and they look at me and they're looking at me as somebody who's who is different. They trust me. They think I've got an expertise because once you start once you can meet with once you can sit down and talk to an attorney and and and have a good conversation and lead that meeting, I would say it increases your your your your like ability, the trust level that they would have with you. People think you're smarter than you probably are. So all those things that your stock goes up, man, your stock goes up. Here we go for sure. Have you been doing then some of these intro to divorce classes virtually since this whole COVID? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I found the virtual to be not easier, but it's easier to get people to say yes and to have those meetings. Yes, you'll have better attendance now, which is interesting. And I've actually been doing a lot of Zoom meetings with the attorneys themselves and the realtor and then we've created a separate slide deck to take that presentation that we would normally do just in front of them just on a slide deck and just kind of talk over it. So do you find a mix of in terms of the agents you're choosing to align with here, some of them have some attorneys to introduce you to, some of them don't? Yes, so some of them are in B&I groups, right? And they'll have an attorney law attorney that's in the B&I group or they'll have half a dozen or so past customers that have actually gone through divorce where they can then get that attorney's information to connect with them. So yes, some have none, some have a lot more than they realize. It's funny, you mentioned family law and people have gone through this, let's face it, right? I mean, what's the stats? 50% of people in this country and I'm just reading some of the notes from some of my friends and colleagues that in this, you know, Kevin's mentioning, what's up, Kevin? Shout out to you high five. He has a personal story. He shared this in Facebook. So I guess I could bring it to the surface here is that he saw how his mother was treated by financial institutions after which life was made much harder and he wants to make sure that doesn't happen to other single parents. Absolutely, Kevin. That's that's been the driving force behind my focus for over 10 years on this topic because one thing everyone should remember is property division is permanent. Support can be modified. It's difficult, but it's still possible. You have to have a significant positive change in circumstances or significant negative change in circumstances. That support property division is permanent and you know the connection between real estate and your credit score. And so and then other bills that don't get paid and once that damage is done, it it isn't fixed for years and you'll have a higher interest rate and so that's why one of our focus is on the credit score. That's one of the most important assets everyone should protect during the divorce of that after the divorce and on a positive trajectory. If they had that they start out with poor you know challenge credit, it's not going to get better because of the divorce, but what they do could make it worse or at least stay where they are and that's part of what your role is to really help them come out on a positive trajectory financially. Yeah. Graham, are these transactions any more challenging or complex than your average transactions? No, they're not. It's really it's it's really the same thing as if you're sitting down with the first time homebuyer and going through the process of what doing a mortgage looks like. I mean you do need to know some guidelines associated with people going you know you need to know your guidelines in this in this space, but it's it's no different. The only difference is is sometimes the timing right. So you're going to do a pre-qual or you're going to do a pre-debourse you know uh meeting with the client and then it may be three or four months before they can actually do something or longer just depends depends on their ability to qualify once the divorce is finalized. But your actions early can help them qualify. Oh yeah. You're the difference. That's why I don't teach underwriting. You don't need me to teach you underwriting and frankly I can't teach a teacher. When you getting involved earlier helps them qualify when the divorce is over and if you're not involved they may not qualify. That leads to zero transactions. That's the worst outcome for everyone. Right. Including because real estate drives the economy. I was looking at an NAR statistic every closing adds eighty five thousand dollars on average to the economy and goods and services. Interesting. Wow. That's what real estate is a driving engine of the economy which is why real estate professionals are essential workers right now doing things virtually because we don't want the 2008 meltdown. We need mortgage to keep going to keep real estate going. Yeah absolutely and I would assume that also you know you're you're building not to sound cliche but you're building clients for life helping them navigate this difficult time. Yeah yeah and I think um and I wrote a note here that the the referrals from the attorneys are really they're great referrals. Yeah. When the people sit down and you and you walk them through that process and you help them they don't they don't just they don't just throw your number away that when when they're ready to go they're calling you back because because they appreciate it all that. Yeah 100 percent. So I'm glad you guys brought up some of the key points today which is like you know you're not succeeding in this niche is not about getting the deal right. It's not about listening to another three transactions a month. You've got to have the long-term game in mindset yes and referral partners. This niche is about referral partners not just deal by deal. It is it's more about yeah I think it's more about that it's it's a long play so like my goal or my my thought process in this and this is probably good for your audiences and the next three to five years plugging away plugging away plugging away just about every attorney in in in where I am is going to know my name and they're going to note they're going to associate me with with mortgage and and the service that we provide. Yeah and and like we said earlier it's really it's great that you're actually building two referral sources the attorney is obviously one side but then of course by you teaming up with very select agents naturally what comes out of that is you work together on that business but to your point about building the trust you're going to then get that other business as well because of that partnership. Well residential real estate agents have also just residential clients not divorced so when you build that relationship in the divorce sphere it builds your relationship for other transactions with residential real estate. Yeah at 100 percent. Cool so listen I know we're almost out of time here so before we do I want to for those that are interested in taking the next step there is a process here like we said you need to get educated and I think the first step we we can't cover it all here right now is so we do have the next step if you guys want to go deeper on this what's involved in the certification you know what we can talk deeper on whatever topics you think are relevant for you making a decision about is this a niche you should pursue so what we've done is decided to team up myself because like I said two years ago I brought you guys to the podcast and it's time I brought you back so we're going to team up professor Murray and Wendy she'll be on the webinar as well right? Yes so Wendy Whistle has we have a free webinar. Next week Wendy Whistle and I will be teaching you some takeaways so you can make an informed decision about whether you want to specialize in divorce jurisdiction and divorce management and I'm going to give you the URL the link for that in just a moment but I wanted to share the screen with you real quickly just to show you some of the topics that are going to be covered so here's the title of the webinar wide divorce mortgage matters even more during COVID-19 so consider this the intro to niche and virtual marketing specifically obviously to this divorce niche so we're going to walk just deeper through the stuff we touched on here today which is you're right landing those referral sources the easy way the proven way because obviously divorce this house and this for quite a number of years so they've got the blueprint so to speak right as a matter of fact that's the name of the classroom right go figure right so this is all about kind of those next steps how do you approach realtors what are the conversations what do you say what do you not say right how do you not look silly how do you not make a fool of yourself because that's very important as well like I think she says right here key takeaway how not to market to divorce lawyers incredibly important what doesn't work so professor Murray's going to leave this I'll be there as well kind of as a moderator if you will Wendy will be there all so so how do you make a reservation for this let me stop sharing my screen and bring up the URL love this live stream tool here it is it's showing right in your banner right there you want to go to divorce mortgage if I could speak divorce mortgage class.com is where you can go and register for that free webinar is going to be May 14th one Pacific that's what for Eastern I think so yeah and so it's going to be a decent what it's going to be about an hour or so right so be prepared to dig in bring your node pad and all that kind of jazz because if after what you hear and see and learn and get a chance to know professor Murray and Wendy at a deeper level if you feel you want to take the next step to become a certified sorry divorce lending specialist yes you'll be able to make that next step appropriately at that time so and obviously you've heard from Graham I've had by the way not only earlier it was Corey Yelton who was on my meeting earlier who went through your class yes and also you probably remember Wendy Thompson yes from many years ago Wendy and I know each other for 10 years she's been through your class as well as a handful of other people so you guys are doing good things out there in the industry that's why I'm happy to bring you to my member community thanks so much you bet thank you for being here I know you're incredibly busy Graham thank you for being here once again listeners if you do want to take the step jump on the URL there divorce mortgage class.com it's free no obligation or nothing go check it out we're going to close out here I see a couple of comments Carl self what's up Carl Carl just made it made a change all right Carl you'll have to let me know what that means for you all right so as we wrap up here one last question and I think this is a probably a good question professor Murray you might want to take this how does this different than a CDLP actually I'm not the person to answer that question Graham has taken that training so Graham's taking both trainings yeah we we have a different perspective that's all I can say about it but Graham's been through the other training yeah it's not even this it's not even the same so the CDLP is more for guidelines and understanding sort of like you know some legal issues the mortgage side and some other stuff some tax related stuff related to divorce the RCSD tells you exactly what you need to say and how you're going to present to the attorneys and it's just a totally different perspective completely different perspective than any other certification that's out there I've got both and the RCSD gets me in front of the attorneys awesome and I think that's the real key right this is how do we get in front of the people that can help us grow our business and make a difference out there as we are yeah okay cool good questions all right everybody we got a jump we're going to close it out here as we always do thank you once again professor Murray Graham through it appreciate you listeners as you know I appreciate you as well let's wrap this up and we'll see you on the next one 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 if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased 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 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