A Conversation Is Calculated, with John Thompson of SMPL Mortgage

0:01 Welcome to the Reverse Mortgage Podcast where not every conversation is calculated but today's is. We have a real lucky to have with us John Thompson, one of our first guests on the Reverse Mortgage Podcast from a year and a half ago as well as an expert on reverse mortgages but also using the tool for the customer's benefit in a variety of ways whether it be for estate planning or for buying a property. John, thank you again for being on our on our podcast. My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me back, Bill. I appreciate it very much. So, one of your taglines is a calculation is a conversation is calculated.

0:34 Yeah. So, what is a calculated conversation? As somebody who speaks off his head too often, according to my wife, what's a calculated conversation? Y- You know, so it's kind of a kind of a fun play on words, right? So, you know, we say that every conversation is calculated. So, you know, you and I in the end of the day we're in this combination of a you know, in the real estate world there's math that comes into play, right? There's math. But overriding that often times are emotions, right? And so, the math can say something all day long, right? The right price for the home, the right, you know, fee structure, in our case the right interest rate or the right, you know, outcome that the math tells us through some kind of calculator calculation. But at the end of the day, if someone just emotionally can't get there, the number really matters. So, the conversation is what matters, right? Understanding our clients, you know, dreams, goals, desires. Those things are far more important cuz you and I can probably figure out the math. You know, math is not difficult. But getting connecting the math to the emotional goal that people have is what's sometimes difficult. So, every conversation really is calculated in our opinion. Or at least should be and that's where the role that you play. And so, in a reverse mortgages I think the thing that is different, if you took the word mortgage out Yeah. And called it reverse, you know, befustick, just made up a word for it, I think people would treat it differently. You know, reverse sounds whatever, sounds important, directional I guess is the way I look at it. But we hear mortgage we kind of think, well, that's kind of like the mortgage I got and there, you know, it's just the rate, we're buying a house, didn't really matter that much.

2:06 Then we refinance, it's just the rate, doesn't matter so much. But really with a reverse mortgage, it really is about tweaking, picking the right package, and the right strategy to make the tool work for you, correct? Y- Absolutely. You know, the You know, we've talked about this before, but you know, in the reverse mortgage world you have what we call needs-based borrowers, which are borrowers that, you know, need the reverse to sort of make something sustainable for the rest of their life or at least have an opportunity to do it. They have a lot of real estate equity but maybe not a lot of other assets. So, that's a need-based borrower. But then you have set or have what we'll call sort of more strategic borrowers. And they're the folks that could use it to enhance their lifestyle, their financial life, their legacy planning. There's a lot of enhancement you can do through the correct way of borrowing money, especially in the reverse mortgage world. Literally yesterday I get a phone call from one of my best clients, he's a fiduciary, that he had a family member who was applying for a reverse mortgage.

3:07 Yeah. He says to me, you know, she applied for it, you know, he kind of gave me an overview of her financial situation and said that she applied, you know, weeks ago but then all of a sudden now the mortgage originator said to her, "Because of your age, instead of X LTV, it's much less. Instead of like 6% change, it's like 9% change."

3:29 Oh, yeah. And I said, "Well, that's interesting." I said, "Who is the reverse mortgage originator?" He said, "Well, she's with Coldwell Banker." I said, "Oh, okay. So, this is a real estate agent who happens to have an NMLS license that's allowed to broker a deal. Probably couldn't even do a regular mortgage correctly. And now here she's taking the most sophisticated mortgage product in the world and telling it to somebody who really has very little room for missing. Like she's got some financial problems and she's coming to the end of her, you know, financial life. And like there's little room for error and she's going to prescribe it'd be like going to, you know, finding out you have you God forbid life-threatening cancer and just walking into some, you know, Tijuana medical center and getting help for that. And literally I did mention your name and I don't think they're quite there yet in the cycle. So, I think you're going to see them from them tomorrow. My point is this is not the same as a mortgage. This really requires some expertise and training and special tools. Yeah, that's a that's an interesting analogy. So, I'm trying to think of a medical analogy, right? So, you have maybe have a Well, I'm not sure the Coldwell Banker agent would even qualify as a general practitioner, GP doctor, right? So, they're probably like an intern trying to learn the doctor's world. But then reverse mortgage should be a real specialty, right? So, that's when your GP refers you out to a specialist right to deal with your exact, you know, you know, disease. And that's probably a negative word. There is no disease necessarily. There's just an opportunity to help people when it comes about that I that's I'm sorry to hear that.

4:59 Well, and I think the fact that she didn't that the age changed the loan four weeks later and the rate means somebody didn't find out something when the process started and put it in the right track, right? Somebody put Okay, so the easy analogy there is it's, you know, as a real estate professional you don't put people in your car or start showing them property until you know they can actually, you know, qualify to get the financing. That's what's happened in that case. You know, that they didn't qualify or didn't do enough research to determine what the borrower was eligible for. Right. That's what likely happened. And they feel that some sort of on- I'm sure it's very easy, some online app, lickety-split, probably on Zillow or Redfin or some stupid application. I'll put in five forms and you get paid, you know, 1% just for filling out the form. And meanwhile the customer has wasted four weeks and they're under stress now. Now the phone call is more frantic because they've lost four weeks on solving their problem. Now it's not even just you know, they get ripped off, they didn't pay what they shouldn't have. They'll maybe they paid for appraisal. But let's assume they didn't. It's the time and the stress they've gone through. So, let's talk about you're not just an ordinary mortgage originator. Talk about I know you were at one time doing forward or what we call traditional or normal mortgages that to the rest of the world. Don't mean to insult you but you're not normal, John. But at some point you went from that to doing some reverse mortgages to I think today you're just a reverse mortgage specialist or at least that's the vast majority. Talk a bit about that transition or your personal journey.

6:24 Thank you. We still actually do forward mortgages and home equity lines of credit and bank statement loans and all the forward stuff. My personal passion is definitely more around the reverse space but I just find it to be really interesting and strategic and life-changing from us every single person we talk to. And life-changing even if they don't get the reverse mortgage because I'm willing to have a conversation of truth with them and tell them where they're at instead of, you know, sort of playing around.

6:50 But my journey's been, you know, pretty straightforward. I mean, 11, 12 years ago one of the financial planners I worked with said, you know, "Do you know about these reverse mortgages?" And I'd always been hesitant to sort of get into it. I didn't really understand it. I didn't I didn't have a bias against the product. I just didn't know it well enough to feel like I could confidently help a client with it. And so, he said, "I need you to learn cuz I need you to help my clients." And so, I did as a favor to him. And in my In fact, my very first transaction was not with him but it was with an insurance professional said, "Look, I trust you. My mom, I believe, needs this product. Can you look at it?" And I told him again, "I'm going to have to be learning on the job." And he said, "I trust you. Take your time. We'll figure it out." And I did. From then I went on to really enjoy it and I've gotten sort of all the designations that you can get, you know, including that CRMP, the Certified Reverse Mortgage Professional designation. Very few people in the United States have it. It's a very difficult designation. I'm proud to have it. And I think it gives us a different new level of education and understanding and empathy for the client. You know, I don't really consider training on how to get business education. That's more marketing and marketing training. And so, having been in the origination business myself and having managed it and then been on the periphery of, you know, most of my career, I find the CRMPs like you, which is a small number but I happen to be fortunate to have met Yeah.

8:12 You know, a hundred or so of you. Yeah. The consistent factor is you guys spend more time on real education on products and systems in reverse mortgages than even top mortgage originators do. You do more in a year than they do like in five or 10 years because for the most part those products don't change all that much and the perception's not. Whereas the reverse mortgage is not just that it changes, there's so many products, but it's such a deep product, such a complicated product that I think requires constant refreshers and constant best practices and things like that. So, talk a bit about what is the time commitment you make to continue to be a CRMP once you get that designation. And then, you know, I was just trying to get it but once you have it, you're still doing annual training of some sort. We still do annual training. I mean, it's, you know, in terms of actual time, I don't it you know, eight hours is the continuing education requirement to maintain the CRMP. But it's far more than that cuz if you're going to work at the level I think the most CRMPs do, you're going to conferences. There's, you know, a handful of conferences, three major conferences every year put on by the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association. It's a nonprofit that advocates for the reverse mortgage industry in Washington. And they do conferences. So, you know, I think the top people go to that. I go to that. I'm a I'm a I'm always kind of learning new strategies. I think what's happening in the reverse mortgage space is that you know, as it gains a little bit more traction both with professionals and with consumers, you know, the use cases are expanding, right? So, how it can be used in sophisticated and financially interesting ways is getting a little bit larger. And so, you have a reverse originators that focus primarily on the you know, on the needs-based client because they're there. And they're folks that need the product but there's no sophisticated planning. You're just helping someone and you're saving the situation where they're in. But, as you get further and further into the advanced cases, that's where you need to stay up on the education.

10:08 And how do you like anything you learn, Bill, right? So, you have to first kind of hear about it, right? Then, you go, "Okay, that's interesting." Then, you got to kind of understand it. You're going a little deeper into it. Okay, so I kind of understand how that might work, right? Then, maybe you're experiencing yourself or with a client and so forth. But, until you can teach something and stand in front of a room of five to 50 people and explain a reverse mortgage strategy in depth so those people can understand it at the level of a 10th grader, you haven't truly achieved that goal. So, that's where I think you spend a lot of time is getting to that point of specific strategy and how you get there. That was a long-winded answer, Well, I also I also think you're being very humble in that, you know, I'll give you guys a statistic. The CRMP is only 8 hours a year continuing. An attorney in California is 25 hours in 3 years, about 8 and 1/3 hours per year. Your 8 hours a year is in addition to your NMLS continuing ed. Your license This isn't your license requirement. This is to be an to be a CRMP on top of that. So, you really almost have twice as much education annually if you're CRMP and licensed as a mortgage originator in California. Twice as much as an attorney. And I think that, you know, I get a lot from attorneys on putting down Realtors®, and probably deservedly so.

11:25 It's amazing how little continuing ed they need to have. And they would say, "Well, it's plenty. It's a lot of work for them." So, I do think that's a it's a big commitment time-wise, and I think people should take it seriously. I'll add to that, Bill, that, you know, many of us that work in the space also have to maintain our real estate license. So, just like, you know, for professional Realtors®, we need our 45 hours every 4 years. Right. You know, which is another 10 hours a year at on average, right? So, it's it does add up. More Again, more than attorneys, but again, in your case, it's more than attorneys, just a specialization. And I think the other thing is in the way you know attorneys, they have put a premium on the specialization. Like, I work with attorneys who have a designation by the state bar of trust and estates, and that takes additional training. Well, that's kind of equivalent what you have. I think that anybody who looks into this I've been in real estate for decades. There is no designation that is worth anything other than saying, "Hey, I took a good class." In my first professional opinion, other than the CRMP, which is really saying, "I am an expert in this field and I stay on top of it." Assuming you're continuing to be a member. I think the other thing I find that's attractive is it talks to you like you who are proud and committed to being at the front. This is not like you check off your box, you did it so you can keep the designation and keep some referral flow going. It's the opposite. You're really in this because it separates you from the competition, not in terms of the letters, but in terms of your skill set and your value for your customer.

12:53 Yeah. You're absolutely right. Thank you. I don't I don't view it as a business development tool. To me, it's how do I make You said it, skill set. Right? It's a skill set I need to be able to do good work for my clients. One of the things you said the last time we were together was that I don't remember this quote, "Mortgages are easy, but strategy is hard." And I think again, you know, on a on a traditional mortgage, you're just buying a house, you want a fixed-rate loan. There's some strategy as far as getting approved and all that, but it's minimal. It's mostly just the process. But, reverse mortgage, a lot of it is the strategy. Talk a bit about why it's hard and what you do to try to make that work for customers. Sure, thank you. I will, however, say that I think there is quite a bit of strategy involved even in a forward mortgage, but that's a whole different conversation. We'll save it for another time. But, on the reverse side, you know, yes, and the product is a product, right? So, I mean, it doesn't matter. You could go and talk to 10 different lenders, and if they have the basics of how it works, you're going to get the same essential numbers from the lender. Where it comes into play, the strategy part that is hard is truly understanding how to explain to a client, "Okay, so if you do this is what's going to happen, right? We're saving a thousand dollars in cash flow. You know, why do you need that? Where's it going to go? How's it going to change your life? Are we looking 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road?" Because all these situations kind of all weave together, right? So, from my perspective, the strategic part that is, I think, hard is really integrating it into someone else's financial plan.

14:18 Now, that's a challenge because not everyone is a financial planner. Not everyone wants a financial planner. Not everyone has enough assets to have a financial planner. So, in some ways, we become a de facto financial planner for folks as well. Now, we don't do taxes, we don't do, you know, retirement planning and all this kind of but we know enough about it to be able to help someone say, "Look, if you saved this amount of cash flow, and you allocate it in this way, your plan becomes sustainable for 18 years or 20 years, or whatever it might be." So, that's the strategic part that I think is difficult for most people to get their hands heads around is how to then advise someone how it's going to make a difference in their life going forward. There's a saying that I think it's attributed to 12-step programs, that many things in business, and I think this is the general truth, many things are simple, they're just not easy, right? In real estate, you know, I do probate real estate listings. It's simple, the things they do. It's just not easy because you have to learn and you have to, you know, digest information. You have to be patient. You have to work on your systems and such. Literally, your compa- company named Simple, S M P L. So, talk about where why that's the image or why that's the thrust you want your customers to start with. Mortgages aren't easy, but how do you make them simple for the customer?

15:38 You know, great. And that was very intentional. That S M P L branding came out of a long values conversation and, you know, work we did with, you know, people over many years, quite frankly, to get to that point where I wanted to rebrand it as Simple. And because, you know, at the end of the day, like we said, mortgages are easy, but strategy is not, right? So, people want You know, here's the problem. Out in the world now, you let's talk about that company that you talk about on your newsletter once in a while, which has things that take off in the earth and shoot up in the sky really quickly, right? So, that company wants everyone to believe that it is simple as pressing a button and filling out a form, and 5 minutes later, you're completely done. And while the technology might exist to make that happen, it doesn't mean that it's that it works correctly for people and so forth. And so, we want that at the end of the day, the process can be simple if you're a good originator, you know what you're doing, you gather the right document, and you explain things to people in a direct way, and you communicate effectively. So, that part of it can be simple, which I think gives us time to do the more complicated part, or the part that's not easy, which is the strategic part, the advice and the hand-holding and the emotional part of the conversation. So, you know, we want the process to be simple, you know, so we can spend more time on the more important things, if that makes sense. So, that's why we named it Simple Mortgage.

16:58 I Yeah, I'm the exact same way with my clients. I had a conversation the other day with a client, and she apologized like three times in a row for asking me questions. I said, "Hold on. You're the client. My job is to answer every single question you have so that you understand it. And I'm available to do this now, and take whatever time we need, and I'm whoever's behind us is going to have to wait. You're my client, you're paying me to do this job. This is what I do. And I will say that I have a great team behind me. I've great systems. So, I don't have to spend a lot of time I don't have to spend time Oops, sorry about that. I don't spend time cold calling 3 or 4 hours a day and doing things that other Realtors® have to do. So that when you call me, I'm either available or if I'm pre-booked, I'll get you right away and I'll have the time to deal with it. I think so many of these big companies, and I don't want to bad-mouth, you know, big large corporations that are really godless, faceless, and destroying our economy like Rocket Mortgage. I don't want to disparage them. I do though I do every week on my podcast. Their whole goal is to avoid helping people. Like, their whole goal in life. And I think that's I guess there's room for that. Now, I don't want to play there. There's room for people who really just want to interact. But and think they're smarter than everybody, and then end up making some wrong decisions, and some algorithm tells them what they're going to do, and they follow it, versus having relationship. I think the other part, though, is not just the setup time, but there's also coming back to you.

18:20 Like, if I have a relationship with you, I can come back to you when there's a problem and say, "Hey, I did this mortgage for you 2 3 years ago. My life changed. I either have a lot more money, a lot less money, more people, something. What do I do different? Does this mortgage accomplish that, or do we need to redo it?" And so, talk a bit about your relationship with people after closing. I know we've talked about this in the past before, and I think it's one of the things that attracted me again in the beginning. Talk a bit about how this is not the end of the road with you once the loan closes. Thank you. So, we actually pro- approach the business kind of, you know, in three phases, right? So, you have the you know, you meet someone to contract, whether it's a purchase or refinance, right? Then, you have contract to close. That's just the process of getting things done, implementation. Then, there's what we call close to life. And we really embrace this sort of clients to life philosophy. So, we are there for our clients. We don't believe this is a one-off transaction. You know, being in the business now 36 years, you know, I've helped lots of my clients from the early days. They're kids now, right? And it's amazing to see those kids in the family relationships. So, we're really available for anything. I'm literally we had emails this morning. My son, David, who works with me, is helping a client on a closing. They're having a problem with their impound accounts from like a year and a half ago. And those are things Bruce is trying to help them get done. On the reverse, people specifically, you know, every year we check in with people, we're doing education. We do We have an ongoing webinar where we remind them of their responsibilities of what they should be thinking about cuz you're you know, because they're a little bit older clients, they tend to forget things sometimes, and we want them to fit

19:52 Hey. Hey, I resemble that remark. So, you resemble We're there. I mean, and especially the reverse mortgage space. I mean, these are folks that have trusted us with everything, right? And so and we've done something for them and we're going to be there for them no matter what. And so it's ongoing. It could be anything, though. I literally they could call us for anything and we're going to go and help them. You know, I launched this podcast, I think after talking to you on a podcast on estate planning. I think that you're one of the ideas with people kind of kicked me into action. There was another couple of friends, too, but I think you were the one. And the reason why is my thesis is that we as a company should be doing 10 times as many reverse mortgages as we are but for the kind of bad reputation of the prior iterations of the program, not how it is today, how it was I think about 10 years ago or more. When I did some back in those days. And the lack of service post closing, which causes unnecessary nightmares and misses the opportunity both to serve your customer and as a result get more business from it. So you mentioned in passing and I think for those, you know, those originators who don't pay attention to this is your big mistake. I'll just say it. I'm not in the business. I have no I'm not selling anything.

21:12 You your customer has to fill out a form every year for a an FHA for a HECM mortgage verifying the residency, I think, and a couple of other facts. And if they don't, the loan is subject to being called. Now, there's a process, but basically they need to fill the form every year. If you're not somehow reaching out to help them with that you're missing out on the repeat business, the referral business, their kids, meeting their kids. And now they're going to say, "Do you know I'm getting a little old on this? I need my son to help me." You know, and the people like you who tell me that you actually have any system at all. And I'm sure you could make it better, faster, more productive but you have a system to deal with this. Most originators go, "Well, that's a lot of work. I don't like And they'll tell me they're too busy. I said, "Well, how many reverse mortgages have you done in your career? Did you do 200 or more?" No. Well, 200 is one a day. Like how hard is it call people? So you know, what does that look like? What does that, you know, I did a reverse mortgage with you 5 years ago and you know I'm getting the annual form. What does your process look like? And talk about the benefit of that for the customer and for you and as the business person. Thank you. And I want to emphasize what you said about the opportunity. So let's just think about business for a moment, right? So you have someone you closed. Birds of a feather flock together, right? You do a good job with a reverse mortgage client. You know, assuming they get over the stigma of telling people that they have a reverse mortgage because that does exist.

22:33 They're going to tell their friends and their neighbors and so forth. And so you have an opportunity. So at the very least we're checking in once a year on and we are calling before the occupancy letter goes out and saying just a reminder, send them a letter. Why would you not? Very simple. And we call it an annual review and you know, and again, we're how's cash flow going? Are things still okay? And we've had an opportunity in the last, you know, year or so to talk to you about refinancing those loans because rates have come down a little bit for some of them. Anyway, that aside, we also developed a what we call a family and heirs guide. So we put together a support page guide, which talks about the responsibilities, but also it says literally right on it, "Keep this someplace for your family." Because we want the family to know what's going on. We encourage the conversation with their adult children and even grandchildren if they want. And so that's there if something happens, you know, our information's there and they heirs know what to do because there's a very specific process if someone passes away. So annual review, check-in phone calls. Like I said, we do this we do webinar, you know, for people that talks about the responsibilities. So nothing complicated. It's just checking in with your clients, right? Making sure they're doing well. And if they're not doing well, how can you help them with something else? We introduce people to estate planners, to financial planners, to insurance people.

23:52 You know, there's been all of this stuff in California with insurance now and a lot of changes here. Estate planning. And people are constantly thinking about on the estate planning side like, "Oh, I'm going to add my kids my title. I'm going to do this or that or you know, so-and-so passed away. I want to take them out of my trust. How do I do that?" And for a lot of these folks, the crazy thing is they did trust 20, 30, 40 years ago. That attorney has passed away. They're not around anymore. You have an opportunity as a professional to make another introduction. So I think it's just good business as well. You know, when I've coached real estate agents about doing an annual check with customers or mortgage originators, they would say, "Well, what do I have to talk about?" And literally here you have something your customer has to be told about. And in addition to getting the mail, you can be the one to tell them of that, remind them, encourage them, offer help if necessary. So you have what to talk about. It just seems like once a year for somebody who already paid you a lot of money for a deal. I don't know. If I was a manager of reverse originators, somehow I'd try to tie your commission check to those phone calls or I'd have a camera making sure you're dead head or I don't know what I would do, but it just seems like that's the low-hanging fruit that if I know this, if every originator called every customer forever once a year before that form was done the product would be better received, people have much more satisfaction with it, they would use it more effectively, and the people make those phone calls would do I think 10 times the business. I just think that's just that. Just that one change. You mentioned the 200 people, which is would be by the way be a very top originator in the United States. We are I think have closed maybe I don't know, 150, 120, somewhere in that range.

25:25 So again, for us it's like one every other one every 2 weeks, two a week or something like that. It's not a lot of people to call. Say hello. It's not. It's just not that much. And I think, you know, I mean, I talked to a lot of attorneys in a day and families and escrow, you know, I talked to probably 30, 40, 50 people a day. To throw in one person who was a past client. I will say the one reverse mortgage that I did do that closed. I was a I was a regular originator. And that product was available. I realized it just was more complicated than I was willing to commit the time to. But it was a family that benefited from it tremendously. It was a great deal for them. And then finally the husband and wife passed and the kids called me to go out to list the property. I didn't get the listing. And probably it was a very competitive listing. I was a little over my skis on that property. But I was there. I was in the room with some of the top Realtors® in West Los Angeles when I was newer as a real estate agent at that point because I had that relationship. They trusted me. They got the And I had never talked to the any of the kids. I only talked to the parents. That there's a clue I could have perhaps earned that relationship with that listing if I had done the extra work. So there's one thing I could change. If I had a magic wand or pixie dust making those phone calls annually, how I would get originators to do it, I don't know, but that would be my full-time obsession. Sure. Right. So talk a bit about how is the market changing? I mean, we have rates drop, they go back up. We have, you know, everything sounds like it's moving positive economy. Now all of a sudden we have conflict in the Middle East, maybe it's being resolved. You have AI, I'm sure it's affecting every business. I'm sure your corporate office is a major topic there. You know, your business may need to you got to allocate your capital and people in hiring practices. What do you see in your industry for the next years, let's say in 5 years?

27:06 Ooh, quite tough question. But Well, you're a big-time thinker, I know. It says right there on the Yeah, I know. Thank you for putting that there. It forces me that gives me a high standard to reach for. You know, I'm still very excited about the mortgage business. It's going through a lot of changes and the reality is that it is consolidating, right? And so from an originator perspective over the last several years, we've gone from the big boom back in 2020, 2021 during COVID I don't know the exact numbers. I think it was a couple hundred thousand originators in the country. You know, most recently numbers we were seeing were somewhere in that sort of maybe 80,000 kind of number of active originators, right? People are actually doing business, not just licensed, but actually doing business. A lot of predictions are that's going to consolidate further. Maybe we're going to have what, 40 or 50,000 originators. The trend that's happening in our world, which is probably the same as many real estate firms, is that teams are growing. Right? You're starting to get more and more people under a leader under a team that's growing out there. And I do kind of think that's potentially the future of the of the mortgage world and probably also within the reverse mortgage space. That things will consolidate. There'll be probably unfortunately maybe fewer and fewer lenders which I don't love because I like competition. I like there to be a lot of choices. That being said, it's a it's a financial reality of what's happening in the world today.

28:26 I do think we're going to have you know, AI and automation are going to bleed out off clients and consumers and they won't want to talk to John or Bill, right? They maybe they don't even understand the benefit of that. So we're going to lose part of that. I think it's going to be a little bit of a tough road for originators in the next 5 years, let's call it. My son is with me. He's 28 years old. He's excited about the future. But also believes that we're going to have more and more need for online interaction on the front end to be able to get people then have a face-to-face conversation, whatever that looks like. I think the human element is never going to go away. Advice and trust are always going to be important. But the digital experience probably will become, you know, pretty critical even in the reverse space. I think there's going to be an element of that's going to be important to folks. So we continue to invest. We're building out our team. And I'm excited about the next 5 years. And I'm kind of okay with if some competition goes away and if it consolidates a little bit. I just wish the lending sources wouldn't consolidate, right? Because then it just you don't have as much product or choices and those kinds of things. I think that's inevitable. I just feel like in all these industries, we have, you know, larger and larger monopolies pushing their sharp elbows. You know, when you have a company, okay, I won't mention a company's name to disparage them. When you have companies like Rocket Mortgage basically buying business, subsidizing, you know, a company and a website and but you know they're charging more for everybody else. So the whole thing is just a shell game to fool customers into using them. I think that they're the way to do it and as long as they can get away with it, I think that's tough competition for the average and below average originator.

30:03 And I think they're not competing with you because it's obviously a shell game and customers smell that from a mile away and same with real estate. I think that you know, Zillow has really hurt the below average real estate agent. But for me all my listings go on Zillow and Redfin and customers see them buy them and it hasn't changed my business at all as a listing agent. So I think it's one of those things where you've got to, you know, compete hard and stay up with it. I know and I know you have John. I think that's the reason why from the first time I met you I was kind of attracted to your business and your team and your approach and it's really just been a pleasure having you on. I know we're here at the end of our time so I'm going to I'll let you go. If you want to get more of John Thompson who's a CRMP, a certified reverse mortgage professional which I think is really important designation. Contact information down below and then the website smplmortgage.com which is the name of the company as well, smpl simple but there's no I and there's no E. He's actually simplified the word simple to remove the vowels. That's how simple it is to work with them. It's simple. We don't need We don't need We don't need vowels. Come on. Exactly. I love that. We don't need no stinking vowels. If you want more information from him, see him or reach out to me if you're if you're listening to this and don't have chance to write down. I'd be glad to forward you. Literally I was talking about him yesterday and I believe a customer is going to call you later today about tomorrow.

31:18 Bill. John, thank you so much for being on but more than more importantly, thank you for helping raise the standards in industry that our that our economy desperately needs. You know, we have people who have huge equity in their houses but are suffering financially for lack of liquidity and you help them with that reverse mortgage. And also you have people who could be buying new houses but are locked in the house they have without knowing enough about reverse mortgage for purchase and I know you help people there too. So thank you so much for what you do for our industry by raising professional standards. I really appreciate it. You're very welcome, Bill and thank you for continuing to be committed to this podcast and things you do. I will I'm going to throw out our topic for another get-together at some point here in the next couple of months. We should spend some time talking about some of the more advanced financial strategies using a reverse. So we'll just schedule that down the road but there's some really cool things happening that I think will really benefit financially savvy borrowers and financial planners that we can talk about. Fantastic. Love to. Let's do that. And then any time I can look at a couple USC footballs and the USC letters over your shoulder. I'm a sucker for that everybody. So anyhow, John, thanks again and we'll talk to you guys soon. And if you're listening to this Reverse Mortgage Podcast, we get together every week usually with top originators, sometimes managers, sometimes vendors to learn how to use this product to help our customers. And so if you have some suggestions, comments, please let me know. Like, subscribe, reach out if I can help at Bill Gross Probate. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.