Innovating Your Mortgage Origination, with George Morales of Mortgage Cadence

0:00 Saying, "Hey, welcome to the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. I'm your host Bill Gross at Bill Gross Probate on social media and we get together with a new episode every week most commonly, it's always almost always interview with top producing originators most commonly or managers of mortgage origination companies. But today I'm really excited to have somebody who's an expert in the innovation and the process of mortgage origination, George Morales of Mortgage Cadence located in Long Beach, sunny Southern California. George, thank you so much for making time for us today." Yeah, Bill. I'm so glad to be able to finally connect with you. So, thanks for having me. Of course. And so, Mortgage Cadence is about innovating the way companies originate reverse mortgages. Talk a little bit about what Mortgage Cadence does and how it's different than some of the other methods that companies have used in the past. Yeah. You know, right now, if you're work at a lender, if you're an originator and you work at a lender, you log onto your computer or on your cell phone in some cases and you can start working on your loan files in there, right? That system that you're working in is the LOS, which is loan origination system or software. And Mortgage Cadence is an LOS. We have an LOS that's being used by forward mortgage lenders and one of the top three reverse mortgage lenders in the country. And really, it's the only one that can truly, and I mean that true, like the truly piece, originate a forward and a reverse mortgage on the same platform.

1:24 Wow. And that's part of what I wanted to kind of bring up, Bill, and like you and I, you and I talking a little bit, is that challenge that we have, we in the reverse space, have with technology. We seem to lag a little bit on the technology side and the reverse side of the industry. Whereas our forward brethren are constantly innovating, constantly adopting new ways and new technologies to help them not only do business but to improve the consumer experience. So there's a lot I can share right now about just where we are as a reverse kind of a reverse vertical and the growth that's in front of us. Now, obviously, a lot of people watching this are with a company that has an LOS, so they might have direct input or say, of course, you can change companies based on that, and I have in the past changed companies where you're locked into software that restricts your ability to business, but let's talk more about theoretical. So, Mortgage Cadence, how do you see the business opportunity of LOS software and how do you feel like you guys address it uniquely compared to the competition? Well, as far as how we see the business itself, just in general, holistically, you know, having the LOS that works best for your organization is like having the right vehicle to get down the road. Sometimes you got to go buy a new car, right? The car that you've had and I've had plenty of these cars have I've ridden them until the wheels come off and they become old cars with you know new more costly challenges and oftent times mortgage technology becomes just that old little bit outdated legacy as it's known software and then it's starting to create more costly challenges to the origination path. So, Mortgage Cadence kind of sees that as an opportunity to modernize the mortgage experience from a technology standpoint and we've been happy to being able to do that as a company for I think we're on our 26th year. You know, gathering

3:28 Best practices and whatnot from our Lender clients for two plus decades. Of course, modernizing ourselves along the way. So that's the kind of holistically how we see the LOS market. But specifically with reverse mortgages, the ability for an organization to have a forward mortgage and a reverse mortgage be originated on the platform can really bring quite a bit of efficiencies to an organization. And I think in today's market, Bill, where we're talking about higher interest rates than we're used to, tighter inventories than we're used to as far as, real estate inventory, lenders are looking for ways to squeeze out more efficiencies, more margin, if you will, and therefore improve and improve the consumer experience during this kind of market conditions we're in now. So the ability to, you know, instead of having these disparate systems out there, but to bring it all into one place can bring you quite a bit of efficiency from a organization standpoint. Now I've actually been involved with technology for a long time. I actually out of college worked in Boca Raton, Florida where IBM was manufacturing PCs. I started on the hardware side, but because of hardware companies, you we kind of got involved with the software and I was one of the first beta testers on the first CRM products that became big. It was became ACT before it was ACT was contact software international. I was a beta tester on Microsoft Outlook, which was originally going to be a CRM.

5:03 It kind of morphed into more of a email kind of platform. So, I've been involved with it. One of the things I've noticed and I've noticed it as an originator because I was an originator for a good part of my career as a real estate agent is that it's most often people's complaints with software is not the software, it's their lack of understanding of the capabilities of the software. I would find and I don't know the exact number but if I was using a round number most people don't even use 10% of the features of the software they're using and therefore the goal becomes to help your staff your team or whatever learn how to use the tools that are in front of them rather than compared to other software that might be better doesn't matter if it's better if you don't use it so talk a little bit about you must have a strategy or thoughts about how do you get when you have an installation How do you get the teams whether it be the sales side or the and I know you're in sales for your company but you must be thinking about both the sales side and the operation side. How do you get them to use the features that your engineers work so hard to get into your systems? That is probably one of the largest challenges that we hear from Bill exactly what you're talking about is really user adoption. Yeah. Right. And full user adoption to your It's exactly you're exactly right. We're in discussions right now with folks who are about to make the switch over to our platform and it's interesting because they're looking to us to provide some I would say consulting or coaching along these areas this line here and one of the things that I have seen kind of repeated over and over again that blocks user adoption is over complicating the product itself.

6:47 Self what you're putting in front of the user to your point only 10% is being used or so part of that reason is that there's just too much on the menu. So the antidote to that is simplifying the tools so that really when you know somebody opens up their software on their computer let's say they're only their eyes are only seeing what they in their role needs need to see right and it has a very you want to have one of the things we talked to our clients about is having the ability to not configure yourself into a corner. So you want to have a very kind of a streamlined user experience where they you know a user an end user by the way can just walk through the steps kind of procedural really software kind of holding our hands a little bit through the process educating us. Imagine that technology being able to just educate you and the more you go down that path the better you get at using the whole product. So simplification, simplifying the process and making sure we're not turning on all the bells and whistles, turning on all the features all at once. Oftent times our recommendation is to implement or to present to their user base to the operations and salesforce in phases.

8:10 Right. Right. So that's one way and that first phase is key in that those early adopters if you will can then turn around and train their colleagues. Right. Right? They get some small successes they can share. I did this, I did that, and this worked for me. Not only that, but they can also provide early feedback saying, "Hey, that's still not right. That's still off." And that can go back to the internally or the Mortgage Cadence and say, "Hey, we need a couple more tweaks before we roll it out to the rest of the company, right?" Because that user adoption issue is it's a real one, right? One of the challenges I find in a company like yours, and I know you're good-sized company, you're also backed by a really large company, and I'm not going to disparage you, but the challenge you face is that, you know, there's a saying, hungry dogs hunt best. When a company is a bootstrap, they're aggressive. They're going to serve the customer, but they may have the resources to. On the flip side, if you have a lot of resources, sometimes there's a complacency that comes in. Oh, we already signed the contract with the company. We don't have to do a good job of this, or as good as a competitor because that. So how is a company and you're in sales so you must want to keep your team hungry and client focused. So talk a little bit about the challenge of keeping your team and clients and your you know client support departments hungry and servicing the customer even when you when you achieve some success.

9:27 You know that's a great point. That's a great point because that's true across all parts of life right the you got to be hungry you got to want it. You got to go out there and be scrappy and do it. So that's very true. Bill, I would say one thing from a market share perspective, Mortgage Cadence is not the largest. We're not anywhere near the largest. And so just from a market perspective, the total addressable market, we're constantly fighting for business in that in that space, right? We're constantly reaching out and connecting with as many folks as possible and whatnot. But then to your point, once they become clients, holding on to a client, it's like holding on to your breath. Like you need you they're the oxygen that you have. Now I think every company out there can say something like that. But then when the rubber meets the road are things like for examp I'll give you from our from our side our executives traveling the country and visiting our clients literally not just on you know over you know using technology over the internet sure those are there but part of our governance with our cadence with our clients is trying to meet them where they are either on the webinar or literally where they are and that means being, you know, knee to knee at their at their desk or their conference room if needed, right? Just to kind of keep your finger on the pulse.

10:53 Yeah. And keep that relationship going. I think that's going to be key for anybody in any kind of sales related anything. Sure. Is to have that sort of face to face time. I mean, you were just at a conference. I'm at conferences all the time. There's some things that you can do face to face that just kind of aren't are lacking when there's a virtual connection. And I think those things are just going to be very important for retaining clients but retaining happy clients. And I think the story is that a happy client talks about you. Yeah. And an unhappy client yells about you. We want people to talk about us and go, you know what, I you should talk to so and so instead of like nobody even inquiring and saying these guys stink. They're nowhere, you know, and that happens. So, I think we want people talking about us in the most positive way. That's one way to do it. One of the unique challenges you have that I think also sales managers at reverse mortgage companies probably have more than originators is there's a concept in software called eating your own dog food and famously goes back to Apple when they discovered that all of their engineers and all of their you know salespeople were using Windows products for their computers and they're trying to sell Apple software and at one point they said no more Windows products everything has to be Apple if we don't if we don't have the right tool we'll make the right tool and that kind of forced them to get on forward and I had experience like that when I was a manager at Century 21 for a franchiser where people you know said well the software is terrible and I looked at I said no it's maybe slightly below average but we weren't using it at all we weren't implementing it as a management team at all and said from now on we need to do everything we can to use the software to show our salespeople what can be done with it not focus what can't be done obviously every software is limited there's always trade-offs but can be done so let's talk about you know when you have a software you're rolling it out to the operations staff and you're rolling it out for the originators, I guess, to use, but the sales managers aren't originating loans most common, at least some do, but you

12:56 Know, the executives aren't, for example. How do you get make sure the company is actually supporting the implementation, not just saying like you said, go ahead and use the software, but what can they do to actually use the software to help be more effective? You know, I think it depends on the organization, Bill, because I've recently worked with an organization who's pretty hands-off from the executive team level and that exactly that thing happens from the executive level. They're not they're not that aware of what's going on. Right. Right. The C-suite oftentimes they're managing a whole another thing including this piece. But I think the other like then I think about that subset and then there's another group of people where the for example I think about a branch manager or a regional divisional kind of a head that not only runs teams but he himself originates right that's going to be the effective one. Give me that guy. Yeah. That person that man or woman in that seat doing that job continuing to get their hands dirty. Yeah. Is really leadership in everything, not just user adoption for the software, but throughout their business, right? They're the ones in charge of that P&L as well, right? So, they know that there's a technology cost, right, associated with having that technology.

14:15 Therefore, they're highly invested in making sure that the technology is fully used. So, I think it just depends on the organization. But my favorite is when somebody who's in a position of influence, if you will, actually gets their hands dirty, actually gets in there, actually tries it out, is part of the upfront solutions gathering meetings to provide input enough so that he or she realizes, hey, I made this happen. I have I've I helped create what we have. If we can get that buy in up front in the installation process that goes a long ways and that goes a long ways for the for the frontline people, loan officers, processors, underwriters, you know, etc., etc., etc. You know, you and I talked before and I think we share I think I share with you two of my thesis for this podcast. One being there should be 10 times as much reverse mortgage activity as there is right now but for the bad reputation and the lack of education both the consumer level referring sources you know wealth managers real estate agents don't I tell my story again I tell I tell them almost every episode I talk about my stories how I didn't realize you know there was a a HECM for Purchase program so obviously you know you're not uniquely solving that problem you're trying to solve the problem in a unique way. But what do you see as one or two of the main activities or changes in the sales of reverse mortgages that kind of drive the direction of Mortgage Cadence?

15:51 Meaning what are kind of the one or two big activities and or problems that you look to address? I think you know speaking from a technology standpoint I think we and we alluded to it early bill is that in the reverse space we're not adopting technology at the same pace and rate as our forward mortgage brethren are. They're constantly innovating and they're adopting new technologies, modern technologies to one streamline their operations, right, from a corporate and business standpoint, but also to improve the user experience, right? Borrowers, how they interface. On the reverse side, we're a little bit slower than the forward folks. One of the challenges is that the technologies don't speak to each other. Reverse technology and forward technology don't speak well until now. I'm the chair of MBA's MISMO reverse mortgage work group and it's a group of people from all over the country who from reverse mortgage companies and some forward mortgage companies who've gotten together over the last year and a half or so, two years probably, and have been working to update the forward mortgage dictionary, if you will. That's what MISMO is. It's the it's the standards organization for the mortgage world and there's a dictionary if you will a data set and reverse has been sparsely kind of in there and therefore if anybody who wants to do reverse mortgages that's coming from the forward world wants to do it's there's a big technological hurdle to overcome.

17:38 Interesting. Announced. It will be announced in the next 5 to 10 days. And you're hearing this here today first, Bill, but the for the first time ever the MISMO standard that is used by all lenders will now have included a fully baked reverse mortgage data sets inside of the dictionary of the forward mortgage world. Wow. And that's coming up in the next that'll be announced like I said in about five or 10 business days. And some of the details that go along with that. Why is that important? Well, the reason it's important is because if somebody wants to originate a reverse mortgage now that you have all of the technological pieces fitting together, there's now a bridge between forward the forward world and the reverse world that now lets us communicate. Right? So data going back and forth the language is different right because a company if you don't have common set of dictionary then you have different languages and software can't speak without mapping and customized third party softwares that break and they never really work right and they crash and who you know whose fault is it's your fault it's yeah I know this is getting very technical but I really appreciate this I'll give you a small example of this I'm a real estate broker in Beverly Hills California our MLS which was is TheMLS.com one of the first MLS's one of the largest not the but one of the largest has in its MLS data set for probate yes or no probate court confirmed required yes or no and you might say what's the big deal I don't know if any other MLS even has those data sets they have in their remarks probate or their keywords probate now you understand this as a technologist so when I tell other I was telling other agents in other places well just do a search for all the probate listings or all the closings or see who the agents were and they would look at me and I think, what do you mean you don't have that? Well, because in my data set for my MLS, we had it and the MLS is shared data, but that data set's left out. So, that data can't be automated or shared.

19:44 And what you're saying is this now creates a common language so that all the not just you, but all the companies that do mortgage origination have the chance now to include the data set that would support reverse. And that now creates the that's like one of the first critical phases for technological improvement I think as an industry. Well, and also advancement. I mean, you know, one of the challenges in the reverse space is that we have most of the volume of the funded reverse mortgage loans are tied up with about three maybe four companies in the US and you know maybe 55 to 60% of all the volume is all bunched up with and then there's you know 80 or 90 other companies across the country who are originating as well sharing the rest of that percentage and that becomes a vulnerability for the industry. There's not enough dist. My point is there's no distribution, not large enough distribution. Having a bridge to the forward world where we now don't speak different languages, but we have the same language suddenly opens up the possibility, Bill of having anybody in any part of the mortgage industry. You know, all the distribution in the world is on the forward side. The largest segment, right? The reverse space is tiny compared to the rever to the forward space, right? But now there's a way for that gap to be bridged and distribution to be expanded. And that's part of what NRMLA their mission as they're kind of beginning to roll out initiative is to start looking at ways to get the word out. Not only get the word out to forward mortgage folks, but find ways to embrace and bring in anybody doing forward mortgages who wants to do a reverse can now, you know, can get into it. Especially one of the hurdles now that's being fixed is the technology piece.

21:31 Right. Right. So their organizations can then buy in or invest in the reverse mortgage direction if they so and whether or not Yeah. No doubt. I mean again we're getting a little technical. I appreciate I come from a technology and engineering background but I think what it creates the possibilities for companies to effectively and whether they have their originators specialized you can or can't do both or can do both. If you can't do both a referral, it's all in the same system. They can track it, they can compensate, they can watch the deals, they can and they can also grow into it, meaning they can originally say, "No, you can't do a deal." But once a guy does one or two, hey, you did one or two. Here's a training program. Here's a free coupon to go to NRMLA training to get some, you know, extra help or whatever it may be. So, it creates those possibilities when it's in the software system. I think that's really a big a big milestone, I think, in the industry. Well then, well, thanks for showing it here uniquely here on the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. We scooped HECMWorld. I think I'm gonna I think you did. I think you got you got a little extra news there that but it's good. You know, it's a good piece of news. I'm glad to share it with you and everybody else out there. So, you're the sales manager and so you have a sales team underneath you. You able to share how many salespeople you have? And we've got let me do a count here. We probably got I'm gonna just say about five people that we're working on.

22:51 We're working with. Okay. And so, talk a little bit. Let's put your sales measure hat for a little bit and imagine that some of the people on this call are originators that we all need more help. We all need an extra coach. What do you think are, and I assume the same practices for your sales team are the same things that struggle for the reverse mortgage origin or me as a real estate broker in Los Angeles. So share with us what you see as the one or two best practices of the ones who are really of the top guy in your group or the top ones consistently. What are one or two of the consistent things you see that differentiate them from the ones that don't do as well? I'm only I'm going to take not only from my ex of current experience but just kind of previous experiences in other organizations and whatnot as well too and kind of draw from all of that. You know, there's nothing like a personal connection with somebody that you're trying to sell something to. And you said something earlier, eating your own dog food. If I have a hard time selling something, Bill, that I don't really use or believe. Right. Right. So, if you're if you're out there and you're selling mortgages, I mean, if you have a mortgage or you have a family member who has a mortgage, it might be kind of interesting to, you know, while at dinner one night or in the backyard doing a barbecue, whatever, or you know, whatever you're doing to, you know, just talk about like, hey, what do you guys think about how mortgages get done? You know, because everybody's gone through processes of getting a mortgage and some of us are like, why is this taking so long? And why do I have to keep signing the same document over and over and wait a minute they've already asked this for they already asked me like three times for the same W2 or bank statement and so on and so I think there's a common experience Bill for anybody who's has family members or have them they themselves have a mortgage that if you can get in touch with those experiences yourself and as you're talking to another human being whether on the phone

24:54 Or in person you can really kind of Personalize the interaction with them, right? And let them know, I hate it too when we have to get two or three documents that you already provided. We're going to try to avoid that, right? I've been through that myself, you know, like having that personal connection with somebody, I think, has been key to some successful people that I've been around with. And then on the opposite side of that, it's kind of a application slinging. There's people just slinging applications every mortgage applications hoping one or two land. That's a different approach that I haven't seen be as successful as the some personal connection with people. Now, there's also a numbers game there, Bill. You probably can sling more applications than you can have authentic real conversations with just from a time and bandwidth perspective. But I tell you those transactions that where you have a personal connection with when there is a bump in the road, you do have some rapport already built in. Correct. You do have some trust. You do have the confidence that if that you're going to handle that bump that you're going to fix it and oftentimes you can probably fix it before them even being exposed to it or being bothered by it. So because you have that connection, right, you want to make it right. So it just makes a difference for sales people if you if you take an approach where you can actually make a real connection with real people.

26:22 Yeah. The book of business for you know my business almost all referral is different than a real estate agent who's buying Zillow ads where every customer is going to compare you to five different people and the second they see something wrong they're going to tell you're wrong because they are on Zillow and they know everything about real estate and you know I've only been doing this for decades but okay you know more than me versus people who are who know like and trust me and come to me for counsel and help and education and that's why I think you know in the course of reverse mortgages while there's nothing wrong with buying leads and doing online marketing as a supplement. I just don't think you can build a business and sustain it that way. You can maybe add that to a successful business to grow it. But the beginning has to be you going out having relations with somebody who's referring you business who trusts you, likes you, believes in you, is willing to overlook your problems. May even know you've never done one or but one or two, but willing to work with you. I know. I know. As a Realtor®, when I moved from strictly residential to adding commercial and non-residential business, my first customer, I said to him, you know, I don't really haven't really done commercial business before. And he said to me, "Bill, I know you. You're a smart guy. You'll figure it out. If you need help, you find somebody, but I want you to handle it for me because I don't want to. I don't know any other commercial Realtor® that I trust like I trust you." Well, once you have that currency, then you can spend it on getting help or maybe sharing a deal. Same with the verses. I think I always tell people I don't care if your company lets you get paid for them or not. Do a couple and either you'll develop and if you learn you'll be able to do them or some other company will hire you to do them but you got to learn how to service your customer and that relationship is really important.

27:58 Very important. Yeah. You know there's that old adage Bill that the 8020 rule that 20% of the sales people are generating 80% of the business. And it's often times that's because only a few people two out of 10 in that in that math are actually willing to take u what was it you said at NRMLA you said it so well where you said go the extra mile for your clients right yeah I think that's for me that's the ultimate business development tool is taking care of your customer because you need to take care of them anyhow we get paid having happy but if you do an extra 10% to make them extra happy They give referrals. They go back to your referral source to say good things. What have you done for business development? You just took care of your customer. And by the way, you got paid to do that. Like it's not and I just feel like if there's one thing that's changed in our business culture in my career that I've seen is the almost entitlement that business people have for business. When I started out, people were so appreciative. There were so I think much focus on service. And you just I just don't hear that language today. I don't want to sound like the old angry man on his front porch yelling at the young people. The opposite. I'm encouraging young people. Hey, listen. This is how we get paid. This is what business is about. And by the way, if you if your business is based on just numbers and algorithms and advertisements, you're competing with Zillow, Facebook, Google for your for your paycheck. You're going to lose.

29:23 These companies have trillions of dollars versus they can't compete with people that know, like, and trust you if you do your job properly. And that's the distinction. Yeah. And you know one thing we have to remember in the mortgage space and real estate space is that mortgage and real estate that is likely that person or that family's largest transactions of their life. Yeah. It's Yeah. It's like buying a 100 cars. It's huge, right? You got to have some trust if you're going to make that you're going to sign on the dotted line. You got to be able to work with somebody you can trust and you like and you know, right? So it's pretty important. Let's not forget how big of a deal it is. Housing, stability, a home, a roof over your head. It's a big deal for families from, you know, all various kinds of come froms, right? You know, and history. So, it's a big deal. So, yeah, making sure we're doing right by them is really important. Absolutely. So, yeah, I almost feel sorry for people who don't work in real estate because I feel like, you know, when I go somewhere, people, you know, want to know about he doesn't want to know about more about real estate. So now does your software deal with servicing as well or is it just origination side? It's no servicing. So it deals from the borrower facing portal the point of sale all the origination piece all the closing funding the whole thing servicing most of our clients export the data and then send it over to their servicer.

30:49 So my magic one if I had magic pixie dust it changed the industry. I in the course of doing this podcast a couple things I learned. Point is about the annual statement or the annual certification the customer has to do to certify they're still eligible for the verse mortgage, right? It's still your primary residence. And I'm sorry, I have a story about that exact thing. Okay. Well, when I found that out, I said myself, you know, as real estate agents, we're supposed to call our customers every 90 days or so. But here you have built in, they technically can't keep the loan. I don't know what happens if they don't fill it out. Do they really get foreclosed on? I don't know about that. Okay. But the fact that they're that they're told they have to do this once a year gives you complete permission to call them once a year and say, "Hey, we need to get this done." And I know when I talked to originators originally, they're like, "Well, that sounds like a lot of work. How could that be a lot of work? They paid you a year ago. Why are they not your best friends? And by the way, they're going to die. They have kids. Their kids either need forward mortgages or are going to take over that mortgage or whatever. How could you not want to make that phone call that they have to talk to the lender or the servicer or somebody and maybe you sold the servicing? You still can service them by helping them with the form. You can answer the questions. You could participate. Tell me your story about that. But for me, the magic pix would be as a as a loan officer that somehow your commission is tied in to that phone call every year. If you don't, you don't get paid. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm off.

32:13 No, that's good. I like it. Okay. Let me tell you the story. So, a little background. So my parents got a reverse mortgage and they have since passed both passed away, right? So I've gotten to experience and I used to be a sale a reverse mortgage loan officer as well, right? So, I got I got in the industry in 2012. And so, I've been from like educating consumers to then coaching loan officers in the reverse mortgage space to VP of reverse lending at another organization to now being on the on the technology side. I've gotten to see the reverse mortgage the lifespan of a family from before having a reverse mortgage having it live seeing what it's like to live with it them passing away and then as an heir one of three heirs what it was like for me and us as heir that whole piece it's a very unique view into the opportunity of a reverse mortgage but let me tell you the story about the annual certification letter that comes from HUD FHA. So my mom had already passed away and it was just my dad and the he got a letter bill. He didn't know what it was about. He's, you know, he was started to not pay attention to a lot of things and just threw it away. And I think another month went by, threw it away. Another month went by, threw it away. Four or five months threw it away. Next thing I know somebody knocks on his door and it's a it's an appraiser doing a driveby sort of just drive by take a few pictures of the house because it's the lender's way the servicer's way of checking one is the did the house burn down or did they disappear or what's going on right now it wasn't there's no like there's no like FHA or HUD police they're not knocking on your door checking to see if you still live there in this case, my dad just wasn't responding. So, he calls me and he says, "Hey, there's some guy here, blah,

34:17 Blah." I get the guy on the phone. And I talked to him and it turns out that the servicer had sent him to just do a drive by appraisal. He thought he actually went a little further than he needed to by knocking on the door, but it, you know, then I got on the phone with the servicer and my dad. We did a three-way call and they did the certification right over the phone. Glad to do it. Probably glad to do it. Yeah, they were happy that you're well, you're fine. M good. I mean, it took like five minutes or less and they were done. They were done. It was quick. So, it wasn't a big deal, but not responding to it, right? I mean, obviously caused them to like send somebody out to do because they were thinking, gosh, maybe they passed away or something's happened, you know, maybe the home will go into foreclosure or something. We they were just trying to figure out what was next, right? So, it's interesting, you know, that part of, having parents have a reverse mortgage and then they pass away and then you inherit the home. It was in a trust. Okay. So, it was arranged in a way that we could then manage the property right after that. But still you have to do something with it or you still do something with it, right? It's still it's not magic. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, you still have to, you know, as a as the estate or the heirs, we have to figure out, hey, one, do we want to keep it? Do one of us want to live here? And for ours us, the answer was no. The other question was like, well, if we don't want to live here, then what do we want to do? Do we want to hold on to it and maybe rent it out, which or sell it?

35:50 After several months of trying to figure out what we want to do, the three brothers, we ended up selling it. And then that's it. And that's really how you kind of finalize the terms of the reverse mortgage. Now, there's a beautiful piece of that the non-recourse features of the reverse mortgage that are really there to protect the homeowners, the reverse mortgage borrowers and the heirs afterwards. We experienced it, right? Because if I had a regular forward mortgage bill and my parents died, I'm sorry, if they had a regular forward mortgage and my parents died, about 30 days later, they're going to get a letter saying, "Hey, you're late on your mortgage payment." Another 30 days after that, they're going to get saying, "Hey, you've been late now 60 days. This is getting serious." 30 days more after that, you getting to 90 days, you know, they're probably going to start talking about foreclosure or some sort of like, you know, going to get sold on the steps of the notice of defaults and all kinds of things that start happening. Whereas with a reverse mortgage, there's built-in time for the heirs, for the estates to be able to manage that house, that estate, right? And there's no mortgage payments anyway. So there's no lates, there's no letters, there's no calls, there's none of that, right? What we did were made sure we stayed in touch with the servicing company, let them know, hey, mom and dad are now both gone, and we're in the middle of we had to fix the roof bill, we had to like fix a bunch of stuff, and also decide what we were going to do with the property.

37:17 And just staying in touch with the servicer was all that we needed to do. So, my brother Frank is the what do you call it? The executor of the estate. So, he was just emailing them saying, "Yep, here's what we got going on." They called when we listed it on the MLS. They wanted a copy of the MLS printout and sent that over to them so they saw it and then it was fine. So, there was no pressure as an estate, right, to have to like rush or fix a payment problem or this that or the other, right? So it was that non-recourse feature of the reverse mortgages is beneficial for the homeowners when they're alive and well and after they have passed for the estate as well. It's a beautiful part. So imagine being an originator. I talk to them all the time and it frustrates me. Come on, let's raise our standards here. So for example I'll say to them, well you should call them all. You know like if it's if it's a one-year thing you should be calling them in 11 months. Going to get this thing. When you get it, call me. Here's a link. Go right in my calendar and let's walk I'll walk you through the form of you. Any questions at all? Why would I do that? You know, it's so much time. I said to myself, I asked them, well, how many reverses have you done in your entire career? Now, 95% have not done 10 or 20 or 50. Certainly not 200. I said, but even you did 200, that's one per workday, 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year. It's not that much. One a day to talk to a past customer. And by the way, you can ask them, "Hey, I noticed we did your loan. You didn't have a trust in. Have you guys considered that? Have you thought about the advantage of getting an estate plan done now? How about health directives? How's your wife doing? How's she feeling? Might you want to get that done now? Is your insurance up to date?" that's another one. Oh, I see you got a trust and you transfer the property interest, but it's not insured.

39:07 So, just be aware of that. But do you also transfer your insurance as a additional to put the trust on? There's a lot of things we talk about to create value for our customers. So they say if anything ever happens with this house, you're my first phone call. And I'm only say this because I did I was an originator early in my career and I got out in 2008 when the mortgage industry kind of fell apart and I thought I can control my destiny better as a salesperson in real estate than as a mortgage person. And I did some mortgages. I did two reverses. And one of them, they both passed and the family called me to sell the house cuz of course that was natural that they trusted me. I took care of them. I Why would you not stay in touch with the people, you're right, they'll mortgage for the rest of their life. Tell me I'm wrong here. Or tell the originators they need to do that every year. Yeah. I think about my brother Frank, you know, he's been in the real estate mortgage industry forever and ever and ever. And he people like your story, Bill, they, you know, they're they trust him. They call him property values have continued to go up. They're ready for a refinance. They think of my brother Frank, right? Right. You know, why? But why? My brother Frank, my brother Frank has a memory, an incredible, first of all, incredible memory and good notes because when he does follow up, he's asking about their spouse, talking about their children. The last time they talked, that kid had graduated and is now going to college. How is that going? What are you hearing from? Like just having again going back to that personal way of being with people, but that followup is, you know, when they see my brother Frank's name on the phone, they it's there's a warm feeling about it, right? Sometimes you see somebody's name on the phone, you're like, I don't want to talk to them right now, Bill. I don't want to I don't want to pick up this call, right?

40:59 So I think following up is amazing. If you don't follow up, somebody's going to call them and that relationship will slowly start to fade away. And listen, with reverse mortgages specifically, there's, you know, you could do a refinance, right? Reverse, you can refinance a reverse mortgage into a reverse mortgage called a HECM-to-HECM refinance. That's a heck of a loan, by the way. Yeah. Oh, it's fantastic. I mean, it's another way to access equity. Or let's say the homeowners were single and now they got married, you can add them to title that way. All kinds of possibilities around that. So yeah, absolutely following up and staying in touch with people. These are the people not only they gave you the business, but they gave you the trust for one of their largest and in the reverse mortgage case, probably the largest and last financial transactions of their life that of that size. It's a heck of a deal. It's a heck of a responsibility that I think is even more amplified with a reverse mortgage. Yeah. And I think if there's one thing that I would love to inspire mortgage originators is make that part of the process for yourself to be involved in that annual certification and even those that don't require it calling them once a year. You know we as professionals have a chance to pull up title reports to see if they you know transfer title into a into a trust. Yeah, if they haven't you know, every year you should be calling and asking them that because part of it is serving your customer and you refer them to attorneys. Eventually, those attorneys go, "What a great originator. You're the person I should be including in conversations when people need mortgages or need reverse mortgages or need to sell a house. Who do you know is a good Realtor® that you can refer us to?" So, those are that's why I got into this whole podcast to begin with is to change it from I don't want to see this business turned over. I'd rather customers work with an originator they know than call a call center because of a TV ad. We need to up our game and be willing to reach out to customers, engage with them, and be of value to them. Compete with the Facebooks and the Google ad services.

43:02 And so, George, I know I'm speaking to the choir on this one, although in your case, you're more focused to serving those people. So, I guess just kind of a last, question, because I'm a little bit running out of time with you. I really appreciate your time today. No problem. So, you know, where, you know, I know where I see where the reverse mortgage market should be heading and I'm kind of determined to do my piece to make that happen. What where do you see the real estate market this year as it relates to reverse mortgage originators? Do you see the you know clouds? Do you see improvement more of the same? Where do you kind of you guys must have some sort of a budgetary understanding of where things are? How do you see the real estate market? And then what do you think originators need to do to take advantage of the market as it is? Well, I think from a reverse mortgage just that's part of the of the mortgage industry. The reverse mortgage industry has mostly been playing defense for a while. We've been countering bad press. We've been encountering all kinds of stuff going on there. And all of that has been addressed. And so I think for the first time in a very long time that I remember I think it's time to play offense again and turn the ball around and start moving forward. What I mean by that is invest in areas that help you realize that mortgage lending is from cradle to death. Right? We have a ton of solutions for people who are, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. We have tons of mortgage products and opportunities after you're 55, 60, 70, that age group is extremely underserved.

44:41 It's underserved. One of the options, not the only one, is a reverse mortgage. And I think I think we're going to probably see a small modest amount of growth in 20 the remainder of 25 and 26. I think coming 27 and I know it's getting far that feels like a long ways out there. You got to start now. I think you start going to start seeing a lot more happening with home equity as a resource to help homeowners. American homeowners really figure out the retirement crisis that the country is in. Right. Savings rates in America are declining. Indebtedness is increasing. And I'm talking about by a lot. Yeah. And the one thing that most homeowners are sitting on is a ton of equity, Bill. A ton of equity. I call that lazy equity. It's not really doing anything for you. Sitting around doing nothing, right? That the walls of this house can't pay a bill. So if you tap into some of that, well, not all of it, some of it, right? It can help you kind of have that nest egg, help you have a safety, a safety net should something happen. And I think those are the conversations on consumer's mind. So if you're an originator and you're wanting to broaden or expand your base of consumers, consider people who are purchasing homes and have homes already who want to refinance that are 55 years and older.

46:09 There's products for homeowners, reverse mortgage products that are for homeowners that are 55 years and older. And then the federal FHA one is 62 and older. So there's a couple of opportunities for people to kind of grow their business, but also like help a lot of people. This is one of the most satisfying interactions in the mortgage industry that I've ever experienced is helping a whole family, not just the older homeowners, but a whole family think about, okay, what are the next 10, 15, 20 years going to look like in light of the mortgage, the house, what happens when my spouse passes away? What's that financial situation look like? So, it's really a consultative approach. You're not just selling something. You're trying to help a family. So, there's a lot of opportunity, Bill. I think I think we're going to see a lot of growth. We're going to have to wait out 25. But I think 26 just going to start seeing it and 27 for sure. I'm just looking at macroeconomic conditions here, Bill. You know, it's slow moving at times, but I think we're headed in the right direction. I don't see cloudy skies. I see a break in the clouds. Well, and that's industrywide. And I think the thing I would tell individual originators is you have an unlimited, you know, upside. And particularly with reverse mortgages, it's so underserviced that you really have a fantastic opportunity. Look, I appreciate you sharing kind of your perspective with us on technology in general and the business. For anybody who wants to know more about Mortgage Cadence, George Morales is the national sales manager at Mortgage Cadence, which is a software for loan origination, both forward and reverse, but uniquely for both. And you can get the website is mortgagecadence.com and you go in there if you're so inclined to get a demonstration such but more importantly I think he's definitely a thought leader to pay attention to and worth to I really appreciate your insights with us today. So George, thank you so much for being here and look forward to seeing you again soon.

47:59 Take care. Thanks Bill and for the rest of us this is the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. We do this every week. We interview top originators, management in the in the field as well as thought leaders. And I think today's example, I think we really got a lot of good insight in terms of how to run our business as well as the industry in general. Come on the Facebook group if you have questions, referrals, and the episodes are all posted there as well. The Reverse Mortgage Podcast group is the group in Facebook. I'm Bill Gross, Bill Gross Probate. As if I can help at all, please reach out. If you like this, please like it. If you have suggestions for topics or for somebody to interview, put that in there as well. Love to get your information. If I can help at all, please reach out. As always, make today your best day