The playbook to serving the underserved with Panorama Mortgage Group

HousingWire

This week on Power House, Diego sits down with Hector Amendola, the president of Panorama Mortgage Group, formerly known as Alterra Home Loans. In 2022, Panorama rebranded from Alterra to what we now know as Panorama, with Alterra remaining as their retail arm. Panorama focuses on specifically serving underserved and underrepresented communities now through their brand new wholesale channel, Travisa Financial.   Hector shares his journey from loan officer assistant to president and discusses Panorama's post-COVID pivot that included establishing their Mexican operations and launching their wholesale division. He explains the business opportunity in serving black and brown communities and why they believe in finding the "yes" rather than the easy "no" when it comes to lending.   Here’s what you’ll learn:   How Panorama transformed from retail-focused Altera into diversified lending   The strategic advantages of establishing back-office operations in Mexico   Why Travisa Financial targets wholesale lending to underserved communities   How Panorama maintains a 50% servicing retention rate on payoffs   Hector's career journey from LO assistant to president and the power of mentorship   How the company's "find the yes" philosophy drives their underwriting approach   Panorama's 2026 growth strategy balancing retail and wholesale expansion   Related to this episode:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ⁠Hector Amendola | LinkedIn⁠  https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamendola/⁠  Panorama Mortgage Group⁠  https://www.pmgllc.com/  ⁠Panorama Mortgage Group enters TPO market with new brand Travisa Financial⁠  https://www.mpamag.com/us/specialty/wholesale/panorama-mortgage-group-enters-tpo-market-with-new-brand-travisa-financial/542300  ⁠Alterra Home Loans⁠  https://www.goalterra.com/  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HousingWire | YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q   The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Powerhouse, where we interview the biggest names in housing and ask them

00:12about their strategy for growth. I'm Diego Sanchez, president of Housing Wire, and my

00:17guest today is Hector Amendola, president of Panorama Mortgage Group. Hector, it's so

00:23great to have you on the show.

00:24Good to be here, Diego. I've listened and seen your podcast many times, so I'm happy

00:28to be here.

00:30We're going to have a great conversation. So, kicking off, tell us more about Panorama

00:35Mortgage Group.

00:37Panorama Mortgage Group was founded in 2007. Our co-founders, Jason Madiedo, Valerie Madiedo,

00:45still very much involved with the company. We were primarily, for the most of our history,

00:53we've been primarily a retail shop. And so, you know, out there doing the distributed retail

00:58thing in the communities, helping people. Our focus has always been to serve the underserved.

01:05Our mission has always been to build wealth through homeownership. That's our tagline here.

01:13And for most of our history, we've been known as Altera Home Loans. And so, some of the listeners

01:18might not know Panorama, but they might know Altera Home Loans. And so, Altera Home Loans today is what

01:24we call our retail division. And so, for most of our history, we've been Altera.

01:31About, I don't know, maybe three years ago after the pandemic and all that, we kind of changed course

01:37a little bit where we decided we were going to start focusing more on building a really, really solid

01:44foundation. So, as a lot of people had to do in 2022, we had to level set and kind of look at

01:52everything and see who are we and where are we going forward. And what we did is we have our

01:59offices here in this sleepy little town of Las Vegas. But what we also did is we opened an office

02:05in Mexico, in Guadalajara. And we have about 80 employees out there. And so, right now, we say

02:13our corporate offices are in Las Vegas and in Mexico, in Guadalajara. And so, that's been the

02:19foundation that we've been building over the last few years as we've, you know, gone from being

02:24strictly retail to growing more on the TPL side, specifically with wholesale.

02:30And we'll talk more about wholesale in a little bit. But can you tell me more about that

02:35team that's in Mexico? Is that mostly back office?

02:39Yeah, it's entirely back office, actually. It started off as something that, you know,

02:44one of our founders thought be a good idea to, you know, help supplement some of our branches

02:50with some help in Mexico, right? So, let's teach them how to be loan officer assistants and, you know,

02:55drive the cost down, which was, you know, a big concern for us at the time with, you know,

02:59costs going up in the branch network. And what it turned into in 2022 was us doubling down our

03:08efforts over there and saying, wait a minute, we have a pretty cool opportunity here to build

03:13a more back office stuff. So, we started with our accounting department, our post-closing departments,

03:19and some of the stuff that we can do over there that we thought, you know, we can manage them from

03:22here, but we can have a focus over there. And because it's Guadalajara, it's a two and a half

03:26hour flight for me. So, and for a lot of our managers too. And so, you know, the fact that

03:31we can go over there, spend some time with them, sit down, train, be in our conference room and

03:35work together was a really good deal for us. Another question on this Mexican team or this

03:41team in Mexico, why not the Philippines or India or some of the other offshore locations that other

03:50mortgage companies have picked for that kind of work? Well, I think that the honest answer to that

03:55is the co-founder who had this idea was Mexican. But I would say that what we've seen is there's a lot

04:02of advantages with having the folks in Mexico. The first one is right now, they're only one hour ahead

04:08of me on the time. So, it is 9.09 here, it's 10.09 over there. And so, the fact that they're in

04:16either mountain or central time zones is a big deal to us because, you know, when we're done here talking,

04:23I might call, you know, one of our finance guys and say, let's go over some numbers or

04:26our accounting department to see, you know, what's going on there or post-closing, why hasn't

04:30this loan sold or whatever. They're here, they're working. So, I think for the most part, I've never

04:34worked with folks in the Philippines or in India, but my guess is that for the most part, they're

04:39working while we're sleeping and vice versa. You might get a few that work in the evening time and

04:43maybe they might approximate some of your hours, but the folks here are really working the same hours

04:47we're working, which is the big deal for us. And that's really helpful for, you know, loan officer

04:53assistant type work where you've got to be in the flow and in the process and in the loan while the

04:58rest of the team is. Yeah, it's really helpful for any collaborative work if you think about it,

05:04right? So, you know, again, it's a two and a half hour flight for me. So, sometimes I fly out there

05:09and all I do is meet with people and kind of just, you know, collaborate, right? Work together with

05:14folks on some of the initiatives we have going and whatnot. And so, again, the fact that we're on

05:19at the same time, it's a big deal for us. Does your borrower base lean Latino in any way?

05:28Yeah. Yeah. So, as I mentioned earlier, we've always been focused on the underserved.

05:34Where I started my career was in Downey, California. I was a loan officer assistant and the loan officer

05:41I worked for first was only dealing with Hispanic clients and only speaking Spanish, which at the

05:50time, my Spanish is okay, but it wasn't great. It got really good over time just because I was

05:54dealing with a lot of consumers and talking to people and I had to kind of, you know, really,

05:59really get good at the Spanish. But yeah, it's always been in that realm. You know, we kind of,

06:05always lean in that direction. I love that. So, your career in mortgage spans over two decades

06:13and you've gone from LO assistant to president of your company. What's been the secret to your

06:21success? Oh, there's no secret. It's hard work. But I would say there's a couple of things. First

06:28and foremost, I had really good mentors in my career. And I think that's such a big deal.

06:35As most of us, I think at some point we deal with some level of imposter syndrome and we're thinking,

06:41you know, why me? Why am I here? What am I doing here? And, you know, I think that over time,

06:46over the years, I've dealt with that more than one time. And I think, and, you know, having good

06:50mentors that are kind of sitting there and they're telling you, sometimes reminding you,

06:54no, you can do this. You're actually pretty good at this. That's a big, big deal for me.

06:59Also, you know, keeping me humble, right? Making sure that I stay in my place and I don't get,

07:03you know, too high or too low at any point in time. So, that's a big deal. The second part,

07:08I think, you know, oftentimes I think about the journey I've been on and it's a lot of manifestation,

07:15if I'm being honest with you, Diego. As a loan officer assistant, I, you know, looked around and said,

07:22I want to be a loan officer. That's, that sounds like the logical next step. And so,

07:26nothing was going to stop me. I was going to be that. Eventually, I want to run my branch and I

07:30want to be in management. And, you know, when I'm running retail, I'm like, you know, I think I

07:33want to run a company one day and then set my sights towards, this is the direction that I want to go.

07:38And I've been fortunate enough, again, to be surrounded by folks that, you know,

07:42kind of buy into some of the stuff that I'm selling on that and say, yeah, let's, let's give it a go.

07:47And let's try that out for you. And it's worked out pretty well for me so far.

07:50You know, some folks in mortgage, a lot of folks in mortgage don't see that career path in front of

07:57them, whether it's the organization that they're at, their manager at the time, whatever it is.

08:03Sounds like you really saw that career path ahead of you at every step in the process.

08:07I did. I'd be lying to you if I never had doubts. I got a story that I tell a lot of the new employees

08:13at the company. So if I get my chance, I'll tell them the story, which is that about two or three months

08:18in to my career in the mortgage industry, I remember standing outside my boss's office and

08:24I was going to resign. I said, this is not for me. I'm 22 years old at the time. You know, most of my

08:30friends are, you know, in college, you know, still living with their parents and kind of, you know,

08:36enjoying lives. I'm taking files home at the end of the day and reviewing them and trying to figure

08:41out how to get them closed. Right. And doing, you know, things like that. And I'm thinking, what,

08:44you know, why am I putting myself through this? I'm fortunate now to say I didn't have the courage

08:49to go through it, that I did not walk into my boss's office and quit. And I tell that story to

08:54people for two reasons. First is to let them know it's not going to be easy, especially in the

08:58beginning. There's going to be a steep learning curve and, you know, you kind of have to stick to

09:02it. But also to show them that, you know, if you do stick to it, there can be a lot of success

09:08once you figure things out, which maybe it took me longer than most, but it was a struggle in the

09:14beginning. You mentioned earlier in our conversation that you view wholesale, the wholesale

09:21channel as a way to, you know, diversify your organization and grow. You recently launched

09:29your wholesale division called Travisa Financial. Why are you personally bullish on the wholesale

09:36channel? Bullish? We are. We are bullish. I think it's a lot has to do with just the foundational

09:42work we've done over the last few years. We like to tell folks, at least internally, we tell

09:48ourselves that we're the best kept secret in the mortgage industry, which is not a compliment to us,

09:52by the way, because we don't want to be a secret, right? We want everybody to know what we're doing.

09:56But, you know, the fact of foundational work and what we did in Mexico and what that did to drive

10:01our cost to manufacture down makes us feel like we're in a really good position to now grow and to

10:07build on top of that. You know, again, our focus has always been the retail channel. So we really do

10:13understand retail channel, like-minded folks, you know, all honesty, people that look like me,

10:21they're out there, they're in the communities, they're working with folks and they're helping

10:24people get loans. And we feel like at Travisa, if we can stay true to that and just expand our reach

10:32by finding the same like-minded brokers out there that are doing the same type of business and kind of

10:37like, hey, we're kind of in the same boat here. We do the same thing. Let's work together. Let's build

10:40some partnerships around that. We feel like that's a big deal. That's something that can really help

10:45with that. And, you know, we've always been service-minded first. And so, you know, we feel

10:51like the service that we can give is something that we don't think, we're not sure that many people

10:58can match it, at least not in our demographic and in the types of loans that we're doing.

11:02We feel like it's hard to match. And so those are the biggest drivers there for why we do feel

11:07bullish there. You know, again, driving that cost down, it really helps us with price. So we're

11:11really competitive with price. And so we feel like we have all the components there for some success.

11:18So there are really only a few variables that you can compete on in the wholesale channel, which is a

11:23very competitive channel. You mentioned rate, there's tech, you know, speed to close, your product

11:32set, and your client support, right? There's not a lot more than that, that you can differentiate on.

11:39How are you differentiating in the wholesale channel with Travisa Financial?

11:44First and foremost, I think it's the product set that we have. So we do have a unique set of

11:52products that focuses on, as an example, an I-10 borrower, right? And so we do have some intriguing

12:00products that get into a lot of offices that maybe otherwise we might not be able to get into.

12:08That's the start, right? That's our foot in the door. That's how we get in.

12:10And beyond that, it's, again, the fact that we've been serving these same communities. We're looking

12:16for people that are serving the same communities that we've been serving. And we want to focus on

12:20that. And so, you know, building relationships there, I think there's nothing more important

12:25in our industry than those relationships. And so we feel like, you know, between our price,

12:31the communities we serve, the relationships we're building, and then, you know, making sure that we

12:35have a product that get people's attention, it's a good mix for us.

12:39I did some research about Trevisa before this conversation, and you talk about your wholesale

12:47channel being a purpose-driven wholesale lender. What does that mean to you to be a purpose-driven

12:56wholesale lender?

12:58Well, it's a lot of what we've always talked about, Diego. We've always been focused on serving

13:05the underserved and serving first-time homebuyers. And frankly, you know, we talk a lot about being

13:12here to serve the black and brown communities in the United States. We're unapologetic about

13:19describing it that way because we feel like it's something that a lot of companies, they might

13:26dabble in. They might hire somebody who's going to maybe pay attention to that demographic, but they're

13:32not just fully driven to serve that demographic, and we are. And so, you know, a big part of what

13:38we say when we mean purpose-driven is that it's essentially, you know, we serve the underserved,

13:44we serve first-time homebuyers. We're focused not just on price, but when we were strictly retail,

13:51I remember in our old office, we used to have a sign on the wall that said, you know, you get paid

13:57to find a yes within reason, of course, right? You can't always say yes, but, you know, that's a mental

14:04shift that we ask all of our employees to make. It's really simple to say no to folks. You can find

14:12a reason to say no to the majority of the loans that we look at, but the reality is that, you know,

14:17can they make their payment? Do they show the ability to repay? And can we figure out a way to get

14:23a yes and make a sellable loan, of course, through the process? And so that's our purpose.

14:28And so we're driven through that. We feel like if we put that client first, everything else is always

14:33going to fall into place. And so that's always been how we drive ourselves.

14:38I love mission. I love values. But there's also a business opportunity in lending to the black and

14:47brown community. Talk a little bit about that business opportunity that you see.

14:52Well, yeah, it's a, some people call it a niche thing. Again, it's our lives. So it's hard for us

15:01to call it a niche thing, right? Because it's what we do and what we've always done. But you're not

15:06wrong. There is a business opportunity. I think that there's an opportunity to serve and to really

15:12help folks that need the help, right? And I think that's the biggest driver for, at least for me,

15:18it's the biggest driver. It's not necessarily going and saying, well, look, and not that there's

15:23anything wrong with these loans, but, you know, that 745 goal with 20% down payment and, you know,

15:29a bunch of reserves in the bank is a great loan and we want those too. But there's something that's

15:34really fulfilling about helping that first-time home buyer buy their first house. And that

15:42opportunity that that creates for us is to say, it's not just about numbers, it's about numbers

15:48and stories, right? And so that story that we're able to put together and then do it again, and

15:54suddenly that borrower is buying their second home and maybe they're buying some investment properties

15:58and you're helping them through that. And you see them go through that where, you know, they first came

16:02into our office saying, I don't know if I can buy a house. And now they're walking around with,

16:06you know, six, seven, eight doors to their name. You know, that's what drives us. And so, yeah,

16:11there's definitely an opportunity. And obviously we're in business because it is an opportunity,

16:16but I think it's the stories that really drive us. Yeah. And you also look at the demographics and

16:23Latino households are really the only demographic that's growing in the U.S.

16:30significantly right now. Which is insane to me, Diego, because, and I see the numbers. I've been

16:35a longstanding member of NAREP for a lot of years. And so, you know, they released the State of

16:43Hispanic Homeownership every year. So we get to see these numbers and look at them in a very

16:47prideful way. And it's crazy to me just because where I grew up, it was way out of reach, right?

16:55The idea of homeownership was out of reach. And so to see that and to see the numbers that

17:01the Hispanic community seems to put out there is a pretty cool thing.

17:05All right. So let's look at 2026. You've talked about your team in Mexico. We've talked about

17:13your wholesale channel, your approach to the wholesale channel with Travisa Financial.

17:19What does your overall 2026 growth strategy look like at Panorama?

17:26Well, it looks much like 2025. What we did again at the end of 22 and 23 is we really took some lumps

17:35in setting up this foundation, right? And so, you know, part of that, part of this growth that we're

17:42having now included shrinking quite a bit back then, right? Getting, part in ways with some folks

17:51that maybe didn't fit what we were trying to do anymore or didn't believe in what we were trying

17:55to do at the time and saying, let's shrink to the size that we have to be so that we can, you know,

18:00take two steps back so we can take, you know, a bunch of steps forward. And so in 2025, what we've

18:08seen this year so far in our retail arm is pretty cool because what we're seeing is some of our

18:13branch managers are saying, hey, I want to come back. I want to come back home. And, you know,

18:18that speaks to our leadership and our retail division and some of the stuff that they're

18:21doing, but also speaks to some of the foundational work that we've been doing. And so continuing to

18:26grow that arm of our business, which has always been our bread and butter here at Panorama is number

18:33one, but also, you know, the launch of Trevisa was a big, big move for us. What we see with that

18:38opportunity again is expanding into more markets. So the plan is to continue growing retail, to focus,

18:46you know, a lot of attention on Trevisa and our wholesale division and to continue building our

18:52servicing book, which, you know, we've had good fortune that's grown quite a bit over the last couple

18:57of years and just, you know, continue driving that. And, you know, that helps us create more leverage

19:01and it gives us more opportunities in a lot of different ways.

19:05As president of the company, what's your ideal balance for the origination mix between retail

19:11and wholesale? We've always thought it should be in the 50-50 range. We want to make sure that

19:16we always stay true to who we are and, you know, working in those communities and we don't stray too

19:22far from that. But at the same time, we see the advantages of adding volume through this type of

19:27means, you know, what it does overall at the end of the day, it's going to help us drive our

19:31manufacturing costs down even more and makes it a more attractive place for a lot of folks to come

19:36work at. Do you currently have a geographic focus for the retail side and or the wholesale side?

19:47It's not by design. It just kind of happened this way. It's funny. I used to run the retail division

19:54for our retail arm, which is Altera Home Loans. And when I did, it was West Coast focused probably

19:59because I'm in the West Coast, right? And I was in California at first and then out here in Nevada.

20:04And the president of Altera today lives in New Jersey. And so now you see it a lot more East

20:10Coast focused on, at least from that end. We still have a lot of West Coast branches because we still

20:16have apprentices out here, but their focus has kind of shifted a little bit more to the East Coast.

20:20Whereas on the Travisa side for wholesale, we've been focused more on the West. Our AEs are in the

20:28West. We're in the West. And we feel like, you know, from a time zone perspective, this kind of

20:32works for us. Again, a couple of brokers have signed up from the East because they want to partake in

20:36some of our products and maybe they have good relationships with our account executives. But

20:40it's not by design, but it's kind of turned out that it's a little bit East and West, but it's not

20:46like we're close to or not looking for opportunities on both sides. Are you thinking at all about M&A

20:54as you look at your growth strategy for 26? You know, they come up sometimes. We do get

21:01opportunities sometimes. I wouldn't say it's a focus. I don't necessarily have a team out there looking

21:06for acquisitions or for mergers, but they do come up and we'd be silly to not entertain ideas

21:15if there's good ideas. We actually have an, we feel like we have an attractive platform. Fit and culture

21:23is a big deal to us, of course. We have had some divisions that didn't work out just because the

21:31fit wasn't right. And we kind of thought, you know, that this, we really want to make sure that we're

21:35growing with folks that fit our vision and fit what we're trying to do. But again, not necessarily

21:42a focus, but also not something that I would not entertain if opportunities came up.

21:49Several players, big players in the wholesale channel use their presence in that channel and

21:58origination in that channel as a means to build their servicing book, you know, and they want to

22:04grow their servicing book for a number of reasons. How do you think about servicing at Panorama

22:11across your retail and your wholesale divisions?

22:15We're, the thought of retaining servicing is always on our mind. One of our focuses over the

22:22last couple of years has been, let's build an asset. Let's make sure that we have an asset that,

22:27again, we can leverage in different ways or, you know, we can at times be opportunistic about,

22:32right? It's part of the business. So we do always focus on that. I would say that, you know,

22:39we're on a retail side, we're probably retaining a small amount, maybe 10%. But our TPL side, we retain

22:47a lot more. And, you know, it's part of our mission too, right? We want to serve the underserved.

22:52That doesn't mean stop at closing and then forget about them, right? We want to make sure that

22:56we continue that. And especially if we're dealing with our demographic, you know, we do have some

23:00folks in our office in Mexico. We think it's a perfect fit because guess what? They're speaking to

23:05our clients in Spanish oftentimes. And so there's a good fit there for them where they feel like,

23:09you know, they're speaking to their own language. And so that's a big part of it too. So it is a big

23:15deal to us to build that. We feel like it's an important and a valuable asset. And so there's a lot

23:22of focus on that. Yeah. The last fall when rates dropped, like they're dropping right now, we saw

23:30a number of the big servicers really ramp up in terms of originating from their book and

23:37recapturing or capturing some customers that were, you know, the origination was with a different

23:45lender. Do you have any worry about, you know, the, the, those MSRs that you do sell out,

23:53especially on the retail side, you know, those getting captured by, by some of the big servicers?

23:58Yeah. There's always a concern of that. Um, you mean selling, you mean the book that we're,

24:02that if we were to sell part of our book, like that being captured elsewhere. Yeah. I mean,

24:06like, you know, a lot of the loans that are being originated by our loan officers, um, you know,

24:11we want to try to keep, and we want to try to help our loan officers retain that customer for life.

24:14Right. And so, you know, once you do sell it, you're, you're obviously bringing, you're inviting

24:19competition, um, for those loan officers. But, you know, I, I do have a strong belief that if you stay

24:24true to who you are and you, um, and you help the communities the way we're designed to do so

24:29that, that still helps. Again, I mentioned earlier, you know, our lower cost of manufacturer,

24:34it drives our rates down. So we're pretty competitive. Um, we've been focused on, uh,

24:41retaining our book. So when we did see some payoffs start coming through, say, okay,

24:44what are we going to do to keep these? And, you know, um, we've been relatively successful,

24:49about 50% of the payoffs that we see come through, we're able to retain.

24:52I think it's a lot to do with our service, but also a lot to do with the fact that our price is

24:56pretty competitive there. So once we get ahold of them, it's, you know, it's not that hard to kind

25:00of go, you should, you should stick around. And it's probably more important to us to make a deal

25:04even at less money than it is for, um, for our competitors when it comes to our book. Uh, so we've

25:09been relatively successful with that. It's, it's, it's one of the reasons why, um, while we're not

25:15necessarily talking about it, like we do about Treviso, we did also launch a consumer direct channel

25:20last year for that very reason that you mentioned, because we wanted to make sure that we were able,

25:23real ready and able to, to serve our customers if they, if they want to make a move.

25:28Okay. You've now mentioned cost to originate a couple of times. So I got to follow up. I imagine

25:34your team in Mexico, uh, is a significant part of some of the savings that you're seeing in your

25:41origination process. Have you also built technology to, to help with those costs?

25:46We're so in 22 and 23, we pretty much ignored technology. Um, we were not paying attention to

25:56it because it was, it was actually, we were on the other side of it. Right. So, um, it was, it was

26:01like many companies we were in, in survival mode. And so we're trying to say, how do we cut costs? What,

26:06what else can we eliminate? What can we not, you know, uh, have to pay so that we can drive this

26:11cost down and our focus became, let's grow in Mexico. Let's, let's make sure that we build a

26:16strong foundation there. And so we looked at tech a little bit differently. Um, instead of what most

26:22lenders do is they look at it and say, well, you can save X amount, um, by adding this tool, you,

26:28you, you know, instead of closing, uh, you know, two and a half loans per underwriter, you can close

26:34three and a half loans or four loans per underwriter. And that's one of the driving forces with that.

26:38Um, that sounds great in theory, uh, but it's also, you know, implementation of that. And some of those

26:46things take longer and sometimes it just doesn't come to fruition. So we looked at it a little bit

26:49differently and we started saying, what if we look at this and say, well, if we train a junior

26:54underwriter and attach that junior underwriter to the underwriter, we can still get them

26:58to four transactions a day. Uh, uh, but you know, it's, it's in a, in a more meaningful way,

27:04right? We're not necessarily, um, throwing technology into it to try to solve it. Not to

27:10say that we're not paying attention to technology. Now I was at the housing wire AI conference last,

27:15last month specifically, because we're paying a lot of close attention to it. Now we see where

27:20the industry is going. We see that, um, if you don't become a major player in that, you're going

27:24to get left behind. And so now we're building a team for that. Um, and we're, we have our, um,

27:31our innovation department that we're starting to really pay more attention to and really focus

27:35on what can we do here to make sure that we don't get left behind. And now we want to mix the two

27:40and say, let's focus on our cost to manufacture through the near shore stuff that we're doing in

27:45Mexico, but also, uh, through technology driven initiatives. Well, Hector, this has been a

27:52fascinating conversation. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for joining me on Powerhouse today.

27:57No, thanks for having me. And again, I'm a, I'm a fan. I love what you guys are doing and

28:00and I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I love that.

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