PRMG’s Kevin Peranio on finding opportunity in this market

HousingWire

n today’s episode, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with Kevin Peranio, chief lending officer and partner at PRMG, about where originators are finding opportunity in this higher-rate environment. The two discuss home equity products and how PRMG is leveraging AI.  Related to this episode:  Home Equity https://www.housingwire.com/tag/home-equity/  HousingWire | YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q  More info about HousingWire https://lnk.bio/housingwire  Top 5 Trending:  D.R. Horton tests Promise Robotics factory model for 1,250 homes https://www.housingwire.com/articles/promise-robotics-dr-horton-factory/  Compass CEO defends private listings, says MLSs make homes look ‘damaged’ https://www.housingwire.com/articles/reffkin-private-exclusives-mls/  Why falling housing inventory is sending sellers the wrong signal https://www.housingwire.com/articles/falling-housing-inventory-buyer-demand/  Have mortgage rates peaked, or will we see even more chaos? https://www.housingwire.com/articles/have-mortgage-rates-peaked-or-will-we-see-even-more-chaos/  Why agents should tell buyers not to rely on just one home search portal https://www.housingwire.com/articles/portal-coverage-cpc-study/  Want more from Sarah? Don’t forget to subscribe!

Transcript

00:10Welcome, everyone. My guest today is Kevin Paranio. He's Chief Lending Officer and Partner

00:15at PRMG. So excited to be here with you in person. And as you can see, we have the beautiful

00:22beach

00:22in the background here in Newport Beach. So you're not going to get to see us very much.

00:26We're kind of dark, but listen, just enjoy the view. Yes. And the seagulls. And the seagulls.

00:31That's right. Kevin, welcome back to the podcast. And here we are in person in Newport. Yes. Newport

00:38Beach Peninsula. Good to be here. Amazing. And we're giving everyone who's watching this,

00:42you can see that sliver of beach back there. Pretty amazing. So thanks for jumping on today.

00:47You know, I always like to check in with you every once in a while just on how you're leading

00:52a

00:52company through good times, challenging times. Unfortunately, we're kind of back in a more

00:57challenging time than maybe we thought we were going to be. So we're going to talk about that.

01:01We're going to talk about AI. So let's start from the top. How are you approaching this market?

01:06You know, I think positivity is the key thing. You know, I've been seeing a lot of chatter online.

01:14I've even had someone like two months ago say, can you please tell him not to be so positive all

01:21the

01:21time on this podcast? Literally, that was that was the feedback they they gave to to our podcast.

01:28You know, it's a battle, right? You're we're in we're in a battle, right? We're in not not like life

01:34or death war. But, you know, and I don't want to use that analogy since there's real wars going on

01:39around the world. But when you're side by side with a teammate, you want them thinking you can

01:44win and you're going to fight and you're going to find a way to the goal, to the finish line.

01:50You

01:50know, whether it's a sporting event or whatever it is, you cannot have negativity next to you. You

01:55just cannot have it at this moment, especially. And I know that there's a lot of, you know, uncertainty

02:01out there and there always is. Yeah. But having said that, there's still a ton of business. You know,

02:07there's record equity lending and HELOC lending and non-QM lending. It's just a ton of stuff out

02:11there. And you just got to go find it. And if you have a little extra time on your hands,

02:16maybe it's time to retool how you operate, maybe deconstruct and reconstruct some of your processes.

02:22These are the times to kind of get ready. We're already gearing up for spring purchase season in

02:262027. And we're just looking at our platform every day. So I think positivity and anchoring our mindset

02:34to life. You know what? We're blessed to be here. Yes, it's tough. Times are tough, but we've worked

02:39hard to get to this point and we're still going. And, you know, just be positive and anchor your

02:45mindset to things that you can control. I feel like that is what we saw. So we just had our

02:49mortgage banking summit last weekend, last week. And that's what we heard from the stage was like,

02:54listen, you know, you're leading out. You have to control the things you control. It's like,

02:59it doesn't do you any good to do this. And also, you know, educate your buyers that seven and a

03:04half

03:04is not the end of the world. Seven and a half percent historically is not that high, right? It

03:09is it. Of course, we understand the sticker shock people have, especially if they had if they got a

03:15super low rate or they're still thinking about low rates. I had a I had a relative of mine asked

03:19me

03:19recently. So when are rates going back down to three percent? You're like, well, there's a

03:25mnemonic plague that just, you know, occurred in Russia. So, you know, and that's not a joke because

03:31honestly, you know, I don't think, you know, hopefully in our lifetime is the last time we've

03:35seen any kind of health scare like that. But those are the kinds of things that create mass

03:41recessions and zero interest rate policy from the Fed. And definitely we don't want to see any of

03:45that. But I could I can safely say you could probably tell her most likely never. And that's what

03:53it was him. And I was like, you know, if you're waiting on that, you're you're waiting forever

03:57because he was like, I want to sell this house. And I was like, well, anyway, so I do think,

04:01you know, there's a lot of education that we have to you guys have to give to your clients to

04:06be

04:06like, this is why this could still be a really good time to sell for individual people.

04:10Yeah. You know, I talk a lot about the 70s. You guys have probably heard me say it.

04:15Deployment. We love to put our service men and women first. Diamonds, diapers, debt, divorce. I like to joke

04:22and say dead again after divorce. But we've already said it. Downsizing and death. You know,

04:27these are all things that happen regardless of what's going on, you know, with interest rates.

04:31And there's still a lot of traction. You know, last month rates were high. We still funded,

04:36you know, over 2000 loans. We served over 2000 families in our communities around the country.

04:42And we're just one of, you know, hundreds of lenders. So if there's business getting done,

04:47you just got to go grind for it. And people are going to pay for any of those 70s. By

04:51the way,

04:52some people like to say diplomas. Oh, yeah. So you have eight Ds, I guess.

04:58I haven't heard that one. But having had four kids in college at one point, three at the same

05:03time, yeah, I would sign up for that D. Well, we just released a medical professional program

05:10a couple months ago. And we've had some really good success speaking of diplomas. So, you know,

05:15I want to channel my inner something about Mary. Like, no, no, not eight Ds, seven Ds, you know,

05:21not six minute abs, seven minute abs, you know. But no, I think there's always someone looking for

05:27a reason to put a roof over their head. And again, it's just regardless of what's going on the market

05:32with rates. You talked about some of the things you're seeing in different products. What do you

05:37think is important right now to, as far as like the breadth of products that you offer,

05:42for what you're bringing, so that you can meet people who maybe aren't your typical buyer?

05:47You know, I'm dating myself, but not that much. But I started the business in 2001. And we used to

05:56say people, product and price, right? And product, you know, maybe it hasn't mattered in all the years

06:02recently, you know, as much. But I think when you have these down markets, you definitely see that

06:08product mix and diversity of product becomes a little bit more in vogue. You know, when rates

06:12are down, everyone's doing kind of the easy peasy refinances. But, you know, when you start to see

06:17tough markets, people are like, oh, well, maybe now I should figure out non-QM. And I mean, I know

06:23originators over the last couple of years that really embraced non-QM years ago, and it's half their

06:28business all the time, right? And so there's a lot to that. And then there's a lot of different

06:32equity products. You guys really do a good job of covering the HEA space, the home equity agreement

06:38space. I think that's up and coming. And so I do think product mix matters in down markets right

06:45now. So it's just educating yourself and then, of course, educating the consumers.

06:49So let's talk about it. So first of all, on the home equity side, so interested in that,

06:54of course, the reverse part of that to us. We made a bet several years ago, four years ago,

06:59to buy a reverse mortgage daily. And we have a dedicated team member that just does reverse.

07:05We cover that space because we feel like, just like the industry does, at some point,

07:09it's going to become really important. And we saw that early this year, seemed to have some volume.

07:15The latest numbers maybe were down, but I really do think that's something that is,

07:22it's got to, at some point, reach a tipping point.

07:25Yeah. First of all, I love all the acquisitions the team has made. And shout out to Clayton and

07:32everyone else. You guys have really nailed it. I love the new data, by the way. I love the data

07:37dashboard. You guys have done a lot over the years. It's been fantastic. Yeah. As it relates to the

07:42HECM program, what's interesting is that it's not just an FHA loan anymore. There's so many

07:48proprietary products. And it seems like the ages keep getting younger and younger. I mean,

07:53I just turned 50, you know. Do you qualify yet? I know. Well, it's like, it's like, you know,

07:58by the time I get to like 58, you know, I'm just going to be like, all right, I'm cashing

08:01out

08:02everything I own. And, you know, I'm calling it a day. But, you know, it is, you know, healthcare

08:08is a really big driver. So I was literally just reading an article today about the biggest expenses

08:14for retirees. It's housing is about 40%, almost 41% of the average retiree's budget. And if you could just

08:22take that right off the table, I mean, that is life changing, right? And then healthcare is the

08:26second most expense. And there's some other things in there. But, you know, and you don't have to wait

08:31for a life event to make that product relevant. I think there's a generational view of debt,

08:39like debt is bad. Yeah. But I think, you know, as we skew younger, people start to look how a

08:46lot

08:46of professionals look at homes as like, this is an asset that I can leverage to do things and have

08:51a better quality of life. It's not, debt's bad, I need to pay it down to zero and then have

08:55nothing

08:56like that's, that's actually poor cash management, in my opinion. So I do think, you know, I think it's

09:02a generational thing. And I think it'll still take some time. You know, I had a friend who recently her

09:06mom was like, yeah, I need to move out of this house, I need to move into assisted living. Well,

09:09you know, they went and looked at it. Yeah, there's not the money there. I mean, I mean,

09:14that's huge. But, you know, you do a reverse mortgage, and all of a sudden, you have money

09:19for in-home care, she doesn't need, you know, 24 hour or whatever. And I mean, it just freed up

09:23an

09:24incredible amount for her. So anyway, I think there's so much. Well, just to just to touch one

09:27thing, the reverse mortgage purchase, the reverse purchase is insane. So you talk about people

09:33downsizing, maybe that's a care facility where you can buy into, maybe not. But you could sell the home

09:38you're in. And then depending on your age, you could purchase the next home with the reverse.

09:43It's called the reverse purchase. It is a fantastic product. So let's say that, you know, you're in

09:48your 70s, and you're trying to downsize, you only have to put 50% down, you just sold this house,

09:54it's too much for you, your kids are out, you have this excess cash, you put 50% down on

09:59the next one,

09:59no payment forever. Wow. So reverse purchase is a really unique product too, that people don't talk

10:05about it now. Well, and I think when we're in a cycle like this, then like you said,

10:09all these things that maybe aren't the easiest things to do, they product, new product, right?

10:13Products, they come out. Here we go. Okay, well, let's talk about some other things you're doing

10:16at PRMG. Let's talk about your AI, what how you're leveraging it. That's the thing, leveraging AI or

10:23investing in it. What are you guys doing? Well, I think whatever I want to say, I know people feel

10:30differently about super intelligence, right? Is it super intelligence now?

10:34Oh, that's true. I was calling it artificial intelligence. What am I doing?

10:37Has the name changed? I don't know. But, you know, if you haven't done enough, or you think you're

10:43behind, the good news is, like we were talking about earlier, if you get involved now, whatever

10:48you're looking at is probably better than anything on the market a year ago, right? And so I think things

10:53are moving very quickly. And I think one way to help, you know, especially, you know, owner operators and

10:59executives and people who make decisions, you know, AI is, you know, we've gone from, you know,

11:04large language model, right? To, you know, kind of, kind of another level, you know, you get into

11:10agentic AI, but you need to think of it as like an AI teammate, right? It's a teammate, right? So,

11:17so it's a workforce, it's an extension of you and your team. So you just kind of just walk around,

11:22like, what am I doing right now? Well, obviously, AI can't drink my water for me, it can't have this

11:27face-to-face conversation. But, you know, if I have a meeting that's concurrent right now,

11:31it's obviously taking notes. If I have to book some travel, I can have an agent go do that. You

11:35start to think of all these things to give you more time. And so just think of AI as a

11:39teammate.

11:40It's not here to replace all of us. It's not here to replace anyone that's effective. And I think,

11:47actually, what I really love about AI is small business in America is really booming. These people

11:53are coming with these ideas. PMG specifically, we've done some foundational stuff. You know,

12:00we changed our product and pricing engine about three years ago. We put LEO, which is our lone

12:07expressive regenerator system. We put that out in front of our Encompass system. We love Encompass

12:11in the background. It's a fantastic workforce. So now we have this layer to pull all of our APIs and

12:16all of our AI stuff in there. And then we bring in other stuff in there. Friday Harbor has been

12:21great

12:21for underwriting. We use Claude. We put them together. We have an offshore team that pulls

12:26documents in using technology. And it's a lot more AI driven. And, you know, the Total

12:32Expert, our CRM, we've been using their virtual dialer, Cella, which has been great. But not

12:40everyone picks up the phone. So we just are rolling out Cindy, C-I-N-D-I-E. It's fantastic.

12:45It's basically an agent that does more selling up front, right? So it's a lot more

12:51conversational via text, which I think is a great, um, just a great platform. And, um, and again,

12:57there's no way it's going to replace the originator to have like this on the flow call, like we just

13:02had about, well, what do you think about doing? Oh, I need to go to an assistant living facility.

13:06Okay. Have you heard of this? Are you buying? Are you downsizing? Reverse purchase? But you can

13:10train AI to talk about certain things. But then as soon as someone says, well, what's my rate? All right,

13:14you need a human in the loop, right? Who's licensed? So again, these are AI teammates. They help you.

13:19They pull you down the track. They save you time. And I'm not a doomsdayer. Um, I'm not like a

13:25Skynet

13:25person. Um, maybe give it a few years before I start to see how the robots are really acting.

13:30Um, but you talk to these, uh, these AI Bay area teams, you know, we talk about the Pareto principle

13:3680, 20, they're calling this a 95, five world. Whoa. That's a little, I think that's a little rich

13:42and maybe a little bit high on their, their, uh, you know, their own, uh, their own supply. Um,

13:47but I could see us becoming more of a 90, 10, um, industry with AI being more baked in over

13:53the

13:53coming years. So I would just say if you haven't got after it, get after it. Um, we're starting to

13:58see ROI on, on our investments. You know, that's a huge difference because when we first held our first

14:02AI conference, like ROI, wasn't really part of the picture. It was like, listen, you've got to do this,

14:07get into it. And then by the second year it was like, okay, now we can do it. And then

14:11by this year,

14:11it was like, actually, yeah, people are really using this in a way that is helping their bottom

14:16line. Yes. Really important right now to everybody. Um, so you seem like a guy just personally that

14:21you're sort of an early adopter of technology. Is that correct? I am an early adopter and finder

14:28of things. So I always get all these teams to meet early. It's, but when you bring it back into

14:33the enterprise, it is harder to roll it out. Having said that, um, we had our senior manager

14:38meeting yesterday and, um, I told him, I said, I think we're a top five lender when it comes to

14:43AI

14:43implementation and just being on the road and hearing what other people are doing.

14:47It's hard to put the resources into bringing it in, which sometimes like we talked about earlier,

14:53you need to rethink your process, you know, like, you know, and that includes everybody,

14:58including originators, you know, you know, originators have to think like,

15:01this is what I do every day when I come in. And if that's all you're ever going to do,

15:05you're going to be constrained by time. So you have to think about like, what can I let go?

15:10Right. We used to take, you know, loan applications by hand. Now there's points of sale out there,

15:15right? We used to not have smartphones. So I, I, I do think that people are getting really good.

15:20It's still very early at kind of rethinking how they operate to, uh, to pull AI teammates into the mix.

15:26I think what, what I see as we interview leaders, the ones who are just, uh, naturally they're,

15:32they're those early adopters are the ones who are finding the ways to, to implement it in their

15:36company, which just makes sense. Well, you, you had, um, at the AI summit, uh, you had, um,

15:41Abdul Kalami, one of our branch managers that have low on stage. Um, he is a tinker and Abdul,

15:46like really like, I've watched him shape all of the stuff over the last couple of years. And, and,

15:50you know, there are a lot of, you know, uh, branch managers, area managers, owner operators,

15:55operations employees, heck, even our cap markets team where they're using this stuff and they're

16:00thinking of how can I change how we've always done it. And that's kind of where you have to go

16:04with

16:05that. And it doesn't need to be seismic, you know, just, just take one little thing at a time,

16:10a little project at a time and, and, and see where it lands. And it's so good. The coding and,

16:14and, you know, Claude is fantastic. I mean, you can, you can rip things down and replace it,

16:19you know, in a matter of weeks, not like we're losing time, like a whole purchase season and

16:22trying to implement something. You know what I mean? It's pretty quick.

16:25I do think if, if people haven't been in it recently, you'd be so surprised, right? Like,

16:29I mean, Claude, it just blows my mind all the time about what it can do just a couple of

16:33weeks to a

16:34couple of weeks. I'm like, Oh, now we can do this. Now we can find out this. So we're, we're

16:37on the,

16:37on the data side. We are using it all the time to look through and, and really how can we

16:43serve you

16:44guys better, right? It's like, what do you guys need to know? What, what can we use our data to,

16:47to put out there?

16:48So it's pretty exciting. Right. Housing Warner is fantastic. You guys have always done a great job.

16:52Yeah. And I love going back to Dallas for the events. I had a conflict. We had a retail leadership

16:56conference on the last one. We were sad to miss you. I know, I know, but I, I love going

17:02to that

17:02George Bush library and whenever you guys host things there, it's such a great venue. You do such

17:06a great job at all the events. Don't miss it. If you can, you don't have a conflict, get out

17:10there.

17:11There, there do not miss us on the schedule. I love that. Okay. So what are you excited about?

17:14Are, what are you excited about in this, uh, in this, uh, this timeframe and looking forward,

17:20you talked about the purchase market for 27. Um, how do you get yourself excited in a market like

17:26this? Well, you know, if, if we're, if we're anchoring to rates, okay. Right. If we're anchoring

17:33to rates, um, it can snap back just as quick as it's come along. And so there's a little bit

17:38of a

17:39premium that's kind of built in there because, you know, we're not really sure about inflation,

17:43not really sure about oil refining and Russia. We're not really sure about this new fed chair,

17:48you know, would, and so I think over time, those things work themselves out and there,

17:52there can be a snapback. Um, having said that, you know, going back to what we talked about earlier,

17:56people are still buying houses. It's just right now as a seasonal slow time, the second half of the

18:01year, you know, it just kind of is that way generally. And we, you know, people forget, you know,

18:07I, I see, I, I see all this, like, how's that date, the right thing going by the way,

18:12there were a ton of refinances each of the last two years during this time of the year,

18:17we had amount of people have short memories, but like the second half, even all the way through

18:21February of this year, we had a lot of refinance business. So a lot of dates got dumped. And I

18:26will

18:26tell you that that could happen again. I'm not trying to predict the future. Having said that,

18:31if we don't get any kind of macro help in this seasonally slower time, it'll rebound after the

18:37holidays, break bread, you know, connect with family, keep retooling and get ready for 2027.

18:43You know, I think we, we see that if you look at what a normal amount of home sales is,

18:48we're about

18:48a million off every year for the last, what, four or five years at some point. And I know Logan,

18:54if you're listening to this, you don't like when I talk about sideline buyers, but truthfully,

18:58all the things we talked about earlier with all those D's that those life events at some point

19:03push you to that. And I just think about all those pent up demand. It has to come out sometime.

19:08Well, by the way, he's like, he's like that way. So where he lives. So he's not, he's not too

19:13far

19:13from here, but maybe he could hurt you. But yeah, I, you know, pent up demand is, is a real

19:19thing from

19:20an affordability standpoint. You know, we see a lot of data, you know, remember when this was first

19:25happening back in the second half of 22 and 23, like when rates went from seven to 8%, 5 million

19:31people were priced out of the market that, that is real pent up demand. And so rates do matter.

19:37I will say none of the people are talking about insurance leveling off. So, so, so, you know,

19:45we had a pretty mild weather year last year and we had a pretty mild fire season this year and

19:52hurricane

19:53season. It's almost over and it's been pretty mild. So of course, like any good insurance company,

19:59they're not going to cut costs. They're just not going to maybe raise as much, but that is meaningful.

20:04And so I've been reading about credit card delinquencies has peaked, insurance going up has

20:10peaked, taxes going up, the rates of them all going up have peaked. In fact, if you, you know,

20:15if you look at a lot of the inflation positive work that's been done in slowing the inflation rates,

20:20a lot of it has been coming from housing. And, and so, um, I think at some point there is

20:26like

20:26the rates come down and meet that, you know, that leveling off of all those prices converging.

20:31And my hope is that it's going to be early next year. Okay. We're going to pause just

20:36for a second to let that beeping get better. Someone's backing up. That's the, there we go.

20:40That's the plumber. He's still, so that is, um, so that is, um, Hunter Pence's house on the corner.

20:54He is a, he is a San Francisco giant. He's a guy that has won a world series.

21:00Oh my gosh. Okay. We're going to jump back in here. Let's do it.

21:04Okay. Well that brings up something. Uh, the reason I'm in town in Southern California,

21:08is I went to the California mortgage bankers association, California, MBA, uh, forum that

21:13they had yesterday, disaster recovery, disaster recovery forum. And what they did was they pulled

21:19in, they had lenders, they had the planning and city people, they had insurance people,

21:24they had it where you could go, they had servicers and make it easy. So if somebody was, um, still

21:30was trying to get their house rebuilt, they could come to that event. And in the same room,

21:37move the needle completely from like start to finish of where they were. And one of the things

21:43that struck me, I went around and talked to people was that you had insurance people. They were like,

21:47we're here because we, people sometimes think they can't get insurance. And they're like,

21:51absolutely. We are here. We're in California. We're in Southern California. We're in the areas

21:54we have. Um, and they're helping the homeowners say like, here, here are the like five or six things

21:59that if you do this, as you rebuild, we'll have no problem at all. Yeah. Susan Malazzo was there for

22:0521, almost 22 years. And, um, she really set the table for those of us on the board. I'm on

22:11the

22:12board of California Mortgage Banker Association. And then she retired, which she's in Chicago.

22:16We'll see her at MBA annual. Um, but, uh, and she is helping us with our mortgage innovative

22:20conference, which you all have been really great about participating in Paul Gelati has taken over.

22:25And what we've done with that format, um, we, we basically, we basically took that format and

22:31brought it to the disaster recovery forum where we've been using that format in Sacramento. So we

22:35go up there and lobby as a board together, at least once a year, of course, we're there

22:39throughout the year. You get all those, you know, industries together, and then we all go lobby

22:45together too. And so there is, you know, insurance builders title, real estate side,

22:52lending side, we all get together and we try and advocate and, and, you know, it is a nonprofit.

23:00Our California MBA is a nonprofit. We are an advocacy group. And so it was really good to see

23:04that format come into the disaster recovery, which is the reason why it's important is obviously we've

23:08had some, some fires, but we've had some, uh, some bills pass and some of them have to do with

23:14disaster recovery. And, um, our, our board, um, together, uh, California MBA, um, together with,

23:21uh, also the national MBA, um, also pitched in, um, we were able to get some, like it was supposed

23:27to

23:27be like a three year hardship. They got it down to like, um, like two or one and just all

23:32these

23:32different bills. Anyway, I, I could go through the whole list, AB 801, AB 850. I'm like,

23:37there's so many, we have this whole list and you know, that format has seemed to work because I,

23:42I think regardless of party, um, I think, you know, we do want to protect the citizens in California

23:47and, and try and, you know, uh, get some buy-in and cooperation from servicers and lenders. And

23:53so I believe you had some great services there as well yesterday from what I read about. So,

23:57that's very cool that you went there. I didn't know that. I was like, why are you in town? You're

24:00like, Oh, I was at this thing. I was like, I'm on the board. Yeah, no, I was really impressed

24:05with it.

24:05And just, um, what a great thing to do. And Paul, um, made the point that like,

24:09it's good for those homeowners. It's good for those people want to rebuild. It's also good for

24:13business. There's an ROI there. Like all of the people in that room, it, it behooves them to have

24:18those people be able to rebuild their house, be back in there making payments, um, you know,

24:23getting on with their lives. And so I just think it's a, it was such a great, uh, event. I'm

24:27really

24:27glad I got to go. Well, I think you hit it on the head when it comes to advocacy,

24:30you got to have a win, win, win, right? It's multiple people have to win a few years ago

24:35after the paradise fires, the state said, okay, insurance companies, we're capping you. You can

24:39no longer raise insurance. And the state farm said, we're out. Um, and then farmers is like,

24:44well, we can't handle this. We're out too. And then everyone's rates went up. So, uh, so we were like,

24:49you know, three years ago, we were like lobbying for more customer service for the California fair plan,

24:54which kind of is a bridge. It gets the job done, you know, and had to, um, but we really

25:00needed them

25:00to come back and allow the majors to do their catastrophe modeling. And so we lobby for that.

25:05And then they did it. And so now the insurance carriers are back. And so, you know, sometimes

25:10what you think, you know, in Sacramento or any state or any DC or anywhere you think is like,

25:15this is the right thing, but then in actuality, it doesn't really work. And, and, you know, kudos to

25:20the government, you know, at least in this state to have the guts to roll something back and go,

25:24okay, that didn't work. We're going to let you back in. And this is what works.

25:27And, uh, we see that all the time. Don't we, when we cover politics and advocacy,

25:32you know, we do know I great work that you guys are doing excited for you. Hopefully we will get

25:38that snap back in race. But even if we don't, sounds like you guys have a plan, you're working

25:42the plan and you're still seeing success in this market. Well, I think there's going to be a snap

25:46back in demand just because the purchase season is coming up regardless of rates. And so

25:50it would just be a bonus, you know, if rates get any better from here.

25:54Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. All right, Kevin, thank you so much for being on with me.

25:59Always great to catch up with you and get your take on this. Appreciate you. We'll talk again soon.

26:04Let's do it. Thank you.

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