The mortgage industry is facing a critical inflection point—millions of qualified buyers remain on the sidelines, not affordability alone, but due to a deep lack of trust and financial understanding. In this episode, industry leaders Kristin Messerli and Dave Savage unpack a powerful solution: leading with education to unlock the next generation of homebuyers. Through initiatives like FirstHomeIQ’s ambassador and advocacy programs, they reveal how loan officers can move beyond transactions to become trusted advisors, community educators, and even policy influencers. The conversation highlights a massive opportunity—over 10 million potential buyers waiting for guidance—and makes a compelling case that the future of mortgage growth will belong to those who prioritize trust, literacy, and long-term impact.
[Lykken] Listeners, we’re always talking about giving back and how important it is to help our communities, and what are we doing for fiscal education? We have two individuals that are well-known in the industry. Joining me, we have Kristin Messerli. I’m so good to have you, Kristin, as well as one of my dear friends, David Savage. Dave, good to have you here as well.
[Savage] Good to be here.
[Lykken] Yeah. It’s so good to see what you do or doing and that’s really what I wanna share with our listening audience. Kristin, I see you traveling around, speaking at all these conferences, doing all the things you’re doing, really trying to help bring about education and where most people just don’t have enough, especially coming out of our current school system. Let’s get in. Kristin, what is the vision? And then I want to get how you and Dave teamed up on this. The genesis of this. So let’s lead off with you.
[Kristin] Just as you said, most people don’t have any kind of financial literacy education in school. They’re not taught this growing up and we feel that the moment that they’re making the biggest financial decision of their lives is a moment to have incredible impact in not only teaching them, but also capturing new market share for people who are also like uneducated, but also really distrusting of this industry. In their recent next gen home buyer report, we saw that only 12% trust the industry is not going to take advantage of them. So this is a huge opportunity, I think to not only bring impact, but also capture more market share where people are feeling very skeptical.
[Lykken] That’s it’s really interesting statistic. We shouldn’t look at. How we are not trusted and we so many of us try so hard to be trusted in this industry. What do you think is that? Is it the last housing crisis where that got so well published where I’m remember being on, I remember being on Fox with Neil Cavuto and he says, we’re having a conversation. He says, wait a minute. I think I’m here with someone who has trusted less than even a newscaster. I’m with a mortgage guy and I burst out laughing, but what do you think that is, Kristin? Why is that?
[Kristin] I do think that had an impact. Millennials entered adulthood right after during the financial crisis, but I also see trust falling across all industries From media, healthcare, technology? Yeah, in business general. So across the board, but I think when it comes to finances, there’s also a lot of anxiety. And so you add the anxiety to the distrust and that just continues to create those barriers and that’s why, some of our initiatives are around leading with education and some are around advocacy. How do we you build trust on a local and national level that’s going to build trust with your market.
[Lykken] David, I’m so glad to have you here and I love how you seem to always show up when there’s a significant initiative going on and you have interviewed. I love your podcast. I love what you do. Anyone that doesn’t know you, I can’t imagine that anyone listening to this probably knows you well and probably listen to your interviews. I’d love to get your response. And how did you team up with Kristin on this. And how did you get behind this? Was it your idea? Kristin’s idea, or just you guys sitting around at a conference talking about what was needed?
[Savage] It was us sit sitting around at a conference and definitely a collaboration between the two of us. Kristin and I being impact partners really started with Mitch Kider at the first, I think it was the first IMB event. Kristin was one of the speakers at that event, and I had just finished about a 30 minute coffee meeting with Mitch and he walked over to meet with Kristin and as I was walking to my next meeting, he is Dave, you need to meet Kristin.
[Lykken] But you hadn’t met her before that?
[Savage] No. It is been over a decade. We’re talking, I’d say 12 years ago and he really just said some shining things about who she was as a leader. The future of the next generation of speakers in our industry. And so yeah, we just we’ve always had a lot of conversations. I think we have very similar views around where the mortgage industry is missing the mark when it, especially when it comes to first time home buyer and next gen. According to perplexity, there’s over 10 million people that are qualified, that are renting, that are qualified to buy a home. I think it’s more like 12 million and we know that on any given year, like this year, we’ll probably have about 4.5 million transactions. I’m not exactly sure what number is first time home buyers, but just looking at the data is probably about a million. We’re just, we’re not, the mortgage industry has not done a good job of informing the world that you don’t need 20% down. There’s still too many people that don’t understand that the industry has not done a great job of just inspiring and educating people. You can do this, like everybody can have a home ownership. It’s a question of can I do it in one month, one year or eight years? And, so part of, from my perspective, it’s to help the industry do a better job of bringing more first time home buyers and then I’m now 61 years old and I really do care about the next generation. I have a 23-year-old, a 27-year-old, and I have conversation with their friends and it’s bleak, they don’t believe, like many of them, even the kids that grew up with families that own homes are like, I got, I missed out, or It’s gonna take me decades to achieve this and so it’s just really clear to me that there’s a massive opportunity to do good in America and to do good in a way that you also do more first time home buyer loans and help realtors sell homes, so it’s an opportunity.
[Lykken] Yeah. And I think it’s solving a problem and we’ve already identified the problem, 12 million and we may be having a fraction of that at any given year. So how are you going about in solving this? Kristin, you’re at the tip of the spear on this for the industry. First of all, Mitch Kider, who’s one of my dear friends, and I just admire him, been way too long since I’ve talked to him. We’re both getting old. I think he started to get close to retiring out, but he is just someone I respect. And if he says, you need to meet someone, he’s. It’s golden.
[Savage] Yeah. You gotta trust is immediately bestowed on that person.
[Lykken] Yeah, it is. Yeah, exactly right. Kristin, let’s hear what the solution is. What are you doing out there? I kind remember I gotta say this, remember time, one time, a long time ago, I remember hearing an MBA speaker talk about the tide went out and there was all these starfish stranded on the shore. They handed out starfish pins that to all the ones that listed this space, and the guy walked up to him and says, what are you doing? He says, I’m trying to save the starfish and he threw it out in the ocean. He says, look at all the starfish. There’s so many laying up here. There’s no way you can make a difference. He says, I did to this one, and he threw it in. I think a lot of what you’re doing is. One by one, you’re making a difference. And if we can have that kind of impact. So I had to put that story in there because I think you’re taking one by one. Kristin, it may be a little bit better to scale on that. Tell us what you’re doing.
[Kristin] Yeah, that’s a really beautiful analogy for what we’re doing. And the more of those individuals that are coming together on this mission, the bigger the voice that we have collectively. So we have an ambassador program where people are part of a mission that to bring education in their communities and to build trust. So, we provide them with presentation, materials and playbook. On, building trust and building community partners. We have about 165 ambassadors across the country in 144 metro areas and then secondly, we have a advocacy program. So this is new to this year. We have partnered with the Mortgage Bankers Association to bring these First Home IQ advocates.
[Lykken] Congratulations.
[Kristin] Yeah. And so we believe that, the loan officer is especially important in this voice sitting at the intersection between the consumer and the industry. And so we’ve got now over 50 loan officers who are attending with First Home IQ and coming to the Hill to advocate on behalf of affordability and first time home buyers. And we’re growing that initiative. We have over a hundred on the list of our overall advocacy program. Where we’re gonna help empower people to have a voice in their local markets and on a federal policy level.
[David] Yeah, that’s really good. And by the way, you give, have a shout out to MBA, ’cause they have our advocacy event coming up. But no one’s, if you haven’t done that, get involved with the MBA and the advocacy. But this is separate than this. This is a different advocacy.
[Kristin] So no, this is actually the same.
[David] Is it one or the same? Oh, really good. So we have our advocacy strategy to bring collective impact through our policy, but we’ve partnered with the Mortgage Bankers Association to bring loan officers to that exact event.
[Lykken] Good. Excellent. Excellent.
[Kristin] April 14th and 15th. And you can go to firsthomeiq.com/advocacy and sign up for more information on how we’re helping to equip people leading up to it and get people to Yeah, to partner with MBA and Dave. Yeah. You wanna add to that? And it’s really good David.
[Savage] So Dave, I did a podcast with Mitch Kider last week, which is on our YouTube channel. Check it out. I had asked him, how many loan officers do you think usually go to the advocacy? And he is like three. He was exaggerating, but I think he’s not far off and when we first started talking to the MBA about this, they’re like, we have not been able to unlock loan officers participating and really giving attention to the MBA or advocacy. And so part of this initiative is to get loan officers to unlock and go, wow. I didn’t even, first of all, as we started telling the industry about this, most loan officers don’t know what MBA advocacy is. And I would tell you, Dave, one of the reasons we’ve been so successful is that loan officers have never been more concerned about their trust and future proof, like AI’s here, loan officers have never at scale, been working hard to build personal brands. They’re doing podcasts, they’re using LinkedIn, they’re using Instagram, they’re using TikTok. They’re using Facebook to build personal brands and so part of the story to the mortgage industry and to loan officers is, Hey, come first of all, don’t be the loan officer that complains about affordability. Distinguish yourself in your local market that, Hey, I’m the loan officer that is going on the hill and advocating on behalf of first time buyers. I’m advocating on behalf of affordability in America. I’m advocating on behalf of financial literacy. So Kristin and I surpassed our expectations. Like we really believed that we would get a lot of loan officers to come, but we’re, I think next year we’ll have hundreds of loan officers that wanna take this and then to Kristin’s point, all year round, every, I don’t know if every state in America has a state mortgage advocacy, but I think the majority, if not all of them do. And so we’re, the page that, Kristin called out. I don’t know when you’re gonna publish this, Dave. The annual mBA advocacy may be sold out by the time you find out about it, but if it’s not sign up, but we’re gonna be doing this year round and like this is an ongoing initiative.
[Lykken] And to your point, David, it needs to be done locally as much as it does nationally. Especially when you look at the issues that we’re having. You look at the cost to get building permits for, to start a new home in Southern California, San Diego, it was 60% of the cost was what the Home Builders Association released. Is 60% of the cost of a home is the regulatory side of it. And it’s just ridiculous. So we need to go in and be good at that and if we’re gonna be good citizens and good originators and true professionals, kudos to you. So that is the advocacy program. Cool. Excellent. Anything more? You wanna do that? ’cause I wanna get to the ambassador program ’cause that’s where I have a sense the bigger reach.
[Savage] I just wanna make sure it’s heard, whether you’re listening to this and you are a manager, an executive, a mortgage company, this is a really important initiative to make sure that your loan officers are aware of it. And so I wanna make sure you know that Kristin, myself, we even have a lot of very active leaders in our community that are some of the top speakers in the mortgage industry. Some of the most respected loan officers in America that are part of this program that will come be a guest at a sales meeting. And we can tell this story in five minutes, make sure that your loan officers know about it. And it’s not just the right thing to do. It’s more loans. It’s building the brand and the trust IQ of your loan officer. So I just, I can’t emphasize, and of course, if you’re a loan officer, the MBA matters, and I’m not even gonna get into why it matters just at a integrity level, it matters to your personal brand that you aren’t just the average LO in the marketplace. Always asking for loans, always telling people that now’s the time to buy, or you’re the mortgage professional is actually doing something and being an active advocate in the marketplace.
[Lykken] You’re good. Kristin, do you want to add to that?
[Kristin] No, I think that says it all. We’re providing scripts and outreach scripts and social media scripts that people can utilize to talk about advocacy and their mission for being a part of this, whether or not you’re able to go to DC. So definitely, sign up firsthomeiq.com/advocacy and we’re gonna work on, providing, creating that collective voice together.
[Lykken] Good. I think it’s also anyone who’s a business owner. Should anyone of your loan officers that show up or show interest in this, you should consider underwriting part of the cost? I think it’s good that they get their get in the game in it, but I think it’d be really good for the company’s owners to be able to underwrite some of the costs. I think it’s also not a bad idea for the underwriter, I mean for the loan officer to pay some of the costs. So they’re vested into it as well.
[Savage] Yeah, no, I’ve been speaking at a lot of, I was just on a call with Daniel saw with NFM Yesterday and he just jumped right in that, Hey if you sign up we will help offset the cost of that. Agreed. I think, the investment of this will help future proof the success of your loan officers. And it will help them win more loans, be more respected in their local markets right now.
[Lykken] Yep. And it’s also a recruiting tool. We could spin that any different number of ways. To, if you’re serious, get with a company that underwrites this. Let’s talk about the ambassador program because that is where you really start and I think get the numbers really have an impact on a number basis. Kristin, tell us about that program and how could people learn more about it?
[Kristin] Yeah, so we have. The Ambassador program is where you’re really committed to bringing education and building trust in your community. We have over 145 cities covered by over 160 ambassadors, and they’re all leading with education. So we provide them with presentation materials, scripting they can use, social media posts and scripts and playbooks for capturing new business through the avenues of trust building and education. So there’s a lot of different ways. Every ambassador has their own quiz landing page where it’s a lead magnet. So it guides people through understanding, buying your first home, gives them free resources, and then they, that ambassador gets the name, email and results of anyone that goes through that quiz. So there’s ways that you can utilize the resources to capture more business, but it’s all through the lens of impact and building trust with education.
[Lykken] Obviously mortgage companies fall into the Ambassador program. Every mortgage company that is again serious about being taken professionally, serious, there’s great material here that you provide. But who else can be involved in the Ambassador program other than banks, credit unions or anyone involved in the mortgage lending?
[Kristin] Yeah, so we actually have individual loan officers and individual real estate agents that those are primarily who are our ambassadors, just over the last year opened up to partnerships and we have Movement, Churchill. We have several others, Neo, who are partners on this and sign up to allow several or their loan officers to have access to parts of the program. So that’s a way to get connected and build partnership there too.
[Lykken] Yeah, and Dave I could tell a surprise that you had and Yeah, I would tell you those, we have over a hundred loan officers that are donating over 2000 a year. JJ Mazo was the biggest donor last year. He’s with Cross country donated almost, was it almost 20,000? It was like 18,000 last year. It’s been remarkable at just the heart, the heart that the industry has and really the difference between us. We wanna turn this nonprofit into the mortgage industry’s nonprofit. Kristin is the Executive director. I am on the board. It’s not our nonprofit. This is the mortgage industry’s nonprofit. Now, one of the reasons why partnering with the MBA is so important is that we don’t want this to be ours. This is your nonprofit we built our board of directors last year. Mitch Kider is on our board of directors. Clayton Collins is on our board of directors. Bill Dallas is on our board of directors, Jean Luge, who’s also on the board of that. We, again the list goes on. Everybody that’s on the board is a highly respected, extremely accomplished leader in the space and then they bring a superpower. So we just really have something special here. So that is another message to anyone. Listen to this. If you are an executive, your loan officers can’t sign up individually and you can take a leadership role and become a partner and becoming a partner is, it’s good for your brand, it’s good for your company, and it’s good for America.
[Kristin] We also have free resources, not only for consumers and teachers and educators, but for the mortgage industry as well. So I always encourage everyone to go to firsthomeiq.com/workshop and sign up for a workshop. We give a lot of those resources and guide you through some of what’s available in the programs. So if anyone’s interested or wants me to come in to talk to the company and share some of the research that we have, that’s one way to do that.
[Savage] And by the way, she made me think of something else. The ambassador program is we give scholarships to it. So we have people that have scholarships, but the 90% of the ambassadors are donating money on a monthly basis. Free resources if you’re a loan officer, there are free resources for you to use, designed it for teachers, for parents, and then of course the real avatar is the next gen home buyer. It’s a Gen Z, first time home buyer, of course. Someone who’s Gen Z, someone who’s millennial, any age, any demographic the content is really tailored to get them to go home ownership wealth gap in America, someone who’s low income earning that is able to achieve home ownership in their twenties is gonna have a major head start versus someone who’s very high income earning, but doesn’t achieve home ownership until their thirties or forties. So it’s really like we have affordability crisis in America. We have a financial literacy crisis in America and this is an organization that’s dedicated to putting a debt in that and have, hopefully when you’re talking to Kristin and I, three years from now, we will be impacting millions of next Gen Z, home buyers.
[Lykken] Yeah. I love BHAGs. I love BHAG goals. Yeah. I’m big, very audacious.
[Savage] So let’s make sure this one gets lots of distributions so we can Hey David, given how many years you’ve been doing this, and the audience you have and the respect you have. Like it’s it really is an opportunity to make impact in a way that’s never been done in America and it certainly hasn’t been done in the mortgage industry.
[Lykken] Kristin, one of the things that’s neat about this story is you’re young, you came in and you with your gifts and abilities could be so successful making beaucoup bucks out there, but you chose a path to make a difference. First of all, kudos to you and thank you. If you recall a number of years ago, not that many years ago, maybe it has been a while, but you and I are in Wimberley, Texas sitting on a bench, and I was talking to you about what drives you. I want you to answer that question for our audience because it’s an inspiring moment, I think for many people who are wondering, what do I wanna do? What drives you, Kristin? Share that answer with our audience.
[Kristin] I started my career as a social worker and have always cared about having impact. But I think when and I grew up in a mortgage family, so I had parents who are brokers and I think understanding that when someone receives education through someone that they trust. It changes the trajectory of their lives, and just being a part of that at scale is something that gets me excited every morning. Whether that is, bringing people together or it’s creating content that really connects or creating games for the classroom. All of that means that more people are going to change their lives especially around finances, which is such, for me, has always been such an, a topic of anxiety. I feel like so many people just feel so much emotion and anxiety around money. And I think that especially, loan officers are really uniquely positioned to be able to have a real impact with people in that critical moment.
[Savage] Yeah. I also wanna make sure, like Kristin is a very successful entrepreneur and she’s also one of the top speakers in the mortgage industry. She’s on a lot of stages. Any executive listening to this, there is no one more qualified, no one better to be a fee speaker at your next sales rally. On behalf of the next generation, like we, we must. Just as an industry, we need new blood into the business in all areas, not just younger loan officers and younger people, which by the way, AI has made it easier than ever to get into the bit mortgage business and to learn the business regardless of whether it’s processor, underwriter, loan officer. If we get more young blood into the business, it makes this a more dynamic industry. It needs to be done, and there’s really no one who’s a more compelling speaker than Kristin did to that. Yeah. So reach out to Chris, your next sales rally.
[Lykken] Yes. Yeah, kudos. A shout out to you, Kristin. I think one of the things, as I’ve heard you speak, and I love the place of humility, you come from, you’re not up there trying to build your brand. You’re generally you’re putting first the mission and it’s very clear. I, so I just, kudos to you. I think you’re a leading example. Mitch is right. You’re one of the bright, shining new lights in our industry. We have, so I get, I don’t know if I’ll ever retire. I’m at 75, so I’m not, I’m gonna keep on going, but it’s nice to know that we’ve got you in here. How can people learn more? I don’t wanna go on covered it. I just really want to get people to get involved. We’ve created awareness. How can people get in, whether it be the advocacy or the ambassador program.
[Kristin] You can go to our website, first home iq.com. That’s where you’ll see them and that’s where you’ll access the ambassador program, the workshop I mentioned the advocacy initiative. And then there’s other resources in there including, we have a lot of research that we do. Yeah, just explore the resources and of course you can always reach out directly to me at Kristin@firsthomeiq.com if anyone is interested in learning more.
[Savage] Yeah. And then I would also throw in to follow Kristin on, I think LinkedIn is the primary channel. We have LinkedIn profile. I don’t think there’s a single week where I either don’t make a post on LinkedIn or when I’m doing our YouTube interviews, which I do two podcasts every week and I have done that for over 15 years. You can follow I’m on all social media channels, but the two channels that I really focus on from an impact like the change is LinkedIn and YouTube. But firsthomeiq.com guys don’t just go check it out, like bookmark it. Get on the mailing list, make sure that you’re getting, Kristin is sending out an awesome email every single week, Saturday morning, still Saturday morning that they tells Hey, what did we do this week? what webinar do we have coming next? So that’s good. Again it’s everywhere.
[Lykken] Tag me in it and I’ll make sure we repost that out, Kristin, so that gets out there for the world to see. It’s kudos to what you’re doing. I love seeing both of you, someone who’s been around for a long time like me, Mr. Savage, and then of course, up and coming Kristin, thank you so much for both being here. Listeners, pass this on to others. This not only is a good business development tool, but it’ll develop you and help you prepare. Help others prepare for the future. Thank you both. Good to have you both. So good to see you.
[Kristin] Thank you, David.
[Savage] We appreciate
[Lykken] How do you do that? Come on, let’s do the old goble. Yeah. There we’re boom. Gotta do the savage moment there. All right. You guys have a blessed one. Thank you.
[Kristin] All right. Thank you.
[Savage] Thank you my friend.