[David] Let’s move over to Allen Pollack with a Tech Update. Allen always got great information. I write down all the websites and so you make sure you get those over to Ben. So, we put it in our show notes so listeners can go to your page on the website to get all the links, but take it away, Allen, what you got?
[Allen] You got it. I’ve got some sayings that I found online and I took one to GPT and I said, give me some more some more for the podcast. So it came up with three that I thought were worthy and since it’s Monday, you only have 52 times. each year to start your week off and today’s one of those we happen to have this opportunity every Monday to tell people to get out there and kick some ass. So here’s three of them. The first one’s great work smarter, not harder, unless you’re my wifi, then do both. You either have excuses or results. So pick one and then the last one it’s not procrastination if you’re waiting for the right moment. Which is probably a horrible saying because everyone says it, overanalyze and never execute. So hopefully your Monday, you kick your Monday off and get out there to kick some ass. Now let’s talk about one thing with the AI, and then I want to talk about what the upcoming type of home borrower is doing out there in a survey from Fannie Mae. So, first, get this, AI, and I know Marc you’re going to love this, AI, better than your doctor? One man’s life says yes. So a terminally ill man with a rare immune disease was out of options. His doctors didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t pinpoint a cure. They went into AI. Researchers fed his medical data into an AI system that analyzed thousands of possibilities in record time and that AI result found a treatment no human had considered and it worked. It saved his life. This is next level medicine. So instead of a one size fits all treatment, AI can create a hyper personalized solution that any doctor can’t necessarily do or to that level of degree. Now I’ll tell you what’s interesting about this article I take a ton of supplements like more than I want to admit every day because each pill you buy You have to take four of them a day. So you walk around with a pile of pills in your pocket Anyways, I had gone to GPT and I listed everything I put in there and the brand and I said tell me a better way to do this because I was looking you know, you go to one of those pharmacies where they compound like Your own pill. Anyways, that doesn’t exist what I’m looking for and it gave me better brands. They said some of the stuff you’re taking is not of the highest quality and to take less pills. And then it broke it into when to take them during the day. AI is truly amazing. Start applying it to other things in your life. You will find even meditation you will find ways to include it and then it eventually become part of everything you do every day It will help you be better in everything you do. Alright, David. Let’s talk about some mortgage industry stuff So everybody knows all regs. I wrote for those of you in the industry forever You’ll remember when all regs had five guidelines loaded in the system to their growth when everyone pricing engines were using them and then when Ellie May acquired them anyways They just released which I can’t believe Is out. This is huge. Ask Reggie, the AI power tool that delivers summarized search results to help find answers your regulatory questions in seconds. So, check it out. I think that’s pretty cool. The other thing, we talk about configurability versus customization or personalization. Maxwell put a thing in the Crisman report. It says with industry first configurability of Maxwell’s point of engine point of sale engine, lenders can define workflows for any mortgage product while configuring triggers and business rules to align the borrower experience and operational process. Not only did Maxwell hit the nail on the head, that advertising piece hits every keyword. So they didn’t say mission critical, they didn’t say mission leading, best AI engine in the world. They said the facts and those are the facts that if I was a lender looking for something, those are the facts that matter to me. It’s first industry, first configurability, it’s the fine workflows and it’s configuring triggers and business rules. Any vendor you work with, if you can do all of those different things and you found the partner that fits for you. So keep that in mind and hats off to Maxwell for that advertisement. Also, David Industry Titans are out. National Mortgage Professional 2025 Industry Titans. If you’ve not seen it on LinkedIn or anyone else, please go check it out. Housing Wire Tech 100 Award is out. You’ve seen that around and also the Mortgage Point. Freddie Mac has recognized top performing mortgage servicers. The 2024 Sharpe Awards, so you want to go check that out as well and those awards go to people that are servicing 200,000 or more Freddie Mac mortgages and so forth. The smallest amount, by the way, so the folks servicing only 20-75k loans the gold. with somebody that I’ve never heard of, but Pingora Loan Servicing. I don’t know if you guys have heard of them. Okay and then you’ve got a bunch of other ones out there. Obviously on the larger side, Mr. Cooper, PennyMac Onslaught, Flagstar, Marlin, Cross Country Mortgage. I got in there between 75k-200k loans. I mentioned that because, and there’s some other companies in there as well. I mentioned that because, we’re talking about, are there enough homebuyers out there? What are you doing with the folks that you’re servicing? If you’re servicing 20,000 people, how are you analyzing that data? Are you looking at their change property values? Are you looking at data that you can acquire for life circumstantial changes that happen in their lives? Make sure you’re looking at this. This is where your marketing comes into play. It’s not just about going out to the street and advertising and the technology that’s out there to help you with this is unbelievable. So go check it out. Then David, I wanted to bring up something right here. This has to do with what we were talking about earlier. Recent US studies highlight a significant shift in communication preferences among younger adults with a marketed version to phone calls. Get this, texting over talking a survey and there’s a couple different companies that have done the survey. This one’s from Lead Ferno 2,000 consumers were surveyed 37% prefer text messaging as their primary communication channels and phone calls are only at 30% and they have what’s called phone call anxiety. Research indicates that 81% of millennials experience anxiety before making a single phone call. And so when you look at the mortgage industry adapt to client preferences, understand who your audience is, reduce communication barriers and stay competitive. And for sake of time today, I won’t go into this whole Fannie Mae survey. I’ll bring it up next week. But let me tell you, the number one place that lenders are investing their money is still point of sale. That still tops the highest investment and most popular investment.
[David] Interesting. That’s not surprising.
[Allen] Yeah, because you need to engage people digitally. You need to give them options and by the way, if they want to call the loan officer and pick up the phone, they can do that. But you’ve got to let them work the way that they want to work. So, I’ll end today’s conversation with that great content today and thanks everyone for listening.
[David] Good. Yeah, good stuff. Appreciate it. Check out all of Allen’s comments on his personal page on our website. Lykken on Lending. You’ll find Allen under the contributors there. So along with all his comments and links to a lot of the things he’s shared with us.
Allen Pollack
, Chief Operating Officer, Tech Consultant
Allen Pollack, a Mortgage & Financial Services Technology Advisor, is a subject matter expert in the mortgage origination process along with software product management and software development.
In today’s financial services push to all things Digital, Allen has been helping lenders and financial services solution providers align their digital transformation and technology strategies by removing the human element of risk, and automating processes that drive efficiencies and margins into profits.
Over the course of his career, Allen has co-created and developed technology business models that have birthed highly successful, innovative solutions and companies.
Allen co-founded and served as CTO of New York Loan Exchange (NYLX), a loan product eligibility and pricing engine (PPE) that made an immediate impact on the industry, scaling the company quickly and forming partnerships with multiple mortgage and financial lending companies. In 2012, Allen was a co-founder of a merger between NYLX and Aklero Risk Analytics that created LoanLogics, A Mortgage Loan Quality and Performance Analytics company. Allen served as CTO where he continued to bring new and innovative product solutions to the market that made a significant impact to mortgage lenders that reduced risk, scaled business channels, and grew profits in a very competitive and highly regulated market.
Allen is also is mortgage and finance technology contributor on a weekly live industry podcast, Lykken on Lending, and is launching a new podcast soon to be released, TechStack Radio, dedicated to technology and innovation in Financial Services.