Real Investor Radio Podcast

Craig Fuhr (00:12)
Hey, welcome to real investor radio. I'm Craig Fuhr joined again by Jack BeVier. And we've got a great guest on today, Dustin Wells. We're just gonna jump right into it today, Jack. Lots to talk about a lot going on here at Dominion and in the markets. And so why don't you go ahead and introduce Dustin and we'll jump right in.

Jack BeVier (00:32)
Yeah, absolutely. yeah. Excited to have Dustin Wells on today. Dustin and I had the pleasure of meeting Dustin about a year ago and, got lucky. was one of those like right moment, right time things. And if you just like, keep, know, keep yourself out there, brute force and networking, eventually something just pops up in the, you know, the universe, smiles on you. So I met Dustin. think it was at an IMN conference last May, through a mutual friend and he was,

transitioning out of a different company. He's got like decades of experience on the residential consumer mortgage side of things, particularly more recently in the non QM side of things. And at the time we're very interested in getting more involved with the distribution network of the residential consumer brokers in the country. mean, there's just the horsepower. It's, you you can have the best rate. You can have the best process.

but just the horsepower of the distribution network of working with the thousands and thousands and thousands of mortgage brokers that are all over the country really kind of can't be understated, right? Like they still, that, that, the amount of mortgages that happen through that, those channels just dwarfs the business purpose lending side of the business, you know, tremendously. So.

But we have no, we got no background in that. We're just real estate guys who have done some like business purpose lending on the side. Right. So like, I don't even know what I don't know when it comes to that whole space. Right. And there are, and it is an Uber competitive mature market. So we're out there because I'm like, dude, I need some help. I need some guidance. you know, I need someone to like show me the way of how to do this, you know, to roll this idea, which makes a ton of sense for us, which is to roll out DSCR through that distribution network. But.

I don't even know where to start. And then I'm sitting, I'm there at a, I'm there at a cocktail party, in Fort Lauderdale and, get into, you know, get introduced to Dustin. start chatting, chatting it up and it's like, what you're looking, what I'm looking for is exactly you. And you're at a moment where you're looking to transition and looking for a new opportunity. And like the star is just aligned. So

Craig Fuhr (02:35)
You've

always said that the best conversations at those meetings, Jack happened around the bar and the cocktail parties rather than in the hall where everybody is.

Jack BeVier (02:43)
Yeah, the panels are cool. And I've been on my fair share of panels. But yeah, the good stuff happens at the bar and the cocktail parties afterwards for sure. That's where the magic happens.

Dustin Wells (02:52)
I agree. For the record, I agree.

Craig Fuhr (02:54)
Just got to get a little

alcohol flowing and everybody's happy and, you know, willing to, willing to talk shop. They should start serving alcohol in the hall jack.

Jack BeVier (02:57)
Dude, yeah, deals start happening. I don't know what that is. Yeah, highly correlated for some reason.

Dustin Wells (03:00)
Yeah.

Jack BeVier (03:04)
I feel, yeah, you know what? Do the, uh, start the happy hour, you know, the five o'clock somewhere right around lunchtime, um, just to get the deals going, man. Uh, so, uh, anyway, um, so things, you know, came together quickly and we've been working together for about nine months now. Um, so I've been doing a lot of talking here, uh, Dustin, why don't you, uh, give us your background and, uh, we'll kick off the conversation.

Dustin Wells (03:04)
You

Craig Fuhr (03:29)
Yeah, welcome to the show,

Dustin Wells (03:30)
Yeah,

I appreciate that guys. I appreciate the kind words, Jack. I agree. Couldn't agree more actually timing just worked out really, really well. Great conversation. I was excited about kind of what Dominion already had going on. And their real commitment to getting into the wholesale lending space in a meaningful way and utilizing really that network to deliver their not only existing products and services around.

investor residential, business purpose lending, but expanding into the consumer focused area as well. All of the non QM food groups as I kind of have coined as I have conversation with folks, which meant licensing, technology, people, processes, all those things had to be really well thought out and laid all the foundational groundwork to put those pieces in place. That process started when I joined the company July of last year.

A bit of work in progress. We initially kind of went to market and deployed the product that we already were comfortable with at Dominion and that business purpose expanded into consumer focused products in December, January. Really have been growing our broker network ever since. And really one of those critical pieces or components to that delivery mechanism has been our technology, right? Putting in place the rails for the technology to allow those brokers that are used to working with, and I won't name them, we'll call them some of the big boys.

where it really does become a seamless interface where they take the information directly from their core system and simply with the push of a button push it into that lenders platform for upload, entry, review, and ultimately that clear to close to get that loan done. We've put those rails in place and that's really allowed us to kind of grow and scale relatively quickly on the wholesale side. We're currently licensed in over 30 states to offer that consumer facing solution.

and continually actively adding new states as we grow and expand. So anyone that's kind of been through the process before, we're moving at light speed, candidly. And we're looking to continue to kind of grow and scale that network and that delivery. Wholesale today, glimpse into the future, looking to roll out a non-delegated correspondent platform around the middle of the year. Again, focused on providing those.

emerging mortgage banker clients, those clients that now have a warehouse facility, want to kind of grow and expand their opportunities, close loans using their own capital and their own funds, a solution that Dominion can provide for those clients as well. again, it's been an evolution. been exciting. Certainly always exciting to join an organization that's already well established, has a great reputation, right? And then plugging that great reputation and that

already well understood place in the marketplace and expanding that to a broader client base. So, yeah, I'm excited to be on part of the team.

Jack BeVier (06:05)
Yeah, it's been super fun. And the operations folks that you brought from your past experience have been tremendous. Like I've been like really impressed with everyone that you've brought over. and just, you know, frankly, like the pace and level of professionalism that they've brought to the organization here has been really tremendous. So I brought over some great folks.

Dustin Wells (06:25)
I appreciate you mentioning that. And candidly, I've been very fortunate. So one of the things I didn't mention, because I try to share with this is how long I've been in the business or come my background. So I tell folks now almost 30 years and I almost cringe when I say that, but it's been almost 28 years I've been in mortgage lending, real estate finance, in all aspects of it, right? Whether it be conventional agency, non-QM, Fannie Freddie, taking lenders to get their Ginny ticket for FHA, you name it, I've done all those things.

And been fortunate to really build a core team, especially operationally, that I've been able to transition with me to this organization. And it's really allowed for a much quicker ramp. And so I agree operationally, our head of operations, our head of capital markets, one of our lead underwriters, means a real key critical pieces that are necessary. When you talk about those foundational kind of keystones to kind of building out and scaling a larger.

organization. I've been very fortunate to be able to kind of plug those folks in. And they also cringe because they've worked with me now for over 10 years. And so we all kind of date ourselves how long we go back in this business. My head of operations has been in the business for 26 years. So again, kind of a storied history in residential real estate finance.

Craig Fuhr (07:40)
Jack, when you had this idea, for the past 20 years, you and Fred have always lent sort of direct to the business borrower, right? When you had this idea, break it down for us, what's the real opportunity here going out to the broker network from a wholesale standpoint, and then maybe outline some of the challenges of doing that?

Jack BeVier (08:02)
Yeah, sure. Well, so like when DSCR kind of hit the scene, you know, it was originally back in 2017, 18, but it really got steam in late 20 with when rates became more competitive than banks. Um, that's when we recognize that like, Hey, the business purpose lending space, like banks are, we're taking market share away from the banks here, right? Like they're, the pie is growing for us because the pie over there is shrinking. And I think that that trend has continued.

That was the original thesis is just that, DSCR is a product that's here to stay. And it's going to continuously be competitive with bank rate cost of capital because of the securitization market had matured to that point. and then, but then we saw, like in 21, 22, we're doing a bunch of DSCR, but we still see, you know, and I started getting educated on like the broader DSCR market and especially in 23 and 24.

when the bank bid and the securitization bid weren't nearly as good as the insurance companies, but we had figured that out. And so we were working directly with the insurance companies. And yet still, when I'd go to industry rags and see how much DSCR originations were happening, what we were doing and what the business purpose lending originators were doing was a fraction of the total DSCR market being originated, even though their rates were worse, right?

the all the paper in 23 and 24 that ended up in the securitization market was a point, you know, it was like, you know, how you know, 75 to 150 basis points of rate higher than the paper we were writing and selling to insurance companies. But it was still getting written, right? Like they can, there were consumers out there that were still taking, you know, 8 % rates when we were writing sevens and you know, and seven and a half percent rates when we were writing six and a half percent rates.

And that, know, those deals were still getting done, but to our investor market client who is like, you know, a professional real estate investor and therefore is like, you know, we'll shop us around and like, you know, knee and we need to be a pricing leader in order to be competitive there. I saw this residential consumer market and the reason that it was, and the reason that it was still, the business was still happening was because those securitization shops were using the brokers as their distribution network.

And so, and those are, you know, more one-off transactions. It's a guy who's got two or three rental properties and calls the guy who did his house to get his DSCR loan. And he figures, Hey, he got me a 2.75 rate back in 2021 for my house. Clearly he's got sharp pricing. He'll whatever, you know, they're just, they just take whatever rate is being offered. And if the guy tells him it's seven and a half percent rate, he assumes that the guy is as good at DSCR as he was on his, on his home loan. When, and that consumer doesn't even realize.

Craig Fuhr (10:45)
Right. Right.

Jack BeVier (10:50)
that there's this whole other market with the insurance companies that is a hundred basis points inside of that. And I was like, dude, how do I get plugged into that? Like, how do I get in front of those folks? But I didn't know where to go, you know, but I didn't know what I was doing. So, you know, I needed, needed some guidance there. so that was the original idea is just like, Hey, this other, there's all, there's all this paper happening at higher rates than us. Why don't we bring our insurance company relationships to

the two, you know, the, the, the smaller investor via the Rezzi consumer broker distribution network. But it, but the thing is it's a completely different set of rails. Like those brokers need, you know, they want to work through and compass, you know, they, they also don't want to have a one relationship with you. You like that. They don't want to talk to you just about DSCR. They want to, they want to see what else you have to be able to offer other stuff to like, it's a bigger thing. You can't just like grab that little, like, you know, grab that one little piece of the business.

Craig Fuhr (11:25)
Yeah.

I just want that slice.

Right.

Jack BeVier (11:43)
Now

you gotta be like, you gotta be in it. You gotta, you gotta make a decision and commit and be in that space. And so, that's what working with Dustin has allowed us to do.

Craig Fuhr (11:51)
So either of you, you quickly explain because you said, you know, we're doing business versus, I'm sorry, business purpose loans and consumer purpose loans as well. So can you explain quickly like the difference between the two and how that and how we bring that offering now to the to the broker channel?

Dustin Wells (12:10)
Yeah, I'll take that. I think it's most simplistic form. When we say business purpose lending, we're really talking about the acquisition or refinancing of investment real estate, right? Whether it's condos, single family, doesn't really matter in terms of the underlying collateral. The asset class itself is either I'm buying it or refinancing it in LLC, C Corp, S Corp, or I might be doing this as a natural person. However, it's not owner occupied. It's not a second home. It's not a principal residence. It truly is.

a rental piece of real estate. And traditionally, it's looked at optically as a cashflow piece of real estate, right? How I'm evaluating whether or not I can or can't lend on it is based on rents received and the overall cost of carrying that debt service, right? In terms of all the things that are encompassed in that. HOI, payment, condo association dues, all those things in totality. When we talk about consumer lending, we're talking about the individual, you know,

Henry, homeowner, Henry had a homeowner buying the new principal residence, maybe buying the second home, buying the vacation property. The regulations around consumer protection and consumer focused lending, completely different ball game than business purpose. The idea historically has always been that, you know, the regulators are okay in terms of how you decide to treat an entity, but they are going to be overarching in terms of how they tell you that you need to treat.

and interface with the consumer, right? Relative to an owner occupied piece of property, which is why, you one of the first things I mentioned was kind of where we're already licensed and kind of our growth in the licensing piece. Like that's a necessary component to ensure that you can expand your product offering into the broader base of again, owner occupied second home, principal invest, or I'm sorry, principal owner real estate, which again, which can kind of a work in progress. We had to put those pieces in place to serve that customer.

Craig Fuhr (13:53)
Well, I would think from a competitive standpoint, that market is even more competitive, Jack. Like it's, you know, you're going up against the Rockets and the quickens and the, you know, UWMs and all those guys. And so what's your take on that and sort of penetrating that? Is it just like, we'll take any slice of the pie that we can get there or.

Jack BeVier (14:13)
Well, I think it's like we're with our best foot forward, which is DSCR pricing, right? Like that's our foot in the door. Um, and then if we've got an edge there that, you know, the idea is to then be able to build off of that foot in the door and be at least equivalent and all the other, you know, you know, all the other food groups as Dustin puts it. Um, and the, the, I mean, part of the theory here is that that pie is growing has grown tremendously and continues to grow.

Craig Fuhr (14:13)
something else.

Jack BeVier (14:42)
Dustin you want to give some commentary on just like like why non QM right now because I really also feel like that it is very much a moment and Gonna be a continuing trend that the non QM side of mortgage continues to continues to increase

Dustin Wells (14:56)
Absolutely. think two things to note. One, why wholesale in terms of the expansion? Why now? And I think it's worth commenting on that we've not seen this level of broker origination in overall real estate finance since the economic meltdown in 2008. So when you're looking at where are the loans being originated, where are the customers interfacing with to get the financing they need to buy the properties that they want to acquire?

One in three goes to a mortgage broker. mean, one in three customers today is going to a residential mortgage broker to get the financing that they're looking for. Back to Jack's earlier comment, some of those are going to that same broker that helped them on the one transaction. Optically, they don't realize something else is out there that's different. They go back to that same broker and they're getting that coupon or that rate that's hundred basis points, maybe higher than they could have gotten somewhere else. So us being able to plug into that broker base with our exceptional execution.

is ultimately helping the consumer as well because now when they go back to that broker for that other product, now they're tapped into Dominion and we can deliver that same coupon, that same rate, that same exceptional service that we're currently delivering to our consumer direct customer base, now to our broker base that our customer can access through those brokers. To the comment or question about why non-QM and why now, it continues to expand as two things happen. One, agency rates continue to stay exceptionally high.

not historically high, but when you take a recent castback relative to where Fannie and Freddie were, also relative to some of the adjustments Fannie and Freddie have made around, you know, some of their low level price adjustments for second homes and investment properties, it makes it even more unattractive to utilize that mechanism for financing. And you have a lot broader customer base, gig workers, people working multiple jobs, know, folks that are doing Uber eats in the evening, but they have their W2 job during the day.

The idea of non-QM only being for the either serial investment entrepreneur or the high net worth, you know, self-employed customer is slowly kind of going by the wayside. You have a lot of customers now that because they have all these different income and revenue streams, they can't really fit that really nice, neat, conventional, traditional agency box when it comes to financing. And they need something more esoteric. They need something that allows them to utilize, you know, cashflow in their bank account or their 1099 at face value.

not some vastly reduced on paper tax return where they've been rather understandably creative in write-offs to help their overall tax burden. And so that's why we've continued to see kind of this migration to the more esoteric non QM space because the customer demand is there because they need it. And the customers that need it continues to expand. seems like every year, right? With more and more folks taking on some of these other occupations. I would also

Craig Fuhr (17:38)
So.

Dustin Wells (17:40)
just, I'm sorry, Craig, just real quick, because Rocket came up, right? And I love when Rocket comes up or UWM comes up because the understanding there is you've got two very, very large lenders, right? Now granted, even with all the recent gobbling up that Rocket has done of others in the marketplace, I think that the estimate now is it's still only about a 6 % market share overall, right? In terms of residential real estate finance. However,

UWM and Rocket are optimized and built and those rails are built for the automation that's delivered through agency lending, right? It's the idea of the easy button lending. I hit DU, I hit LP, I get my, my approve eligible, I send it over and there's no guesswork. Non QM is very manual. Every transaction is looked at differently. And it has to be because there's a lot of manual that goes into the underwriting and decision making. There is no easy button you're pressing. So whenever somebody mentions those other two lenders, I say, listen,

They may be really, really, really efficient, really good at that easy button lending, but oftentimes what that non QM customer needs is a lot of individualized attention. And that makes it really challenging when you have a machine or assembly line, just kind of pumping out deals to then have to stop the assembly line to do some real heavy duty manual review of a transaction. It's not seamless, right? And the platform is built for agency, but they do non QM. I would highlight and emphasize that Dominion

is built for non-QM. I mean, that's the way we built the system, the rails, the people, the processes is to support, facilitate and grow that more esoteric non-QM space.

Craig Fuhr (19:11)
So if I'm a broker and Harry homeowner comes in and wants to purchase primary, what's the difference between someone who we could really, know, someone who our guard rails are set up for versus like the rocket or the UWM? Like what's the difference in that borrower or that transaction?

Dustin Wells (19:31)
So the one that's going to go,

yeah, let's talk about the transaction right at a high level. So when you're talking about the transaction with one of those larger lenders, the expectation is that loan comes in, it's been run through some form of automated underwriting. They're going to evaluate why it is ineligible for the delivery to let's say Fannie or Freddie Mac. They're then going to try to identify, okay, what's the best potential outcome based on our product mix for this individual?

And then they're going to have to effectively stop their traditional normal process of all this automated, hey, I can go out and pull from ADP, like the payroll information. I can go out and pull from the IRS, the tax information. All that goes away when you're talking about looking at a 1099. There is no automated 1099 system where I'm just pinging and pulling in data. There is no automated system to go ping and pull in and evaluate 24 months worth of business bank statements in a meaningful way and identify large deposits and cash flow analysis and all the rest of it.

There is no automated system for pulling in potential for rents received and then carry costs for all those properties or that property in particular. All that has to be done manually, like buy an underwriter reviewing all those different criteria. So I would say the biggest difference is when those deals come in in our office, like we're already set up for that. Like those underwriters aren't looking at 35 deals a day. They might be looking at three to four deals a day, but they're applying the same level of litmus test for the underwriting on all four deals.

If I'm an agency underwriter and I'm doing some non QM, it's like easy button, easy button, easy button. my gosh, I got to stop my process and like really think through the credit collateral portion of this underwrite because this is now very, very different than what I've seen on my other three deals. So our underwriting team, our loan account management team, our processing team is all set for that very manual, esoteric transaction.

Jack BeVier (21:08)
And so what you.

And since it's like the hard thing, right. With most brokers, that's the one that that's the file they put over to the side and then they go back and they work the easy stuff because that's where the easier money is. Right. So like the service level that you get for out of a shop that is not built for this space is materially different than what we can offer.

Craig Fuhr (21:34)
Jack, does that offer opportunity though? is there more for a broker who gets a client like that that doesn't fit the standard box? Is there an opportunity there for more revenue?

Jack BeVier (21:43)
the, mean, there can be, there can be because the situations are more unique. The underwriting judgment calls are more, you know, qualitative. so yeah, there absolutely can be, I think most often it's turning a file that's hard to work on and is like, you know, you still got the consumer, right? You can't, you don't want to blow off the relationship. Like you want to, you want to get a yes for that person.

And but you want to, and you want to deliver a service level, right? Like your job as the broker is to deliver a service level. You're the forward facing person to this customer. You want to get their loan closed, right? And if you try to cram that non QM situation into your agency pipeline, you're not going to be able to deliver a high level of service to that individual. This is at the end of the day, we're all selling the same green money. So like the service level is what matters. And so,

working with a shop that specializes in non-QM allows them to continue to deliver that seamless service level and the customer doesn't know that you sent these over here and these over here.

So anyway, like coming from the RTL side of things, like the fix and flip loan side of things, which is also like, the most manual, you even have to get into construction estimating and draws, like it doesn't get less automatable than RTL lending. then, so we're coming at it from like, this is the hardest thing to do from a Rezzi underwriting perspective, moving to DSCR, moving into Rezzi consumer with these non QM products.

Everyone, you know, always bemoans the idea that like, my God, why would you want to get into like, why would you want to get into trade lending? Why would you want to get into consumer facing lending? Like you have to deal with trade and all the regulation and all that difficult stuff. And I'm like, dude, try doing rehab draws and try evaluating the credit quality of somebody who's got like six flips in progress right now. Like I'm like, ain't, that ain't that heavy of a lift to me. Like I wish it was that easy to, to underwrite, to underwrite RTL loans. So

We're just not that intimidated by it. and we, you know, we needed, I needed, I needed some guidance to understand what I did, you know, so that I, to understand what I didn't know that was the, that was the scary part. but you know, we were fortunate to be able to have, bring on Dustin and his team who literally have decades of experience in this space. So we, you know, we learned, we've got up the learning curve and now we're rocking and rolling.

Craig Fuhr (23:59)
So Dustin, I'm a, well, first before we jump into that, like talk about some of the challenges that you've had and getting everything set up and from a tech side, from a personnel standpoint, to really make sure that when we went out to the market, you were set up for, frankly, as easy of a button as it could be for the brokers who you start transacting with. I can't imagine that it's been all, you know,

Dustin Wells (24:21)
You're awesome.

Craig Fuhr (24:23)
lollipops and gumdrops for you.

Dustin Wells (24:26)
Well, I could tell you both that, but that would be a bold faced lie, right? So we'll just kind of peel the bandaid. So we'll start with technology.

Craig Fuhr (24:29)
Hahaha.

and before and before you start that, I think that the

listeners should know you were literally starting from scratch. You know, obviously, obviously Dominion and the wide, you know, birth of experience that we have in lending, but you were setting up a shop literally from scratch. So yeah, talk about that.

Jack BeVier (24:39)
Literally scratch. Yeah. Literally zero.

Dustin Wells (24:50)
Yes, we kind of start with technology. I think that was what you had mentioned first before kind of the people was the platform itself. There admittedly isn't a out of the box solution for non QM lending, nor is there an out of the box solution for business purpose lending. you.

Craig Fuhr (25:02)
There really is no.

You mean to tell, hold

on, you mean to tell me that Salesforce is not really set up for non QM lending? Is that what you're saying?

Dustin Wells (25:13)
You know, I'm going to reserve my comments about Salesforce. Salesforce is a phenomenal CRM. And that's, I'm going to leave it at that. So when I joined the organization on the BPL side, Salesforce, it's funny you mentioned that, is, was kind of being utilized for the workflow process, right? The manufacturing of the transaction. In the residential lending space, there are certain things you have to have. I have to have a portal.

Jack BeVier (25:14)
No, isn't.

Craig Fuhr (25:31)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin Wells (25:38)
for the broker to be able to interface with me. I have to have a mechanism where a broker can take something, certainly a residential broker, from their Calix system, their mortgage dashboard, their encompass, their lending pad, and plug it into my system with a one click, right? I take my data that I've already created electronically, I press a button and it seamlessly imports into my lender's platform, right? I have to have rails built where when somebody goes out, I'm not asking for...

Trid related items on business purpose loans and vice versa. When they deliver to me a Trid loan, owner occupied, second home, no primary, I'm asking the right questions and I'm triggering the right disclosures and the right workflow and the right process flow. And so you've got to be very mindful about either not over complicating things on BPL or not under complicating things on consumer residential, right? Because

at trade is not overly complex as long as you follow the rules. You're at the problem start when you don't follow the rules. And then you start having real challenges, right? Whether it's saleability of loans, know, challenges with, you know, state reviews and audits and exams on and on and on. Right. So first part was how do we take what is really a traditional mortgage technology platform and encompass, which is probably used by

you know, 40 or 50 % of the mortgage market admittedly, right? Even some of the larger shops, their horsepower technology-wise on the back end is encompassed, right? Their underwriters work in there, processors, closers, you name it. Disclosures are sent out of that system. And that's the system really that the broker plugs into on the front end, our platform is Podium, where they're doing their upload. So that was about 120, 180 day.

Um, about five to six month build, um, of just that, right? So initially it was kind of a manual upload delivery, you know, Dropbox, you know, for the customers. Obviously we were very mindful of scaling, very small in the beginning. We're working with a couple of smaller brokers. Um, some of them were more business purpose, obviously only focused really, they all work as they didn't have all the other pieces in place to facilitate trade. Um, and so it took us until December, right? To, to deliver.

Craig Fuhr (27:49)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin Wells (27:53)
a technology that allowed for not only the interface to be what we needed, but for Dominion to be comfortable, myself included, that what we could deliver to them was compliant, right? That was not going to get either the broker or Dominion in an uncomfortable spot relative to workflow disclosures and the necessary steps we had to follow to ensure overall compliance, right? So, sure.

Craig Fuhr (28:15)
Can I stop you right there?

So I know that Jack is a is a very has a very long view of most things. But I also know that he demands results. Jack, how did that feel for 180 days of just sort of like, yeah, we're just setting up, man. We're just you know, we're just that couldn't felt great.

Jack BeVier (28:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's an, it's an investment. It's an investment in a new company, right? Essentially. Um, but we had, I don't know, I just felt like all the pieces made sense. Like we had the capital markets relationships. We had the balance sheet. We already had licensing largely in place. So lot of the things that are like big gating issues, um, were, were, you know, we knew we already had those. Um, and then, uh, I mean, frankly, I just got, I was just impressed by the quality of people that

Craig Fuhr (28:35)
Yeah.

Jack BeVier (29:01)
that Dustin brought in around him from an operations side and just got the confidence that, you know, that they were going to be able to execute it. And then they did, they've literally done it before multiple times.

Craig Fuhr (29:10)
kind

of like it's kind of like the guy who makes bourbon, you know, he's got to he makes it and then he's got to wait like six years to like, you know, till he's got something that he can actually sell and frankly doesn't even know whether or not in six years, it's going to be of any any you know, like it's going to taste good. So so we've got the tech stack right. And you know, help me if we missed anything. And then talk about like some of the personnel that you've that you've that you knew, as well as guys that you brought on guys and gals who you brought on board.

Jack BeVier (29:16)
Thank

Yeah.

Craig Fuhr (29:39)
who are gonna make it a seamless transition for you to scale.

Dustin Wells (29:43)
Yeah, so again, once we had the technology built out and a mindful approach to both BPL and consumer, we have each of those funnels built out separately for our broker customer. So if they only want to upload a BPL transaction from here going forward, they can do that. If they want to do both consumer and BPL, we can do that. If they only want to deliver consumer, we have rails for that as well. And we actually have separate broker packets. So if you only want to be set up as a business purpose only broker with Dominion,

We don't require you to execute an agreement that obligates you to all the trade requirements and language and all those diligence pieces. So we have two separate, again, it's a completely separate bifurcated platform and wholesale one for just BPL. If that's all you want to deliver and then one for all of it, if you want to include consumers, that's really the technology side of things. Um, on the, on the people side, um, again, very fortunate, um, I had operations who also is really the backbone that supports the build out of our technology.

Craig Fuhr (30:29)
That's great.

Dustin Wells (30:39)
and how we deliver that technology out to our customers has been with me for 11 years. So she joined, I brought her on board shortly after I joined the organization. She got right to work on kind of building out, you know, with me the technology, the workflow, the process, she's done it before. We used some vendor relationships that have been phenomenal for us in the past. We plugged those in as well to kind of speed up how quickly we're able to deploy the solution. know.

five or six months doesn't sound fast, but I'm just telling you in terms of building a platform for delivery in terms of a tech stack, it's pretty quick, right? So we got that done relatively quickly. And then, you know, she's been fortunate in that she's got some folks that she's worked with for a while that have really got a strong either underwriting, disclosure, processing kind of workflow background that she was able to bring over to Dominion. So again, I alluded to this a little earlier, but our kind of our cause I had of underwriting.

seasoned individual, been an underwriter for 12 years, has been focused really in non-QM for the last four or five of those years. And so this isn't like a new, I'm going from government lending into non-QM because it sounds really neat. He's been in that esoteric space for half a decade, right? He's used to doing the deep dive on the collateral and the credit and the assets and all of those things. On the secondary capital market side, investor reporting side,

The gentleman that I brought into the company has again worked with me for 11 years as well, actually going on 12 years. And he already had a lot of those relationships with some of those, the buyers and the capital partners on the non QM side, some of the Lifeco companies, some of the large buyers in the space, and then just some of the investors that you want to ensure that you are at least aligning with industry parity in terms of what your products look like. So if we can deliver exceptional service and exceptional execution,

And there's not somebody coming to another lender that can't come to us because we don't offer a specific product. I mean, we'll continue to scale this business and we'll continue to win. So I'd say, again, that's kind of the tech piece and then the people piece and then all of it kind of coming together. The sales side, as with every business, right, is mission critical. And that's been focused on trying to identify, you know, individuals that again, have it.

current background in non-QM, current background in wholesale, and are looking for opportunity. And I would say if there's one word when I think about Dominion wholesale, opportunity comes top of mind. Because as I'm talking to people, what I'm finding is, let's kind of take a quick, I guess we'll go backwards a little bit, like six, eight, seven, seven, eight years ago, non-QM DSCR, not really well known. There weren't a lot of lenders in the space.

Craig Fuhr (32:59)
Mm.

Dustin Wells (33:15)
Which means there was a lot of saturation or concentration in the space. So getting into it back then in sales, you weren't at a lender that had a hundred other AEs, right? Selling the same thing. What I'm finding now is I talk to people having meaningful conversation is they're looking for transition because some of these, again, midsize larger lenders have just saturated respective markets with just a ton of salespeople. And it's hard for them to continue to grow and gain even more market share. so again, opportunity.

here at Dominion is that we don't have those same limitations and restrictions, right? These are national account executive positions. They can lend to their brokers across the country. And so we have a ton of opportunity with available brokerages as well.

Jack BeVier (33:58)
You want to talk about, want to talk about Donna? I'm kind of excited about that.

Dustin Wells (34:04)
I'm incredibly excited about Donna. Donna, not a human, although my hope is to make it as close to that level of interaction as possible. Donna is our new AI chat bot that we just deployed on Dominion Financial Wholesale. Couldn't be more than two, three weeks ago. We do have it in beta testing. Obviously, we're continuing to refine.

All of the things that Donna is able to provide solutions for when you go to the website, Donna pops up automatically now and you can ask Donna anything. Whether it's guideline related, is it scenario related, is it product related? Does Dominion Wholesale offer DSCR loans? Does Dominion offer cross-collateral financing? What are the requirements for an investor cash out transaction on a condo? mean, you name it, throw that in to the chat.

to the chat box and you'll be floored with how detailed a response you get back. The focus is trying to allow our customers to receive feedback that they can take action on in real time. We've got a few brokers that are in the foreign national space and they've got LOs around the globe, not across the country, around the globe. And so we don't have anybody on call at two in the morning to facilitate calls coming in from a country outside of the US, but...

Donna is always on call, right? So allowing that level of functionality, let's say it's a broker, LO working late on the East Coast. And again, everyone, you know, hopefully has gone home, let's say by 10 o'clock, nine o'clock, whatever it is, right? Donna is still there. Donna is accessible, Donna is available. And as long as we provide the necessary Intel for Donna to provide the necessary Intel for our customers to be able to take action, they can take that and then register and submit.

alone without really needing anybody else to quarterback that process, as long as they had certainty. What we hear from our brokers and LOs is we want certainty. Certainty when I send the loan and you're going to close it. Certainty when you say you can do something that you can. Certainty around execution, whether it be rates or premium price. So if Donna can provide certainty relative to the output she's giving that broker customer to the questions being asked, then they can take that to the bank and they can take action on that.

Right. And so that's really been the goal. I'm not going to steal Jack's thunder. I'm sure he wants to probably comment about the internal resources that we have. This is not vendor created. This is all homegrown in terms of our AI, which has just been phenomenal. So I'll pause there because Jack, Jack, I want to share some of that homegrown AI benefit.

Craig Fuhr (36:30)
Well, well, before

you jump in, Jack, I get two questions because we've talked on the podcast at length about about Jack's vision for Dominion and frankly, for the industry, sort of as an early adopter to AI. First question, though, more snarky than others. Did we focus group Donna as the name or did we just come up with, you know, was Karen not available or would she have been a little too snarky or

Dustin Wells (36:36)
Okay.

So

I named Donna, I'll own that. nothing too crazy. Dominion, Donna, it just seemed natural. I'm sorry, I you know, I liked it. I had an executive admin at a prior bank. Her name was Donna. She was like one of my best admins. And so I was like, listen, it just makes sense, right? So that's how we got to that. And in terms of the look and feel, I got with our AI team and I just said, I want...

Jack BeVier (37:00)
I didn't.

Craig Fuhr (37:02)
You

Dustin Wells (37:22)
Donna to look inviting, educated, and boom, they created that image. They sent it back to me. Now Donna's supposed to have like a green blazer on, again, kind of the look and feel and theme of Dominion, right? But I think based on where they've kind of cropped the picture, I don't think you can really appreciate the green blazer and how it's really on brand with our Dominion green.

Craig Fuhr (37:33)
Yes.

Jack BeVier (37:41)
Thanks for now.

Craig Fuhr (37:41)
It's hard to do the

green screen chromo when she's wearing the green jacket. Jack, a couple of things. I've had a chance to play around with Harvey, the one that we use on the retail side. And I have to say from a sort of an emerging technology standpoint, I'm extremely impressed with it. I'd love to hear from you, your vision for

Dustin Wells (37:45)
haha

Jack BeVier (37:47)
It's good.

Craig Fuhr (38:04)
what the automated AI responders on the websites will be within six months to 12 months from now and sort of what you feel, like how do you feel about the execution of it so far?

Jack BeVier (38:17)
Yeah. Yeah. so yeah, I'm very excited about the idea, you know, just the idea of where AI is going in general. And I really think that we're, I think there's a lot of people who are waiting for a vendor to come up and create a solution that you can bolt on. And I just don't think it's going to happen like that. Like one, can't one, the, technology is frankly not

Craig Fuhr (38:38)
I don't either.

Jack BeVier (38:42)
hard enough for you don't need to, guess is my number one is you don't need to wait for that. We're not writing, not writing code. We're not writing code in house here to create these tools. There it's a, it's, we're using sets of tools that exist that are low code and no code options. but as a result, I think what's going to happen is that industry professionals are going to be the ones that create the, they're these tools for their companies and for their use cases.

Craig Fuhr (39:09)
because they're so industry specific.

Jack BeVier (39:12)
because they're so industry specific and because they're so, data and workflow specific, like you're not going to be able to, I don't think a vendor is going to be able to come in and bolt on to your unique set of tools because you have your data in six different places and it doesn't actually interconnect and talk to each other. Like that's the diff, that's the hard part, right? Like, so we, like it was, we've been working on this for, we've been working on this in earnest for six months.

Craig Fuhr (39:31)
That's the hard part.

Jack BeVier (39:38)
but it was six months of setup and now we're like spitting out tools every week. We were spitting out a new tool, but it's that six months of setup that you just kind of need to commit to, in my opinion, in order to get your data and you get your data and your information flows in a place where you can apply the technology of AI to that information and to that data. And,

And then, and then it's fun. And then it's just fun because you can plug into the data and connect, you know, connect the data, connect the data in the workflows and the knowledge basis together and produce a tool like Donna and Harvey that are specific to our processes, our guidelines, and that can be updated in real time very easily. Right. Like if there's a, if there's a guideline change, it's not like all of a sudden we're giving out wrong answers for several weeks while the developer in India.

updates that, writes the new code and, you know, gets us on the roadmap. Like, no, we go in there and we spend 15 minutes and boom, like our data is, is, know, in real time where Donna is educated on whatever update, came in. It's also really cool. Cause you, both have like personalities, right? So you can make it so that it's not like, you know, you're not, can, don't feel like you're talking to a machine. We can actually tune the personality to the customer service level, the, the, know, to the, to the face that we want to.

to present to the world. And that's a fun opportunity as well. So we're very much considering that AI is something that we need to have as a core competency in-house. We're not going to rely on third-party vendors. And frankly, I think that in five years, all of us are going to be forced to do this. This is pre-internet. This is 1995. And in five years, we all just need to suck it up and

and learn this stuff because those that don't, think are going to be left behind and left behind quickly. So anyway, so we've made a real commitment as a company to making this a core skill set in house. And now we're, now we're putting stuff on the street and it's fun. And I think that we're going to be able to continue to add, to do more and more. know our team right now is working on voice.

there's lots of different ideas of like, the best applications of voice and the models more recently. It's also cool because like as the technology is improving, we're like, like we're getting to inflection points in the technology. Like every month, you know, every month or two, we're getting to an inflection point where like, we're like, this is, this went from neat and like a neat parlor trick or like a cool thing that, you can see the potential.

Craig Fuhr (41:59)
Yes.

Jack BeVier (42:11)
to, no, this thing is like productive. Like we're actually hitting inflection points in the technology that's getting across that productivity. You could actually put this thing into production and have it do work for you. And that's happening in real time. So like, think that on a going forward basis, I can't even project, I can't even tell you right now like what the roadmap looks like because as the technology continues to improve and it's improving on like an accelerating pace even more and more.

tools will hit that productivity, that production inflection point, and we'll be able to put more and more stuff out there where we're giving ultimately the borrower and our both our direct borrowers as well as our broker clients, you know, the best, you know, user experience, which is ultimately the goal of all this.

Craig Fuhr (42:54)
Fascinating. I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about the growth of grok, which is Elon Musk's X platform for AI. And it was a Glenn Beck interview. And so he, he was basically having a conversation with grok and he talked about sort of how AI is sort of quantum leap growing. And he talked about like, if, the lifespan of a human is

you know, like it measured in years and, you can expect the person their knowledge to grow over time. What is your lifespan grok and how is your knowledge growing? And I can't, I don't remember the exact thing cause I don't have a memory like Jack Bavir, but, but essentially the, output was I'm about 15 years right now. If I'm thinking in terms of life,

but my knowledge is growing every 12 hours. Every 12 hours, gains like, it's still 15, but it's gaining the knowledge as if it was like another 25 years in 12 hours. And then he talked about when quantum, when the quantum trips and quantum computer really comes out. And it basically said that, you know, if I'm learning, you know, 10 times the speed of a human right now,

It could be an order of a hundred times the speed in just 12 hours that these models will start learning, which is staggering to think about.

Jack BeVier (44:19)
Yeah, the, I'm, I'm super excited about it. I don't claim to be an AI expert. We just, you know, I like watching lots of YouTube videos on it and like, think, you know, it's fun. And I, and I like how like, you know, low barrier to entry, frankly, it is as a technology. the, think that like, we're gonna, I think that the limiting factors we're going to hit are organizations that don't have their data in a structured way. That's going to be a gating issue. Like you're either got your data in a structured format.

Craig Fuhr (44:24)
No, it's fascinating.

Yeah.

Jack BeVier (44:46)
predictable structured format that is queryable or you don't. And you either have APIs that have your systems talking to each other and can move data between your systems or you don't. And so, yeah, so it's a lot of heavy lifting to get you to that place. Now it's just a project, right? Like it's like a, if you commit to it, it's no more than a 12 month project to get yourself to that place.

Craig Fuhr (44:57)
That's a lot of heavy lifting. That's the heavy lifting part.

Jack BeVier (45:11)
I don't think a lot of companies though have, have, have seen the, justification for making that investment yet though. And so that's why we're, we're starting to, know, there's lots of talk about it, but there's not a whole lot of ROI yet on, the AI investments that have been made yet. agents have been, you know, a topic that we've talked about on the podcast before that, people are excited about, but they're like, they're not that great yet.

frankly, like I just, you I'm, they're not there. They're not taking people's jobs, you know, they're not, they're not, but we're getting to a place where we're getting closer though. and I don't know, you kind of, see the, think you see the path. we, we decided to make that investment early so that we can try to stay on the front edge of this curve. so I think that that's going to be a gating issue. I think then we're also going to get to a point where just like the cost of it,

becomes the gating issue because just because an AI can do it doesn't mean an AI can do it economically. Frankly, the amount of tokens that are, like that's kind of like the unit of cost that it takes to do a particular task and the amount of electricity that it takes to do that particular task and come up with a better than human result, I think is also gonna be another gating issue. So.

I think that this is going to be rolling out over the course of the next five, 10 years. but, know, so though I think that the AI is going to be Uber capable of stuff, it won't actually be economically rational for us to integrate it until you get to certain inflection points. And we're trying to just keep track of that so that as soon as it hits that inflection point, boom, we're the first guy with it. You know, as soon as it that inflect point, boom, we're the first guy with it. So,

Craig Fuhr (46:46)
I don't

want to veer too far off onto this, but but I do have like, you know, kind of a theory that I've been, you know, Jack, I can't get on Instagram lately and not get some ad from some lender. And I wonder, like us, and they're tiny, they're not they're not the big guys that we know. These are like, I've never heard of these guys, but I seem to get two or three a day. And I wonder about sort of like, the industry becoming so

automated as you know, as AI continues to improve, and especially agentic, where you would just see fairly well capitalized guys who have access to like some capital markets, or maybe they're just going to be like brokers who just channel to Dominion to set up a company that is, you know, more like FinTech, right, where you're just, man, I know technology, and I know how to set up the rails, and I've got some access to capital.

Jack BeVier (47:14)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Fuhr (47:40)
Like, I just see that becoming just an emerging opportunity for guys who want to get in the same space as us.

Jack BeVier (47:47)
Yeah, I think, I think that's definitely gonna happen. I think it's definitely gonna happen. It happened. There was a round of it that happened. I think the weakness of that model is when the capital markets are unstable. Like when you have predictable sources of capital and funding, it's a great idea. Like I have nothing negative to say, right? Like just focus on doing that one thing, be great at that one thing. Don't even worry about the capital and balance sheet side of things. And then 2023 happens.

Craig Fuhr (48:15)
Right.

Jack BeVier (48:16)
And

you get completely left out in the dry and like dozens of our competitors just disappeared over the course of like 12 months because all of a sudden they're, you know, RTL loans were selling at 12%. Like you could only sell loans at 12%. So you couldn't make any money unless you originated loans above 12 % and who was borrowing at 12 and three, who was a high credit credit quality borrower. Right. And so those models just evaporated. Well, dozens of those models evaporated in those periods of,

of instability because they didn't have balance sheets to, to, ride it, you know, to ride it through and just hunker down and own the loans and service your book. Um, so I got, I've, know, in, in a moment of, good times, I think it's a, it's a great idea. It's, really interesting. I don't however, think that you can be a lender without building a balance sheet and indoor. Um, and I, you know, there's just no re there's nothing about the world that

you know, there's nothing about what I think about what's going to happen over the course of the next 30 years that makes me think that it's going to be just stable. Like, you know, we're, things are, things are changing faster and faster and faster and we're still humans. And so we, we're still going to do stupid shit and create financial markets and stability. And so without a balance sheet, I just don't think you're going to make it through those that role. You're not going to make it, you know, to the end of that roller coaster ride.

Craig Fuhr (49:33)
Dustin, let's talk about, you know, let's, let's talk to the brokers, right? Let's talk to, your, your, your, your clients right now, folks who are going to call you, you know, or go to the website, you know, let's talk, first, you know, business purpose. what's, what's their experience like, you know, they're there, maybe they're not so well versed in the products. Maybe they are, and they're looking for a new relationship.

you know, why would they turn to Dominion at this point? And then what's that experience going to look like top of funnel all the way to sort of, you know, doing the first loan and hopefully many more.

Dustin Wells (50:09)
Yeah, I'd say first thing in terms of top of funnel is that we have a platform and a mousetrap built for either the business purpose broker or the residential broker. And that's really something that we were very mindful of because we've worked with both sides of the broker fence, so to speak. And when you take a non-residential broker and you tell them that they need to upload

a MISMO file or a FANNY 3.2, they're like, we don't have that. What are you talking about? We do a paper application. I've done a business purpose short form for 20 years. I'm not going to change the way that I do my business to work with you guys. And so I'm sorry, I'm not going to go in and key stuff in. So we take that heavy lift, we take that burden. So we've got brokers today that are focused on business purpose. They might have a Department of Real Estate license or in a state that doesn't require a license. They don't have an MLS license. And they can take their...

business purpose application. They register short form, you know, with us. It's about nine data fields. Upload that application. We do the data entry for them. We get the loan in the funnel and then our technology takes over, right? So the emails and the updates and the messaging and the ease of interface. Once you take that top of funnel friction of, don't want to be the one keying everything in away. Then they love it, right? Cause they love the immediate feedback loop they get on their activity relative to that progress of the loan through the system.

I would also say that one of the benefits that we provide is processing. A lot of our peers don't facilitate that. They don't offer that. So, you know, there is a charge. We collect that at closing, but it's only $350. And so if you're a smaller broker shop that doesn't have a lending assistant and a processor and a huge team, you can choose to have us process your transactions. And we'll do that. We will order the appraisal, open title, take care of the HOI. We'll do all those things.

We simply won't interface with your customer because it's your relationship. So we give you the updates, we provide the information, we take the information that's provided, we review those items, clear those conditions. The only thing that you have to do is talk to your customer, which you're already doing. And so I think that's a huge win for those brokers. I would also say that relative to the workflow in the process, a lot of those brokers, they certainly don't want a loan estimate. They certainly, some of them don't want a GFE. They want an LOI.

They speak in terms of letter of intent. That's what their customers are used to receiving. And so again, I talked about in the beginning of the of the dialogue about the two different rails we built. So we can provide the letter of intent, right? Cause that's what their customer and that broker is used to seeing. So we have that all built out. On the residential side, like why Dominion? It's ease of interface. It really is, right? A lot of our contemporaries in the space don't have the same level of functionality in terms of workflow management, immediate feedback.

accessibility to staff and individuals. I hear this a lot. Can I talk to the underwriter? If I have a question, who can I get a hold of? Right? And at the end of the day, I mean, we're a smaller, more nimble organization and we're hyper-focused on client experience. And that client for us is our broker client and the loan officers that work for those brokers. So I talk to brokers throughout the day. Our head of operations interface with brokers throughout the day. Our underwriters will actually get on the phone and talk with brokers around

conditions or items or questions throughout the day. Our AEs are also supported by seasoned loan account managers and those loan account managers take all the heavy lift of the interface with the organization and with them. So if they've got a question about something, they need a form, they need something, they've got a need for something, they go directly to that loan account manager and that loan account manager not only works that deal, but really is the broker's internal advocate. So let's say the broker says, I'm not really...

clear on this condition, I don't know why you're asking for this or I uploaded something that I think should satisfy this, that loan account manager is the one that's going to run all that internal interference and solve the problem or the question or the issue for the broker. Again, very unique and bespoke to Dominion the way that we've delivered that service. Our pricing certainly doesn't hurt. As an organization, I've never worked for a company in my, I'm going to say it again, 28 years, where we offered a price feed guarantee.

So to tell our broker customer in this really challenging market right now that they can come to us with a one to four SFR DSCR transaction and we will beat the price of the competitor is a phenomenal advantage. Right? mean, every little additional, you know, bit of premium that can be generated is either helping that broker grow their business or ultimately if they decide to deliver that back to the customer.

might be helping them drive the rate lower for their borrowers. So that's a huge advantage.

Craig Fuhr (54:44)
Let me let me just

just let me put a pin in that right now because that's something that I, I, frankly, am always amazed when I speak to Jack about that, you know, when we say price be guarantee, frankly, you know, it can seem a little, you know, use car sales, the marketing tactic or whatever, but it's a competitive market, especially on the retail side as well. And I've never not once and we get price be guaranteed, Jack can speak to this we get we get

Dustin Wells (54:47)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Fuhr (55:11)
quote sent to us from borrowers all day long, you know that we're slightly off maybe on the rate and you know, maybe our fees are always going to be the lowest. I've never seen anybody charge less fees for underwriting and processing legal docs and Dominion. Frankly, some most by one and a half times, you sometimes two to three times in fees, but I've never once had Jack say no. And so I know that for a fact, we're very, very serious about gaining the business.

and hopefully developing the relationship. Jack, maybe you want to speak to that, you know.

Jack BeVier (55:43)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're the we're going after the professional real estate investor. And we're going after the most active brokers, right? We want folks who are who are bringing in volume. And the service level is table stakes, right? It must be excellent. but, you know, but it's, it's, it's very difficult to distinguish yourself on service.

Craig Fuhr (55:57)
Yeah, that's so true.

Jack BeVier (56:03)
other than it must be excellent, you must pick up the phone, you must communicate clearly and do what you say you're going to do, right? We also consider that table stakes at this point, it's a very competitive market. So we think that we've built a machine that can be competitive in such a competitive in such a mature market. Frankly, one because we've built a balance sheet over a long period of time, such that we can go direct to the best buyers in the market.

We remain independent such that we can survey the entire market and understand every single day who is the best bid for a particular scenario. So we know that we're matching the scenario with the most efficient execution. And then we're a privately held company. So I don't have some like hedge fund or stock market analysts telling me that my margins need to be somewhere. Uh, it's just us and it's fun. We like to win and you know, we've made a commitment to, taking, know, to

There's, there should be no reason as a result, you know, if we put all those tools in place, all those pieces in place, how could someone beat us on price? Like I just, you know, we've, we've taken out all of the reasons that someone could beat us on price other than just how much we want to make. Right. And so we're willing to do, we're willing to do it for less. if someone, you know, someone, we, think that we were putting, you know, we think that the quotes that we're putting out are already best in market.

But if someone's got, for some reasons, you know, someone's trying to strategically hit quarter end goals or month end goals or something, and they put out a super like, you know, to the marrow kind of margins bid, we'll still beat it. so anyway, yeah, that's, that's something that we've just committed to philosophically as a company. And, you know, we want to lean into that idea.

Craig Fuhr (57:44)
I honestly, you know, tie that part up with a bow, I would say that the the price beat guarantee that we offer here, which we've been doing now for at least a year and a half, Jack. It is it is absolutely the real deal. And I and I tell customers all the time, like, you're gonna leave money on the table if you don't come back to me, like, you're just going to pay more for the loan, period, because I know whatever you bring me, I'm going to beat and I've done it 100%. Jack has never ever denied me on one.

And so it is a very real thing here. Go ahead, Dustin.

Dustin Wells (58:16)
And I couldn't agree more. think it creates real impact for the relationship. We talk about brokers versus let's just say consumer direct. So that consumer has a great experience and it's that one experience. And yes, they might come back and transact again and that's great. Even if they acquire four or five pieces of real estate in a year, you're talking four or five opportunities for that consumer. We talk about some of the brokers that we work with and the amount of...

Craig Fuhr (58:37)
Absolutely.

Dustin Wells (58:41)
horsepower those brokers have. Some of the brokers we work with have hundreds, if not a thousand loan officers. So the, mean, it's kind like that pebble in the pond, right? So that one LO, you know, decides to take us up on that price we guarantee the proof's in the pudding. We execute on that. It's like, now that person's going to share that with the other 999 LOs, right? At that shop. So the ripple effect of how quickly that could scale and help us grow our business is immeasurable. I mean, it's, it's a

It's a very impactful tool for the sales team and the organization, because I can tell you without hesitation, I am not aware of any competitor out there that takes that level of guarantee to the bank. There just isn't one. And so, you know, for us, that's a great kind of lead in as we're having conversations. Some of the other kind of lead in pieces, we just launched a foreign national product. Again, not all of our competitors have that. We've got a large multifamily contingent.

not just in the five to eight, but some of the nine to 10 as well. That's kind of a lead in, know, kind of a more niche conversation. And then some cross collateral stuff that we do on the wholesale side that again, a lot of our contemporaries don't offer. And so that gets us in the door in some of these conversations, you execute on those deals. And it's like, wow, that's like, you're not just another lender offering something up that doesn't really ever get across the finish line. You offer those up and you really deliver.

on certainty when you say you can do those loans. again, that creates immeasurable impact with those brokers. Our execution on the consumer side of our product line is exceptional as well. I mean, on the residential side, you'll hear terms like loan sifter, which is an OB product, loan necks, some of these marketplace items where lenders kind of feed their pricing into those aggregated engines.

and loan officers and brokers go in there to kind of see who is top stack, you know, from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday to Thursday. Although we're working in terms of relationships to get into some of those engines, it's interesting when we take a look at what our customers are telling us is top stack in those engines, and then they come to us and our execution is better. So I'm excited as hell to get into some of those engines, which we're working on, because by God, I think once we do, we're going to clearly be

heads and shoulders above the competition and it will continue to pour gasoline on the fire and grow the business.

Jack BeVier (1:00:56)
just get.

Yeah, we're just going to go. just going to whatever the what's the best price today, beat it by an eighth, beat it by an eighth, beat it by an eighth, you know, like, yeah, looking forward to that.

Dustin Wells (1:01:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Craig Fuhr (1:01:10)
One in three borrowers goes through the broker channel. That's something I didn't know. That's exciting. I think what you're doing, man, I, you know, I've only had a chance to meet once in Vegas, but I was, it was such a great time meeting you and sitting next to you at dinner. Jack, any last thoughts? Anything else we need to cover here?

Jack BeVier (1:01:26)
Nah, super excited to, to continue to grow this division. think there's just green fields in terms of opportunity. So, and it's something that we're excited about and committed to. So, and really, really excited to have Dustin and the team that he's put together, is just really top notch. So, know, Fred and I are very excited about the wholesale division.

Craig Fuhr (1:01:46)
Dustin, if folks want to reach out, if a broker's listening to this or maybe a borrower going through a broker, how do they get in touch?

Dustin Wells (1:01:51)
Mm-hmm.

Well, listen, I'm excited if they want to get in touch, it'd be fantastic. So they can go to dominionfinancialwholesale.com. All the resources and tools are available on the website. They could click a link to get themselves active as a broker. If they're already a broker, they want to check rates, take a look at the resources. They've got a file ready to upload. All that's accessible on the website as well. And certainly I'm always accessible, right? So.

I'm not shy about giving out my information. DustinW at thedominiongroup.com is my direct email here at the company. Would love to get some feedback on some of the Q &A we had today. If you've got an inquiry or question about similar products and services maybe that weren't discussed in the context of this call. Again, I'm an open book. I'm happy to share that as well. So I appreciate it, Jack. appreciate it. Craig, it's been great. I've enjoyed it.

Craig Fuhr (1:02:39)
I can't wait to have you back on as things continue to grow for you. It's a it's an exciting time. One that I've been watching sort of, you know, from afar, but very interested in seeing how you build things out, continue to build things out, I should say, and then then scale. It's, it's been a lot of work. I'm sure you've had your share of late nights, but fascinating what you built. And I'm sure and frankly, you know, like, I'll just say, I've never

I've known Jack and Fred a long time. I've never seen him really lose. And so I just don't know how this one doesn't work, frankly. I mean, I know Jack has a lot of ideas that plague the marketing team and all those things. But they're generally really good ideas. And so I'm just really excited for what you're doing with the company. And I couldn't wish you the best of

Dustin Wells (1:03:11)
Hahaha

I appreciate it.

Craig Fuhr (1:03:28)
Yeah. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that one. That was a little veering off the sort of the path of what we normally do here on the show. But, you know, we think that the opportunity that we're seeing and with what's dust, what Dustin is building, you know, transcends right down to the individual bar. We're not just the brokers. You know, you have to know that, you know, that channel is available for you here at Dominion. So I hope you enjoyed the content today. Leave your thoughts and comments. I promise I'll start looking at them.

And we'll be glad to reply. And please, if you're interested, reach out to Dustin at give us the website one more time, Dustin.

Dustin Wells (1:04:04)
dominionfinancialwholesale.com

Craig Fuhr (1:04:07)
That's the show for today. We'll see you on the next one.