This week on Power House, Diego sits down with Dan Snyder, the CEO of Lower. This past year was a busy year for Lower amid their acquisition of both Neat Labs and Thrive Mortgage. 

Back in July of 2024, we welcomed Lower’s Chief Strategy officer, Craig Montgomery, to give us the low-down on Lower’s plan to become a top-five mortgage lender. Today, Dan continues that strategy conversation with Diego by discussing how the acquisition of Neat Labs is bringing Lower toward their 2025 goal of developing an end-to-end proprietary tech platform. He also reflects on the success of their Thrive Mortgage acquisition and discusses the challenge of integrating teams while also supporting your producers.

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The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

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This week on Power House, Diego sits down with Varun Krishna, the CEO of Rocket Companies. Prior to joining Rocket in 2023, Varun came up on the personal finance and enterprise software side of the tech space, with roles at Intuit and Paypal.

Rocket has a growth plan to make home ownership easier, enjoyable, and sustainable for homeowners. Diego and Varun talk about how Rocket aims to achieve that by using AI tools to optimize the origination-servicing flywheel and by building long–term relationships with clients, not just one-time transactions. They also talk about recent hires to Rocket, their 2025 brand transformation plan, and whats next in-store for the company.

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The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

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This week on the Power House podcast, HousingWire president Diego Sanchez sits down with Justin Messer, the CEO of Prosperity Home Mortgage. Prosperity was recently ranked at the top mortgage originator for customer satisfaction by JD Power.

Today — with that top ranking in mind — Justin and Diego talk about Prosperity’s strategic shift from refinance to purchase and their unique real estate affiliated model, which allows them to focus on better borrow communication and expectations. They also talk about recruiting in a competitive market and what he predicts will happen to rates as we head into 2025.

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The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

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Happy Holidays from Power House and the entire team at HousingWire! We have some exciting conversations planned for 2025, so we'll see you in the New Year!

If you have any feedback or comments about the show, please reach out at [email protected].

The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

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This week on the Power House podcast, HousingWire President Diego Sanchez sits down with loanDepot president and CEO, Frank Martell. Frank, who was a 2016 and 2023 HousingWire Vanguard Awardee, brings to the table over 30 years of mortgage and executive leadership experience.

Today’s conversation is all about loanDepot’s return to profitability in Q3 and a behind the scenes look at the launch of Project North Star and their Vision 2025 strategy. 

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The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

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This week on the Power House podcast, Diego chats with industry veteran and Guild Mortgage CEO Terry Schmidt. Terry joined Guild in 1985 and she stepped into the CEO role in 2023.

Terry and Diego talk about Guild’s proprietary AI system, Guild IQ, and how Guild’s recent acquisitions are a step toward growing their reverse presence. They also talk about how they’re managing through a high-rate environment while keeping up with their customer-for-life strategy, and high employee retention through company culture.

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The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

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This week on the Power House podcast, Diego sits down with Jay Bray, the CEO of Mr. Cooper. Jay joined Nationstar in 2000 and brings over 25 years of mortgage serving and origination experience. They discuss Mr. Cooper’s growth and acquisition strategy, specifically the Flagstar acquisition, which brought Mr. Cooper's servicing book up to $1.5 trillion from $1.2 trillion at the end of Q3.

They also talk about finding a sustainable balance between their servicing and origination business, how banning trigger leads would — or rather, wouldn't — affect their business, and what AI advancements they’re looking at as we head into 2025.

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The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

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This week on the Power House podcast, Diego sits down with James Dwiggins, the CEO and co-founder of national real estate franchise, NextHome. Guided by a “humans over homes” philosophy, the brand focuses on quality over quantity, with 600 offices and 6,000 agents across the country.

James has a lot of experience in the real estate world, and with that comes a lot of strong opinions — namely on clear cooperation policies, legal issues with dual agency, and MLS practices. He also shares why, despite its issues, NAR’s advocacy work shouldn’t go unnoticed by agents, and what NextHome is doing to grow in the face of industry challenges.

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Diego Sanchez speaks with CEOs, founders, and executives from the mortgage and real estate sector to reveal how housing executives think about business growth, operational strategy, and leadership. The Power House podcast reveals the full picture through the stories of the industry’s most impactful leaders. 

Diego Sanchez is the president of HousingWire, and the Power House podcast is produced by HousingWire’s Content Studio. Initially launched in 2019 as the Housing News podcast, the show was relaunched as Power House in 2024.

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Today on the Power House podcast, we are bringing you a special sponsored conversation between Zeb Lowe, the director of HousingWire’s Content Studio, and Andrew Bough, the COO at Class Valuation.

Andrew is joining us today to share how Class Valuation is setting new quality standards for appraisals through approaches such as their appraiser scorecard system and creating specialty panels for unique property types. He also talks about tackling industry challenges like an aging workforce and regulatory changes, and how they’re shaping the market with their Appraisal Diversity Initiative.

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Diego Sanchez speaks with CEOs, founders, and executives from the mortgage and real estate sector to reveal how housing executives think about business growth, operational strategy, and leadership. The Power House podcast reveals the full picture through the stories of the industry’s most impactful leaders. 

Diego Sanchez is the president of HousingWire, and the Power House podcast is produced by HousingWire’s Content Studio. Initially launched in 2019 as the Housing News podcast, the show was relaunched as Power House in 2024.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Power House, Diego chats with industry veteran Chad Smith, the president and COO of Better, who stepped into the role earlier this year from Mission Loans.

Chad and Diego talk about Chad’s decision to join the Better executive team and what they’re working on to help grow Better in 2025, which includes a focus on customer engagement and hiring more experienced LOs and industry experts. They also talk about Tinman, their proprietary platform, and a brand new AI loan assistant tool.

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Diego Sanchez speaks with CEOs, founders, and executives from the mortgage and real estate sector to reveal how housing executives think about business growth, operational strategy, and leadership. The Power House podcast reveals the full picture through the stories of the industry’s most impactful leaders. 

Diego Sanchez is the president of HousingWire, and the Power House podcast is produced by HousingWire’s Content Studio. Initially launched in 2019 as the Housing News podcast, the show was relaunched as Power House in 2024.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices