Power House

This week on the Power House podcast, Clayton Collins speaks with Randell Gillespie, the chief production officer at Lower.

With over 30 years of mortgage lending and leadership experience, Randell was named chief production officer in March of this year upon the completion of Lower’s acquisition of Thrive Mortgage. Praised for his leadership style, Randell received the 2023 HousingWire Vanguard Award.

In this episode, they discuss culture, leadership, technology, margins, recruiting, and even hamburgers. Randell shares how he’s navigating this transition to Lower and his plans for the future of mortgage lending at Lower. 

Lower boasts an executive team with diverse expertise and a strong commitment to supporting LOs. The recent recruitment of The Loan Officer Podcast host Dustin Owen as their SVP of Growth is a key part of that strategy. Randell also highlights how technology is redefining the mortgage experience and how Lower adapts to the current rate environment to maintain strong margins.

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

This week on the Power House podcast, Clayton Collins sits down with Jason Mitchell, founder of the Jason Mitchell Group. 

With over $4 billion in annual transaction volume, 8,500 sides, and 800 agents, Jason Mitchell leads one of the largest real estate teams in the country according to RealTrends Verified.

But it isn’t all about scale. Jason shares that he doesn’t need 5,000 agents across the country to win. He only needs about 1,600, and he’s halfway there. He’s in 150 MSAs today, and the episode reveals how Jason thinks about recruiting, M&A and developing new markets. 

What’s unique about Jason’s business? He’s building at the intersection of real estate and mortgage with a highly differentiated b2b referral and lead strategy which hinges around partnerships with top mortgage lenders. And while many mortgage lenders are trying to cozy up to real estate agents for referral business, JMG has flipped the model and gets his real estate leads directly from over mortgage partners who trust his team to deliver a high-quality client experience. 

Jason shares how he’s built a successful real estate brokerage and team using a unique B2B strategy, partnering directly with mortgage lenders and other lead sources to drive business into his brokerage. He also unpacks the importance of prioritizing the needs of the average client to build a strong book of business while also discussing the challenges of growth and the need for strong leadership in market opportunities.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

This week on the Power House podcast, Clayton Collins sits down with Joe Tyrrell, the CEO of Optimal Blue. With over 25 years in mortgage, finance, and technology, Joe shares his wealth of experience about value-driven leadership, innovation, and the mortgage tech space.

In their discussion, Joe talks about the significance of capital markets for mortgage lenders and how secondary market executions can drive profitability in 2024 and beyond. He also delves into Optimal Blue’s autonomy and technological advancements as part of Constellation Software, referencing a previous conversation with Bonnie Wilhelm of the Andromeda Group and Perseus.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

This week on the Power House Podcast, we are bringing you a sponsored interview between Clayton and Mickey Neuberger, the Chief Marketing Officer at Realtor.com. Before joining Realtor.com, Mickey was VP of Global Marketing at eBay for 9 years, where he built the company’s CRM platform from the ground up. He also has extensive experience in marketing, CRM, product and technology from previous roles at Travelocity, Loyalty Lab, and 24 Hour Fitness. 

Clayton and Mickey start by discussing Mickey's career journey, his expertise in data management, and how he got into the marketing landscape. But, the real meat of this conversation is about one of Realtor.com’s biggest current initiatives: their buyer advocacy campaign. 

The campaign spans several advocacy initiatives, including the development of a self-serve tool kit for buyer’s agents. This kit features tools and assets that can be customized and shared with one’s network to highlight everything agents do for consumers before, during and after the home-buying process. They’re also working on highlighting and empowering underserved and underrepresented buyers to ensure equitable opportunities in the housing market. 

Clayton and Mickey dive deep into this campaign and its vital importance in today’s industry, Realtor.com’s efforts to bring together housing professionals, home buyers and policymakers to understand the power that housing and real estate hold in the larger American economy.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

On today’s episode of Power House, we had the pleasure of speaking with Craig Montgomery, the Chief Strategy Officer at Lower. Craig joined Lower this past June with plans to drive the company towards the goal of becoming a top five national mortgage lender.

Today’s conversation is all about Craig’s vision for building Lower’s ambitious plans for growth, including a focus on an originator-first mindset and platform, as well as finding real value in strategic partnerships. Lower is also ramping up mergers and acquisitions to help achieve this goal with two different acquisitions within the past year. He shares their unique growth plan for today’s higher-rate, low volume environment. 

Enjoy this episode with Craig Montgomery, Chief Strategy Officer at Lower!

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

Anthony Lamacchia shares his journey from working in his father’s landscaping business to building Lamacchia Realty. He discusses the importance of marketing, branding, and consistent content creation in attracting clients and media attention. Lamacchia emphasizes delegating responsibilities and hiring experienced professionals for growth. He delves into his M&A strategy, market expansion, and his approach to marketing and recruiting agents using billboards and other methods. He addresses industry challenges, like the commission lawsuit and changing market conditions, and shares how he prepares his agents for success, concluding with his optimistic outlook for the future of real estate.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

•The importance of marketing, branding, and consistent content creation for attracting clients and media attention.

•Strategies for delegating responsibilities, hiring experienced professionals, and executing a successful M&A strategy for business growth and market expansion.

•Effective marketing and recruiting techniques, such as the use of billboards and other advertising methods.

•Insights into industry challenges like the commission lawsuit, changing market conditions, and how to prepare agents for success, along with Anthony’s optimistic outlook for the future of real estate.

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

This week on the Power House podcast, we sat down with Jason Pinson, the founder and CEO of Rocktop Technologies, a suite of fintech applications driven by AI and machine learning designed to manage risk on behalf of its clients and partners.

Rocktop — and Jason himself — are on a mission to tackle two significant issues in housing: the influx of poor and poorly managed data, and the error-prone processes that undermine asset quality and value. Today we are delving into Jason's career journey and thesis, starting from his days at Bear Stearns to his multi-decade crusade to enhance efficiency and returns for investors in the mortgage industry.

Clayton and Jason talk about Rocktop’s efforts aimed at preventing the errors and inefficiencies that reduce mortgage investors’ yields, a problem that ultimately makes housing less efficient and more expensive. They also talk about data standardization, the role of organizations like MISMO, and the expertise and talents behind successful AI and machine learning implementation.

Rocktop Technologies will be joining us on stage in Dallas on July 23rd for HousingWire’s AI Summit to explore even more of their focus on machine learning and how they plan to revolutionize the industry.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

This week, we welcome Peter Maglathlin to the Power House podcast. Peter is the CEO of Sierra Interactive, an end-to-end real estate platform developing software and services for residential real estate agents, teams and brokers. Originally founded in 2007, it was acquired by Alpine Software Group in 2022. 

Today’s conversation with Peter is for all the real estate tech, entrepreneurship and investing nerds out there. Clayton and Peter geek out together about Peter’s entrepreneurial journey and the ins and outs of running and developing a successful SaaS business in the real estate and mortgage ecosystem. They also talk about the changes on the horizon for housing now that the NAR-settlement is close around the corner. 

Listen to gain better insight into how those changes are not only directly affecting real estate professionals, but also the technology and investing spaces that have built the industry’s foundation.

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

On today’s episode, we have an exclusive, behind-the-scenes conversation with a guest who has an amazing perspective and depth of knowledge in investing and business operation strategy, Bonnie Wilhelm. Bonnie is the CEO of the Andromeda Group and COO of Perseus inside of Constellation Software. Constellation acquires and operates Vertical Market Software (VMS) throughout a broad target of industries, including housing.

In 2023, Constellation acquired two of the most important technology assets in housing: Optimal Blue and Dark Matter, which was formerly Black Knight. Their influence spans far and wide across many facets of the housing and mortgage ecosystem, even if the name isn’t one that you may recognize at first glance.

Bonnie’s conversation with Clayton gives us a glimpse into the intricate investing and operating strategy at Constellation, where they strongly believe in holding acquired businesses into perpetuity. She also talks about decentralizing operations down to day-to-day minutia and how they’re leveraging artificial intelligence to do things such as reduce loan origination time.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.

Today, we welcome two wonderful guests to the Power House podcast: Rick Roque and Andrew Maas. Rick is the EVP of Retail Growth and Strategy at Sierra Pacific Mortgage with 20+ years in retail mortgage banking, acquiring, managing and growing production volume & market share in companies across the US. Andrew is the Co-Founder & CEO of Pointable, focusing on large-scale deep learning for spoken and written language tasks and has previously worked on data-centric deep learning approaches at Apple.

Both Rick and Andrew are going to be joining us as speakers in July for HousingWire’s AI Summit.

Clayton’s conversation with Rick and Andrew focuses on the adoption and use cases of artificial intelligence in the mortgage space. According to Rick, current mortgage boardroom sentiment toward AI is “complete confusion” and full of worry about how it will affect the bottom line. They want to demystify that. Strategic AI adoption will split lenders into two groups: those who leverage efficiency tools and those who don’t.

They also discuss practical use cases for AI in lending spaces, including streamlining lending workflows, time spent coaching and training, and even how consumers can benefit in discovering and understanding their loan options and application processes.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

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The Power House podcast is a show about leadership, markets and entrepreneurship in the housing industry. Each Thursday, Clayton Collins speaks with CEOs and founders 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. Clayton Collins is the CEO 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.