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Market Pulse is a monthly podcast by Equifax, in partnership with Moody’s Analytics. Equifax hosts bring you interviews with industry experts on the latest economic and credit insights that can help drive better business decisions. Whether you’re in financial, mortgage, auto or another service industry, we help make sense of the latest economic conditions that impact you. This podcast series supplements our Market Pulse webinars, which occur on the first Thursday of each month.
Welcome to a special edition
of Market Pulse from Equifax,
where we break down what's shaping the
mortgage industry today and what happens
next.
Hi, I am Clayton Collins
and the CEO at HousingWire,
and I'm here at MBA Annual
2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Joel Rickman, Equifax,
Justin Demola, Lenders One.
Thank y'all for joining me for this
conversation about the future of lending
data and a few other topics
we're going to tackle head on.
Sounds great.
All right.
So we're going to jump straight into
this at this event and most conversations
for the last couple months,
FICO's new direct lender program
has gotten quite a bit of
airtime, the front pages of
housing wire mm-hmm .
Social media the main stage in
general session here at the MBA event.
Let's tackle that head on. And
Justin, I'm going to start with you.
You represent Lenders One,
you represent a lot of independent
mortgage bankers who are members of Lender
One. Lenders one. What are
they talking about right now?
So, it's interesting, right? So the,
the announcement came out and
my phone started blowing up,
and it was members customers
asking us what's going on, right?
Our credit customers and our
non-credit customers. Yep.
And the simple answer initially was,
we don't know yet. Right? We, we,
we understand what the words say,
but we don't know how they're going to
be applied and how this is all going to
play out. Yep. So I've had many
conversations with our clients,
and the, at the end of the day,
it's driving prices up, right? So,
while FICO in theory
didn't raise their prices,
prices are getting raised
across the board because it's,
it's natural progression, right?
All these companies that are involved in
the credit reporting world are publicly
traded entities. They have shareholders
they have to re respond to,
and they have demands, you know,
for, for ROI and earnings per share.
But it's a business, right? We're
not, we're not here to, you know, to,
to give everything away for
free. However, you know,
companies like Equifax have come out
early with the pricing and, you know,
they've,
they've put a line in the sand that
they're going to honor the pricing and,
and keep it where it is. So when we look
at, you know, FICO pricing today, it's.
Just.
About where we were last.
Year.
So generally in business
competition brings
two positive dynamics. Mm-Hmm
. Efficiency
gains and pricing gains.
What is different about this scenario,
Joel? Like, why, why do you, like, if,
if you agree with Justin,
why are lenders concerned that pricing
is going to go up when this is a, a,
a move of comp competition?
Well, I think that the concern
or the reality actually,
is that prices will go up if you are
using the FICO score under the new model.
Okay. And so some of the announcement was
was difficult to follow, as Justin said
in regards to the pricing model. We,
we were not charging $10 for a FICO score.
That's what was implied in the
announcement. So that's fine.
FICO is welcome to go to
market. How they choose is best.
The way I look at competition is that a
lot of really great things have happened
in the last two weeks. So if you
look at Equifax, Experian, and tu,
all of us have come out and said, okay,
we are hearing loud and clear from
customers. You want an option?
We are hearing loud and clear from
customers that we've gotta get some of the
cost under control.
So there's a lot of things we still don't
have completely answered on, you know,
exactly when Vantage will be fully
accepted and some of those things.
But every bureau not only committed to
a price point and structure that will
save the industry. Think about it.
If FICO's doubling their price
and we're locking it at less than
than half that price, we're saving
the industry a lot of money.
But not only that,
every one of the bureaus is
putting something else on
the table. So at Equifax,
we're committing to providing income and
employment data from our twin database
with every credit report. You know,
we saw Experian that's offering
some of the data from Boost,
and we saw that TU is offering
the score simulator on Vantage.
All three of those are
benefits to the industry.
All three of those are additional
services being provided inside of the
structure and the existing
cost of the credit report.
And that's a win for the industry
from a competitive point of view.
The other part that I think we haven't
talked enough about is the score
comparison themselves is the Vantage
Score is a much more modern score.
And, you know, I think FICO will get
10 T approved and they should, it's,
it is the next generation,
but this competition is going to
improve the scoring in the industry
and empower more people to get loans.
And that's why we're all here. Yeah.
If that's not our focus,
then we're missing.
Justin Joel described Vantage as a more
modern scoring. Is that how you see it?
Is that how your members see it? Yeah.
I think, again, when we talk
about competition brings
innovation as well. Okay.
And I think that's probably one of the
biggest things that we're seeing here.
If companies like Equifax are innovating,
they're offering additional data
at the time of initial pull.
So when we look at Vantage Score and
what our ultimate goal is for everyone in
this building is to increase
home ownership, right?
Make home ownership more affordable.
So if Vantage Score has the ability
to open up and unlock the ability for
additional home buyers to,
to enter into home ownership and achieve
the American dream, yeah, that's,
that's great. And that's where I think
we need to really start focusing on,
you know,
what can we do to get more people in homes
and Vantage Score appears to have the
data to be able to do that.
I'm going to jump back a
little bit here, Justin, so,
and kind of set the stage for what your
role in this conversation is. Yep. So,
like, I know Lenders One is
a cooperative. Tell us, like,
how do you come into to play here
in the credit score ecosystem?
So, you know, Lenders One is a
cooperative. We have 230 or so members.
We control about 20% of the US mortgage
market on the residential side.
So we have members that do as
little as $500 million a year,
and we have top five lenders. Yeah.
So everyone sees value in
every in different things.
And about three years ago,
we entered into the credit
reseller space. And, you know, as,
as part of our organization,
we have built products and,
and services for our members that give
them the best value that they can get
and cost savings and, and
customer service, what have you.
And so when we entered into
the credit reporting space,
it was really to serve our members,
to be able to be aggressive
with them in pricing,
give them different alternatives,
and really create different value
for them than we can normally do.
If we went and brought a third party
in, that was a middleman for us.
So because of that,
we've developed a great relationship
with Equifax and I'm sitting here today.
So when you entered the credit
reporting space as a, as a reseller,
was that at the at the
request of, of members?
So we have an advisory council as
well as a board. And, you know,
the advisory council is 16 members
and they're CEOs of our membership.
And we sit in a room three times a year,
four times a year. And we go through,
well,
what challenges are they seeing and how
can we be more efficient for them and
create value for them? Yeah. So one
of the requests is what can, you know,
can you create more direct products
and services that we can, you know,
realize better savings
throughout the process?
What were some of the
priorities around credit reporting that
that group of advisors shared with you,
and how, if it has,
how has that changed in the last three
years as we approached the market we're
in now?
Actually it's even more interesting
than that. When we initially started,
we were sell reselling the work
number for Equifax. And, you know,
we hit the ground running. We
were very successful with that.
And our member said, okay, you,
you're reselling, you know,
we're reselling flood surges as
well. You're reselling flood,
you're reselling verifications
of, of employment.
What else can you start bringing in
house to give us additional savings?
And that was really, you
know, they pushed us to,
to create the credit reporting agency.
We have call it almost 30%
of the members that are,
that are running credit through
us in just three years. And again,
as you're starting a new, you know,
credit reporting agency in this space,
people are concerned on service.
They're concerned on on is it
going to be bait and switch?
Where are you going to be? So we are
really starting to see, you know, the,
the trajectory of the hockey stick
growth hitting it year three. Okay. And,
you know, we just signed a top
10 lender that's, you know,
going to do tremendous
amount of volume for us,
and we're really excited about that.
And we're talking to three more.
So we're really doing well with it.
And, and how do those lender
members think about, like,
lender choice in credit reporting?
Like, what's their feedback on the last,
I mean, not that you control it, but
over the last three months since the,
since the Pulte announcement on Vantage
Score in July. Like, what's the talk?
It's not just credit reports, right?
Our members expect us to be able to give
them options so they can choose what's
best for their business
at any particular time.
So when we talk about Vantage Score
and we're talking about, you know,
any of these other
ancillary credit products,
how can we create value earlier in the
process for them, whether it's, you know,
soft polls and, and how they're going
to use their UDN versus refreshes,
whatever, whatever's
best for them. That's,
that's all we can do is present to them
the products and services that we offer
suggest to them based upon, you know,
looking at their prior invoices
and their TER ratios and,
and how they're using the
products and services.
We'll go down and we'll sit down with
them and say, okay, if you do this,
we could save you this much
money, and if you do this,
we could save you this much money. And
that's what they love about who we are,
is that at the end of the day,
we give them the optionality.
So everyone's super excited about,
you know, the possibility and,
and I wouldn't even call it a
possibility any longer, you know,
the release of Vantage
Score into the wild.
Now we just need to figure out how do
we get Vantage Score accepted across all
the products so the members don't have
different bone manufacturing processes
for different products. Yeah.
Joel,
do you want to add to that on loan
manufacturing and how you all think about
like helping these lenders bring
Vantage Score into their product suite?
Absolutely. Well, I think, you know,
loan manufacturing from
the economies of scale and,
and general economics has changed
a lot in the last few years.
And 2020 and 2021, 1 in two, one in
three applications got closed. Yeah.
So people were a lot less
worried about these things.
And it was very common that as
soon as that application hit,
people pulled a full tri
merge, hard pull, ready to go.
And if that person qualified from credit,
they pulled full income and verification
so that they could give a hard offer
right there immediately.
Day one. As the, you know,
as the market has changed and conversion
rates are going to one in five,
one in seven, one in 10, for some lenders,
that cost upfront has become something
they're looking to get more control over.
And they were doing that a
lot of different ways. And,
and we're working with clients today about
how do you automate your process in a
more efficient way. So Vantage
Score is absolutely part of that.
If you think about that shopping
behavior early on where you have so much
fallout, there's alternatives that
you can do with a Vantage Score and a,
you know, a non trended credit
file that drives a lot of savings.
And we see that in the world today. A
lot of lenders start with a single file,
and if you're in the
right range of lending,
then they'll add the second or the third.
The reason they do that early in the
process is because they've learned that
there's still enough difference between
the bureaus that they want to be able to
price that loan correctly and not
have to have that hard conversation.
So real quick, and,
and the other piece that we're adding
there is the verification of employment
and income. We know that it's
extremely valuable and required.
We also know that it is pricey at times
if you buy it really early and you have
the fallout.
So some of the things that we're providing
with our credit report now around the
income information will allow lenders
to automate their process and wait until
that loan is committed to know,
to pull that correct record
and move on with the process.
I mean, the way you like.
Described that of helping.
Re-Engineering the process to help lenders
find more savings and cost efficiency
with how they pull credit at early
stages or preapproval sounds pretty
straightforward. But like,
when you, when you go out and,
like at this event or I
talk to originators on,
on the phone or on text or on social,
the frustration levels are still pretty
high, like on, on cost structure.
And I,
I don't know if there's more education
that's needed on how loan originators
need to change process to, to
bring more cost efficiency,
or if there's a secret sauce that
the two of you are sitting on there,
everybody else doesn't know.
But there's still a lot of confusion and
frustration out there that I hope that
we can bring a little bit of light
to right now. If we can do that.
I don't know that that's
necessarily a secret sauce per se,
but there's absolutely best
practices and ways to help lenders.
Well, let's get a few of those.
What are some of the best practices?
Well, it's exactly what we were talking
about. Okay. Understand your flow,
buy what you need when you need it, and
do that with the intelligent of the,
of the data to help you understand your
process. And that takes an education.
You hit it, you hit the nail
on the head when you said,
do we need to educate more?
That's exactly what we need to do.
When I talk to our sales
team and our partners,
teams that work with Justin and his folks,
we talk about we've gotta become
better solutions servicing sales folks.
We have to talk about the pain
point and how the solutions can help
alleviate the pain without giving up
safety and soundness in the process.
So you mentioned buy what
you need when you need it.
In the general session earlier today,
there was a audience question of like,
all right, so what if I buy a
single report, it doesn't hit the,
the credit score that we anticipated.
Now do I have to go back and pay for
the all, all three reports? And like,
so how do, like,
how do lenders need to build technology
or process into their flow so they can
buy what they need when
they need it efficiently?
You know, I'll start
with that. First of all,
I think we overcomplicate this business,
right? So been doing this for 33 years,
started on the origination
side of the business.
Just start when you were 14 mm-hmm.
. I love you. I love you.
So thank thank you. It was, you know,
family business and I got thrown into
it at a young age. It might have,
it might've been 14 .
I was turning a wrenches in a
mortgage broker office at 14,
helping my dad build desks. Well,
I was right there with bonus.
1, 2, 3, and banker's boxes.
We'll just leave it at that.
So we overcomplicate this business, right?
And I think when we talk to our members
and, and it's, it's really common.
Every single member we talk to,
the sales person likes to do it
this way. They're a producer.
So if they're producing, I'm going to let
them do it the way they want. However,
that doesn't really work well when
you're trying to create efficiencies and
reduce costs. Yeah. So what
we're seeing is, you know,
the companies that are really succeeding
in developing the technology or the
workflows that make sense are
the ones that are, you know,
I don't want to say mandating it, but are,
but are creating these best practices
at the top of the house Yep.
And then having it flow down.
So that's why you're seeing these larger
companies that are more efficient.
The cost to produce a loan is
less than the local IMB, right?
Because local IMB IMB is generally
has maybe have three or four different
processes and there is
no way to be a, you know,
perfect in all three or four of.
Them. The other thing I would touch on
is it does have to do with the technology
layer. So, you know,
Justin and his company's invested in
building a technology layer to help with
some of that decisioning, but we're
seeing that across many of the LO's,
they have enhanced the workflows and
the capabilities of those workflows to
where you can now start mapping that out.
And that's where we want to
spend a lot of time this year,
is helping invest to drive those
processes to where you can get what the
los need to be successful. But as
running the shop head of operations,
you can hard code some of that from a
workflow perspective to where the LO
shouldn't have to go off track
to get that information. And.
With that workflow innovation is
that like now that we've, you know,
the last few months we've entered this
lender like choice scenario mm-hmm
. Are those
workflows changing as we
speak? Is that, is that hard.
Or that simple every day? That's simple.
Every.
Day. Okay. Alright. Well, I mean,
look at all the new technologies
that are out there, right?
Everyone is trying to put these widgets
into their system and half of 'em are
sitting on the shelf. because No one
knows how to, how to use them. Okay?
So we need to figure
out, as an industry, and,
and Joel and I have had
these conversations offline,
like creating technologies and
using AI to really take a loan
through the process and shepherd it
through the process with as little human
intervention and, and decision
making as possible. Right? Okay.
Because at the end of the day,
if you continue to allow
people to do different things,
even with technology and stops,
they figure out a way to call
the IT help desk and say,
can you override this for me? Or
can you do that? I mean, to me,
every loan officer in this business should
be able to identify whether or not a
borrower qualifies from day one.
Right. And if you're not selling rate,
which everyone says you
shouldn't sell rate, you know,
borrower qualifies like an
issue, a pre-approval move on.
And then as the borrower gets serious,
then you could start looking
at SLU products and services
that will help you get
to a rate for that borrower. Okay.
And when you talk about the
changing workflow, it don't, I mean,
there's so many variables out there. Are
you buying a condo in Florida, ?
Yep. That becomes a whole
different challenge.
Versus are you refining a house
with 50% equity? And, you know,
it's so much different in that
experience with some of the automation,
some of the decision and
some of the data upfront.
You can help build out a process that
really streamlines the flow per the type
of loan. And that's driven by data.
It's not driven by building a workflow.
It's driven by having the
right data at the right time.
And it we're not just talking
about credit report products.
I mean even appraisal
processes, right? Yeah.
Like CU score is under two and a half.
Like why are you having
people look at that?
We met with Fannie not too long ago.
CU scores of five have a one in 10 chance
of being repurchased CU scores have
one, have a one in a hundred thousand
chance of being repurchased for collateral
purposes. So why waste time on an
appraisal with, with a low C score?
Okay. So we're talking
about efficiencies. Yep.
Like we're not just talking about
credit reporting here at NB,
there's a lot of talk about machine
learning, ai, other process improvements.
Justin, where is your member
focus on gaining efficiency?
And I asked that through the lens of like,
I have this like holy grail view of
the industry that we can like build a
profitable ecosystem that can
actually drive consistent margin.
And I think you're aligned
in the same direction a.
A hundred percent.
And what I'll say is I think we gotta
bifurcated two different ways, right?
Yeah. You have your,
your sales efficiency and then you have
your loan manufacturing efficiency.
And we're seeing a lot of our members
are really pushing on the sales
efficiency. How do I get an AI
bot to, to take an application,
work with a borrower, you know,
answer questions. That's great.
And I think there's a lot of
different solutions that are doing it.
I'm still a little skeptical about that,
especially because we're seeing some
states push back on what's a licensed
activity versus a non-licensed activity.
We're really focusing on the loan
manufacturing aspects. Okay. And we're,
we're creating AI internally that
will help manufacture a loan in small
little widgets and modules, right?
Breaking everything down in the simplest
form and then getting it success,
whether it's three tasks
or we have, you know,
a collateral review checklist of
150 questions. Whatever it is,
we're going to break it down and
then we're going to, you know,
provide those solutions to our
members to reduce the time it takes to
look at or review, you know,
the appraisal checklist.
We got it down from an hour 45 minutes
roughly to less than 10 minutes.
Okay. So create, you know,
great efficiencies for,
for staff to look at it and say, okay,
I only need to look at three questions
on this because everything else is making
sense.
All right. So we talk
about data and ai. Joel,
like how is Equifax kind of
fit into this new AI fueled
ecosystem?
Oh, wow. Well you know,
we have a great team that's been working
on AI and we've been getting patents on
explainable AI for a number of years now.
So we've leaned in very
hard from that perspective.
And it's really around
automating, you know,
the quality of data and how we bring
data in and how we look at it. Okay.
But we're also having a
lot of fun building out new
models and new alternatives
using AI that allows us to help
clients generate a custom model,
test it and validate it in days now versus
what used to take months for years in
some, in some worlds. So, you know,
part of that's with the investment
we've made moving to the cloud.
So we now have access, you know, to
almost unlimited processing power,
which allows you to do those simulations
very quickly. The other part is in,
during that investment is we keyed and
linked all of our data so that we can
look at a individual and understand
everything about them from their
telco and utility information, their
credit score, their income and employment,
all of those things to make decisions
and evaluate models much faster.
So I know like one of the other stress
points in the industry is like dropping
conversion rates. Mm-Hmm
. And like as you.
Talk about.
Surfacing more consumer data lenders
can make better actionable decisions
faster. Is that a,
a strategy that helps combat declining
conversion rates? Or like where does,
like where does that fit into
the conversion challenge? You.
Know, I'd love to say yes, Colin?
Clayton. Clayton. Clayton. Sorry.
I, I bet done my best not to mix
up Joel and Justin on this one.
But the JS just cost the js.
Oh, I am so sorry. I'm so
sorry, Clayton. So the,
the reality is we are doing things
that improve all of those things,
but the industry's changed a lot.
So there is a lot more marketing,
there's a lot more energy. So
every time the rates fluctuate,
huge amounts of volume come in
for people looking to say, Hey,
did I qualify to save a few bucks?
And a lot of times it hasn't moved
enough for them to justify making that
change.
So that's part of it is we're getting
a lot more people into the top of the
funnel to evaluate whether
they want to do a new loan.
And then that is hard to overcome because
the numbers are still the numbers and
affordability is really tough
when you look at it from income,
employment and credit data.
It's still such a small part of what
a consumer has to spend on closing
costs, yet alone.
The cost of the loan with housing prices
that have gone up so much since 2020
with insurance, with title, with
all of those things, it adds up.
And affordability is, until
affordability gets better,
the reality is the conversion rate
is going to continue to struggle.
So the question is,
can you figure out affordability earlier
in the process and coach your customer
to come to a conclusion before
you go through the entire process?
I'd say that's a until affordability
gets better as a pretty like glass
half full kind of mentality
that I, I don't see a,
an economic or industry driver that like
actually improves affordability in a
meaningful way.
Oh, just because I called
you by the wrong name,
we're getting a little touchy .
Hey boys, boys. I'm going to throw,
I'm going to throw another
monkey wrench into this. Oh,
Poulter rates to Joel's point. Yeah.
Yes. I don't qualify for a lower rate.
I have to wait. But I think the,
one of the biggest things that we're
seeing is two things here is one housing
supply. Yeah. Right? I want to
buy a house mm-hmm .
But there's not a house I like or it
needs too much work or I can't afford it,
but there, or it's not
in the right location,
not location where people are doing.
The return to office thing.
Or there's, or there's five bids on the
house and I lost it. Right? So you're,
so housing supply is a real
big factor in, in pulter rates.
And then the other thing is competition,
right? So competition amongst imbs,
Hey, I'm going to a barbecue
tonight. And, and Joel says, Hey,
I I just got a loan through a BC mortgage
company. Oh, I just locked in with,
with X, Y, Z mortgage company.
Well you need to call my guy because my
guy's going to give you a better deal.
So you see a lot of that as well,
right? Yeah. And I, you know,
I think that the mortgage industry, while
we have so much data available to us,
we don't use it as much as we
should. 10% of what we should.
So in order to really understand
what the pull through rates are,
we need to understand why
these loans aren't closing.
And then we can then feed the system to
understand and predict what's going to
close and why it's going to close
and how it's going to close or,
and what the timeframe is. Is it 90
days, is it 60 days? Whatever. It's.
So the other area that will, and, and I
didn't get through my whole question Oh,
sorry. Or my whole answer
before I got got prodded there,
but I appreciate it is it does have
something to do with the scores.
If you look at the scores,
there's still a lot of people that don't
qualify or they're qualifying into a
loan that because of where their credit
is at the terms that loan are just not
affordable for them as more
data becomes available.
And some of that data is
directly off the credit report.
Some of that data is utility
data or stronger income data.
Better decisions can be made to
help qualify people in. You know,
I've experienced firsthand
with my son who's 25 years old,
he has plenty of cash for the down
payment, has almost zero debt, has,
but only has two credit cards.
He doesn't score out well
in the traditional model,
but he could easily afford a decent house.
But now he's sitting on the
sideline because he's kind
of stubborn until he gets
that credit score up and added a couple
of trade lines so that he gets a rate
that he's comfortable with. And so
there is no single threaded answer.
The key is if we,
it's going to take a lot of little things
to help the help drive things overall.
One is the items Justin talked about
around availability of housing.
Part of it is,
do we get the best pricing on a loan
for individuals through more data?
And then other components come down to
what happens in the the macro economic
world.
Yeah. Do think, sorry,
sorry to cut you off,
but when we talk about interest rate
and your son is waiting for a better
interest rate, there's no guarantees.
Right? A hundred percent. And,
and that's the conversation that the
better loan officers need to have. It's,
you know, it's a burden of hand.
Oh, I, I agree with you. So dad,
dad's telling him to go get the
house Of course. And refinance it.
That goes back to, that
goes back to education.
Like if we do get better rates,
like I think the data tells us we're
going to see home price appreciation and
like the, the actual PITI
doesn't really move favorably.
It, it all depends. No, I'm not going
to predict the future for you. Yeah. I,
I won't do that because it changes daily.
But we are at a highly frictionless
spot in the industry right now. Yeah.
Both on affordability,
on the monthly payments,
on the cost of housing and all
of the components around it.
And it's a highly competitive,
I think everything Justin talked about
from the competitive nature is a big way
in, in the environment of how
do you pull those through.
So our focus at Equifax and
only speaking of Equifax,
is we're trying to provide that more data.
We're trying to provide more cost
effective options at application.
Mm-Hmm .
For a lender to be able to make a
good decision to understand what path
a applicant might take through the
process. And that's, that's step one.
And the other steps all come into play
in regards to can they find the right
house? Do they have the right terms?
Can we get them into the right type
of loan based on their situation?
That's where the professional mortgage
broker really comes into play to help
them through the process. And Justin's
right as well from that perspective.
You know, my son would be much
better off to find the house now,
buy it and refi and we're working
on him and we'll get there .
But that's his mentality. And so,
you know, not everybody has a,
a parent or a friend that's coaching them
to move forward. They go, they try it,
they don't like what they see and they
go sit on the sidelines for a year and
there's a lot of that happening.
Right?
And then a year later the rates are
higher and the house is more expensive,
and they go, oh no, I
should have went back a.
Year ago. And that's what
a lot of lenders, and,
and I really appreciate a number of
lenders out there that invest out of their
own pocket with score simulators
and score coaching to help people
get better. We've got a number of our
clients that do that and invest in it.
And that is a step in the right
direction. That is a, you know, it,
it's helping every
little step. Like I said,
this isn't something we're
going to solve overnight.
This is one that a lot of little steps
combined are going to turn into big
steps. Yeah.
I mean,
we opened the conversation talking
about pricing around credit reporting.
Mm-Hmm .
We're talking now about how better data
can fuel sharper pricing as well as an
expanded credit box. There's
a big lender benefit. Yep.
As we kind of wrap up
the conversation, do,
do we think that better data
is going to help consumers and,
and flow through to this,
this first time home buyer or repeat home
buyer who's going back into the market
and going through a mortgage process?
It looks a little bit different
than last time they did it.
I a hundred percent believe
that. And we have studies and,
and data that show that.
So if we start at the,
we'll start at the score and say
scores that include more information.
So rental, okay. Telco,
utility bills plus your
traditional trade ones,
those scores are going to help people
qualify, especially your new buyers,
your thin files, your newer to
credit. It will make a difference.
Then you move into,
how can I eliminate risk and fraud when
it comes around employment and income so
that I, as a lender,
I'm not taking on additional risk or you
don't have additional risk flowing into
the secondary markets that helps
reduce interest rates. Okay.
All of these things working together
will absolutely help drive more
adoption and, and
success for the industry.
But it's not one thing by itself
that's going to be a magic bullet.
Yep. I, I second everything
Joel said. I mean, the data is,
can only be valuable. Right. And we can
use the data to educate our lenders.
We can use the data to
educate our borrowers,
our future home bar home buyers
and really use this data and,
and as well as the, you know, the bond
investors to say at the end of the day,
you know, this loan will
pay, it'll pay on time.
It won't prepay or whatever's
going to happen. So they,
everyone can make the best
decisions they can make to,
to be able to get more affordable
home ownership for everyone.
Around. Awesome. Well, we tackled a
lot in this conversation, gentlemen.
This is fun. And I apologize
for the name slip, but.
Hey, we said we're going to make it
spicy. We know we get spicy over names.
We did, but.
At least you didn't
call me Joel. No, Joel.
Justin.
Hey we appreciate you doing
this. And you know what,
what we really wanted to accomplish here,
and I thank both of you for coming
to the booth and doing this,
is we want to be part of the dialogue,
just like you started this conversation
in regards to what needs to happen.
Education needs to happen,
conversation needs to happen because
what's going to happen next is going to
change a lot in the next few weeks, the
next few months, the next few years.
And if we're not all working together
and we're pitting against each other,
it's going to be bad
for the industry brand.
And there's the old saying
that, that that talk is cheap,
but when you look at this environment,
dialogue's incredibly important. It's,
it's starting on, it's starting on X.
We have or on what's former
called Twitter. And and it,
and it's flowing through to
these conference halls and
the pages of housing wire
and news outlets around the world.
So I think these dialogues make a really
important educational impact on the
decisions that people make and
how priorities get queued up.
Yep. And I want to give kudos to
Equifax, Joel and his team. You know,
they are out, you know, prompting the
dialogue, having these conversations. Yep.
You know, they,
they want to have the conversations
with the decision makers and the
stakeholders and educate them on what
they should be thinking about for downline
effects. Right. You know,
at the end of the day,
it's the more information we
have, the more data we have,
the better decisions the policy makers
and the GCs and whomever else is in the
process can make their decisions
on to help home ownership.
Absolutely. Justin, Joel, thank you
gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you.
We appreciate it.
The information and opinions provided
in this podcast are intended as general
guidance only, and are subject
to change without notice.
The views presented during the podcast
are those of the presenter as of the
date.
This podcast was recorded and do not
necessarily reflect official positions of
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