Bisnow Reports | First Draft Live: Commercial Real Estate Finance Council President and CEO, Lisa Pendergast — The Last Read

With only a few weeks to go until her retirement, CREFC CEO Lisa Pendergast sat down with Bisnow for a wide-ranging interview that spanned fresh data on lender sentiment, where opportunity is today and how CRE has evolved during her decades in the business.

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Mark Bonner: 00:07

Okay. Welcome to First Draft Live. It's Friday, July 10. I'm Mark Bonner, business editor in chief coming to you live today, not from New York, but from the great city of Baltimore where I'm currently on assignment. So three months ago, this industry had a very bad quarter.

Mark Bonner: 00:24

A war broke out, rate expectations froze, and CRE Finance Council's own sentiment index. The industry's best read on itself fell off a cliff. 20% in a single reading, three quarters of gains gone. Today we got our hands on Krefsi's follow-up survey and the headline number barely moved back near baseline. It's not that simple though.

Mark Bonner: 00:48

That is unless you stop reading there. Because underneath that something more complicated is going on. Borrower demand posted a sharpest drop of any question in the survey. Interest rates are the single most negative reading for a second straight quarter and Crefsey's own members can't seem to agree on whether the wave of loan extensions holding this market up is a bridge to recovery or a delay of the reckoning. We've got the full exclusive breakdown up on biznow.com right now if you wanna parse every number.

Mark Bonner: 01:19

But here's the question our viewers should ask themselves. Is CRE finance stabilizing or just going quiet before the next move? Nobody's better positioned to answer that than my guest today. Lisa Pendergast has spent the last decade as President and CEO of Crefsi. That's the trade at the center of a 6,000,000,000,000 commercial real estate finance industry.

Mark Bonner: 01:40

She took the job before the pandemic when commercial real estate ran on cheap, abundant capital. But she's leaving it now in a world of hire for longer rates, a maturity wall in the hundreds of billions and a market that still hasn't decided what normal looks like. In a matter of weeks, she retires. Today, I wanna know what she's really seeing on her way out the door and what her decade running crevsey says about how this moment actually resolves. To our audience, Send your questions into the chat.

Mark Bonner: 02:10

We'll get to as many as we can. Lisa, welcome to First Draft.

Lisa Pendergast: 02:15

Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

Mark Bonner: 02:17

So let's start here. You didn't get to pick your last quarter. You're retiring soon. And the industry you've spent a decade representing is in the middle of one of the roughest stretches it has seen in many, many years. What's it like to be closing out ten years on a note like this one?

Lisa Pendergast: 02:38

In some ways, jealous, because had I stayed on, to me these are the types of environments where you really show your mettle, as well as work with our members in this business to try to find ways to make it through, right. So I've lived through a variety of recessions and downturns in the markets, I've been in this market as a research analyst for almost thirty years prior to joining here, I should say twenty years and then ten years here. Know, and so saw all the ups and downs of the marketplace. We learned, you know, work certainly through the GFC, and and again, that was significant. But just as significant, but less sort of publicized, was these sort of really jarring movements in rates, and what that meant for mortgage rates, for cap rates.

Lisa Pendergast: 03:37

You know, and then you have periods where there were severe, you know, economic recession, that caused just the demand for real estate to to significantly decline. And and oftentimes that came at the same time when you had significant, you know, inflation and so higher rates, and it was like the double whammy. You know, I was a research analyst for thirty years prior to joining Crevzey, and I thoroughly enjoyed that position. It allowed me to dig into things deeply, as well as to travel around the countries, meeting with our investors who bought CMBS at the time, be it that agency or private private label. And really early on in my career, I did all types of asset backed securities, mortgage backed securities.

Lisa Pendergast: 04:23

And I think those types of sort of early on educational sort of efforts, if you will, becoming part of a business as it was growing, as it was being introduced and then growing, was significant in terms of my ability to understand things from the very beginning, right, and then how they have evolved and have they in a way that is positive and sort of moving forward, or things that we think that it was better the way it used to be. I would argue that all of the improvements and enhancements to the you know the MBS market where I first started single family and then moving into commercial real estate. I have to say it was was an awakening moving just from a single family type of situation some multi family to something that covers all asset classes within commercial real estate. To me the whole thing was just tremendously fascinating watching the various types of sort of assets like office for example, seeing that migrate from one sort of up to down, to up to down, and sort of the gyrations there are somewhat jarring at times, and you know certainly during pandemic that was a problem.

Lisa Pendergast: 05:41

But we've had previous office cycles that were not so great either. So you know to me all of those types of things are as a research analyst is something that you take, put in your hat, and you remember for when the next time comes. And it really helps you at least navigate what are the things that you're supposed to be looking at as a research person, which I was for the majority of my career. You know what does that mean and what you know so the other side of this is when I was on the research side I also insisted that I get involved in the underwriting of loans and looking at the real estate itself. And to me that just sort of helped me to see that fuller look of the commercial real estate market not just the finance markets but both the assets themselves and the financing of those assets.

Lisa Pendergast: 06:34

And to me that has always been just fascinating. And it's that intersection of what's going on in the economy, what's going in the rate market, what's going on in the real estate. And so from my perspective I just thoroughly enjoyed doing all of that and you know I was a research person for quite a number two decades or so and it was a fascinating thing to do and it's fun for me now to read all of my sort of colleagues in the business now, and there's so many great research analysts in the CMBS and commercial real estate markets that do a phenomenal job in just kind of bringing forth where things are, sort of the whole office downturn with something that not a lot of us would have foreseen, and that had to do with COVID really and the lack of offices. And yet there have been lots of other office situations and downturns over the decades that I've covered. This one obviously was a more significant one than anything we've ever seen, mostly because you

Mark Bonner: 07:36

had control. And I was gonna ask you about that. You know, you mentioned the GFC. You mentioned the pandemic. You've had a very long career.

Mark Bonner: 07:42

You've seen it all. Right? But is this moment the hardest environment Krefzys board of the board of governors has had to navigate? Is it harder than 2020? Is it harder than 2023 with the regional bank stress?

Mark Bonner: 07:54

I

Lisa Pendergast: 07:56

don't I think those other pieces were more, to be honest, because they were jarring. Right? What we're seeing now is this elevated rate environment. We certainly had an issue with office, right? That seems to be settling down and working its way out.

Lisa Pendergast: 08:14

Those office properties that just don't have legs are probably going away and have gone away already, many of them. And those that do, and cities that are vibrant in terms of you know, commerce and the like and that have those office properties seem to be getting back on track and and doing well. You know, and again, what it did do though was anything that was sort of lesser than from an office opportunity seems to have gone by the wayside. They've been converted to multifamily or some other thing, but simply don't exist as an office anymore. So to the extent that I found that part of my research background, just fascinating to see how much got converted into multifamily or whatever else it was going to get converted to, hotels or whatever it might And things like that, I think, was what made this last sort of five years, ten years sort of really fascinating for me as a research person.

Lisa Pendergast: 09:19

And so to the extent that, you know, I think the office market is starting to recover nicely and you're starting to see a lot new, a lot of new sort of stock out there, which is fantastic. Know there a lot of places where I've worked where those buildings have been pretty old. I worked at Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut for a very long time, and it was kind of a silly looking building. Had a blast there. It was a great position.

Lisa Pendergast: 09:46

And it was a great company. But to the extent that those are the things that are going by the wayside, those three story spread out kind of, you know, caught campuses, if you will, that simply kinda don't work these days. But

Mark Bonner: 10:01

And you and you've had and, Lisa, you've had a front row seat to a to a lot of big events in the economy. You've had it and you've also had a genuine before. You've also had a front row seat to a genuine before and after in this industry. Right. And I want to talk about the pandemic for the for a second.

Mark Bonner: 10:17

Before the pandemic, commercial real estate finance operated in a zero rate world, free money essentially. Since the pandemic rates have gone up and stay elevated. We believe that we're gonna see a hike, maybe multiple hikes going into 2027. Ten years in, do you think this industry is actually accepted that the free money era isn't coming back? Or is there still a kind of denial that we're headed back to how things used to be?

Lisa Pendergast: 10:49

I don't think there's denial. I think there's acceptance at this point. I do think that it strikes me that the inflation sort of component of this isn't going away in any significant way. I mean, I think it's moderated, but it's not as crazy as it was, but it is still a concern. And so with that being the case, my concern always there is that what does that do?

Lisa Pendergast: 11:15

It increases benchmark rates. It increases cap rates. It increases mortgage rates. It doesn't do anything really good for what's going on in the financing side of the commercial real estate market. You know, it it cap rates everything.

Lisa Pendergast: 11:33

It it is pretty much elevated at this point. And, you know, I keep hoping that something will change, but every single sort of quarterly data that you get in the Fed's view doesn't strike me that they're looking to do anything in terms of easing anytime soon. And I don't necessarily blame them for feeling that way. And I understand it, and they're certainly smarter than me than on those issues. But I do think that the continued elevated rates, and particularly on the cap rate side, is causing assets to devalue in terms of their nominal quotient in terms of valuation.

Lisa Pendergast: 12:15

And to the extent that it makes underwriting loans and understanding where that asset is going in terms of its valuation over the term say of a ten year fixed rate loan very, very challenging. I would argue that at some point, markets are markets, the economy will soften and the Fed will ease some. How much they will? There's been talk of, you know, every time, every sort of two quarters or so, there's some talk about maybe this is a pivot. I don't think that I don't see any significant pivot that has occurred that will change the Fed's view anytime soon unless you see something, you know, tremendous happen.

Lisa Pendergast: 12:58

Mean back.

Mark Bonner: 12:59

Just a quick follow-up here because, you know, I know, you know, you take a longer view of of of these cycles back to back. Right? And it's easy to remember this zero raid era because it lasted for so long. An entire generation of commercial real estate players came up in this environment. Now they're in a different environment and they've lost their footing.

Mark Bonner: 13:19

Will they ever regain it? It's yet to be seen. But let me ask you this, Lisa, just with an eye on history. Was the zero read error actually healthy for this industry or did it let bad habits build up? Because we weren't at zero forever.

Lisa Pendergast: 13:36

No, no. And it was something in the middle, right? I think if you think about five, six, seven, that buildup came from that environment. And I just remember doing, you know I was a research analyst but when things got really busy I was underwriting loans, I was you know talking to investors about those loans as that was the research part of it, but you know you said to yourself the leverage that you saw continuously creeping higher, when you had a rating agency come back to you when you thought you had an 85% LTV loan, and the rating agency stress test is somewhere around 130, that's concerning, right? And I think that certainly led up to, in some part, not that we were the sole component of the GFC, but that was certainly some component where I think the macro markets all kind of moved in that same direction, which was being a little bit headier than they should have been.

Lisa Pendergast: 14:41

And in some cases, lot more headier. So to the extent that that was something, that was the train you should have saw coming. And I think a lot of us did. And the question was, how do you slow the train down? Right?

Lisa Pendergast: 14:54

And what is it that what is that impediment that slows it down? Ultimately, was, you know the crash right that did unfortunately the brakes weren't applied and it kept going until it stopped. You know in some ways I say to myself why didn't we all see this and stop? But when the team is doing well, right, it's kind of hard to say, okay, let's put the brakes on. Right?

Lisa Pendergast: 15:22

And yet I think the difference there is, and you know, there's blame to go around for all of the components. Right? You saw in your loan underwriting. You looked at your stressed LTVs. And as I said, they're over 100.

Lisa Pendergast: 15:39

That's a problem. Right? And yet that's what some of the rating agencies were coming back at. And they were showing that. Some weren't, by the way.

Lisa Pendergast: 15:47

And everybody was doing what they could do. I think the other side of it is we forget about the volume that was coming out at that time. And I feel like everyone sort of rushed to get it done, were rushed and sort of caught up in the momentum of how much lending we were doing in some of the large loans that we were doing. I was always sometimes overwhelmed by, you'd look at sort of a portfolio loan where you had 20 office assets and you had to kind of make sure you underwrote each one of those properly.

Mark Bonner: 16:21

And,

Lisa Pendergast: 16:21

you know, and then what do you do from a from a lending perspective? You know, how much leverage are you willing to provide? I do think that in some ways, as much as the GFC was painful, it was a lesson that I think folks have still adhered to. A lot of the, certainly at times, at different times, at different years, depending on rates and whatever the environment might look like, you see folks kind of getting ahead of themselves, but I find that they quickly pull back. And so to me that shows a temperance that really didn't exist leading up to the GFC.

Lisa Pendergast: 16:56

It was about just the volume of loans that we were doing. I was a research analyst, but I was still on the sidelines underwriting loans, talking to borrowers about those loans, those types of things. And so it was full steam ahead. And I think if nothing else, what we all learned was a very valuable lesson is to slow down and think about where you are in this cycle and what are these loans going to look like. So if some good came out of it, it was that sort of maturation and thought as to let's be a lot more thoughtful about the loans that we're making and can they live through a cycle, right, and whatever that cycle is going to break.

Lisa Pendergast: 17:35

And I think that we've done a good job of doing that. Not seen this overstep, this aggressiveness that existed back then. And I worked at a variety of different places. I started Approved Securities, where I was a all around sort of securitization analyst. And finally, I landed on commercial real estate.

Lisa Pendergast: 17:57

It's where I wanted to spend my time, and I did that for almost twenty years. And it was a lot of fun. And yet, from the extent that today, I think we've seen this sort of maturation in those of us who are in the lending side and in the securitization markets, just being a lot more temperate about how we underwrite a loan, how you market that loan. And I think also on the investor side, everybody has grown, right? So the questions that we get, you know, and not so much now at press seasons, we don't issue bonds, but even when I was in the market, could see coming out of the GFC that there were a lot more stronger, thoughtful questions as to the efficacy of the loan.

Lisa Pendergast: 18:45

And I think that continues today. And I think the rating agencies are doing a much better job at just making sure that these things are properly rated. The credit enhancement is where it needs to be, that type of thing. And so it does show a market that's matured. I do think that things that are new to the market are interesting.

Lisa Pendergast: 19:11

And yet, I worry, too, about anything that's new that it really needs to be tested, so data centers and things like that. So I I think about a data center as real estate, yes, but also an operating business. Right? So

Mark Bonner: 19:26

We'll get there. We're gonna get to data centers. Okay. Let me just take a break just for a second. If you're just tuning in, Krefsy's sentiment survey just came back near baseline today after a 20% shock.

Mark Bonner: 19:36

We're here with Lisa Pendergast, Krefze's president and CEO in her final weeks before retiring. Let's talk about the survey, Lisa. Your survey fell 20% almost overnight this winter when the Iran war hit. New numbers just came back and they're basically flat back to where things stood before the shock. And when you ask your members how they're feeling across the board, the most common answer on most of the questions is just neutral.

Mark Bonner: 20:07

Is that recovery? Or is that the industry just going numb after a bad quarter?

Lisa Pendergast: 20:13

I think it's the industry fighting back to a more normal environment. Right? So out of recovery, you know, sort of moving into that recovery area, getting comfortable where rates stand today, mortgage rates, cap rates. Right? And there's been this adjustment, and it was a significant adjustment.

Lisa Pendergast: 20:37

Right? Because you saw an elevated rate environment across the spectrum. And so to the extent that we've pivoted, you know, we're kind of it took time, I think, for folks to adjust to say, okay, we're in a different environment than we were, and we are seeing this longer, you know, higher for longer kind of environment. And it strikes me that, in the past, when you've seen the Fed cut rates almost to zero during the pandemic era, something like that, and then it goes strongly the other direction, it was almost like a it was a psyche kind of turnaround that you had to think about. And so to the extent that it hurt everything, right?

Lisa Pendergast: 21:23

It wasn't just mortgage rates. It was cap rates. And all of a sudden, at the same time that you had rates rising, you had valuations falling. And that was just a math problem because of the rate environment. As well as certain things like office and the like went sort of sideways and just kind of stayed that way, although recovering.

Lisa Pendergast: 21:43

Today, know it's been a topsy-turvy world because of sort of that really sort of severe rate shocks that we've seen. And to the extent that I think the world has gotten comfortable with where we are, not happy, but comfortable we can manage within this world, it's important, I think, that you know, it'd be nice to see the Fed. They don't need to be aggressive, but some easing at this point strikes me as

Mark Bonner: 22:16

Right.

Lisa Pendergast: 22:16

Reasonable and certainly would help just people move things along, not only in terms of mortgage rates, but most just as importantly cap rates.

Mark Bonner: 22:25

You called it discipline in your in your in the press release this morning. Help me square that with the fact that interest rates were your weakest reading for a second straight quarter. That's 53% expecting a negative impact. If members are disciplined, Lisa, why is the rate outlook still so negative?

Lisa Pendergast: 22:45

The rate out because of the Fed. It doesn't strike me that the Fed you know, we we all watch the Fed very, very closely as to what they're likely to do. But the more I always try to read some positive into their comments every quarter, it doesn't strike me that they're poised to ease anytime soon. And having said that, though, we as an industry are, I think, performing well despite elevated rates. We're not in some ways it's a good thing, right?

Lisa Pendergast: 23:19

When you think about the lead up to the GFC, the amount of volume that we were doing, I mean, I feel like there were two years where I never got home before 10:00 at night and And that was on a good night. Just the volume of things that were happening because of the rate environment. And obviously what resulted was the GFC from that. Too much capital at too low levels.

Mark Bonner: 23:47

You

Lisa Pendergast: 23:47

kind of got cap rates also extremely low, which means your valuations went through the roof. And then as soon as that sort of switched, they went the other way right, in many cases. Or you overbuilt because you could, and then you're stuck with not only a glut of certain asset types as well as loans that are way below current environmental sort of rates, if you will.

Mark Bonner: 24:13

So Lisa, I'm getting a couple of questions from the audience here about loan maturities. And I think let's get into it because nearly $875,000,000,000 in loans come due this year. Only about a quarter of them have actually been refied so far. And office loans are going bad at record rates. Your own members can agree on what this means.

Mark Bonner: 24:33

Some call the wave of extensions a warning sign. Others are calling it a bridge to better days. Others call call it borrowers buying time or a healthy reset with fresh cash behind it. So what's your honest read? Is this market working through its own problems or still finding out how big they actually are?

Lisa Pendergast: 24:51

I think it's been long enough where at first you know, I think the first couple years was all about how big is this? And the answer was very big. Today we're starting to of muddle through. But if you look at office delinquencies, they're almost 12%. So that tells me that there's not been sufficient movement there in one direction.

Lisa Pendergast: 25:15

You've seen a lot of loans extending as opposed to defaulting, right? So you're continuing with that. And yet, generally speaking, the loan extensions are helping most of the time, right? And I think servicers are smart enough to say at some point we stop extending and you either pay off your loan and we take the asset, right? And so from that perspective there's been a good amount of discipline, I think, on the servicing side.

Lisa Pendergast: 25:48

At first, there was extensions. We're going to give the opportunity to fix. And then those who could, that was a win. And if they couldn't, then I think what we're starting to see now is some of the loan performance starting to show up in terms of delinquencies. And yet, if you look at sort of the normal commercial real estate delinquency rates, they're not horrible.

Lisa Pendergast: 26:13

As of first quarter twenty twenty six, if you think about by sort of lender, they're somewhere between the high of 1.72% for banks and as low as 0.43% for Freddie Mac, right? And that makes sense. The agencies and multifamily tend to always have those lower delinquency rates, although they did not during the GFC. They were kind of right with the rest of us. But you know banks at 172, that's the highest and it's certainly not extreme to be honest.

Lisa Pendergast: 26:47

We've seen something in the double digits in the past and GFC for example. But everybody else is, know, Lifeco's, Fannie, Freddie are all under one percent. They're all actually under a half percent. So if you look at this environment, it is, I think, strong one. It tells you that folks took the cues from GFC and other crises and said we really need to do better because the losses that you take as a result of that are just not worth whatever you're going to win by doing more loans and more volume and all of that.

Lisa Pendergast: 27:23

So I do feel that the folks of my generation for sure have learned significant lessons and I actually think even recently those sort of mid level folks are seeing that too. And so for sure, the market has a lot more discipline today than I think it ever has.

Mark Bonner: 27:45

Right. The banks are pulling back from lending directly. It seems like they're pushing more of it through private credit instead. I don't know if this the jury's still out on whether that's a healthy sign or banks quietly ducking their risk. We'll have to save that for another day because I I before we wrap up here, I do wanna ask you about data centers because data center demand has been one of the very one of the unequivocal bright spots that are pulling in capital while everything else is kind of cooling down or in the middle of a reset.

Mark Bonner: 28:12

But your own survey also found half of your members expect AI and automation to shrink corporate office space needs in certain sectors. And just yesterday, Bisnow reported that a nearly $20,000,000,000 data center campus in North Carolina got scrapped entirely after the developer walked away amid a county moratorium fight. Is AI actually a net positive or a net negative for CRE Finance right now? Given it's fueling one sector's growth eating into another's and now facing real local pushback that's killing mega deals outright coast to coast?

Lisa Pendergast: 28:50

I think the AI concept is a good one. The execution that you're talking about on AI seems to be a bit of overkill at this point, right? Data centers are certainly something that our industry finances. And yet the question becomes, how much of this is gonna continue to see the growth level that we've seen to date? Mhmm.

Lisa Pendergast: 29:15

I think it's gonna fall off at some point. It's like anything. Right? It it it goes up, and then at some point, it levels off. It either levels off or it declines in some ways just because as you build up, you're going to do that.

Lisa Pendergast: 29:29

Right? But once you're there, how much more can you you know, how much more capacity do you need?

Mark Bonner: 29:33

I mean, seems like we're building towards that. Right? With the the grid restraints, all of the issues of power, all of these state governments passing their moratoriums, and it's every level of government. Right? It's state, it's local, it's county, it's parish.

Lisa Pendergast: 29:48

And it should be, I think.

Mark Bonner: 29:49

I think Then the public, and you know, there there's a lot of political rhetoric out there that's shifting the public in fair ways and maybe some unfair ways about what data centers bring or don't bring. So, yeah, it seems like we're on our way towards there being a leveling off at some point. Maybe in near term than we might imagine.

Lisa Pendergast: 30:10

I mean, clearly we needed it's sensical that you saw this data center blossoming of growth, if you will. At some point it does reach capacity. Right? And as in many things, you could see maybe it overshoots, but I think it will there will be a a slowdown not only from the the willingness of people to build capacity, but also for state and local governments to feel the same way. Right?

Lisa Pendergast: 30:40

That they that's that's a giant energy pull in their particular districts and the like. So there's lots of reasons where I think at some point data centers here will stabilize for all of those reasons I just mentioned. Right. And so it's an interesting to me, it's I always thought about real estate as either sort of this kind of like brain dead asset. You build it, it's there.

Lisa Pendergast: 31:06

Right? And then there are the operating businesses. Know? Right. In some ways, hotels are kind of thought about in that kind of way.

Lisa Pendergast: 31:14

And so to the extent that it seems to me that, you know, the data center boom, if you will, will start to slow, and it'll stabilize at some point. Because I also think that there are certain, you know, municipalities and states that are, you know, concerned about the just the power usage that they require, the cost that that causes just to rise for everyday consumers and the like. So it's an interesting sector. I'm glad it's here. It's helpful.

Lisa Pendergast: 31:48

And yet I think we need to put more bells and whistles, sort of attached to it in order to tamp it to a point where it's not, disrupted.

Mark Bonner: 31:59

Lisa, I got a ton more questions, but we're running a little low on time here. Wish we could go the full hour but I'm getting the hook from my producer but I don't want to let you go without asking one last question. For the person who takes your seat at Crefsey, what's the one thing about this moment in commercial real estate finance you'd want them to understand on day one?

Lisa Pendergast: 32:21

I think we are in a changing world. Right? So, I mean, I grew up in the nineteen eighties in this business, and, things were fairly staid for a very long period of time. Think about all the asset classes and the like. But with the introduction of new assets like data centers and an expansion in terms of commercial real estate and financing more nursing homes and sort of more operating businesses, if you will.

Lisa Pendergast: 32:52

To me, those are things that have changed sort of the dynamic of where we are. Also, the issue of housing has become, from my perspective as well, and certainly in my seat, a big issue for me. How do we multiply the amount of housing that's available out there in all different segments. For the longest time when I was on the research side, I did project loans. And to me, that's a great sector.

Lisa Pendergast: 33:21

Although it struck me, and I mean no disrespect to anyone, that it was not the most efficient market And that was an area that we really should focus in terms of just enhancing the ability to build, which is what the project loan does, right? Whereas the rest of us just finance existing properties. The project loan market actually builds nursing homes and apartments and things like that, that actually add to the stock. So, you know, I do think that there are things afoot that will help the markets move forward. And I think the rate environment, it's a little elevated, but it's not it's kind of inconsequential in many ways because I think you can find ways to finance today's real estate in a way that makes sense.

Lisa Pendergast: 34:09

And know and everybody the one thing I will say is I'm proud of the industry. We all lived through the 80s. We knew that wasn't great. We went live some periods through the 90s also. I think the market has really learned how to sort of work and stay within the lines, if you will, in terms of not overextending, not creating things that are overly sort of leveraged.

Lisa Pendergast: 34:34

And it seems like that's true for all segments of the lending environment. So I'm really be I'm pleased to be leaving at this time when the market seems to be a lot more somber and thoughtful than it has been in a a long time.

Mark Bonner: 34:50

That's a great note to end on, but I have to ask you anyway, Lisa. What's next for you? You told me before we went live that you were gonna go to my hometown in New Orleans. Am I gonna see you down there in the French Quarter?

Lisa Pendergast: 34:59

You may. You may. That'll be one thing. You know, I'm thinking my husband and I own a home in Rhode Island. So I'm thinking maybe, you know, run for some Westerly Rhode Island office somewhere, select men or whatever it might be, a select woman.

Lisa Pendergast: 35:17

To me, that's something that I don't see myself sitting around and playing tennis and golf badly. So

Mark Bonner: 35:27

Well, you head down to the Big Easy, give me a call.

Lisa Pendergast: 35:29

I will.

Mark Bonner: 35:31

That's all the time we have today. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on a decade very well spent. We'll be back soon of with another course. We'll be back soon with another episode of First Draft Live. And you can also find today's episode and all of our past conversations on your favorite podcast app.

Mark Bonner: 35:49

Signing off from Baltimore. This is First Draft Live. Have a great weekend, y'all.