ACUMA ONpoint
ACUMA ONpoint
Navigating HMDA: A Strategic Tool Beyond Compliance
What if the annual HMDA filing you've treated as a compliance burden is your most powerful strategic tool? In this eye-opening conversation with Laird Nossuli, CEO of iEmergent, we explore how credit unions can transform their relationship with mortgage data from reluctant obligation to competitive advantage.
Laird shares her passionate perspective on how HMDA data provides a comprehensive blueprint of lending patterns that can inform decision-making across your organization. From identifying gaps in your geographic coverage to spotting opportunities for product innovation, this consistently collected data offers insights beyond regulatory compliance.
The conversation is particularly compelling when we discuss how HMDA analysis can help credit unions build trust in historically underserved communities. By understanding the patterns of loan denials and addressing specific barriers to homeownership, credit unions can establish themselves as trusted partners in communities where banks have fallen short. As Laird explains, this trust extends beyond individual borrowers to entire families and neighborhoods, creating networks of loyalty that drive sustainable growth.
Perhaps most importantly, we challenge the conventional wisdom about mortgage lending being primarily driven by interest rates. "Interest rates don't buy mortgages. People buy mortgages," Laird notes, emphasizing that life events will always create demand regardless of rate environments. Credit unions can develop mortgage programs that thrive in any market by focusing on relationship-building rather than rate-chasing.
Sponsored by Consolidated Analytics.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Acuma, its board of directors, its management staff or its members. The podcast discussion presented is conversational in nature and for general information only.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Actors On Point podcast, a series focused on sharing the stories of people who are making a positive impact in the credit union mortgage industry. I'm your host, Peter Benjamin. Before we get to our episode, just a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3:This episode is brought to you by Consolidated Analytics, helping credit unions make smarter mortgage decisions, from origination to servicing and beyond. With expert valuation, risk management and compliance solutions, they provide the insights you need to protect your members and grow your portfolio with confidence. Whether it's due diligence or a collateral risk assessment, they help you navigate the market with ease. Learn more at consolidatedanalyticscom.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the second episode of our Compliance Summer miniseries, where each episode will feature an intimate conversation with people who I consider to be experts in their field and supporters of the credit union movement. As a reminder, with each of these episodes, it's our goal to take a deep dive into various compliance topics that are impacting and reshaping the credit union mortgage industry. Our next guest in the Compliance Miniseries is Laird Nusuli, CEO with IE. Merchant Laird, how are you doing today?
Speaker 4:I am good. How are you, Peter?
Speaker 2:I am good. How are you, peter? I am fantastic. I'm excited for our conversation today for a couple reasons, and we talked about this and I always sandbag, but we talked about this topic and the topic is Hamda, and I'm always sandbagging a little bit, but it's a topic that I've grown to better appreciate in my as my time as as president of Acuma and I'm a. That's all I'm going to give away for now, but I'm excited that I brought you here, because I consider you to be one of the foremost experts on the topic.
Speaker 2:on the subject, on the act and so thank you very much for being here. You're very welcome, I'm happy to be, and so, before we get to the meat and potatoes of the conversation, let's bring Justin in, like we always do. Justin the hawk, how are you doing today? And please tell us what is the latest and greatest happening over at Acoma? I'm good, peter. How are you Living the dream? Thank you very much, awesome.
Speaker 5:So I mean over here we finished up the first. I like to say it's the first half of the year for our in-person events.
Speaker 5:So, all of our workshops are done, our summits are done, annual registration I mean it's been open since April. It's not like it's a secret, but it has officially launched again. We do that in June every year, so relaunched a couple weeks ago, so we're really excited. The agenda we have, the speakers that are lined up I mean it's absolutely amazing, I think. The after party. I was listening to one of our recent episodes not too long ago and the whole after party conversation just had me cracking up, because I don't think we've come up with another name for it yet, I think. I think we're still calling it the after party. That's happening on.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we're going to call it anything besides a pre after party. I still like the idea of a tailgate, but it's not a tailgate because there's no cars. But anyways, we'll figure something out.
Speaker 5:That's something that we could do. Bring out the grills and stuff, like, have everybody have a pit boss or something come out and do some barbecue, yeah, but we can't do that in Vegas, though.
Speaker 2:I mean in Vegas. We probably can get fun Like we can do. The Fountain Blue next year has an awesome pool, so maybe do like a pool party.
Speaker 5:There's something. See, the wheels are turning we're already planning 2026 and we're not even, we haven't even had 2025 yet let's do it, but annuals coming up. It's going to be September 21st to the 24th. It's going to be in Denver, colorado, so if you haven't already, go to the website register. Come make your mark with us. It's going to be a spectacular event that you're not going to want to miss lots of surprises I mean anybody's ever met you, they know that you have some tricks up your sleeve always.
Speaker 5:I mean, there there are some killer surprises this year the only, the one surprise I'm going to say that we're very sad we didn't do is you come riding in on a horse that would have been epic.
Speaker 2:So, laird, we tried, you know. So the Broncos have like a real horse. They do what's it called Thunder, Thunder, thunder. We tried getting Thunder the horse, and the more we went down the path it just seemed like a really bad idea and so we stopped going down that path. So, yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so just to give everybody that idea. If that was one surprise, just imagine what else we have in the store.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what were you?
Speaker 4:saying I was gonna say that would have been my son's dream. He's a broncos fan and you know we're horse people. Um he, he if, bernard, if that had materialized, that would have been the most exciting thing to my son ever.
Speaker 5:Thunder huh thunder, yeah, yeah well, if you can't make it to annual, which will be very sad if you don't make it to annual, but if you can't make it, don't, don't worry, we have plenty of other things going on. We have our marketing network q3 meeting that will be coming up next month uh, so be on lookout for information on that. And then we have our webinar series, our fast tracks and inside tracks. Those are happening year round. And then then, lastly, our favorite, the on point podcast, which just helps keep the fun and learning going all year round. Awesome, thank you, justin.
Speaker 2:Thank you All right, laird. So again, as I mentioned, we're going to talk about HMDA. But before we do that, I always mention this and I always talk about this, and we have to stay with the roots of the podcast before we dive into humda. This pod is based off of a people piece and so, before we even dive into humda, it's about sharing the stories of people who are making a positive impact in the credit union mortgage industry. I consider you to be one of those people, and so the first question out of the gate is always the same, the last question out of the gate is always the same or to leave the gates always the same, and the podcast is always the same. So first question is who is layered? So that's the first question before we get into Hamda, before we get into the real conversation. But the first question is who is Laird? If you could, for those who don't know, you share your story.
Speaker 4:Okay, I can do that. So, laird Nasuli, I am the CEO of iEmergence founder, and I am a passionate, purpose-driven person specifically around closing the home ownership gap, and I inherited, along with my husband, who is our COO, bernard, the company when my dad had a lung transplant and, unfortunately, fought a lot of challenges, and we lost him in 2016. With that being said, though, we've changed the focus of iEmergent and have grown a lot with information and data and technology that really has allowed us to reach out to lenders of all sizes types, absolutely loving working with credit unions because of the mission-driven mentality. Me, besides that, I have two children. They're 12 and 15. And I'm an avid, avid, avid equestrian, but I love data. I love data not as much as my family or my horses, but I really love the data. So is that enough information?
Speaker 2:I can, I can that's perfect, and you forgot to mention that that Bernard is a fellow commander's fan and I appreciate that very much about him.
Speaker 4:Yes, I bet he appreciates that about you as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I I I always appreciate a good Commanders fan, especially when I run into them, because I feel like it's been a long time since we have something to be proud of and we finally have something to be proud of. Yes.
Speaker 5:Because there aren't enough Commanders fans in Maryland already.
Speaker 4:There aren't, though.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean there are now, I mean now there. I mean now there are, but now there are yeah everybody came out of load works. I mean, I've been, you know, commanders fan my whole life and or you know whatever they used to be called. But the thing is is that I remember going to games and there were more fans of the opposing team at that stadium and it was just heartbreaking. Now, when you go to games, there's more commanders fans and that is a good thing to see.
Speaker 4:Anyways, did you know that we named our dog rigs after john riggan?
Speaker 2:that is awesome. That is awesome, that, that's amazing.
Speaker 4:That's good, good, good name good yeah, big part of bernard's background in life and um. I think he would have felt your pain, but it's certainly experiencing your joy right now.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:Where is it? Hold on, you can't see it because it's not a good signature Um Daryl green.
Speaker 4:Oh, oh, that's very cool.
Speaker 2:And for those, and obviously this is an audio only, but I just held up like a mini, mini Redskins helmet, you know old school Redskins helmet that's signed by Daryl green, so, um, anyways, I digress. So where?
Speaker 4:yes.
Speaker 2:Focus on the conversation of Hamda. So you and I talked about this pre-recording and so the reason why we selected this topic because, yes, hamda's been around for a very long time and Hamda is just one of those things that we do on an annual basis. But here's the thing I've come to appreciate HMDA during my time here as president of Acuma, more and more every single year, and I think it's for more attention brought on credit unions by big banks, community banks, for various reasons. If you think about the tax exemption for credit unions, I think you could easily tie it back to HMDA. Hmda very much holds hands with fair lending. If you look at recent redlining cases, you could easily tie it back with HMDA. And so I've come to appreciate the need to understand HMDA, your data, more and more. And for me, having sat in our listeners' about almost three and a half years ago just shy of three and a half years ago you know, for me, you know the need to file HMDA on an annual basis. It was just a necessary evil that we filed and we forgot about to the following year, that's all it was Just. Oh great, it's March again. Let's follow our HMDA and let's do it and get it off our plate and let's get back to closing loans.
Speaker 2:Right, there was no analysis, there was no deep dive, there was nothing about us looking at the actual data. Not only that, it wasn't just mortgage. There was nothing from the compliance department. There was nothing that there was no look back from a fair lending review Nothing. And I'm going to take it one step further Again. I said this before Hindsight's 20-20. Hindsight's 2020.
Speaker 2:Thinking back to my community bank days, you know, I wish I would have shown more appreciation for my compliance officers time when she pulled me into her office, because I was, you know, the head of ops for a mortgage division for a community bank, and whenever we did that fair lending review, which is really based off of Hamda, I really wish I would have shown her more appreciation when she would just kind of walk us through our fair lending review, because I just sat in her office and just rolled my eyes and basically said what do you want me to do?
Speaker 2:Like, the data is the data and I would just pretty much be snarky the whole time. Right, but there's so much we can learn from this data and I truly think as though, regardless of size. I truly think as though, regardless of size, credit unions can learn a lot from our data, and we're not leveraging enough. Not only that, we're not using it to our advantage, and people are using it against us, and people are using it against us, and so that's why we're having this conversation on HMDA, because it's such a vital tool for us. So, but before we talk about how we can leverage this tool, let's talk about HMDA itself. So you're the expert.
Speaker 4:So walk us through HMDA. So HMDA Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data really is the deliverable that resulted from a law, like you said, consistent data at a loan level or actually an application level for all residential mortgage applications and originations, and it's changed a bit over the years. We've been working with it since 1999 is actually the first year that we have data and I will say that in 2018, the data became far more robust, reporting really improved and your abilities or the abilities of institutions to use it. Not only you know kind of like you said, peter, to you know a half-do and a protection you know as a sort of a shield. It can be used as a sword because it is actually really great, even though it's retroactive looking. It is really great for looking at and setting goals for the future, but part of that is better now because of the robustness of the data.
Speaker 4:So really it tracks a number of things on the loan. It's focusing on the loan itself. You know what's the rate spread, what's the application I should say Rate spread, lender, loan size, points collected so you really get a complete picture of what a loan looks like and you get a relatively good picture about what the borrower looks like relatively good picture about what the borrower looks like. And when you put all of that together in the LAR which is like the raw data set, is called the LAR, which is the loan application record when you look at that data at an aggregate basis whether it's for just you know if you have a small footprint for the US, for a particular census tract you really learn about lenders, products and you learn about markets, and that market piece is one of the ones that I think has been left off the table. You know so often what HMDA is. The analysis is how are we doing compared to our peers? And it ends with that. That is where I think there's that loss of really valuable information. To, in a sense, take that conversation you had with your compliance person and unify it with sales, and it's really in how you look at all of the data on its own as its own great source, because one of the things about it because it is collected annually and it is collected in a very you know, completely consistent manner it's clean data. As far as data go, I mean we could. There is data out there from recorder's offices where you can find out, you know, information on loans, but it has none of the rigor around it of consistency that HMDA does, and that is what is so critical about it, for so many different reasons. But the other piece that it adds, again away from the peer group look at compliance. It also adds if you look at it over time, even though it's retroactive, and I can talk about how it retroactively influences the data that we create or provide that's proactive, that's a forecast. But if you look at it retroactively, you can see patterns in it. You know, for us, we look at patterns. In every census tract, in every market has a pattern. And what's interesting is, even though we think we can't predict mortgages or where originations will be, we can predict those patterns. And when you take those patterns and you use what you've learned from HMDA and you tie that with demographic data, you do get a better idea about what the future could look like. That with demographic data, you do get a better idea about what the future could look like. But that again, what is so valuable about Humdell looking backward is it really is a you know time series. I guess it's a blueprint for what is happening competitively and how the industry is changing. And since it's relatively sticky because you only get it annually. It has enough consistency that really start informing a baseline just a baseline though for strategy moving forward. You know it is.
Speaker 4:It's not easy to collect. I'm sure that you know, peter, that's probably part of the reason you rolled your eyes. I mean it's to collect. I'm sure that you know, peter, that's probably part of the reason you rolled your eyes. I mean it has to be very specific. It's reported by nearly all lenders. There are lenders that are exempt and they just raised the threshold.
Speaker 4:I think it's a hundred transactions now, and so you also don't get any information from brokers on it, because it's really reported by the lender both the correspondent and the broker lender but it is the lender that's recording it. So you get a lot of information at a market level. You get a lot of information about trends at a sort of an industry level, you get a lot of information about your own institution and you get a lot of information from Hamda on the competitive landscape. Those things together make it very valuable internally. On the external side, though, it really is what helped maintain transparency. As you said, this informs fair lending practices. That was its whole point. It does that well. Also, you know, for institutions that have CRA responsibilities. It's also a fantastic way to to track it and, again, part of that is, even though it's a lot of work, it has tremendous value because it's so structured and consistent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's. It is a lot of work, right, but here's the thing and I'm not trying to pause for dramatic effect or anything like that, but it's a lot of work, right. But for me, just looking and again, I'm looking in from afar, right, I'm not part of the process. I'm looking in from afar, right, I'm not, I'm not part of the process, I'm not part of a mortgage operations right now, right, but a lot of credit unions, let's be honest, volume's not up, right, volume's down, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, if you look at what Freddie Mac is saying, mba is saying you know a lot of economists are saying you know we should end the year better than 2024. So 2025 should be better than last year, right, but still volume's down. You know, if you have enough time to implement a new technology? You still not. I'm sorry, not every single one of your resources within your mortgage department is at capacity, right. You still have time to look at the data, right, and I think you can agree that if you just get into the routine of doing it, the routine comes easier the more you do it.
Speaker 2:For sure, Right, you know whether you're looking at. You know the public data data set or your internal data set. I don't mean, I guess the internal data set is probably better for your, for your own review, because there's a lot more information, Right, but why wouldn't you want to go down that path? I mean, it's if it's, if it's a daily routine or a monthly routine or something like that. I mean, why wouldn't you want to go down that path? I mean, if it's a daily routine or a monthly routine or something like that. I mean why wouldn't you? I mean because you know what your competitors you know bank lobbyists are using your public data set against you.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Why wouldn't you want to get into the routine, regardless of size? Why wouldn't you want to know that right? I?
Speaker 4:think a lot of it comes from the fact that there's so many data points that people don't know where to start. They don't know which data points matter, how to use it. It's all there, and in our work we so often have to show people what they should be looking at. So I think that's part of the why, wouldn't you? I don't know.
Speaker 2:But you know it's a couple of things, right? Yes, hmda can help you figure out. Okay, where am I lending, right? Where and who am I lending to? Am I lending equitably across the board, across the spectrum? Right. But also, am I lending in my footprint, right?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if I'm not OK, I need to make some strategic decisions to start moving towards that footprint right. I think that's the most important thing right. And I think, if you look at the most recent redlining case, I think that's a perfect example of how the data wasn't being leveraged.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:For that exact purpose, right, or am I off base?
Speaker 4:No, you're absolutely right. I mean, the location of it is so important. You know we map it. It's very, very easy to see because, even though the public data set doesn't have a dot, you know a point it doesn't have an address. It has a census tract. If you're looking at your data, you have the address, so you can plot it on a map, but you get a visual representation of whether you're representing your footprint. It's a very good way, just visually, to start looking at concerns ahead of time about you know fair lending and redlining ahead of time about you know fair lending and redlining.
Speaker 4:But the piece that I think gets lost is that you are looking at your data to see what you're covering, but by looking at who isn't being served, for example, if you look at the market and you look at the applications that are denied, withdrawn or incomplete mainly the denials, though and you do more of a deep dive, you can get some great ideas for products, because it's also showing you where there's not untapped need, but need that's there. If someone went to the extent they think they're close enough on the home buyer journey to have an application, but they were denied. If we get a sense of why they were denied and we start looking at solutions that would overcome that one denial or two denials I mean, it's the patterns of that. Then you start thinking, hey, you know there's nobody here that's able to lend to this with this like program for this. You know this type of borrower and I think that's what's one of the things that's lost.
Speaker 4:The same thing, time is, if you look and you use that beginning idea of are we lending in our footprint, and you find what we call gaps in coverage, like big holes, whether it's a segment hole or it's a actual geographic hole.
Speaker 4:The data give you a starting point for saying why and you can look at, well, what products are we using. You know what are the again, what are the patterns that we're seeing. You can use the public data from HMDA. You can use your data in real time and then you can figure out how to use your real data that you're going to submit to HMDA with some of the more current county property data, and that mix of all of those together paints a very clear picture about you know what are the patterns, what's the opportunity been, what opportunity did I miss and what opportunities do I have for the future? And it's when lenders are able to make that switch to the future that they start getting excited about it, because it's no longer an eye roll, it's a. This is my strategy for growth, whether that be growth first in mortgage, but also growth with members.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think you brought up several key points right. This is not just a mortgage thing. Yes, yes, it's Home Mortgage Disclosure Act right, and I fully respect that. But the entire credit union can leverage this right.
Speaker 4:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:You can back in If you look at this data report and you map it out and you look at the census traction. In many ways you could reverse engineer where you need to open a branch.
Speaker 4:A hundred and thousand percent.
Speaker 2:Not only that. You know marketing should leverage this for strategic initiatives. Right, you know compliance should use this in everything that they do. Right, mortgage, obviously, product development, I mean you name it. I mean so, right now you have branch operations, you have marketing, you have compliance, you have mortgage. I mean everyone within the credit union basically has a stake in this reporting. But all too often, again, the credit unions are not looking at this. I mean it's just all right. Well, again, let's just file it and be done with it. And it's not worth it. And I don't get it whatever, it's not worth my time.
Speaker 4:But I think it goes back to that. You know, what does it tell me about? Like that, you know, I think you've heard me say that it's the. We're running a sprint in a marathon and we need past, present and future data. Like again, I say, it's like people, markets and in this industry, it's like a person it's what's happened influences what's happening today, but the future is also influencing what's happening today. So you can't separate. You have to have this continuum.
Speaker 4:And the way you start with that baseline, where you start using it and starting to make a difference, is with that pattern, historical data. But it allows you to. It's a complete enough data set that it allows you to start setting goals, and that could be a goal for the institution, it could be a goal for a loan officer, but it gives a starting point and that's something in general. Lenders haven't been particularly forward-thinking because they thought there's no way to predict interest rates, so you can't predict what's going to happen. The data, when you look at it, are not suggestive. That's why we have our forecast. But when you look at that idea of what happened what did we miss and how can we make sure we don't miss it for the future you start thinking about goals and people like goals because it helps them identify of a certain borrower type, an actual location or a particular product segment. You have so many paths.
Speaker 2:Right, but interest rate only takes you so far.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right so being able to predict interest rates? We can't solve for far. Absolutely Right. So being able to predict interest rates, you know we can't solve for that.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, you know we can. You know we can solve for inventory, we can solve for the availability of products, we can solve for theability of the individual loan, right. But we can't solve for interest rates, right? So what we can do is go into a diverse community, we'll say predominantly Hispanic community, because that's what the census tract tells us.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:Right and build a relationship within that community, an area that we haven't had a relationship with in the past.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:One that we should do better in, regardless of interest rate, and build a relationship and we lend and you know what? The fact that we're in there build a strong relationship. They'll come to us Because we have a strong relationship and we build trust. We make again, we're not solving for interest rate, but we're making it affordable and we are making it. We're helping them solve for the inventory issue Again affordability, access and inventory. We're solving those three things and we build that trust. That's it, we're done.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I mean, you hit the four gaps that we trust. Education, credit and inventory are the four major gaps and the barriers that come. You know, you said something interesting about we can't solve for credit or we can't solve for interest rates, and that's true. But if you look historically, you know my dad wrote an article this was 25 years ago and we updated it. We hardly had to change any words.
Speaker 4:That's how little things have changed and it's that interest rates don't buy mortgages. You know particular financial indicators don't buy mortgages. People buy mortgages and regardless of the interest rate, people change jobs, they move, they have families. So there's always going to be a purchase market. The size of the purchase market is going to be and who is buying is going to be influenced more by rate, but it's going to be there. Refi yeah, I think you're going to see that with refi, but even now there's so many more ways to leverage the equity in your home for other financial purposes that I don't. You know. Again, rate matters, but it doesn't matter the way people think it does, because you're always.
Speaker 4:You know life happens and what you said is so critical, specifically with diverse and historically underserved communities.
Speaker 4:They have not built trust with banks and if and I've seen this with so many of my clients and I've seen it on the ground working with you know, potential home buyers, if you are the lender, the partner, the financial partner that comes to the table listens and even if that's a you know, the financial partner that comes to the table listens and even if that's a, you know I'm going to, you're going to ready to have a loan in six months, or it's a two year, three year plan, if you're that lender, then you are going to have a partner and then they will have built trust that within that community though, the loyalty is incredible.
Speaker 4:So you are not just building the relationship with the person that's going to potentially buy a home in the next six months. You're building with the families, you're building with the communities, because they say finally, hey, you know this credit union, let's say I'll use Boeing, boeing, we can trust them, you can trust them, they got me the dream of home ownership. So this ends up becoming you know you invest this much time and you get, you know, five times that back.
Speaker 4:But you're still right that that trust piece is huge.
Speaker 2:And Boeing's a good example. I mean, you know, the team over at Boeing has done an excellent job of diversifying. You know their entire lending practice. Right, I think you and Roger presented you know, one event you know it was fascinating what they've done Right, just expanding to a more diverse community. But anyways, I would love to, you know, go into more of that and I feel like we probably could. But just for the sake of time, we have to stop Right, but we have to start transitioning.
Speaker 4:No, we don't have to, Are you sure I mean?
Speaker 2:we, we, we do, we do, we do. But before we do last question, it's always the last question. Actually, in the second to last question I'm going to second to last question Any final thoughts on HMDA and the importance and what credit unions should be doing or, better yet, how credit unions can leverage HMDA to their success.
Speaker 4:So I think and I'm going to be clear here, and if any IMBs, independent mortgage banks are listening to this, you should listen really hard, listening to this, you should listen really hard.
Speaker 4:I think that with lending the way it is now, with the change in the regulatory environment, credit unions and community banks have an incredible opportunity to grow. And I say take share, but I don't mean it in that like we're just going to fight to grow the pie, okay. And here's why I think, if that data is used and that data is used to find and fill gaps and coverage, to better understand who is and isn't being served, and then to set that path forward, I think in the next two to five years, it's an incredible opportunity, specifically for credit unions, because people need to be thinking about the whole person, the whole household, the whole household, and nobody does that better than credit unions do. So I encourage this not as a compliance strategy, as the central growth strategy to use data, whether it's start with HMDA, then bring in these other pieces, the demographics. There's so many data pieces that you can bring in and develop strategies. After that, you will see success, I guarantee it.
Speaker 2:Okay, I love it. Great final thoughts. All right, real last question oh no, no, no, this is an easy one, all right. So what keeps you going? What keeps you motivated Again? Going back to the people piece again, the podcast is all about, you know people make a positive impact, but what keeps you going? What keeps you driving day in, day out? What keeps you going?
Speaker 4:Equity, housing equity, the vision of my dad. But it's really kind of like I get to work with so many wonderful practitioners and through that, you know, we meet potential homebuyers, practitioners, and through that, you know, we meet potential homebuyers. Being a changemaker and watching people really start to achieve what they've hoped for, that keeps me going. But mainly other practitioners, particularly practitioners who are people of color the way that they get up out of bed, the way that they don't complain, the way that they color, the way that they get up out of bed, the way that they don't complain, the way that they you know a challenge is put up. We go around it. I'm starting to be driven by my fellow changemakers and, just at the end of the day, community, community is probably the biggest thing you know. I home ownership is that but healthy communities just make everybody's in that community world better. And you know that's really what it is Lots of pieces. I get pretty emotional talking about it, so I think I'll stop with that.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Love it, absolutely love it. All right. Well, thank you very much. Well, laird, it's time that we transition to the second segment of our podcast and for our summer miniseries, we're just sticking with the fan favorite of dad jokes. This is the most requested segment that we do. We might as well just call it the dad joke segment and forget Jeopardy. I think Justin would probably like that we just dropped Jeopardy, because he's like the champ of losing.
Speaker 5:No, I still like. I still like Jeopardy. I mean, I like my five wins. Don't take those from me yet.
Speaker 2:Five wins out of all the episodes that we played. Jeopardy has five wins, you know, I think there's only been six episodes. That's not true. There's been like 30 episodes of Jeopardy and he's only won like five times.
Speaker 5:You know like, let me at least look good once.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's fair. Alright, try, you know like, let me at least look good once. Okay, all right, fine, all right. So we're gonna do the most requested episode, most requested segment of dad jokes. So, lair, prior to the recording, I asked you to come prepared with two to three dad jokes, but for the sake of time, we're gonna stick with the two. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do you do two, justin does two, and then I'll wrap up with two and then we'll close out. Sound good.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:Perfect Fire away.
Speaker 4:First one my dog ate all the tiles in my Scrabble game. Last night I took him to the vet. No word yet. The other one is I'm going to get this one wrong. A salesman approached me about buying my coffin. I told him I wasn't interested because that's the last thing I need. That's what I got, that's good.
Speaker 5:Good delivery Laird Thank you, you were worried about it, you were worried about it.
Speaker 2:It was good. It was good delivery, laird, you were worried about it. You were worried about it, it was good. Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 5:All right, justin hit it uh, why doesn't the sun need to go to college? Why, because it already has millions of degrees he's like, that's important, I like that all right's good. Come on, that was a good one. What's the only thing that can ruin a Friday? What, remembering it's Thursday.
Speaker 2:That's good. That's good. All right, I'll wrap up. I started telling everyone about the benefits of eating dried grapes. It's all about raising awareness, okay.
Speaker 4:The puns are the best.
Speaker 2:They sure are. Which one, which one, which one? Okay, why would a pig dressed in black never get bullied?
Speaker 4:I don't know why.
Speaker 2:Because Batman has always sworn to protect Gotham.
Speaker 4:Good ones.
Speaker 2:Thanks, all right. Well, that wraps up this episode's version of Dad Jokes Laird. Thank you so much for everything that you do for for Acuma and, of course, sharing your valuable insights on Humda and, of course, sharing your valuable insights on HMDA and I would be remorse if I didn't mention that. You know IE Mergent. It was a valuable member of Acuma Services and Acuma members receive an amazing discounts on the services that you provide. So again, thank you for being a partner in that. Love it. So again, thank you very much for being an amazing guest on our summer mini series. Love the conversation.
Speaker 4:Likewise. Thank you so much for having me, Peter.
Speaker 2:Of course. And Justin, thank you, Of course. My pleasure Absolutely. And to close out, thank you again to Consolidated Analytics for sponsoring today's episode and to all of you. We know your time is valuable. Thank you for tuning into the latest episode of Acuma's On Point Podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Until next time, be well, my friends.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time at the Acuma On Point Podcast. If not already, be sure to subscribe and give us a five-star rating For more great episodes and information. Be sure to visit us online at acumaorg and to get the latest updates. Head over to our LinkedIn page.
