The #1 Mistake Loan Officers Make and How to Fix It Fast with Scott Nicholson

What’s actually causing loan officers to lose deals in today’s market—and how do top performers consistently win?

In this episode of The Way with Dino Katsiametis, Dino sits down with Scott Nicholson, mortgage industry veteran and co-founder of Housing Link, to break down the real gap between average originators and top producers.

Scott shares how his journey—from professional golfer to 26+ years in the mortgage industry—shaped a philosophy centered on education, adaptability, and modern client experience.

This conversation goes deep into:

•  Why most loan officers are still stuck using outdated methods 
•  How modern buyers expect a completely different experience 
•  The exact systems and strategies that help win more offers (without racing to the bottom on price) 

👉 Bottom line: The market didn’t get harder—you just haven’t adapted yet.

If you’re a loan officer, real estate agent, or sales professional trying to stay competitive in a shifting market, this episode gives you a clear, tactical roadmap to stand out and scale.

🔑 Key Takeaways & Bullet Points

• Why education beats selling in building long-term client trust
• The biggest mistake loan officers make with pre-approvals (and how to fix it)
• How to win more offers without competing on rate
• The shift from PDFs and emails → modern digital client experiences
• Why most LOs are losing deals due to lack of professionalism and systems
• How to create instant trust with listing agents in competitive offers
• The role of video and presentation in closing more business
• Why adaptability is the #1 skill in volatile markets
• Practical strategies to generate business from listing agents and buyer agents
• The exact playbook Scott would use to rebuild a $1M business from scratch

Thanks for listening to "The Way With Dino Katsiametis"  
 For full show notes, links, and extra episode resources, visit dinokatsiametis.com.
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instagram.com/dinokatsiametis | linkedin.com/in/dinokatsiametis
Learn more about Ethos Lending at ethoslending.com.  

Transcript

Scott Nicholson Raw

Dino Scott Interview Raw: [00:00:00] Okay, here we are. And before I, I, uh, actually even allow you to talk, Scott, I have this one thing I've been trying to figure out, like you're, you were a professional golfer and it's not like the Marines where once you were, you still always are, right? You're, you were right. Right. So same time, Jack Scott Nicholson.

Right. So Jack Nicholas and Phil Nicholson. Did you become the average of two of the best players in golf, or did you not quite get that far? I

Scott Nicholson Raw: I wish it was that, you know, so un unfortunately my name is with the actor, not the golfer, so I kind of, you know, so I, I wish I was a fraction of those two. A fraction of jack or, or a bit of Mickelson. But I wish, but no, that's pretty funny. No, no, no, no.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: so if you don't make any professional sports, you end up in the mortgage business.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Exactly right. We, we, we shelfed the career 30 [00:01:00] something years ago. Right. And slid into, you know, mortgages on that way. Yep. That, that's, that's how it happened.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Scott Nicholson, veteran in the mortgage industry and co-founder of Housing Link, uh, which is a pretty cool platform. So welcome to the podcast.

Scott Nicholson Raw: I appreciate it. I'm excited to be here. This is, um, I appreciate this and even our conversations last week, I was really looking forward to this, so, um, I appreciate being here.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: So I gotta say, um, for all you guys listening, uh, I gotta spend several days with Scott in Washington, DC Uh, we were advocating for, you know, first time home buyers and, and all that, and I asked him to be on the podcast, and I gotta tell you. This dude is always selling,

Scott Nicholson Raw: All right.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: so, so here we are. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the interview and I'm gonna try and control him because I know he is not gonna be able to, to stop himself or control himself.

He, I'm, I'm gonna be asking him a question and he is gonna answer, [00:02:00] answer, and then he is gonna divert over to selling you housing link.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Right. No, I promise I'll be good on that. I'll be good on

that. 

Dino Scott Interview Raw: no, it's all good. I mean, part of it, part of this is, you know, all your years of experience created that. So just bear with me. We're gonna get to it though. I, before we even get to any of that, I wanna know who is Scott Kelson, both personally and professionally.

Scott Nicholson Raw: I think personally, who I am, um. I am, uh, I'm a very low key guy. I am super chill. I, I love sports. I'm super competitive. Um, you wouldn't know it. I am like under the radar, competitive. Um, I am, I'm in Orange County, Mary, to, we have our 26th anniversary, my wife, our 25th anniversary this year. Uh, I have two great girls, uh, twenties, uh, girls.

Um, I, you know, life is. Life is good. I mean, life is blessed, life is good. [00:03:00] Uh, no complaints. Um, you know, it's, it's good. So, so that's the personal side, um, business side, um, like you said, right? I, you know, Scott's always selling. I, I, and, and I'm not really more of a salesman per se. I'm an educator. I'm married to an educator, right?

My whole career, all my 26 years in the mortgage business was about education. I always led with if I can help them learn, right? I think that that sells me, right? So I'm, I'm not gonna sit here and sales first. I'm always leading with education and everything. I've done the foundation of everything. And I remember in oh eight when the market was collapsing, the first thing we did, I, I could, I remember the looks in my LO's eyes.

It was June, actually it was June of oh seven, I remember, remember the upload meter, you know, back in the day and. We, we had fundings that were going down that day and the wires weren't going out, and like, what's going on here? Right. [00:04:00] Everyone knows the veterans know these stories. I go, shoot, let me, let me make a phone call.

And like the, it was ready to go. And I go, man, we're gonna go down. So I,

Dino Scott Interview Raw: so real quick, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause just for a second for, for all you guys that have no idea what he's talking about. Back, back in the day, there is this website, I, it might even still be there. It's called the implode meter, I think, dot com. And be honest with you, everybody in the office was glued to it.

We were like, oh no, that one bites the dust. Ooh. And basically it was showing all the, the banks going out of business. Every day. It was absolutely insane. And then the other piece that he was talking about, uh, was, you know, you're supposed to fund a loan. It's purchase. People have moving trucks lined up.

They got their money in escrow and there's no more money. The bank just imploded so they don't fund. Now I have an, I have, I have a better story. You probably have the same one, but loan funded. Everybody's celebrating. [00:05:00] Woo. We made it four 30 rolls around. The escrow officer calls us and says, the bank called us and told us not to allow it to record, send the money back.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Oh, can you

imagine? 

Dino Scott Interview Raw: we were hours, hours away. 'cause you know, funding doesn't mean shit anymore. Right? Like it, it does now. It didn't back then. Funding just meant you're one step closer. Recording was all that mattered back in those years.

Scott Nicholson Raw: So I didn't mean to go back in bad times, but I think that that's my professional background was I remember the looks on my los and I had a branch at the time with a company and all of a sudden the wires weren't going through. And I go, man, we're gonna be on the implode meter 'cause we're not, we're holding our wires right now.

They're not going out. And we'd scale down staff, you know, for corporate and all that. And I go, all right, so let me make a couple phone calls. Long story short, we pivoted to a very [00:06:00] large brand bank, which you probably know who it was, B of A. Um, and, and that's where the education, like, okay, we used to make these buydown, uh, sheets, flyers.

We would drop in the Excel, do a publisher, took us 45 minutes, but. We were out in our local communities helping agents doing all the buy downs right there. So that's kind of where, you know, the, you just adapt to the change, right? And I believe you lead with education. You know, it's kind of what we were talking about in dc I mean, you, you have to like, okay, I don't know what can be done, right?

And there's a lot of stuff going on back there, but we have to adapt to it right now. And you lead by education and that's your best selling feature, I think for people in this day and age.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Hey, let me, let me ask you, um, now that we both have experienced the Washington DC thing, right? And, and showing up and lobbying and, and trying, going there with good intentions, I know I did. I, I know you did. No alternative motive other [00:07:00] than can we make a difference in helping people buy homes? What, what is your gut instinct now, after all said and done, did we do any good?

Scott Nicholson Raw: I, I, uh, uh, that's a Gru a great question. And if we didn't do the trigger law, I would have no hope in Congress. But I think like the trigger law that they just passed. Gave us hope. Right. I think like, okay, we can come together, we can agree on, you know, the, obviously that issue, right? Um, you know, the advocacy around that, that whole, in that past, which was great.

I think if that didn't go, I wouldn't have much faith in, in Congress coming together, meeting, you know, halfway agreeing on something they could put together and fix. But, so with that said, I, I think there can be stuff done. 'cause I think both sides feel the pain. I almost wanted to ask one of [00:08:00] the congressman, like, Hey, do you have children?

I do. Do you guys stay up at night? What do you think about on a personal level, right? Forget the politics, all that, what do you think as a parent when your children who are 20, 25 coming outta college? Do you worry about them getting to home ownership and do you think that's a, something that you wanna put your stamp behind?

And it, I felt, I almost wanted to get personal with them and ask 'em that if they would really answer us right with that. Because I know if you, if we were in their shoes and I go, yeah, my wife and I stay up at night sometimes, and we think about our girls into home ownership. So going back to DC I do believe we can come together.

It's a, it's an a, you know, the primary's coming up. I do think both people can maybe stand on that. Like, Hey, we got this coming together 'cause it's a full crap show back there right now. Let's be real. Um, and, and so hopefully they can come together. But there's stuff that we could do, right? [00:09:00] You can do right.

As the lender in this day and age, there's, there's smaller things, but we need help.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: So, you know, you know what my take was? Um. I don't know what my expectations were, but, but I guess I didn't, I didn't leave feeling super enthused. I didn't leave feeling like we made a difference. Um, but you're right. Yeah. The trigger deal did come from us, you know? And, and that did make a difference. But I left thinking to myself, I can do way more good on my own every single day than I can over there.

I left thinking if the goal is to get people into houses and I have the ability to bless somebody by doing it for next to nothing or, or even free, because that's what it took to get them into the house. You know what? That's better. That's better. It's something I can do today. Something I can really bless somebody with [00:10:00] and, and make a difference, you know, for them.

And then, and then aside from me doing something for free, right? And, and I don't wanna. Discount people are, we're doing this for a living and, and you and I have been doing it for so long, giving up a loan here and there probably isn't that big of a deal, but to, to a lot of, you know, younger loan officers.

I mean, maybe it's a bigger deal and I get that right, but don't ever, don't ever worry about, my message to them is, don't ever worry about that. Like, sometimes instead of just letting somebody grind you down and you taking that one, just do it. Do it out of a good gesture. And, and I, and I do think you'll get rewarded a million times over because of that.

Oh, 

Scott Nicholson Raw: percent. A thousand percent. And, and I'll even, I'll even add to that, what the LO could do today. Like, okay, so. Okay, so I'm with you on that. I think the trigger law was my last little piece that I'm, I'm clinging onto. We can get hope and I [00:11:00] agree with you, that you gotta get back in your own hometown in your local markets, and you have to be the advocate there, right?

And lead with training these, um, realtors, your agent partners or partner with your financial planners or CPAs. Get everyone to collaborate in all the little things you can do. Bring your, uh, insurance brokers in. I mean, we were having a conversation at our table. Remember the guy who built new construction, his insurance went to 40,000 a year, then he had to be pushed into the state, you know, insurance.

So he went from two to 40 and then you had to go to state insurance down to 14. I mean, tho those are things that we need to fix, right? There's the tax issues, the capital gains. Oh, without getting a soapbox, but let's go back to the local level and you made a great point. You can do. I don't think people understand the power of buy downs, and I'm not talking temporary.

I'm talking about, and I've done these my whole career. The buy downs are a massive tool in today's market. Meaning [00:12:00] if you structure buy downs correctly, you can penetrate all below. You can't, you can't avoid interested third parties. You can penetrate below like normal concession levels, right? When you get into predatory lending, as long as you structure correctly in the contract, meaning.

You can have a seller that's being forced to sell whatever the Ds are, right? And we gotta sell. And this is an opportunity to go to market. Um, it's kind of taken a page outta the builder playbook. You can go as an lo help the listing agent. The seller says, let me help you structure. 'cause if you take this asset in the market in a higher rate environment, uh, at price points where you're at, you spent 30 years in here, you've appreciated, you're gonna try to find the needle in a haystack to sell this.

But what you could do, we can come in and say, Hey, for X, we can allot, let's say, 400 basis points, right? You just build your net to it, right? So if you're gonna sell it for 2 [00:13:00] million or a million or whatever the price points are gonna be, we can allot 40 base or 400 basis points, which is four points, which is really, sorry, I didn't mean to go very detailed here.

You can get a hundred basis points under your predatory lending law if you structure the contract. Here's my point. By reducing the rate, let's say in the middle fives, right? Let's say high sixes or wherever your sixes are at, like sixes right now, get into the low fives, maybe do a hybrid, which is a perm, buydown, and a small temporary, you're reducing ratios eight, nine, 9%.

That's a big deal. That's a massive deal, right? And it offsets the insurance costs and offset. So helping with affordability, that's something the loca LO can go right now today and go to all the sellers and the listing agents and help them market their properties and structure. You know, that way with Perm Buydown.

I'm a huge advocate of those [00:14:00] programs, and I think today's lo, I didn't mean to go this direction with you, but I think today's, if DC's not gonna fix it, you can fix it. And here's the first tool you can do it with.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Um, all right, so usually I take everybody back to day one, um, of when they started and, and just for, and just

Scott Nicholson Raw: I told you this?

Dino Scott Interview Raw: No.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Oh, okay. My day one's unbelievable. Really?

Dino Scott Interview Raw: All right. So then that, let's just go there then. Uh, but I don't, I, and then I usually walk back through your journey all the way back to today again. Um, but. I want to go there and then I wanna fast forward considerably so I can get back to Housing Link. 'cause I do think it's a great product and I want everybody to hear about it.

So let's start with day one.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Um, I, let me, let me put this into context for everyone. I, I. As a little kid growing up, right? Uh, high school, college, went to Long Beach State. [00:15:00] We all went to there. We played, we left school after five years. I was right there to graduate, but we all just wanted to play. And this is in the eighties. Um, we played on the mini tours.

There weren't many mini tours back then. Um, I'm a very pale, you know, white kid. Right. And I, I've had a lot of skin cancer over my years. Right. So, so that's all pre, this sets up to my day one. Believe it or not. So I, in the eighties, I, or in getting through the eighties and the nineties, we played all the mini tours.

And a lot of the guys, you know, I'm almost 60, so a lot of the guys now are kind of aging out on the senior tour. Like, um, you know, Paul Godo, you know, Stan Kowski, you know, those guys are coming off now. So I'm in that group. So in 90, Jamie Mulligan, who is, uh, Patrick Cantley's teacher, and Nelly Corda. So he's a good friend of mine.

He was my teacher growing up. He goes, Hey Nicholson, you're [00:16:00] not gonna make a living. I go, I know. So help me, help me. Let's become the other side of the golf pro. Instead of trying to play for a living. Why don't you be one of my pros at a golf course? We opened up in Orange County called Coyote Hills. I go, sure.

So I opened up Coyote Hills in the nineties, right? And then in 2000 I met a very good friend of mine. His name was Tom Bass, right? He's in, I don't, do you know Tom by chance? So Tom Bass is one of the OGs, who's with in the group was Savage, right? And, um, Jim Mcma, not Jim McMahon, but that, that whole group, Floyd and all those people.

And he happened to live on the fifth hole. So him and Ting Cahill, uh, owner, president of South Pacific Financial every day. Come on Scott, come to banking, right? Come with us, right? Get out of the skin. It got outta the sun. All your skin cancer. So here's the first day, nine 11. It's my first day of [00:17:00] work. So I get up and Lisa goes, man, look at this.

And I remember, look, I go, what the heck is going on here? And then, okay, so I drove in with Tom. So we carpooled into his office. So he's in where you were? He is in Newport and his offices are in Rancho Cucamonga. So we drove together, we're just kind kind of in that daze. And I go, Hey Scott, just your first day, obviously didn't get off to a good start for a lot of different reasons.

Just mirror me, stay with me as I meet all my consultations. I, I remember just watching the darn tv the whole day. I had no idea who he was talking about and all that stuff. So I'll, I'll never forget the conversations he was having with his clients was totally not even mortgage, even though they came in to buy a house with him.

It was just, you know, so I'll never forget my first day, which was nine 11. Right. Which is crazy. So that's how I started my mortgage career right there.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: That's a big first day. Um, how did you start in the lead by or in the, uh, referral based?

Scott Nicholson Raw: Now [00:18:00] this referral. So I had this massive book of clients. So we, the, the, when I stopped playing and I started teaching, I was right next to St. Jude in Fullerton Hospital. So I would have, I did taught a lot of doctors, so I did a lot of pharmaceutical clinics. So I did a lot of clinics with my pharmaceutical reps who brought in their doctors.

So think of title, right? Title reps bringing agents in. So my pharmaceutical reps brought all their doctors in and we hosted 'em at Coyote and I did, um, a clinic for 'em and we took 'em all out to the golf course. We did playing lessons. So I had this pretty substantial black book when I left. So Tom and I sat down and we just went through that black book.

So I started from there. So my business I brought over of just the doctors I knew. He goes, Hey, I got the mortgage. We'll work together until you fly out of the coop, which is about 10 months. Then I was on my own. So everything's been referral.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: And, and how [00:19:00] long did it take you to get your first client?

Scott Nicholson Raw: Um, it was fairly soon. It was actually probably, you know, maybe a few months. I had a doctor that we, we did our intro, you know, or letters and some emails out, and no one really trusted me. But they, they love who I was and Scott is the golfer, right? So, because I always, I got the phone call like, Hey, can you play in our scramble?

Hey, can you play in our company stuff? I got those calls like 10 times a year, but, and then those relationships, now it's, you know, then I brought Tommy with me. So Tommy was. Loan guy, so to speak, until I started communicating on files and I started to use Mortgage Coach early in my career and I'm starting to do all that stuff.

So the, you know, then about 10 months I got it right. I would say about the 10 month market clicked. I got it. I got this. This is easy.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Yeah, I remember mine. Mine. Gosh, man. What, what [00:20:00] year did you start? Uh, one, 2001. Okay. I was in 98 and the, uh, the one 20 fives, um, I don't know if you've even, you remember 1 25? So yes. Those, you guys that don't remember, uh, we could actually lend up to 25% over the value of your house. And those days were awesome, but they lasted for like two or three months in, you know, in my career.

And then, and then it died, and then just like that, you know, that was over and we were charging 10 points, um, on 'em. And you know, a lot of 'em were only like $40,000, but still 40

Scott Nicholson Raw: was not me. That was not me. That was, I came in after that phase.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Uh, all right, so, so you started using Mortgage Coach early on.

I remember Savage. He kept trying to come over and, you know, he kept trying to tell me to start using it and using it. And then I even got it, uh, just because he's so damn good at putting pressure on people. Right. I mean, man ended up in Washington DC because [00:21:00] he 'cause of him anyways. Um, and I still didn't use it every once in a while, but that's about it.

Right? And then one day he like started in on me and I was like, man, I don't know what's silly. It's like, I don't need it. Yeah. My clients are all referred to me. They all say, yes, I don't get shopped. I don't like, why would I waste my time doing it? And, and he said something and it, it really resonated still to this day.

Right. And I, and I say the same thing now, but basically he said. Listen, I know you're good and I know you get referrals and I know like you have that whole thing going on. But he goes, if you did this, I can promise you the level that your clients will start thinking of you is gonna be so much higher than the level they think of you now.

And I know you think it's good, but there's another level and, and if your clients can start thinking of you that way, you'll see even more referrals coming in. You'll see more loyalty, you'll see more of all of that stuff happening. And I was like, all right. And it just so happened, I had a client [00:22:00] get referred to me like that next day and she was coming at Chase and she was pissed off because, you know, something happened.

The realtor said, Hey, can you know, talk to Dino? And, and I did a mortgage coach for her. And I remember her thinking, I remember her saying to me, she goes. I gotta tell you, this is really professional and I really appreciate this. Even, even the guys at Chase didn't do anything like this, right? They just emailed me, uh, you know, a quote, so someone was like, huh.

It does work, you know? And anyways, long story short, I, I believe in tools and, and I believe we need to use them. And, and I believe that too many people are lazy, um, for whatever reason. And, and I think it's a habit that you need to form. So for you guys doing loans right now, you need to get yourself into a habit of doing something.

And the more you do it, the faster you can knock that stuff out. But it becomes a signature of yours. It becomes who you are. And, and, and it is [00:23:00] professional. And I think one of the most important things you guys can really like, truly start doing is being professional. You know? I mean, don't be the jackass on the side of the street selling loans.

Be the professional. Let you know like our, our. Our industry should be at the same level as financial planners and CPAs and attorneys. Like, granted, maybe, maybe slightly lower than an attorney and a few other things, but, but dude, we make more money than all of 'em. You know, like we should, we should elevate our performance levels to match the money, the kind of money we make off of people.

So that's my viewpoint, which now I wanna bring that into Housing Link and, and talk a little bit about why you, you know, what you created and why you created it.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Hold on before we go there. You made some re you're making it some interesting points. I think people need to [00:24:00] take note of, I especially this market moving forward in the, in the AI world, we're moving into, um, consumers get, I mean, we just did, I'll give you an example. So what I'll, I'll give you a story.

This will really help. We had a, I coach once a month in Go Coaching, right? For Housing Link, right? I'm not a coach, so I'm in there right? For Housing Link and you know, Amir and just helping them. So I, I show up once a month, right at first Wednesday. So I had a young woman show up and she goes, Hey, I love this.

I have, I'm doing a presentation to the Jersey board doing a realtor class in Jersey. She goes, I think this would be great. I go, I agree with you. I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. De you, you just join Housing Link, right? I'll help you get set up. That's, that's easy that. For one month, I will train you.

I will build a deck for you, and I want you to take this to, you'll do that for me and present this to your agent, me. And she goes, I go, that [00:25:00] would be great. Or she said, here's, here's what she did. And I go, I, I'm gonna give you a little bit how to present here. And this is the consumer. This goes into what exactly what you're saying.

I think los need to take this playbook. We started with a slide and we showed them. So we go, agents, do you agree? Oh, and by the way, let me tell you, how many people attended her event? Take a guess. 497 agents attended. Class. And you know what we, we framed it all on is how to modernize your business, right?

And we open with a slide and say, how many think today's buyers are modern, right? And we ask them the question like, well, I don't know. I go, so let me, so let's show you. What is that? Let, that's Netflix. That's what they look at every single day. Next slide is, well that's Amazon. That's what they shop on every single day.

And then [00:26:00] we show 'em a picture of chat, GPT. That's what they learn on every day, guys. Your customers are very modern as far as their experiences. They're way more educated. When then Dino and I came in the market back in the nineties and the early two thousands, way more. Right. That was easy. So what you do today as far as professionalism and how you can organize that, uh, information they know is critical.

So she just went on and just showed them how she modernized it through her housing link, obviously, and she crushed it. And you know, so I agree with you. So today's lo there's no more, I'm gonna throw a fee sheet out there. I sound like Dave Savage, but that's just lazy. And I think the, the, the turning point, and you said it is.

All you need is that one customer goes, Dino, that was awesome. Like my wife and I saw that. We get it. It's, [00:27:00] you know, this is way better than the email that Chase sent me, so to speak. Right, that you were referring to. All you need is that one, like validation of that experience, but also how many other ho most of your competitors are what?

Lazy. So it just changing that this is who I am. You said that one little validation from an agent, from your referral partner, your planner, or that consumer flips the entire business on its head immediately. So now housing link, why did I do it easy? I'm we're just pivoting into another buydown market in 18 and 19.

I was frustrated with the tools we had as an industry. I have MBS Highway, I have Mortgage Coach, I have Canada, I have BombBomb, I have Loom, I have all this stuff, right? Not really what, I just have a TCA, so to speak, right? So I have a TCA, but I couldn't get it [00:28:00] on a listing. I couldn't get it into new construction.

I was a, it was a, basically, it was a conversion tool for the client for me, and it was dead, right? I had nowhere to use it. So I wanted to build a platform. I can bring all my tools together. So. I want to do a listing. Great. I'm gonna open with a video of Scott, me explaining who I am and how my goal is to create affordability, and then I'm gonna bring in my TCA to show them how I create that, a little bit of verbiage on there.

Then bring the property in, and then bring my tools together to go ahead and help the seller, the listing agent, create education around that, that property. That is a use case and all, because I can bring my tools together to properly educate. That's housing link.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: So tell me in a little more of a granular fashion now how somebody would use it. A loan loan officer [00:29:00] says, all right, show me.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Okay, so here's an easy this. I love this question. So here's an easy one. So think of this. I'm not gonna use you, Dino, or actually I will. No, no, no. I'm just gonna use the, uh, who's watching. Think of the LOS in today's industry, what a vast majority, almost 99% of them all do. And I'll ask, I'll even ask them when they're coming to a demo to Housing Link.

I'll ask 'em. All right guys. Hey, my wife and I come to you. We're getting approved. You approved us, right? You approved us. What do you do as an ll to provide my wife and I with that approval and allow us to go shopping? What do you do? Like, oh, well, okay, Scott. Well, um, you know, I'll just put an email together.

Hey, congratulations, you're approved. You know, I'll put some final numbers. I'll give you the PBF preapproval letter, and that's kind of it. Would you agree with that? As far as our industry? [00:30:00] Yeah. And so I wanted to change that. So now what our housing link los, do, they issue a private presentation? It's a lot of one to many.

But you can easily tweak it to Scott and Lisa Nicholson. Hey Scott. Hey, it's d o' Hill. Congratulations. Been fully approved. Ready to go. So down below number one is your TCA has the final loan numbers, your approval. Two, it has your PDF, which is your pre-approval letter, which you can download and have and just save it.

Three, I have my production partner in there. So you have any questions for either for myself or her. You can go ahead and reach out to any of us for, I have what's called a buyer pass. Click on that. That's gonna load in your Apple or Google wallets. And then that is your pass to go shopping at any open house or any new construction.

So if anyone asks you, Hey, Scott and Lisa, have you been approved with a lender? Do you have representation? So when they scan that [00:31:00] pass for our client up pops a custom presentation from the lo. So video has the letter, has the buyer agent, has the buyer broker agreement, has everything they need either to get in the open house, have the representation or new construction.

So there's an example of how our, our industry is still stuck with A PDF and like, Hey, go get it. You know? Whereas I can live on their phone and I have everything on their phone that they can go anywhere with, if that, that's an example of one,

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Let me, let me ask you this question. Um, and I'm not trying to be combative, uh,

Scott Nicholson Raw: it's your podcast,

Dino Scott Interview Raw: but it's my podcast,

Scott Nicholson Raw: Yeah.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: so I'm gonna ask, so I, you know, I've, I've talked to a few different people. Um, about Housing Link. Um, and, and they love it, by the way. And, you know, they're trying to tell me about it and all that stuff.

And, and I'm like, yeah, man. And, and I know Scott, I, I [00:32:00] think it's great, you know, if I was an lo I'd be using it right now. But they, as they're telling me I can't help myself, like that whole, like, Hey, it's on my phone, it's in my wallet, I got my approval. How much does that actually get used? Because I, if I were out shopping for a house right now, would anybody ever say, stop, you can't come in here until you have an approval. like, I got it, baby.

Scott Nicholson Raw: yeah. And what, and what's, so this is a great question. So, and I love this and I'm gonna show you one, so, 'cause I have my phone here just so just the viewer can see right here. Here it is right here. I dunno if you could see it on my phone. You see the buyer pass, right? So that pass, right? You walk in there, right?

So now in Texas, did you know in the state of Texas that you have to

have your buyer 

Dino Scott Interview Raw: put it up real quick. I'm gonna see if I can scan it.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Oh yeah. You can do that. Let's put that in there.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: and for all you guys watching right now too, get your phones ready.

Scott Nicholson Raw: yeah.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Yep. Put it up a little bit [00:33:00] higher.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Okay. So now in, did you know in the state of Texas, it is required to have your buy broker agreement going into an open house? Same with Oregon. California, you know, us in California, like, ah, you know, we kind of 50 50, we don't care unless it's the agent, you know, buy the book most, you know, whatever. But now, now think of this.

Put your young cap on, your young hat on when you, you and I were just getting into the housing market as consumers or our kids. Imagine we all get approved with Scott and his team, right? Or a housing link ll and we issue the approval on their phone. Imagine our kids right now. How do they feel about that?

Not you and I, right? Like old guys, right? We don't care, right? How do the younger generation feel about having all of their [00:34:00] documents, everything they're gonna need, they're enabled to go. Now remember, new construction, they want your representation. So I think in that, in that one I gave you, that's a buyer broker agreement in there along with the letter, along with my video.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: by the way, that link doesn't work.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Oh, does it? What?

Dino Scott Interview Raw: I mean, hey, we can just delete that whole damn thing off the podcast if you want.

Scott Nicholson Raw: I don't know. Maybe that's our new launch right there. That's

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Gosh darn it. I wanted to see it. I wanted everybody else to see it.

Scott Nicholson Raw: oh, hold

Dino Scott Interview Raw: All right. Hey, no problem. Just keep, keep

Scott Nicholson Raw: Oh yeah. So, so,

Dino Scott Interview Raw: find it at the end and then give it to us. I'll also, I'm gonna put it on the, the show notes.

Scott Nicholson Raw: so, but, so think of this. I have LOA and L-O-B-L-O-A just sends the pre-approval letter, Hey, go get it, tiger. You know, you know, knock yourself out. Or LOB says part of the approval right here it is, right? Um, and when they click on it, all they do is they click on it, loads on their phone. They're gonna go [00:35:00] shopping.

Now let's pause for a second. No matter where they go, they show it. I'm gonna give you a story and, and I'm gonna give you a story of a client of mine that came in. I use my own software. When they do end, I'm gonna give you a story. What happened? You'll be surprised, but imagine everything's on their wallet.

They can easily access it if need be. What if they're at work and says, Hey, I just got approved. We're gonna go house shopping this weekend. We got our buyer. We mean buyer. Oh yeah. Here, it's right here. Oh, well I was, I got approved down the street at Chase and I got a pre-approval letter. Do you know everyone who scans that?

That link goes on their phones like a virus in a way. So in a way, I'm marketing myself as an lo. So if mom and dad, Hey guys, we got approved with Scott and Dina on the team. Here's our pass. What do mean pass? And the dad goes, show me that pass. How do you think they feel about that? So think of the marketing.

So here's the story. I have a good friend of mine, they've [00:36:00] sold a property in Colorado. They're moving next to mom in Rossmore. You know where Rossmore is? California Ross down there, seal Beach, Rossmore. So they're moving next to mom in Rossmore, approved them ready to go, sent them the approval, sent them their pass.

They flew in every weekend. They went to 19 open houses. That link kept getting open all the time. I was watching it on house 18, I think it was, was the house that we wrote the offer. So they found the house, they walked into Mark, which I knew this after the fact. Mark scanned it and I get a call from the listing or the buyer agent Saturday night.

Hey Scott, we found a house. We wanna write an offer on the Ross Moore. And Okay, great. And we do what's called a digital offer. It's the next step. And so it, it gets a housing link. It's a video from me to the listing agent. Hey Mark, it's Scott. Hey, I just left you the voicemail. We're gonna, I'm working with, uh, s or her name was Betty.

Whatever the listing agent or buyer agent was, here's fully approved, underwritten [00:37:00] ready to go. Here's how we're gonna structure the loan. Here's everything you're gonna need. I drop it on his phone, immediately texts me. Dude, love this 'cause he's just watching me talk to him and his seller and all the things they need on there.

Well, that was Sunday. And guess we get multiple offers. And guess what we got on Monday? Good job, Scott. We're opening an escrow. Fast forward a week. No, fast forward about three weeks. Tom Ferry rolls into Newport. He has at his event there. And he's talking to a mutual friend of mine. He goes, Hey, that Nicholson guy I got, I got this buyer thing.

I'm like, dude, that's pretty slick. All of a sudden he sends me the offer 'cause they wanna buy our house, sends me this offer the next day on Sunday. I've been in the industry forever and a day. That thing like immediately stood out. You know what was killer about that? I just forwarded that link to my [00:38:00] seller and there's, they saw Scott talking to me, right?

And they go, I like this offer. It's in our range. It's all competitive in the five, there's five other offers. We went with that one. And you know why? Because I presented myself on the housing link. They could just like this video here, they can see us, they can build trust immediately, have rapport in 90 seconds, right?

And that's all it took. There was an example of a one-two punch. Me living on a client's phone with a pass. Yeah, there's gonna be times like I don't give a shit about that.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Let me, let me jump in. Lemme jump in. And again, I'm just playing devil's advocate, right? Uh. And I know you got an answer to all this. I'm not worried about throwing it at you. Uh, I'm trying to think. And granted, I don't originate much anymore. Um, but whenever there's an offer, like we, we pre-approved somebody, we give 'em the approval letter.[00:39:00] 

Really, the client never even, I don't think does anything with it. The realtor gets it and only uses it. And now granted this is just Orange County, California. Really like, yeah. The realtor gets it. They go look at houses together, they write an offer, the realtor emails, the listing agent says, here's our offer.

Here's proof of assets, here's fir. This is what we provide proof of as approval of letter, proof of assets, first page of credit report, um, as our little package, right? And they email all of that. Now, if that's not attached to the offer. And there's just a digital something. How do you, how do they, do they just like, like copy paste the, the, the barcode that you have or, 'cause now we are making them do an extra step, right?

Scott Nicholson Raw: Easy. So I, I give 'em the letter. So I don't, I don't change the flow how a buyer agent works, right? So here's your letter. So you do, so here, let me back [00:40:00] you up. Here's how this goes. So we do what's called a pre-offer consultation. So it's, it's the buyer agent, the consumer, and the lo all sit down quick little huddle.

Could be a call, could be a zoom, whatever you wanna do. And it goes something just like this. Let's say you're the buyer agent, Dino. Hey, what are we writing at? Hey, we're gonna do a, 1,000,004 with 25 in the buydown, so we'll structure the offer at 1,000,004 25. Okay, great. We'll do the 30% down. So there's our LTV, here's our loan amount, here's the letter matching the exact numbers.

I go, Hey, real quick, um, what's our buyer broker agreement at 3%. Hey, I know you don't know. Do, do you know kind of what they're paying? Do I need to alter some money, um, to pay for the buyer broker agreement? No, no, no. We're good Scott, so don't worry about that. Okay, so here's your letter. You go Dino. Here's what I wanna know, guys.

When you go, Dino, I want you to text me. So when that thing gets sent via your inbox, and it's the normal [00:41:00] process, right? And the only reason that meeting came into place was because of nar, right? 'cause we don't know The seller could go pound sand. I ain't paying nothing. Then we have to, and they wanna buy that house.

Well, we have to alter to get the buyer agent paid to fulfill the buyer broker agreement. You following me there? So that's the only reason why we changed that. And then now we said, okay, Dino goes, I get a text, dude, I just sent it. And then I pick up the phone. Let me pause for a second. Think of the people listening to this podcast.

How many of you call listing agents on your offers? I will say the answer, Dino, those who are answering, I would say three quarters today, would you agree with that? Yeah. Of those

Dino Scott Interview Raw: way per, personally, I feel like it's a waste of time.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Yeah, I do too. And because of the three quarters, how many buyer, how many listing agents actually pick up their phone?

Zero. I mean, yeah, we've been doing the buyer offer for five years at Housing Inc. [00:42:00] I've had maybe two or three agents in five years pick up their phone. Some are different. Maybe small town, they know who you are. Right. Hey Scott, you know, but no one, especially in this day, spam calls everywhere. No one picks up the phone.

So I, I'll say the, hello? Okay, so no, Scott. I do that. I call. Okay, so it goes to voicemail. What do you say? What do you do? Oh, hey, we're gonna write an offer. We're gonna do 1,000,004 25. We're gonna do 25 in the buy down. Hey, I got the buyer broker agreement. We're cool. Hey, we're gonna do a $10,000 concession on there, you know?

What's the listing agent thinking? Fuck, slow down. Right? That's just too much like delete, right? But what happens is, I'll go, Hey Dino, it's Scott over here at Ethos. We're gonna write an offer. I'm working with Brad Kerr, he's already sent the offer, and then now when I hang up, you know, I'm gonna send you a private link, Dino.

And on that link has three things for me. Just a short video from me explaining what we've done as far as underwriting [00:43:00] conditions, two preapproval letter for your records, you and your seller. And then three, client gives authority to share how and why we structured the offer. Click. Hey, Dino, Scott just left you the voicemail.

Here's our digital, the financial aspect of our offer, and, and in the voicemail, Brad Kerr's already sent the offer in five years. You know, our, my, my personal pull through rate is on acceptance in five years, 79%. Think about that. And the only reason is because of how we communicate and we've beat out cash offers, we've beat out, um, slightly higher ones or, or very competitive.

And the only reason they could see and hear the ll you know, and if the guy or the gal is like, oh, you know what, we kind of underwritten 'em, but we got a ton of conditions, right? We're, I [00:44:00] think we can close on time, dude, don't turn your video off and stop. Don't send that. Right? And if you can communicate well, shoot, turn on your Loom video and get it done.

And here's the thing. I was on a call with a large coaching group and um, they saw the offer and had a gentleman pop up from the northeast. He goes, Hey, I gotta be honest with you, Scott. This is you right here. This would be you on the call. There's no way I would ever use that, Scott, to be honest with you.

I go, okay, so why? It looks too complicated. Okay, what else? I just wouldn't use. It looks too complicated. I go, well, let's open it up. All he did was a little video. Do you do video? I go, yeah, sometimes I like just a little video drop the PDF, hit the buyer agent, put the property on there. So I built it in 90 seconds in front of him.

I go, so it takes me 90 seconds or two minutes to build one. Well, let me ask you this, Dino, let's say you were the, the guy, the pushback. [00:45:00] What do you do when you send your offer out? Oh, I put an email together. You know, I form an email out. I get all this, I'll drop a little MP four video in there. I'll do a how I use mortgage coach.

I'll put that in there. Right? I'll send this email. How long does that take you? 15 minutes. Okay. What's your pull through rate? He goes, ah, that's a good question. I go maybe one of five, one of six. Imagine I could shorten your duration and like massively move up your conversion rate. I mean, think of that.

If we're writing 10 offers a month and you're only getting three of, you know, three of 10 or whatever, and you can go to six or seven of 10, but also before you push back on me, 50% of the listing agents goes, I love this. I would love to talk to you about more about this. And I go, how many have had, how many originators have had a listing agent [00:46:00] from an offer going, we need to talk.

Great email, Dino, great PDF. Great email. Thanks for the five minute voicemail. They're not calling you because of that.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Let me, let me ask you this question too. So, um, one of your clients and one of my newer friends who I, I do respect quite a bit, Abdel, uh, out in New Jersey, he'll, uh, he'll do the, the random F-bomb here and there just because he's from New Jersey and, and, and, and it has to come out. Um, but the dude is polished.

He, he is really techie. He thinks of everything. He's got an incredible presentation. I really like. And he's a younger guy, so I really enjoy watching him perform, um, and how he's putting everything together. And, and I know he uses, he loves your platform, but he also uses it to go attract real estate agents.

So you want to tell us how he does [00:47:00] that?

Scott Nicholson Raw: Yeah. So what do you, what There's, uh, there's. Not only him, a bunch of the los on the platform and what they do, and I'll, and I'll, I'll take it to two different agents. I'll do the buyer agent and I'll do the listing agent, right? So the buyer agents are easy. That was the premise of the go coaching Debra, so to speak, of what she presented to the Jersey agent group.

And it was helping the buyer agents who live in still the emails and PDFs, right, of just bringing them digital. So she shows them, if we have an opportunity to work with your client's, buyer agents, this is how we convert the lead. It's our initial consultation housing link. This is how we approve them and we set 'em up to go the the final number so they get it right.

Everyone's included. You guys are in there every step of the way from the initial consultation housing link to the approval housing, link to the buyer pass buyer agents. Let me pause for a second. [00:48:00] Buyer agents absolutely love the pass and the offer, you know, why create stickiness and helps 'em get that executed buyer broker agreement, right?

Number two, I, I need an lo that helps me win offers. How are you guys? So imagine if this buyer agent goes, okay, I'm interviewing los today and the single thing I need help on, guys. I need to know what you're going to do to help my offers get selected over others. And if not, not that we're like a hundred grand under.

If we're competitive, what do you do? Competitive to help us. Well, there it is right there. And so that's all we do is we go lead approval shop, win the offer, and post close. And so that's what he's mastered and that's what I teach everyone on Housing Link. Master that first. So now they can go out to every single [00:49:00] brokerage, buyer agent, say, here's how we're gonna help you convert and win and maintain.

Now, to the listing agents, it's easy. It's two words. Affordability. Invisibility. It's all it is. Affordability and visibility. You're distracted right now. You were looking down. I'm like, Oz the mentalist right now. Right? You're distracted. So what do I mean by affordability and visibility?

Affordability is how many listing agents properties are sitting right now. If I put a hundred of 'em out right in front of us, probably 70 of 'em, right? Maybe. Right. So price reduction. You and I know this answer to this question, does price reduction help affordability if the property is already priced correctly?

Yep. So let's say it's a million dollar house, you drop it, you know, 20 [00:50:00] 5K. Most people don't show the numbers to agents for them to like click into it. So you have a million dollar house. If your next move on day 40 is to do a price drop for 20 5K, you're gonna save a potential buyer, $170. You're doing really nothing.

So you're spending your seller, your seller's capital. To, uh, to help a problem, right? A massive problem, affordability. And you only save 'em $170. That's, no one's gonna move on that, where if we can allocate the same amount of capital, right? And if we're at a million, right, and we're comped there, we now can bring Dino and Scott in, we can market our listing, right?

This is housing leak agains. We have a whole listing platform. We can market it and allocate the 20 5K for a per buydown. Now, and I always use the three to one ratio, and what that means is for every dollar you reduce price, it's equivalent to $3 in rate. [00:51:00] I'm sorry, flip it. Every dollar in rate is equivalent to $3 in price.

So let's use real numbers, 10,000 to reduce price. You save, you know, you only save a hundred dollars, you put the same 10,000 reduced rate, you're saving $300. So it's a think of a three to one ratio. So when you show a seller like, Hey, how do you wanna deploy capital? Do you wanna deploy the 20 K to save this?

Or do you wanna put the same 20 K and save that? When they see that, they go, well, how do you help me market that? So there's my affordability, and then we run, uh, we have our link, right? We have, so there's boots on the ground, the open houses and all that stuff. We have the housing link, which goes to CRMs, to social, and so and so, so we run visibility on that.

So without getting too much in the weeds, there's a whole, uh, marketing platform that we launched in the ecosystem. Los are pushing 30 to 40,000 in a 10 day window to those properties right now. [00:52:00] So affordability and visibility are two key things. So modernize the buyer agent and help them, right, help them convert what they're getting and show, help them show value.

And then the seller is how we can educate with affordability and give them visibility.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Scott, I, I, I hear from loan officers all the time. It's like, well, you know, what do I, how do I approach a realtor? You know, what do I say to them? Right? And, and I can tell you this, that if, if you don't have anything, then you can say the same thing as every other loan officer out there. Oh, my name's Dino.

I do loans. I'm really fast and got great rates and yeah. But if you do have some of these tools, it can give you. Uh, uh, it can give you that thing to go out there and talk about. All you need is something to talk about and it's [00:53:00] professional looking, and it's something that can help them grow their business, right.

By getting offers accepted, like Scott talked about. So, so I think it's important to do that. And, and you know what, you'll refine your pitch. You'll see how they reacted. You'll refine it a little bit. But the one thing I'm enjoying about you though, Scott, and, and, and you know, I, I don't know how much of it you do to your clients, the, I shouldn't say clients, the, the ones that buy housing link.

Do you have like a, a once a week or something like a, a coaching call for them?

Scott Nicholson Raw: Three times a week.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: week. Three times a week? Okay. Yeah. And, and that's, and that's free, right? Like, I mean, you got years of wisdom here, so that's free as opposed to going and spending money in coaching.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Yeah. Yeah, so it's so funny you say that. I've had many members goes, heck, I just come here for the coaching. Yeah, I love the tool, but I love the coaching. And so what I realized was, well, shoot, I have this 26 years of how I've done business [00:54:00] that I could maybe help some of them. So I just said, all right, let's just come together, you know, with Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, and let's start working together and, and start, you know, doing small workshops and helping them through the thing.

It's amazing. Veterans, right? That haven't really upped their game. And I'm worried about some of them too. And I said, well call the names. Like, guys, come on. You gotta put a little bit more into your craft. And that's what you were alluding to earlier, guys, up the game right now, in this day and age, man, if you're not up in your game, you're gonna get smoked in this market.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: You know, I don't feel bad for him anymore. I'm kind of over it.

Scott Nicholson Raw: that's true.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: you know what? It's your own fault.

Scott Nicholson Raw: 2026, man. You know, come on. If you haven't gun it by now, you're never gonna do it.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: You can sunset yourself, you know, in a few more years if you want. I guess what, whatever. It's your your choice, right? Okay, so I gotta start bringing this to an end. Uh, two, two final questions. The first one should be easy, but what's your favorite book?

Scott Nicholson Raw: [00:55:00] oh shoot. Um, I love StoryBrand. I'm in StoryBrand. I read it like three times already. Donald Miller, I don't know if you know it. I just love that book.

Um. 

Dino Scott Interview Raw: know why I've never read that one. Actually. I'm gonna, I, I'll buy it.

Scott Nicholson Raw: it's a really good book. Donald Miller. Get the ebook. It's awesome. Um, on the audio, I should say, um, it's great just the way he frames things, it helps my mind, so

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Okay. Now, my favorite question of the whole podcast. You got 26 years of experience, got tons of tools and all that stuff, but I'm gonna strip you clean of everything except for your knowledge, and I'm going to give you a budget. That's enough to pay for your rent. Pay for your food and, and you have just enough to decide like, maybe I should get some of these tools.

Maybe I can do this one on my own, right? Like just enough. And you gotta go out there and hustle, right? Like hustle. And you gotta make a [00:56:00] million bucks before you can come back and see your family or even talk to them. You're not gonna see your daughter get married. You're not gonna get her walk, get her, walk her down the aisle or anything if you don't make a million bucks and get your ass back home.

How are you gonna make a million bucks

Scott Nicholson Raw: Oh, I love this question. This is a great question. So, okay, here, uh, let's, let's, I can do, let's say you gave me budget for 3000 and I need for room and board and housing and food and all that different stuff, right? I'm gonna say 27 hundred's allotted for that, and I have 300 for my business right now, right?

Starting from scratch. I'm gonna,

Dino Scott Interview Raw: ' cause I've dropped you off somewhere in the United States.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Nobody, I'm gonna spend my $99 and if you send me a heartfelt email going, Hey, it's really tough, you know, this and that. I'll maybe cut you a little deal to get you six months going right? Or whatever. 'cause I got a big heart, right? But let's say I'm not that way.

So it's 99 I spent on there. I have two, I have $201 left. Next one I'm gonna do is videos critical. I'm gonna get my Zoom for [00:57:00] 12 bucks, right? I think it's 12 bucks. I think Zoom's 12 bucks. 'cause I'm

Dino Scott Interview Raw: deal for free.

Scott Nicholson Raw: uh, I do the paid one. Um,

Dino Scott Interview Raw: But you're, you're, you're on a budget. Yeah.

Scott Nicholson Raw: reason I'm doing that is I'm gonna run my consultations off of that and I use what's called Zoom clips.

Those are my one-to-ones. So I'm at, you know, I'm at a hundred, $111 now spent. The next one I'm gonna go is get Canva. That's my branding, right? So it works great with Housing Link. So I spend another $12. So I'm all in right now for, you know, $125, we'll call it, right? Somewhere in there. I still got 175 left.

I'm gonna go get some type of software, either Mortgage Coach, home Power, or whatever it may be, right? MBS Highway, I, I'm just gonna look around the video's. The key part here, the, oh, I'm sorry, one more video. Loom. I love Loom. And Loom is, for me, it's one-to-one. I'll open up the Loom right on top of a CD or an LE or right on top of an Excel or whatever.

I'll record. Hey [00:58:00] guys, it's Scott. Hey, here's our numbers and I'll just drop that in my housing link. So I got TH four software now, housing Link, Canva. Zoom to run my one tomans. My consultations agent appointments my loom for very small details. I can literally stop there, right? And invest the other 50, $80 I have leftover.

Oh no wait, I bought a software, my number software. So let's say I'm in a hundred, I, I'm all in for two 50. I got 50 bucks left over and I'm gonna invest it with Dino on my, who's my financial planner, invest 50 bucks for my girl's wedding. So there's my answer. There's my software pack. The rest is garbage.

You don't, not garbage. I don't need it. I could get to my million with that tech stack

Dino Scott Interview Raw: And now get Ul UL granular with me. How are you gonna go meet people? How are you gonna get people to trust you?

Scott Nicholson Raw: So I'm gonna go after buyer agents and I'm gonna go after listing agents. So listing agents, I'm gonna go to [00:59:00] Redfin, I'm gonna filter it. I'm gonna look days on market, I'm going to anything north of 30, 'cause 30. They're thinking I gotta have a conversation with a seller. How do I present it to 'em? Like, Hey, I, I gotta, you know, I kind of lied to you.

Your house wasn't worth a million. It's only nine 50, right? I said that to get your listing. Now they gotta get out of it 'cause their days on market. So I'm gonna go to 'em and say, Hey, I'm gonna drop a little housing link on their phone. Hey Dino, it's Scott over here. Hey, I wanna help you create affordability, affordability and visibility on your listing.

Here's an example of a listing, how we could market, you know, rate buy downs in education. I'd love to work with you. Do you have 15 minutes? So I'm gonna, I can go after Tire Orange County or the states I work in. Second thing is, is, Hey, I'm gonna go to my redder or whoever service you like to use. I'm gonna find buyer agents that are doing transactions in our market, right?

I'm gonna go, okay, I'm gonna pull my targets in there. I'm gonna make a phone call, right? With a text, right? Usually goes to voicemail with a text. [01:00:00] Hey Dino, I pulled your numbers. I love what you're doing. I wanna really help you go to another level, and I'm gonna show you my buyer process from converting all of your Zillow.

I know your Zillow Flex agent, all your Zillow Flex leads. I'm gonna show you an example of that, how we win in multiple offers and how we maintain the relationship. I'll just show 'em three. I love to sit down. Here's some examples. So there, I'm not overwhelming on email, five minutes on a voicemail. I'm dropping my resumes in my housing link with live examples and how, one, I could create a visibility and education, right?

And then also how I help them convert the lead, win the offer, and maintain the relationship for a buyership. That's how I go.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Man, you didn't even have to think about that one. You

Scott Nicholson Raw: No, that was, that was a layup. That was a layup on me right there.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: You know, every once in a while, I have to admit. I ask that question every once in a while. I have to, I have to be honest and feel like, gosh, you [01:01:00] know, I wish I could just do that one time. I wish I could just go prove it, that I still got it.

That, that I can just go out there and,

Scott Nicholson Raw: Let's go.

Dino Scott Interview Raw: without knowing anybody. And then I think it'd be super cool if you took like a group of us and said, you, you guys are all in the same city. Let's see. Let's see what you guys do. Let's see who gets there first.

Scott Nicholson Raw: Oh, I love that. Let's do that. Now I, I'm gonna drop a stat on you. Um, I still hang my license. I won't say where I'd still hang my license in four years. So think of this in this market, is, are we in a difficult market or an easy market? This is a brutal market. I think it's brutal than oh eight.

I personally feel oh eight was easy. Get inventory. You know, just find the right buyers and structure here. There's a lot of dynamics here. I have not had one PE in four years, so imagine if you were my branch manager, would you be happy with me? Not one pe not once did I go, Hey Dino, I [01:02:00] need 75 bips off this, right?

To make this thing work. Not one. Think

Dino Scott Interview Raw: Aren't you special?

Scott Nicholson Raw: No. The point though, here's the point. No, here's the point. Being in here is because how I presented to and, and I'm on Housing Link every single one, I didn't mean that to boast or brag. I mean, the point was, and anybody can do this, the value was so superior in what we were doing other than the competitors.

And I had people go, Hey, I could go to Navy Federal and get a quarter here, knock yourself out. Go get it. Well hold on. Right? Just what you were doing was another level. The whole rate shopping and the value thing just kind of goes away, right? And you're just, you know, that's the point. No matter anyone can do it.

Not Scott's so special, so to speak.

So 

Dino Scott Interview Raw: love busting your chop still. All right, listen, I gotta call it, uh, but thank you so much for joining. Appreciate it. Uh, for all you guys listening, check out Housing Link. [01:03:00] And, uh, and if you have questions, just reach out to him. As you can see, he has a lot of answers, so he'll be able to answer any question you have, I guarantee it.

And, and we're gonna have all this stuff in the show notes. You can go to our website, dino kati.com. Um, and, and thank you guys. Uh, you know, we are in, we actually just moved up a little over the top 100 unfortunately, but, but we're hovering right in there in the business category and Apple Podcast. So huge, huge win, uh, for the podcast.

Huge win for all of us in the mortgage industry. So thank you guys. Love you guys, and we'll see you next time. Thanks.