The Ground Game
The Ground Game is a mortgage industry podcast for loan originators, operators, leaders, and business owners focused on practical strategies for building stronger, more sustainable businesses. Through candid conversations and real-world experience, the show tackles the challenges shaping housing, lending, leadership, and the future of the mortgage industry.
Episodes
11 episodes
Buying Still Makes Sense
7% mortgage rates are back, and buyers are stuck between two loud narratives: “prices are about to drop” and “you’ll miss out if you wait.” We cut through the noise with a framework we actually use in the real world, starting with the part no c...
Scaling a Business: Part 2
Loan volume is easy to celebrate. Profit is harder to protect. We get into the uncomfortable truth that scaling a mortgage business can actually cost you money if your margins, product mix, and staffing model do not evolve with the growth. Alon...
Scaling a Business: Part 1
Going from a handful of people in a basement to a mortgage business trending toward $1.6B in annual volume sounds like a straight line up. It isn’t. Brian Lovell and Mark Mylam share what scaling really feels like when you’re building in real t...
When Affordability Breaks What Still Moves
Mortgage rates didn’t just drift higher, they snapped back with force, and a lot of buyers and originators felt it overnight. We unpack the late-summer bond sell-off, why mortgage pricing is worse than it was just weeks ago, and how the 10-year...
Run It Like A Business
If you’ve ever wondered how a top producer can run a mortgage company and still close a massive book of business, we get into the real mechanics behind it, not the hype. We talk candidly about what it takes to keep a “tip of the spear” mindset ...
Housing’s New Normal: Part 2
The market doesn’t care how good you were in 2020 and 2021. When rates rise and volume tightens, your habits get exposed fast, and we’ve seen it create three camps: people who flee, people who freeze, and people who fight. We want you in the th...
Housing’s New Normal: Part 1
Pending home sales just printed one of the weakest June readings on record, and that’s not just a scary headline, it’s a 30 to 60 day signal for where closings may be headed next. We talk through why housing has felt stuck for the last four yea...
Just Keep Going
A self-driving Waymo gets stuck at a simple turn, and it turns into the cleanest metaphor we’ve heard for the mortgage business: everyone waiting, nobody wanting to be first, and time leaking out of the deal. We use that moment to talk about wh...
Run Your Mortgage Business On Data
Your pipeline can feel “off” even when you are doing more business than ever, and that gap between feelings and facts is where a lot of mortgage professionals get stuck. We start with the reality of the market: producers live on momentum, and w...
Why Affordable Housing Programs Miss the Mark
Affordable housing programs are designed to help more people buy homes—but are they using the wrong standard? In this episode, Bryan Lovell and Mark Milam examine why income-based limits like Area Median Income may exclude borrowers who still c...
The Honest Mortgage Affordability Talk
Bryan Lovell and Mark Milam kick off The Ground Game by naming what mortgage professionals all hear in private: affordability feels broken, buyers are anxious, and the old “always a good time to buy” line is wearing thin. We talk like operators...