Building Bridges Through Collaboration with Melissa Langdale #878

Melissa has over 20 years of experience within the mortgage industry, and her main focus is to engage with the Lender Members and Preferred Partners of TMC. Langdale oversees TMC's daily structure and high-level management of financials, events, team processes, and strategy. Langdale has extensive industry experience focusing on business operations and development, sales, recruiting, marketing, capital markets, servicing, quality control, compliance, and risk management.

Intently focused on learning and experiencing every part of the business – Operations, Sales, Business Development, Recruiting, Marketing, Capital Markets, Servicing, Quality Control, Compliance, and Risk.
 
 Melissa is also passionate about the community that she lives in and the communities her organization serves. She serves on the Board of Directors for the largest Home Builders Association in the country, the American Mortgage Conference, and the NC Banking School.
 
In this episode:

• Getting to know Melissa Langdale
• What is The Mortgage Collaborative?
• Dodd Frank's impact on lending industry and consumers
• Dodd Frank's impact on mortgage industry and future regulations
• Artificial Intelligence in the Mortgage Industry

The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669.  For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.


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Transcript

Narrator: 0:01

Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we'll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here's your host, Craig Evans.

Craig Evans: 0:45

All right, I want to welcome everyone to the show today. We are super excited. We have Melissa Langdale with us today. She is the president and COO of the Mortgage Collaborative. Melissa has over 20 years of experience within the mortgage industry and her main focus is to engage with the lender members and preferred partners of the mortgage collaborative. Langdale oversees TMCs, daily structure and high level management of financials, events, team processes and strategy. Melissa has extensive industry experience focusing on business operations and development, sales, recruiting, marketing, capital markets, servicing quality control, compliance and risk management. Well, Melissa, that is quite a bio. And I am extremely excited to personally get to meet you, and have you on the show. So thank you so much for being here.

Melissa Langdale: 1:42

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

Craig Evans: 1:44

Absolutely. Well, so listen, David Kittle and Jim park have been longtime friends of Bruce and our show and the events that we have. So, you know, again, I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to connect with you, and introduce you to our members. So let's talk a little bit about you and how you arrived at The Mortgage Collaborative. Now, if I'm not mistaken, I've got to throw in a little dig here. I understand you graduated from Clemson?

Melissa Langdale: 2:13

Oh, Lord, where are we going with this one? I did. I mean, I am a huge Tiger fan. In fact, I bleed orange. So like, literally, if you cut me right now, it would just be all orange.

Craig Evans: 2:25

I have to admit. We're a torn household. I'm from Georgia. So we're huge Bulldog fans. And but I grew up as a basketball player. And so I was a huge UNC fan. So I'm kind of crossed between red and blue there. And but you know, I've got a lot of friends that are Clemson fans, and we have a good time ribbing each other. So as soon as I learned that about us, oh, I've got to give her a little bit of grief thing.

Melissa Langdale: 2:50

Oh, I love it. No, I'll take that grief all day long. I'll take it as long as you are okay with me.

Craig Evans: 2:58

So, listen, if I understand correctly, you got a degree in Health Administration. And it's interesting, because I've got two other degrees that are completely outside of what we do. But so how did you end up in finance?

Melissa Langdale: 3:14

So, you know, I think it's interesting, because a lot of people in the mortgage space specifically and even real estate in general, you know, they don't necessarily go to school to be in real estate or to be in finance. And it's one of those industries that just naturally attracts very entrepreneurial brains. And, you know, I got into it a little bit different. I have two parents that were in it. So I've grown up around the mortgage space, which I think is kind of rare, but I went and got my degree in Health Administration, because I didn't want to have anything to do with mortgage like it was. I had seen the crazy that my parents had, you know, had to deal with growing up. And so, you know, I was like, This is not for me, but but I am an Uber nerd, I have this weird gift for numbers. And I really wanted to do something where I felt like I could help my community and so healthcare felt like it. But I needed a year in between my undergraduate program and graduate program. And so I told my parents that I would go work for them for a year, they needed some help. And I was like, Okay, well, I'll get some good experience. And I'll go back and get my MBA and MHA. And about three months into it. One of our customers called after closing, and was crying on the phone with me and just telling me, her story. She was a first generation homeowner. And you know, this is the legacy that she was going to leave.

Craig Evans: 4:37

Right.

Melissa Langdale: 4:37

And it was just such a heartwarming moment for me in my career. I mean, I literally went to my parents that day, and I was like, This is it. I'm all in. I get it now I finally understand why you do what you do. And I want to learn as much as I possibly can about the industry. So I've been leaning in really hard since then. I've been in operations, I've been in sales at built in a branch Isn't areas and divisions, launched a company from the ground up for a community bank in North Carolina and then helped to kind of design and build out a little bit of mortgage operations for a FinTech firm in Austin, Texas, but really, I got introduced to the Mortgage Collaborative as I was building out that company for the Community Bank in North Carolina. And it really came as a recommendation for two of my mentors. You know, I had a good strong kind of sales and operations background compliance background. But I didn't at that point, feel like I had a strong enough cap markets experience. And so I can vividly remember calling two of my mentors like over and over and over again, as like, you have to, like help me understand these big broad concepts that really I need in order to like take our business and to the next level and, and I finally had to call them and I was like, look, I don't ever want you, she pick up the phone to 'oh my gosh here we go again'. I hear here she is again, asking another question. I was like, you have to give me other people that I can talk to. And the funny thing is, both of them actually said to me, you've got to reach out to the Mortgage Collaborative. There's peer groups that can help you to navigate all of these things. And so shout out to my first conference like eager beaver ready to learn from all the great minds in the industry. And it was so different from any other conference that I had ever been to, in the sense that you're most conferences, you've probably been to a million of them, too, right? You go and you're especially eager beaver just like me, you're looking at your notes. And you're all prepared to like, learn from the greats, right? And you're sitting in a room and you're kind of being presented, right information kind of download is what I consider that right. So, you know, I was ready to do all of those things. And instead, I was in the room with, and there were all kinds of executive roundtables and peer groups. And I was just blown away with the mindset table that I was with, but their willingness to help me and the areas that I really needed help in. But also they really needed, you know, somebody with kind of new fresh ideas that they could take back to their businesses too. And so, but that's who we are as an organization, right? So we kind of leverage the cumulative brainpower of the industry and help each other to grow. I think that's what makes us really, really unique. So I got very, very passionate about mortgage collaborative, and obviously stepped into this role about a year ago as their their president and COO, and super happy to be here and excited about where we're going. And the opportunity, I think, to really help our lender members start to make some some impact in their businesses like lowering the cost of origination, helping them to grow market share, even though there's all the challenges in the marketplace, he can imaginary. We still have lenders that are kind of intentionally growing right now. So those things are really fun for me.

Craig Evans: 7:59

So how long have you been with the Mortgage Collaborative? I know you've been in your position for position for a year, but...

Melissa Langdale: 8:07

I've been with them as a lender member prior since 2018.

Craig Evans: 8:12

Okay.

Melissa Langdale: 8:13

And then a partner their board for, gosh? I think I was, I joined that in 2019.

Craig Evans: 8:18

Okay. All right. So I see on LinkedIn, your tagline is that you're an executive, a leader, a mentor, and a coach. Which do you feel is more accurately you? And which one is your heart really resonate with?

Melissa Langdale: 8:37

Oh, gosh, um, I don't know, I think I can be all of those things.

Craig Evans: 8:42

Okay.

Melissa Langdale: 8:42

It's it is, you know, I think they all kind of play together is, I guess what I'm saying. You know, I see myself as very kind of service focused and very impact driven. I love to lead and grow organizations and so I don't know, that's, that's probably not the right answer to that question. But it's, it's what I have today.

Craig Evans: 9:04

And that's the thing, listen, part of what we're just trying to do is, you know, one, we want our listeners to really learn and understand about the Mortgage Collaborative, what is it? But also, you know, part of my goal is a meeting with people and sharing their stories. I love to hear about the people, right? Because at the end of the day, we can all have services, we can all have product, we can all have the widgets that we sell, but it's the people behind that, to me that really makes that difference. And I think that's one of the things why we work hard to let, especially our listeners, let them really get to know the people behind the story, right. So I thought it was interesting that you know, so much you've got the executive portion there. But the leader the mentor, the coach was, you know, the words behind that the meaning behind those words is all about helping others and I thought that was an interesting scope of what I was seeing about that. So and even as I'm listening to you talk about, you know, what the Mortgage Collaborative does? And all of those things, you know, I've done I've done a lot of research on it. But if you can tell our listeners really, you know, what's a mortgage, for the average listeners as an investor, things like that, that may not be in the lending space? What what is the Mortgage Collaborative, so they can start grabbing an understanding of that as well?

Melissa Langdale: 10:29

That's a really great question. I think there, for those that don't, you know, have a concept of like, what cooperatives are, you know, we are the largest independent mortgage cooperative in the country, our membership as a whole represents about 10% of all mortgage origination volume. So we have, you know, a sizable group of lenders, but all of them really are small to midsize independent mortgage bankers, community banks and credit unions in the space. And so they're really all there to, like we talked about earlier, kind of leverage that cumulative power of the network to help provide them discounts, that they wouldn't necessarily have an opportunity to negotiate on their own behalf. But also, you know, kind of have the peer groups have the, the executives around the country that they can call on to navigate, you know, challenges or market shifts or things like that, that are happening for them. Or even those kind of big strategic moves, as I was talking about earlier, I was really kind of ready to, to help our organization take the next step and having those people around me were really critical to that. So that's, that's kind of the ambiguous components of what Mortgage Collaboratives are, and why I think we're really different. We're very people driven, very relationship driven, you know, I feel like we, you know, our mission is to connect lenders across the country to help drive meaningful value to their businesses. And like we talked about earlier, that is, all in our advocacy programs are you know, kind of intentional focus on lowering the cost of origination and helping them to grow market share. So those are kind of the three big pillars of our, but a cooperative in and of itself is really just lenders, you know, or members coming together in a general sense of lender or members coming together to leverage kind of cumulative brainpower, but also cumulative businesses and the power that comes from that. And it makes them more competitive and in the industry, and allows them to, you know, like I said earlier, be able to better negotiate for some of those things that are impactful to their business and helps them to be more competitive in the marketplace.

Craig Evans: 12:41

So with that, for I know, we've got a certain section of our listeners that are in the lending space. You know, we've got, as The Norris Group, we've got a hard money lending space that we're in. So, for the lenders that are listening, what would you say is the biggest benefit to them about being able to work with with a group, especially not just like, the Mortgage Collaborative, but let's take working with the Mortgage Collaborative?

Melissa Langdale: 13:08

Yeah. So I can share my personal story. You know, for me, I tell everybody, like we, I still would have built the company, but I built it stronger and faster because of the connections that I made in the network. And so there are a lot of those things that naturally happen every day where our lenders are helping each other navigate those challenges. But also taking those big kind of strategic moves for the organization, whether that be kind of positioning them for Fannie Freddie, Jinnie approval, you know, maybe even looking at multichannel opportunities, through TPO, or correspondent or, you know, even expanding from like Consumer Direct to retail, there's, as people are taking those big leaps, having people around them that can help navigate those things. And the change for the organization is really impactful. So that's, you know, a lot of what our lenders get out of it is, yes, they have a ton of discounts with our amazing best in class preferred partner network. And so they can easily kind of leverage that to help see, you know, some some benefit to their organization, some true kind of ROI to who we are and what we help them with. But it really is more of the intangible benefit of having people around them that they can count on to navigate those challenges and to help them to take that next step in the organization as well.

Craig Evans: 14:31

When you're working with lenders directly. Do, you know as your group, you know, as the mortgage collaborative and the cooperative there to help the lenders? Do you see a correlation to being able to actually now say, Hey, we're moving past just helping our cooperative, but we're actually a big part of actually helping the American people in in gaining mortgages at times.

Melissa Langdale: 14:59

I think that's a it's feasible. You know, our lenders are kind of boots on the ground with consumers every day and helping them to navigate that home buying process, I think where we can, you know, kind of feel like we're impacting that is in the tools and resources that are available to them and helping them to, you know, to have kind of preferred partners that can help them to make a difference in their client experience to create kind of operational efficiencies that help impact client experience to connect with technologies that are helping them to better interact with customers throughout the process, you know, all of those sort of things that you can imagine. But then there's like, you know, we also talked a little bit about kind of our advocacy arm, you know, we also help our lenders take a stand where there are things from either a policy or regulatory perspective, that we can kind of help help our regulators and our GSEs just understand kind of the impact of some of their decisions and policies on the consumers that they're, we're all here to serve. So there's, lots of things like that, that we do for our network as well, that are, you know, not necessarily saying that we're, you know, we're impacting consumers directly, but, hopefully, through our lenders, and through some of the offerings that we have, our lenders are seeing some benefit to their consumers, and hopefully an easier consumer experience. And hopefully, for some growing some, some market share, as they have some technology tools that are helping to better interact with customers and helping them to navigate the process more transparently, as well.

Craig Evans: 16:49

And I think, you know, Melissa, as I was looking through, I think that was one of the things that I thought was extremely interesting about the whole process and the foundation of the Mortgage Collaborative. So let's go in, you know, we're looking at at markets now. And a lot of people are starting to say, 'Boy, are we going to see a swing, like, you know, that that'08 era type of stuff?' And, you know, and that started to bring about, you know, you got Dodd Frank that came out of that and different things that came out of that. What do you think were the biggest impacts that Dodd Frank had on the lending industry? And then let's take it further and say, okay, and then what did that have an effect on for the American consumer?

Melissa Langdale: 17:32

Yeah. Well, I mean, that the good part about Dodd Frank, right, is we created standard, and we had standard disclosures before. So please don't get me wrong. But the purpose of these new kinds of versions of disclosures were to put terms that were very kind of common language, they were meant to really help consumers to better understand the process. So there are some benefits to that, for sure. I think consumers are better educated now today. That not just being from a disclosure perspective, but like the evolution of the Internet over that time, too, and their ability to kind of shop for mortgages and better understand through everything from YouTube videos to you know, blogs that lenders are putting out, right? The consumer has at their fingertips, lots and lots of information helps them to navigate that process. But Dodd Frank is whole to get back to your original point. That was the first step and that in a direction where, you know, our government really said, we really think consumers deserve to have a process in place, a simpler process in place a simpler way to understand really what mortgage is, and because they don't go through it very often, especially for some homebuyers, right. So that was a good leap in the right direction. The challenge that lenders have though is that's not just the only regulation that they have to comply with, right? They have state regulations, and every state is so different in what they require too that, even though we have this big, sweeping policy change over kind of our loan estimates and CDs and all of the things that came with Dodd Frank, there really isn't standardization across kind of fee structures between all the different states. And I think you see that right now with CFPB talking about junk fees, and I don't want to put words in their mouth by any stretch of the means because that's their story to tell. But, you know the term junk fees, you know, there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace around really what that is and and for, for me personally, I think, you know, the CFPB is saying, 'Look, they're still confusing things. They're still, you know, charges that consumers don't understand. They're still'. Yes, maybe lenders are disclosing all of those things upfront, but they're not necessarily landing with consumers why all of these different charges and fees have to be in place? Well, that's not our lenders challenge, unfortunately, a lot of the reasons that they have to charge all of the things that they do or because it's actually required in that state that they have been licensed then right? So, yes, I get it, there are all these fees that are associated with a mortgage process, but there's definitely reasons behind it. And so I think there, there could be some standardization. This is so much easier said than done in my world of unicorns and rainbows, where we could just kind of wave a wand and create this lovely experience for consumers and a simpler process for lenders, right, this would, this would be so easy to navigate. It's so hard, though, you know, the difference between kind of state and federal regulations. It's just it's so hard to navigate that, but...

Craig Evans: 20:55

From the impacts of Dodd Frank, that came about, you know, do you think there are some of those that are still felt today? Are we had enough? Are there enough other policies have been put into place that, that Dodd Frank is now just kind of, uh, oh, yeah, we know what happened. But, you know, we just moved past the effects of how that's created things. And once it's created for the industry.

Melissa Langdale: 21:20

I think, you know, it's interesting, our industry, as long as I've been in it, as long as my parents were in it before, there's one thing I think we're really good at. And I think over the time that I've been in it, we're officially perfected the art of the pivot, right. So as as kind of new regulations happen, we're like, okay, skirt, we're gonna go this direction. And so I think our industry as a whole, I mean, Dodd Frank's been around for quite some time, now. I think they, they've kind of gotten used to what's required. And it you know, I think there's lots of of lenders that are starting to say, Okay, well, what's next, right, and so, there's, there's lots of conversations around kind of the impact of generative AI right now, like, what what's that next regulation gonna look like around that? How do I need to navigate that with my organization? You know, consumers are expecting kind of a faster experience. And maybe AI is the tool for that. But maybe we leverage AI for but there's, actually I'll take a step back, there's still questions around how it's being leveraged, and what lenders are really going to be held responsible for. In other words, if, for example, AI denies a borrower for something is the lender held to desperate impact, even though the you know, a machine made that kind of decision, so lenders are starting to think through all of those sort of things now. So yes, Dodd Frank was impactful, for sure. But I think lenders are moving, their brains are already moving to the next kind of thing. How do we navigate the transition between try merge credit to now by merge credit, how do we navigate the change in and is particularly the speed of evolution of artificial intelligence? You know, how does that impact my business and as well as what, how am I going to be regulated on that too. So I think those are the questions that most kind of mortgage executives are thinking through right now.

Craig Evans: 23:19

Okay that's gonna do it for this week. Hope you'll catch us next week for part two with Melissa Langdale.

Narrator: 23:23

For more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing, and upcoming events with The Norris group. Check out thenorrisgroup.com. For more information on passive investing through the DBL Capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit dblapital.com.

Joey Romero: 23:43

The Norris group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE license 01219911. Florida mortgage lender license 1577 and NMLS license 1623669. For more information on hard money lending go to thenorrisgroup.com and click the hard money tab.