In this episode of Optimal Insights, the team delivers a timely market update followed by key takeaways from the MBA Secondary Conference in New York City. The discussion opens with a review of rate volatility, inflation pressures, and the impact of geopolitical developments on oil prices, Treasury yields, and mortgage rates. The speakers examine upcoming economic data, including PCE inflation, employment reports, and Fed communications, and what these indicators may signal for market participants.

The conversation then shifts to insights from the MBA Secondary Conference, highlighting industry sentiment, operational themes, and evolving strategies. Topics include credit scoring model discussions, the growing role of non-QM production, practical applications of technology versus overuse of AI, and how lenders are adapting to a higher-for-longer rate environment. The speakers also share observations on conference dynamics, client engagement, and the overall improvement in industry confidence compared to prior years.

Key Points

• Interest rate volatility, inflation pressures, and geopolitical impacts
• Key economic indicators including PCE inflation and employment data
• Industry themes from the MBA Secondary Conference, including non-QM growth and technology adoption

Chapters

• 00:00 - Market Update and Rate Environment
• 14:41 - MBA Secondary Conference Overview
• 24:45 - Technology, Non-QM, and Industry Outlook

Optimal Insights Team

• Jim Glennon, Senior Vice President, Hedging & Trading Operations
• James Cahill, MSF/MSR Account Manager
• Alex Hebner, Hedge Account Manager
• Vimi Vasudeva, Managing Director, Hedging & Trading Operations

Production Team

Executive Producer: Sara Holtz

Producer: Matt Gilhooly

Commentary included in the podcast shall not be construed as, nor is Optimal Blue providing, any legal, trading, hedging, or financial advice.

Welcome to Optimal Insights. I'm your host, Jim Glennon, Senior Vice President of Hedging and Trading Operations at Optimal Blue. Our clients and industry partners have long relied on Optimal Blue for trusted insights and commentary. And these podcasts are an evolution of our commitment to keeping the industry informed. Let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome everybody. Welcome off of a long weekend. Hope everybody's doing well this week.

in the interest of making sure you know what to watch, whether you're an originator, a capital markets person, or just someone interested in the mortgage industry and some great market commentary, here we are. Keep listening in. We're gonna cover a few big topics today. We'll start out with the market update with Alex and James, and then we will move on to a bit of a a recap of the MBA secondary conference that took place in New York City last

First, just in the way of data, OBMMI higher than we'd like it to be still, six point five percent right now. It did reach a little bit higher than that. Obviously, rates are reacting almost in lockstep with oil prices right now. So still monitoring that situation, obviously driven by the conflict in Iran and the the kind of perpetual closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The tenure, though, has hit a record for the last f well.

It's hit the highest in 15 years, reached four around four point six last week. It's about four and a half right now. worth noting that that's a pretty, you know, long-term record that it's hit. We obviously haven't hit near records in terms of mortgage rates because of that spread between treasuries and and and mortgages has significantly shrunk over the past few years, which is very good for mortgage rates. But obviously, we don't like to see the

the treasury start to get closer to five percent. So we'll talk a little bit more about why that is here in a few So let's transition to it. Let's let's let's bring in James and Alex. Hey gentlemen, hope you had a good weekend.

Good morning.

Let's talk let's talk about what's going on ⁓ in terms of econ numbers and rates this week. see, James, you had a couple comments in here about the you know, the thirty year treasury, which also hit some records. What what's what's going on with rates right now? Why should we be potentially worried?

Mm.

Yeah, so exactly as you were kind of pointing to, last the market really started reacting. ⁓ we spoke about it last week a little bit. It's hard to put exactly a thumb on why this was, you know, the break point. Why, you know, were bond vigilantes finally acting? Was it just, hey, inflation is high enough, we are all finally switching to interest rate hikes rather than cuts. If you're pricing that in, how do you change it? But

Whatever the the true catalyst was, last week rates started pushing upwards. And ⁓ when one starts moving, they all start moving. You know, when it rains, it pours. there's no real no such real thing as a parallel shock, but they all did move directionally the same to to punish us. the ten year was up about thirty basis points for month. The third year is at the highest level.

Since the great financial crisis. And the five, as you were saying, pushing well above 4.5 into 4.6. We were really kind of edging higher, higher there. over the weekend, as there was some talk that a and the war might be coming, rates have cooled off. A little bit of a rally back on price this morning. So seeing it slide back the other way, pushing us back down, but

We struck Iran again this morning. So we'll see how long that holds for. I think everyone fingers crossed as always. But you know, obviously as these rates push higher, it's not optimal for our industry. Makes it harder to originate, makes it harder to refinance. So it's kind of moving in the wrong direction for us.

Agreed. Yeah, and really no I mean, presumably inflation is a main driver behind why rates are a bit inflated right now. There could be some other components around just debt being held by other nations. That's I think what you were alluding to potentially with the bond vigilante comment is there could be folks kind of the the sell America trade, if you will, especially with yields being where they are today. But yeah, it does feel like

Totally driven by by what's going on in Iran. You could almost tick for tick follow the price of oil and interest rates, and they seem they follow each other. When oil's up, rates are up. When oil comes down, like we're seeing a little bit of this morning, rates are down. But as you said, we also then have struck Iran again in what we're calling self defense attacks, which I'm not sure what that means yet, but I'm sure it will be explained to us over the next couple of days.

Just it seems it's a groundhog day treadmill again, right? There's talks of a resolution, there's talks of a an agreement, however many bullet points there are in the agreement, and then we come back to the two sides are very far apart still. So we kind of have no resolution in in sight for weeks, hopefully not months in the future.

Yeah, and you know, with those rates being higher, it ties in with the opposite side of the Fed's coin inflation, right? And so I think Alex, you might want to be able to tell us a little bit more about some of the measures that are coming out this week.

we will get PCE numbers this Friday, May 29th.

⁓ those numbers I would expect to be in line with the CPI and PPI releases that we've already seen this month, elevated somewhere in the three point something range now, ⁓ year over year, ⁓ which will just continue to push higher and and at a at a more drastic pace as long as these these energy pressures remain ⁓ cycling through the market end of the day, ⁓ as you said, Jim.

the tick for tick following the cost of oil, which is really tick for tick following anything coming across the the news ticker ⁓ on any trading desk. So would expect PC to be be elevated, ⁓ which will only ⁓ help to push those those Fed expectations ⁓ upwards. ⁓ right now we are looking at no cuts for the remainder of the year with ⁓ the potential for a hike towards the tail end of the year.

I'm not sure I would agree with that given the supply side dynamics of of this inflationary drive, but ⁓ remains to be seen how how embedded this this round of inflation will become. short-term supply shocks can can manifest out into to changes in demand in the in the longer term, which we could, I would say, start to consider the the latter half of the year since this conflict began in in March.

Agreed. And then obviously by extension we will we will see rates move in kind, right? But it d it does seem like we're gonna continue to see elevated numbers in anything that related to related to inflation, whether it includes fuel or not. At this point it does feel like the the shock to fuel prices is now driving the price of goods that need to get from point A to point B. And obviously it takes fuel to do that.

Right.

Exactly. Yeah. Point A to point B on on transportation. It's as as we've covered kinda on this podcast many times. ⁓ it's also a major input for ⁓ agriculture and and fertilizers, it'll hit the US last. It'll kinda move in a if you're looking at a world map, kinda move from the southeast corner of a map, you know, Australia, Southeast Asia, and then move north into the west, affecting followed by the US a little bit later this year. But

Yeah, no, no, those those pain points will begin to hit the the core items, that that that breadbasket, the literal breadbasket of of goods when it comes to an inflation reading. ⁓ yeah, PC is expected at three point eight percent. I I would I would tend to agree with that somewhere. Three we we've risen about one percent since since those February readings prior to the conflict. ⁓ we're now seeing something in the high threes for for our inflation readings.

Right. So I guess then moving on to next week. So not a huge calendar this week. Watch the PC number. That's probably the big one. But also the headlines are gonna dominate everything.

No matter what, as it relates to Iran mostly, but also earnings. There's been some, you know, some market movement around earnings over the past few weeks as well, which tends, you know, with the the the AI trade and then I guess mainly the AI trade and big tech and and cloud computing and that sort of thing. I think is may also continue to give insight into how healthy businesses are.

yeah, corporate corporate earnings across the board really, aside from a a few sectors that are kind of lagging, have remained largely strong even outside the the technology space, which I is just another notch against any any potential rate cuts later in the year. It does show that the the business environment is is relatively healthy. ⁓ you know, that could be detached from the labor picture. ⁓ but corporate earnings have been pretty strong here for for Q one, Q two so far.

Right. So moving on to next week. I mean the big one, we we all know first Friday of the month we will get the unemployment report and it's expected to be once again fine, right? Somewhat positive.

Yep. Yep. ⁓ somewhere in the range of right around a hundred thousand, hundred and twenty five thousand, which is ⁓ pretty healthy, all things considered. ⁓ and in the the current space it's it's being seen by by Wall Street and you know, equity markets, bond markets as as a healthy reading given the current state of of ⁓ immigration in the country. So ⁓ you know, there doesn't need to be a a mass ⁓ of new jobs every month to to cover

Mm-hmm.

those entering or exiting the labor force.

Right. All right. So probably a ho hum number there, but nonetheless it's sort of the maybe the final say on is the business sector really healthy? Or are we just seeing that in in earnings numbers and that might where or is it some of it being driven by AI and this sort of thing, right? But if everybody's got jobs and we're under four and a half percent or right around there in terms of unemployment rate, we should be should be healthy going into the second half of the year.

Mm-hmm.

Then Fed's beige book comes out Wednesday. That's typically not a big market mover, although maybe a little bit more focus on the Fed now that there's a new chair for this next meeting that comes up in June. But otherwise beige book tends to just be sort of a a a book of of the indicators that are followed by the Fed, for lack of a better description.

Yep.

What else, gentlemen? I guess again, it's gonna be watching for any sort of changes in the trajectory of the war in Iran, which is a an easy thing for me to say. More difficult thing for people to follow, because there's obviously going to be probably continued starts and stops where we say we're gonna you know, we're we're reaching some sort of agreement, and then we come back and and realize that again the two sides are very far away. It it does feel like

The administration is maybe increasingly looking for an off-ramp in this situation because it does feel like we're in a a stalemate. You know, I've heard some people say we could declare victory at this point and leave. Although what is that what kind of vacuum does that leave in terms of the damage that's been done, but also the damage left behind by what's been done so far in this war, not just physically but diplomatically, with some of the neighbors.

on that side of the world. But anyway, I'm digressing into more geopolitics than than economics. If there is some sort of resolution, even if it is the straight reopening because we've the US has withdrawn or that we reach some sort of interim agreement, as we've said before, and and James you've pointed out, it still t it takes months to get back to any sort of semblance of normalcy. We could easily be well into the second half of the year before we see oil prices drop, before we have actual efficient

trade moving through the strait. There's obviously again a lot of physical damage that's been done to refineries, to ports, to all this sort of stuff ⁓ in that part of the world. So likely a saga that will play out probably into next year, no matter when the resolution happens, if it happens, you know, soon.

Yeah, and I mean this conflict has already extended through effectively a full quarter, right? It it started the last day of February. It's June. By the time we resolve this, unless like in the next twenty-four hours something comes up, we'll probably be this weekend later. So it'll be June, mid-June. So that actually like that pushes us into the summer. There's more ⁓ electricity costs later in the summer or deep in the winter. So, you know.

Mm-hmm.

Things might get a little bit more expensive still, just fuel in that way. And then even if we have it resolved tomorrow, it's gonna take just four to six weeks just to get everything back online, get everything on the boats, get everything shipping out. There's a lot of boats that have been rerouted to come to the United States rather than to

Middle East to try and pick up our oil, but it still needs to be refined somewhere. So it's all just a little slower. Like we're deep enough in the process where even if everything was resolved tomorrow, we can't just go back to normal. We have to keep trudging through the current setup and next quarter look to okay, now we can get a little bit more new normal.

Mm-hmm.

Agreed. We'll see the the lags in the inflation data for at least until the end of the year, if not probably into twenty twenty seven.

Right. Hence the outlook of from the Fed, which is almost certainly no cuts and possibly a hike by the end of the year, which is ⁓ you know, a stark difference from what we would have expected in in the first quarter of this year, looking looking ahead.

Exactly.

But again, all all driven by those just inflation issues. And next year, or this year, is is an election year. So that's we have we all have that to look forward to as well. That's starting to ramp up. And obviously this the war and the inflation surrounding it is a big topic in that discussion.

All right, gentlemen, anything else?

I think that just about covers us.

All right, everybody have a wonderful week and we will see you again soon. Thanks, fellas.

Thanks, Jim. See you guys.

We are back from New York city. Although a few people got stuck there for a little bit. think 98 % of people have made it home from the MBA national secondary conference. go every year. We bring a ton of people from optimal blue. We meet with a ton of clients. It's just a, it really is a wonderful event, but it can be a lot. think we're all recovering a little bit here, but we wanted to share some impressions, some themes, some things that we learned.

so I have Vimi and Alex here with us. Welcome Vimi and Alex.

Hey Jim.

Thanks, Joan.

Alex actually lives in New York city. he was, he was without travel issues, but Vimi also made it home on the train and I, I flew back as well. And it was the last MBA secondary in New York city for a while, at least that's the rumor. I haven't seen the official post on the MBA website, but I think it's pretty accepted at this point that we're moving it to Chicago for at least the next couple of years. So didn't feel any different for that reason, but.

It was interesting that lots of people were talking about that, looking forward to it moving. But anyway, we wanted to share some themes with you and just our impressions and how we felt and what some of our highlights were. So I'll get right into it. I mean, there were some obvious themes that we'll cover in a little more detail here in a minute. But of the themes kind of, and one of the topics making its way through our industry right now is the credit scoring models.

I think you two heard it as well. had some discussions with clients and there was a, there was a panel as well, like actually inside the conference at the MBA between the FICO folks and the vantage score folks, which I heard got pretty heated, which is interesting. think, you know, in general, people have done some pretty good work making an otherwise fairly dry topic, you know, credit pretty interesting. And it sounds like it was got really interesting within the conference. I'm sorry we didn't get to see that.

But again, the, the, think the panels are amazing. MBA puts on a wonderful conference and it sounds like this was no, ⁓ no different, just, just a great, great show put on by the MBA. I've got a few others on my list here, but I want to get to you, Alex and Vimi. Maybe I'll start with Alex. This is Alex's first MBA secondary. He's been to a lot of conferences with us, some of our own and some.

industry events, but this is Alex's first MBA secondary, which tends to be our biggest conference of the year in terms of third party venues. What did you think Alex? What were your impressions of the conference? What made it maybe different than some of the like capital markets forums that you've been to that we put on in the summit? What was the, I don't know, what was the vibe and what did you notice and what was interesting about the, the New York city secondary conference?

It was great. It was great. As you said, I've attended a number of optimal blues hosted events. I also attended MBA national when it was right there, a block or two from the Denver office. seem to maybe I'm going to move to Chicago next. You know, I think like I'm just following MBA hosting locations at this point now that I'm based in New York. but no, it was really good as with, as with any of these conferences, I always find a fair part is just, you know, putting faces to names you know, for the people you talk to, you spend a lot of time with, you know,

you know, spend more time with some folks than, you know, than your family. It's just nice to, you know, be able to shake their hand and, you know, you know, just have those little personal conversations. And then just with how concentrated, you know, it is right there in Times Square. It's, you know, you'll go out for a coffee and bump into two or three people down the street as they're hustling and bustling from meetings. So for me, as I think it is for all of us, I think it's about the people those conversations you can't have any other time of the year.

Sure.

Yeah, it's hard to overrate that experience and that opportunity to just meet so many clients and so many industry people in one place at one time. That's certainly the way we look at it and how we like to take advantage of the event. Cause there's so many people just concentrated in that one Uber concentrated part of the universe really concentrated part of the United States of the world. Yeah, I agree. It's you can't go anywhere without bumping into somebody, you know, if you're within a.

you know, five block radius of, of time square.

How about you, Vimi, just overall impressions of the, of the event.

That's why I'm curious how it's...

Yeah, it was fantastic as always, but speaking to the point of the location, I'm really curious about how it's going to be when we do move to a different city, because to your point, Times Square is so concentrated and it is so easy for our clients to go from vendor to vendor to vendor. Since vendors typically host meeting spaces at this conference and the clients unfortunately are the ones who have to run around. I personally am grateful for this. I don't have to run around New York in heels. You guys didn't have to run around in 90 degree humidity in your three piece suits.

But I feel like it's gonna really create some logistical challenges maybe when we're in a different city that might not have as much concentration in one neighborhood that can accommodate such a large event. So for me, it actually did feel like a little bit of the end of an era.

good news for us specifically at Optimal Blue is that Chicago has a Carmine's restaurant. And since we have been hosting our meetings at Carmine's for the last five years, I look forward to trying the Chicago version of cannoli.

You

to not pick up on that. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Carmine's is a bit of a small chain, but one of the best, I mean, one of the best Italian restaurants I've ever been to. If you all haven't been to Carmine's and you find yourself in, in Times Square or Chicago, I think there, maybe there's one in Vegas, Atlantic city. Anyway, really good food. think it's a lot of the restaurants right in the middle of Times Square.

we really enjoyed, enjoyed being there. That's funny that we might actually reprise that, that venue in Chicago.

Yeah, that's the hope. know so many of our clients look forward to taking advantage of the breakfast or lunch hours for our meetings if they can accommodate it because as you said, Jim, great food. And it just, it just provides for, it's that whole sharing a meal concept, right? Not just chatting at a table very formally, but sharing a meal together, breaking bread. There's something really, a nice community feel to that.

Absolutely. mean, yeah, in terms of feel, I thought the mood was the best I had seen since 2022. I thought that was worth noting as well. know, 2023 was rough. 2024 was rough. Rates had spiked. Volume had dried up from, you know, our industry went from like four and a half trillion to two trillion seemingly overnight, at least between the 22 conference and 23 conference.

And progressively since then, any conference you go to, it feels like things are getting better and better. And this year, it very much seemed like we weren't, we weren't in the dumps anymore, I guess, about worrying about volume. The market has, or that the industry has resized itself. Expectations have been, I think, permanently changed. I think even the borrowers of the world are no longer sitting on their hands waiting for rates to drop. So people are.

are moving for various reasons, usually life changes or needs or whatever. And we're not, we weren't having the same interest rate conversations as we were having over the last few years. We finally, to me, stopped the head banging against the wall of hoping for lower rates, know, hoping as a strategy, which everybody knows that's the old adage, right? Hope is not a strategy. We're kind of over that. We're just accepting where things are today. And if rates drop, great.

If they don't, then we have a plan. We have things like non QM. We have other creative ways to, to bring affordability to home buyers. You know, we have arms, we have, we still have rates in a, in a range where there's areas of the country that are still somewhat affordable. Although that is still a problem, was discussed quite a bit at the event, but anyway, we're not in the, the sort of aimless mode anymore of just hoping rates will go back down to 3 % and that'll save the.

save the industry, we've accepted the new normal.

Yeah, I agree with that, Jim. I think that speaks to some of the broader themes as well, the consistent conversations we had, the non QM, of course, and we do, we do reference that on the podcast, a fair amount, but that was a part of almost every conversation. As you said, if rates are not going are likely not to decrease anytime soon, then where do, where do originators get production? And right now it seems as though non QM represents about 15 % of overall production.

So that was a percentage that was generally quoted throughout the conference. And then if we look at our own data at Optimal Blue, because we're in such a unique position to do so, given how much locked data we see, I think that from the wholesale side, we're seeing about 19 % in terms of searches for non-QM. And then within the PPE, we're seeing generally about 10 % on the retail side. So a lot of considerations there, right? It's a great opportunity for originators, great opportunity for borrowers to have a

product targeted to specific borrowers that would not otherwise qualify. And it's just an interesting thing from our perspective to think about how do we help clients with this? And the obvious one would be is how do we advise on pricing? How do you include a value on a product that

there doesn't seem to be a standard out there. It's not as easy to see as a conventional product, what the pricing would be. So we were talking about different pricing strategies. And of course, that leads to different hedging strategies. How do you model durations? And it was exciting to have conversations where it wasn't just a how do you do this, but we were in a position to say, here is how you do this. And that was really exciting for me.

Yeah, it's interesting to see how some of these concepts evolve over the years, like non QM and AI. feel like the two big ones over the last few years where it starts as a, just a, I'm interested kind of conversation. And I'm, you know, and we give good guidance, as you said, on kind of where to look and where to, how to start thinking about these things. But then you get into the mode of how to actually implement it and how it get in color from folks who are actually maybe further along than other clients.

where they've priced it, they've hedged it and they've sold it into either the secondary market or even, you know, through primary or broker dealers. And to me, AI almost jumped the shark at this conference was something that I noticed. It was almost like we're over prescribing or there was almost, you know, some of the people I talked to expected

AI to be absolutely in everything, every feature, every tool, absolutely everywhere. And I thought that was.

just interesting, but almost a little bit where's that coming from and what's the plan and who's, who's driving that narrative? If not all of us, right at Optimal Blue, we have a ton of very practical tools. Some of them very innovative, most of them very innovative, around the topics or the, the, needs or the

processes that you perform every day, just making them smarter, making them more efficient, making them more automated. We've been very deliberate, very particular about where we implement AI, but there was somehow this expectation that if it doesn't have AI, it's garbage. And I just thought that was almost maybe not dangerous unless you're really going to make big decisions based on that. But I thought it was kind of, I feel like there should be more thought put to it rather than I feel like a lot of people were blindly walking around.

wondering why AI wasn't in their toothbrush, you know? Anyway, it just feels like it's almost getting over prescribed at this point. And I thought that maybe it's reaching the end of its arc where we start to weed out some of the less practical applications for AI and move back towards things that are actually working. I don't know, did you all get any feel for that?

you

Right, I have-

I had the exact same perspective that you did. And I agree with you, Jim. I feel like we can, the conversation should shift back from all things AI to all things technology. Cause I completely understand the desire and the need for evolving technology, but it doesn't all have to be AI. AI has its use cases. And as you said at Optimal Blue, we're being very deliberate about where we're implementing AI.

but there is still room for technology improvements. And an example of that, and this actually speaks to another topic that came up during a lot of our meetings was how Fannie Mae in particular has recently released their loan level API for pricing. And we at Optimal Blue were the first to integrate to that. it's been great to see the pricing pickup given the dynamics that are involved in loan level pricing. And so the use of this API.

But again, I want to highlight here that this is advanced technology. It's an API, but it's not AI and it still has such a profound effect on the industry. So I really think that the conversation just needs to continue to shift to technology improvements and AI where it's specific and where it's deliberate.

completely agree. Yeah, it's like there's areas where machine learning makes sense, which is not exactly what people think of with generative AI. Then generative AI makes sense in some places. In some places, it's just an algorithm that makes sense. Places like our solver, right? We had some discussions about our pool solver, which I don't think it's just my opinion. It's the most advanced algorithm in the industry that helps you maximize and optimize how you build.

Loan pools either for cash delivery or MBS delivery or both. And it's all based on simulation, but that doesn't necessarily need AI. In fact, AI may make bad decisions in a situation like that because it's something that needs to be very well driven by, by math rather than thinking of a human, right? But there also needs to be human involved to make some of the art decisions that go along with things like trading and building pools and, managing a client. So.

Just had some good conversations there. feel like we educated some folks and we got educated by others.

Yeah, I actually kind of have a funny tagline I want to share on this podcast, but as we were discussing AI and just the potential need for a human in certain instances of AI usage as well is that we all know, I mean, AI can hallucinate, right? So there are hallucinations. And so I kind of joked like, yeah, we have to figure out how to hedge the hallucinations. I feel like that's got to, that's got to be the tagline that we use going forward.

Yes.

you

It's true for now. mean, you know, any one who fully understands AI will tell you that it is still in its literally almost in its infancy or it's five, six year old human that's going to say that it knows something when it doesn't, or it's going to say I didn't do that or I, know, or I, I thought I counted six, but I counted seven. So the other does still need to be human involved probably for the foreseeable future, but to a lesser and lesser extent, it's really just to check the math where we,

you know, when you have a major point of decision or where you have final sign off, but otherwise right now I see the industry just doing a ton of automation. And some of that is driven by AI and some of that's machine learning and some of it is, is algorithmic, but it's, it was exciting to hear people actually using things now and sharing with others and collaborating on how they're using it versus just this pie in the sky. Like, wouldn't it be cool if the thing could do this, right? It's, people actually using it in reality.

Other than AI and automation, what, I'll put you on the spot a little bit, Alex, what was your, what was the highlight? What was your, had, ⁓ Don Brown was one of my, a great mentor of mine early on in my career. And we would come back from conferences and he would say to all of us who were, I don't know, at the airport together, like, what was the highlight? Just, just what's first thing that comes to your mind when I say that.

I think for me, it was, it's a little bit, I want to tag in at end of the last conversation. think, uh, it was a focus on the basics and the focus on, on business during this conference. kind of my input was going to be on that AI conversation was, uh, lot of the conversations I had, they, you know, they weren't saying you need to use AI. You know, they were, they were just, you know, what tools are available in whatever form.

to answer our business needs, to help us perform better. so for me, with you. With the amount AI, often you hear that in the news cycle, I would have expected it to be a little bit more at the forefront at this conference, but I do think we're on year two or three where that's been the case, right? And this conversation has been ongoing for 36 months now. for me, was the focus on business just being in the same room with

you know, so many smart and driven people who all care about, ⁓ you know, the same business and the same industry. know, with common goals and often, you know, shared.

tool sets to achieve those goals.

Good call. That's almost a counterpoint to what I was saying earlier about over prescription. think you, you know, I certainly had some meetings that are similar to what you just said to where folks are really thinking about it practically and thinking about, how can I use these tools better? What I want to make sure I have, I'm using the tools that you're offering. If there are other tools out there in the industry that you recommend, I'd like to know about those. Just really try to get their ducks in a row. Cause there's so many offerings out there now. You can't, you almost can't implement all of them.

Mm-hmm.

Certainly not all at once, so it was cool to hear people actually thinking about how that would fit into their business. How about you, Vimi? Highlights of the conference, or at least a highlight.

So

yeah, outside of the knowledge that we've been sharing, because of course, that is always one of the highlights, is just learning from clients, peers. ⁓ That's always just so interesting to come back and take to the team here at Optimal Blue. But of course, from a more personal standpoint, I think just connecting with the clients at not just in meetings, but at the events, like our happy hour, for example. I know a lot of our clients were completely mind blown by the mentalists that we had at our party.

there and I, I, I witnessed it. I was a little skeptical to participate in it directly, but it was really, I just do not understand how he was able to figure out, how he was able to tap one person on the shoulder while there were two participants and they both closed their eyes. And the other person said, I felt that. said, did you just tap me? And there were witnesses there that said, no, he didn't tap you. He tapped the other person next to you. And so.

I just, don't know how one gets to do that, but it's super cool.

That I'm really sorry. I missed that because I did see the guy walking around and I heard people talking about it and their eyes were all wide because they were kind of blown away by that dude. We always have something fun like that at our, at our parties. I guess that's, that would be my highlight is I'll go, I'll go on the social side of it. Meetings were great. ⁓ you know, the, the buzz around the conference, the mood was great, but the, a couple of events, I'll just call it Monday evening. We had our event at car mines. We had the mentalist just.

hundreds of people came through on a night where there's like 30 different happy hours. thought it was really fun to see everybody in a little more of a casual environment. Again, the buzz was great. People just had great things to say about the conference, great things to say about our team, which always makes me super proud and almost choked up a little bit. And then the mentalists, which I missed, which people are jazzed about. And then after that, I had to run to a dinner that we held for a group of clients as well.

which we do just kind of here and there in the city, but this was kind of a dinner with about 17 clients. And again, just, it was a continuation of that party. felt like just good conversation. They were good collaboration between competitors, which we always, I've always felt was a very sort of unique thing maybe about our industry where competitors can get together where they might compete during the day. They can actually get together at an event and talk about best practices and share some of the things that they're doing that are.

helping them be successful. And it was just a lot of fun. We were at Fushimi. Shout out to Fushimi. It was super nice restaurant. They were right off, right near all the, you know, the Broadway theaters.

it was just a fun event this year, but it is, it is a social gauntlet. I will say while these are highlights, it's also, I'm mentally drained, emotionally drained from it. Cause I, I'm a bit of an introvert. I think, I don't know if half the world is maybe

Maybe a little bit more, but those kinds of things will take it out of you, but it's worth it.

That's funny you say that Jim, because

an extrovert and I really enjoy social interactions, but even I came back extremely wiped and I thought to myself on the train ride back, if I'm tired, how are the introverts handling this? But as you said, it is absolutely worth it and nothing a little R &R on a long weekend can't cure.

You

Yeah

Yes, agreed.

Yep. The upcoming

Memorial Day weekend. I personally slept for 12 hours last night, eight to eight. So I'm right there in the middle. I sometimes talk to introverts and they say I'm extroverted and I'll talk to an extrovert. I'll say I'm introverted, but like you said, Vimi, it's the drain on the social battery regardless, but it's worth it all the way around.

Yeah, can't wait for the next one.

Very good.

Here we go. So last thing I'll ask is just anything that surprised you.

So I'll start with, let's just stay on Alex. Anything that surprised you, this is your first one, so there may have been a few surprises for you, but anything that stuck out as a, like I didn't know that, or that kinda wasn't what I expected it to be.

think there are any major surprises on the ⁓ work front or any topics that came up. think a lot of the conversations we were having were continuations of one that had been broached in one manner or another. very shocking ⁓ personally. No, I don't want to shoot the question down, but I don't feel like I was blindsided at any point either.

No, that's great. That means we did our job. We prepared you well for the conference and the, know, as always our event people, by the way, shout out to Caryn and the rest of the marketing team. They knocked it out of the park, setting up our, venue at car mines, not just for the party, but mostly, you know, for the, meetings during the day that just kind of went off without a hitch as always. So we were able to get, know, each of us six to 10 meetings a day, which is just kind of insane. And thank you to all the clients who came out to.

to visit us there as well. How about Vimi? Vimi, any surprises? You've been to a bunch of these like I have. Something surprise you this time?

The only thing I would say surprised me, and honestly it shouldn't even be a surprise, but it's just how small the industry actually is. Every year when I see certain people connecting when they pass each other in the hall at our meeting space or at our party, and I think to myself,

how do they know each other? And I can't quite make the connection and then someone will tell a story of like back in the day or we worked here or there. And so even if you're in a different part of the mortgage industry, at some point, worlds collided. And I would just, and I see that every year, but it still surprises me. And it's always a pleasant surprise to be reminded of that.

That's a great example. it is a small industry, literally and figuratively. And it's an industry none of us can get out of. think that's part of it too, is you're here for life pretty much. You get into it in your, you know, maybe early twenties. Some people even in their teens that we, you know, working in a, in post-closing or something with, with a relative or with a friend. And then next thing you know, you're, you know, 20 years later, you see that person that you worked with in the copier room back when we had copier machines and the

Yeah, and you recognize each other and you share a drink and it's fun. Yeah, I mean, for me, I guess I'll go just off the rails. ⁓ I just found out that Lost Boys is now a Broadway show.

okay.

I,

that blew my mind. ⁓ Alex on our marketing team told me he was going to see Lost Boys and it took me a minute to register it because know, Broadway shows have names like any other, but it's a very kind of generic name. But I said, it the Lost Boys that was like the vampire movie from the 80s with the Corey's in it and Jason Patrick? And he said, absolutely. And I thought that was, I thought that was special. And I looked it up and it gets great ratings and it's brand new. So I guess I need to go back to New York this summer and check that out.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's incredible, the vast array of shows that Broadway produces.

It is, and they've apparently evolved to the point where now they have special effects. There's of course, you know, not just stage celebrities, but a lot of them have movie stars in them. It's just, it's just a huge draw. I think half the people who go to this conference, they'll go in a little bit earlier, stay a little bit late with, with family or friends and go see shows on Broadway. So anyway, shout out to Broadway. Not that I need to point it out to anybody, but pretty, pretty amazing place to see a performance.

Okay. I think that wraps it up pretty well. We could have got another hour probably on anecdotes and fun stuff from the conference, but we just wanted to give people a taste of it. And again, thank you for everybody we met with that everyone who came to our party and everyone who made this conference a success from the MBA to all of our people at Optimal Blue and the team who held down the fort while we were all gallivanting around, you know, around the Times Square. Okay. Thanks Alex. Thanks Vimi. Talk again soon.

Thanks, Joe.

Talk soon.

And that's it for today. Join us next week for another episode of Optimal Insights, where we'll continue to provide you with the latest market analysis and insights to help you stay ahead. Check out our full videos on YouTube. You can also find each episode on all major podcast platforms. Thanks again for tuning into Optimal Insights.