Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Getting to Know David Temko | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 34

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

In this engaging episode of Coffeez for Closers, host Joe Shalaby sits down with David Temko from C2 Financial, one of the nation’s leading mortgage brokerages. Not only does David share his expertise in the mortgage industry, but he also opens up about his personal journey, offering a rare glimpse into the man behind the success.Join us as David discusses his path to becoming a top mortgage expert, his approach to building lasting client relationships, and his thoughts on the future of mortgage lending. But it’s not all business—David also shares personal stories and insights, giving viewers a chance to connect with him on a more personal level.For More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGwCoffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezpod/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalabyE Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of coffees for closers. Today I'm sitting with the president and CEO of C2 Financial, a legendary mortgage broker founded here in the state of California. This company has been around for decades and has reigned as the number one mortgage company for years and years. David Temko is heir to the throne of C2 taking over his father's legacy, and he continues to grow in every state, has a national presence, continues to dominate despite market adversity. Please welcome Mr. David Tamco.

Thank you, Joe. All right. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. So a lot of people are always like, Joe, why are you always interviewing your competitors? Like, dude, we're so beyond that. We're bros. Absolutely.

I was thinking about that. I was like, well, I'm sure the Bloods and the Crips have wrapped on the same album before, you know? They sure have. No, but it's cool, man. It's like, there's only, there's only, what, seven, eight of us at our level. And it's always an honor. And every one of them has been in that seat, sat there right, you know, with me. And it's kind of like, you know, we talk about bigger things, you know.

Like we're like a fluid relationship. And we grow together. We get better together. And it's an honor to always have, you know, you guys are friends, not competitors to me. So, you know, I love working with you. I love what C2 has done and continues to do in the mortgage community, empowering mortgage brokers just to get better to grow and, you know, help them thrive in a down market. And you're always pushing these guys. So thank you and kudos to you for everything that you do for brokers.

And, you know, we lost Ron last year. And it hurt all of us, right? All of us. And I know, you gave an awesome goodbye speech after his departure when you had your, and I came out to that event. and that was a great event. And God bless you for carrying his legacy, his torch. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah. So I like to start. Big shoes to fill for sure. I know. It is big shoes to fill. Especially because he was just kind of like the godfather of the space, right? It's, you know, he was the first mega broker. Mm-hmm.

And, you know, and he reigned as number one for so long. Yeah, they were, I mean, back then it was the only game in town. You worked at a bank or you worked at their company. And then a lot of the companies that have, the brokerages, that are successful today, you know, have stemmed from working there and start in their own deal. You mentioned you worked for Windsor back in the day. Yeah. That was him and Fred's shop, and we took it from there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Windsor Capital was the first, this was pre-crash. Yep. 2000, 2007, 2008. Yeah. So one of the first branches I ran was, you know, Windsor.

So that's cool. So thanks for, you know, keeping me afloat. I actually made a lot of money. Good. Good. So I like to start every podcast with the same question I ask everybody, and that's your morning routine. What is your morning routine, Dave?

I wake up around 5.30 in the morning, and I generally have my bag packed the night before. So I put all my gym clothes and jam out. I work out at 6 a.m. from 6 to 7. Then I, that or I'll jump in the surf if there's waves. I live right by the beach, but generally I'm at the gym, or I'm doing something active around 6 a.m. and then I head into the office.

I'm the office around between 8 and 9 and take on the day. Love it, love it. So same morning routine, workout. I have a similar morning routine at the gym super early as well. Yeah, how the wave's been? A little small, but I'm sure, you know, pray for surf, so we'll get some swell. I'm sure sooner than later, and I'll be ready for it. When was last time there was some swell?

Probably a couple weeks ago. I got out, even though it wasn't very good, I got out Saturday and Sunday. You know, got a little surfing before Mother's Day. before I spent some time with the fam, so that was good. But yeah, usually we're getting into some South swells because it's going into the summertime. So there's some south-facing beaches in Southern California. Nice, nice.

So what year did you start in the mortgage industry? I grew up in the business, you know, being the fact that my pops got in the business around in the early 90s. So it's kind of always around the dinner table. And then I, you know, started cleaning his office with my girlfriend in high school at the time and then kind of learning the language. And then I came home from college and I worked under top originators that we had at our company, just learning kind of how they went through their day, how they ran their business,

and just kind of got a lay of the land. But I remember after the crash, I was with my Pops and all his best buddies that were kind of my board of directors. I considered them. And I remember my Pops was kind of like pulling the throughout like with a market cycle. And I remember his close friend that owned a ton of commercial real estate was kind of steady eddy. And I was like, I want to get into that line of business. And so I took off and did my own thing in commercial real estate sales and commercial banking commercial brokerage for about 10 years or so and then i came back to the company and started our commercial division what year did you start the commercial division uh that's been going for about six years now how's the c2 commercial set great we had our

biggest month uh since inception last month so a lot of commercial loans happening regardless of market conditions yeah and you're not doing uh like office buildings mostly all multifamily no all of it so office industrial, mixed use, retail, mobile home parks, all that kind of different, all those different product types for investors, as well as a lot of owner-user stuff. So you're not focusing on the commercial site anymore. You've got someone to kind of fill those shoes here. Yeah, I mentored a gentleman, Brandon Landau, awesome person, extremely resourceful, and just, you know, I figured if there's one way to teach someone or mentor someone, it's just through osmosis. So I actually got, came back from L.A. to San Diego and I was like,

If you're going to learn from me, you're just going to hear what I'm doing and what I'm up to every day and the ins and outs of every deal. And that's kind of how he learned from me over the course of two years. And then when my pops passed, it was, you know, perfect timing for him to take over that division and for me to lead the company. That's awesome. So how many commercial loan officers you guys got now? It's a pretty niche, specialized, you know, understanding or kind of product market knowledge. So there's about five loan officers in that space. but it's mainly Brandon kind of running the show,

and we're trying to figure out how to scale that. It's a little bit different than the forward side, but we did it on the reverse side, so it's kind of following suit. Those divisions have a tendency to be seeds that we water, and then they grow, and just takes time for it to be, you know, I heard you guys are growing significantly in the reverse space. I think you guys are like the number one broker in reverse right now.

We are. We are the number one mortgage broker in the reverse space across the nation. We have more certified reverse mortgage professionals of any organization, in the nation, which is like the highest designation you can get in the reverse space. And just honestly, we're been attracting just phenomenal talent that are really, really good, really great people. And for as long as we've been in the business, we've had loan officers that have, you know,

now have a client base that, you know, might be, or they certainly have family that is in, you know, it's a time that they want to take advantage of the equity in their home, stay in home, retiring home, and reverse mortgage is a perfect. retirement mortgage solution for that. Certified mortgage plan. What's it take to become a certified mortgage planner? A certified reverse mortgage professional. It's, yeah, so we actually have a CRMP.

CRMP, correct. So we actually have a C2 reverse certification and it... That's just a C2 designation, but it runs pretty parallel with getting your CRMP. So it's kind of like getting a DRE license and you're doing all the training to, you know, kind of get certified at a company, but it's actually to take a test and get your license. So it's kind of aligned with that, but it gets you, you know, really, really, well acclimated with what it takes to be a specialist in the reverse space. It's certainly something that is a different kind of language.

It's a different product type. And I think it's super important for our loan officers to be, you know, have the acumen, have the knowledge to deliver that to the people that are of need of it. So it's a protected class. I want to make sure that they're with people that know how to protect them. So you don't let your, oh, your loan officers do reverse mortgage. They have to have that designation, the C2 designation. That is correct.

They want to originate it on their own at the company. Otherwise, they can refer to somebody that does. Yeah, yeah. Nice. So how many designated LOs? I think it's about 300. 300. Yeah, of our 1,100 loan officers.

So it's like a 20-hour course or something you guys offer? Yeah. Scott Harms and Shane Irwin are the leaders of that division. They've built out the curriculum, the syllabus, all that. And it's, you know, there's 101, 102. You know, there's a couple different, you know, channels and, courses to do it. And you do Zoom or in person? We do a lot of in-person meetings, but that course and getting acclimated and getting that designation is remote. That's cool. Yeah, but there's,

there's a Blue Door portal, so he runs, he runs a, he does a phenomenal job and he keeps everybody super connected on the reverse side of things. So they do kind of a weekly call, monthly call, quarterly calls, and then we at our events, we'll do a day of reverse and we'll have speakers that are, you know, very notable in the industry, you know, that come out and speak for it. I was talking to an investor that just do reverse, and they were telling me on the wholesale side, I'm like, how many deals you guys do? They're like, we just do like 20. I'm like, you do 20 deals, and you have all this back-end cost, and that's how you survive off 20 reverse mortgages in your wholesale lender. It's not that many deals for a wholesale lender. I mean, it's a niche product. It's not everybody that's, you know,

it's pretty unique. It's not, it's definitely not as common as a foreign mortgage, you know, purchase or refines. It's a pretty tight market, but there's certainly a need, and we have all the best wholesale lenders in the space. Yeah. Do you guys do more than 20 deals a month? We do. Yeah. So you do more than a wholesale lender. Yes, that is correct.

You do more than an average wholesale lender. Crazy to think about that, right? How they could run their entire business. On 20. When we're doing more than that a month, and we're doing a lot of other stuff, too. Yeah, exactly. That's just like a small percentage of your business. For sure.

So you were just cast in the mortgage industry. You didn't just, you didn't choose the mortgage business. You just basically, you know. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a testament to the fact that, I mean, my Pops was my best friend and my greatest mentor and, you know, he achieved my vision of success. And I think that, sure, I could have gone off and did my own thing. And I did my own thing. There really wasn't a place for me at the company until I went out and kind of learn my own craft

and then brought that back. But it's, it just worked out. You know, one thing I admire is that you managed to sustain that same grit that your dad did. Thank you. A lot of kids, like, who would have been in your position, be like, oh, I'm just going to squander this away. So how do you think that your dad influenced your grit, your mindset? Well, you know, the saying goes that apples don't fall far from the tree.

But, you know, I just appreciated his tenacity. I have a ton of energy. we're both real passionate guys and just seeing kind of how he built his legacy for the family and what he created was just something that resonated for me and it doesn't happen by sitting on your couch. He said that

success is defined by hard work, opportunity, and a little bit of luck. You've got to be in the game and opportunities will happen and you'll find success. So that's what I kind of, that's how I do it. Yeah, I mean like as you, I mean the reality is you don't need to do what you do, right? You do it because you choose to do it. You do it because you love doing it.

And it's, you know, me as a father, just making sure, like, so how do I know my kids are going to not squander, you know, the success, right? Because it's a, it's a real issue amongst people who leave a legacy, you know, and you're grinding every day. You're like everywhere. Yeah, yeah. There was a, there's a movie, it's not like my favorite movie on anything. That movie, Dune, and there's a quote in it, and it was some, something like the father was talking to his son. There'll be a time in your life when you're called the lead. And the answer can be yes or no, but regardless of the answer, you'll always be my son.

And, you know, there's a calling. People have a calling. You had a calling. Your son, you know, your children will have a calling. And mine was, you know, I was called and my answer was yes. And here I am. So it feels good. And you're managing 1,500 people and you're doing it with, and, you know, you're well-spoken

and you're kind of like a born leader, right? You have that already that persona. So it's good that he raised you in that capacity. It's like, hey, this is going to be the guy. He was the man. He was the man. So what do you think has been your greatest source of inspiration to be an entrepreneur? I think that you'll never get to where you really want to go working for someone else.

And that was always something that was. you know, told to me, taught to me that, you know, don't even wrong, I think it's difficult to just walk into entrepreneurship out the gate. But I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and do my own thing and kind of run my own ship and, you know, make my own time to work. And so I studied business management with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. But when you graduate from college with that degree, it's like, go out and do anything. It's not like you figured out, like, you know, we're not trained, we're educated. We're like, you know, Europeans are more, there's more apprenticeship. And so, you know,

you come into something, you're naturally directed to something that's in lineage of your family where, you know, it's like you graduate with that degree. You're like, okay, you know, I can figure out anything I want. I travel around the world and did some backpacking bus line in New Zealand. I thought that would be great for California and then I met somebody that did it and didn't work. You know, so, I mean, maybe I could have pulled that off, but it just, you know, I think this country was built on a capitalist mindset, an entrepreneurial mindset. and that's always been something that has resonated with me as being a, you know, a red-blooded American, you know, and I think that that's something that I always wanted to do.

And this is kind of the channel that I did, you know, the path that I fell down or went down. But I think it's important to learn on someone else's dime. There's nothing wrong with having a job or a mentor or any of that stuff where, you know, you can learn a lot of mistakes. from someone else that you would otherwise happen to you if you're on your own right out the gate that you can sit you know save a lot of time and a lot of money by learning from someone else that might have already made them giving you some direction and or finding things that you know why is it done like that you know that's how ideas kind of spawn is like you are working at something you're like this doesn't seem right i think i could do it better this way and then all of a sudden

you're running you start your own business that way right and and i think that's how good businesses grow. Like I always communicate to my team, my corporate staff, my, you know, the family of loan officers that we have that this company was built on a suggestion box basis. And if you have an idea for something that you wonder why it's not working the way it is, I want to know because that's how we grow. That's how we get better. That's how the business gets better. And if they're thinking about it and not saying something or they finally do say something, I'm sure that there's 100 others that are thinking the same thing. They just haven't said something. So it's, you know, it's, that's kind of how we grew.

And that's actually something I learned from my dad. I remember we'd be at restaurants and be like, if it was bad service, you should let them know. They should know, you know, how are they going to get better if they don't know that this food's cold or that service wasn't good, you know? So that's kind of how we got better over the course of years. Maybe people voice their opinions. Absolutely.

Close mouths, don't get fed here. Exactly. So, so you, uh, You're totally resilient to market adversity. And what I wanna ask you is, how important has taking risks been to C2 to grow in this totally crazy mortgage environment right now? Well, there's no question about it.

There has been a lot of adversity with how quickly rates moved from two to three. Yeah, exactly. And that's certainly going to Cole the herd and folks that are super, which is everybody at that market in that market are going to have a rude awakening. And I sympathize. You know, there's no question about it.

Like as a company leader, it's I can't get on my high horse and say, you need to be doing, you know, all this volume and why aren't you doing that? I mean, it's the market speaks and we have to adjust. And this is the profession that we're in. We chose it. And I think all things being said, if I look at the numbers of an average loan officer, let's just say a loan officer that's doing one loan a month, they're making, a lot more than the average job across America. So I think it's a great profession to be in

and you cut your teeth regardless of market conditions. We all have to bob and weave and find opportunity. There's opportunity in every market. It does, you know, through adversity, you know, the strong will survive and will, you know, rise up and find a way because I believe in the power of homeownership and I believe that that is found through the broker channel. I mean, I've walked into a bank before and you got a banker with their thumbs in their armpits trying to figure out how to say no over the course of, you know, 45 days when you're in escrow period and that trains movement. And that's just not the way it should work. You know, I believe that brokers do have access to more sources of capital. They understand the nuances of how

their clients make money and how they can be lended to. And their fiduciary responsibility is to that client where a bankers is to their shareholders. And I think that's just how better business is done and how we all win. And that's why, you know, why we're here and why we're friends and why we can, you know, at the end of the day, we have the same message. We're all about the power home ownership and making that American dream of reality before, you know, everything's bought up by Blackstone and Vanguard and, you know, the black rocks of the world and you own nothing and you'll be happy. That's just not the way it works. Because if that is the way it works, we certainly won't be doing reverse mortgages either. You know, nobody will be owning a home.

So you've managed, like, to maintain that you're, just like you said right now, your loan officer is still making money, still doing better than 98% of Americans out there. So how are you help and loan officers continue to win in this environment right now? We have a platform that allows them to identify which lenders are going to be the most competitive in that moment, you know, for their client, whether it's a purchase or a refi. We don't provide leads. That's not something we do. It's never been something we've done. Generally, you know, our splits are high enough to where they can dictate where they want to put their money to grow their business on our platform. We provide, you know, we've got great branding.

And we have a lot of collaborative events. You asked me earlier what C2 stands for. It actually kind of has been coined collaborative community. I like constantly crushing, but that's just my style. But I think that it's an opportunity to get together. We have an event called C2 Connect. You've come to where we have top producers, talk about specific topics on panels.

We have speakers. We have great ways for people to get those nuggets, those ideas when they get back to their desk. and look at things a little bit differently, how they can connect with realtors more, how they can add more value to their book of business, the clients that they have that they may have refinanced into two or three percent.

I just read an article this morning that's, you know, consumers have more credit card debt than they ever have. They paid down a lot of debt through the pandemic just because they weren't spending as much, but now those habits have kind of come back. And sure, somebody might be in the two or three percent on their first, but if they have revolving credit card debt in their 20s,

they can consolidate that into a first that's in a six or seven. It might make sense from a blended rate perspective. So those details are in credit reports, and it's always looking deeper than just the imminent need. Hey, I'm buying a house. I got to jump in. I got to move quick. I got a 15-day escrow.

Yeah, I can hammer that nail, but it's also kind of driving more value and understanding more about the customer. You know, okay, how are they making their money? Online 17. Do they have real estate? Do they have interest? are they paying interest on that real estate?

Okay, we have a commercial division. People don't even know, like, oh, I didn't know you could do that, you know? So it's just kind of peeling back the onion and finding ways to add more value to the customer and doing more and putting them in a better financial position. Yeah, that's great. You really got to dive deep right now. There's no, like, cookie cutter just like order taking anymore. And stay in touch.

I mean, that's really the deal. I mean, the best CRM is the one you use. That's kind of, you know, I remember my pops came up with a hat and it said, sit, stay in touch, you know, and gave everybody the hat. And it's like he was a big acronym guy. So it's all about staying in touch, keeping top of mind, and that's your book of business, your client base, your realtors, any COIs, CPAs, attorneys, whatever, whoever is in your sphere of influence that you can help, you know, have a partnership with and drive more

value. I mean, that's how everybody's going to win. People, business is hard. Might as well work with people you like because hard times are going to happen on transactions. you know people are going to get frustrations you know how frustration is going to be stressful work with people you like do good business do right by the customer and you'll continue to be in a good spot and these are going to come back down you know rates will come back down to the fours and

five that's a healthy market yeah but the way inflation is I think we'll probably it might be a little while it's it's going to be a while so that was my next question what do you foresee in the mortgage environment in the next probably year or two I think things are I think things are pretty static I mean, the Fed chair, Powell, just came out and said that they're not making a move. I don't think they're going to move anything up, but I don't anticipate anything coming down. They said there was going to be three moves this year. I think we're a little late for that to start happening. Things are still expensive.

We know. We live in Southern California. It's pricey there. The only thing that I think isn't expensive is getting a pimento cheese at the master's event. Once you get in there, it's like $2.50 for a sandwich. You're like, and like, six bucks for a beer. You're like, how is this possible? You know, any other event.

I was just at a Tigers game. How is that possible? I don't know. They keep it, they keep it OG. I tell you what. I went to get a coffee today and we're in Michigan. It was $4.50. Right.

And Michigan for a cup of coffee. Like I used to laugh when it was $5 a cup of coffee in Miami two years ago. And I was like, this is crazy. Five bucks. Now it's a cup of coffee everywhere. Right. Even Michigan? Well, that was when they called Starbucks five bucks.

Now it's a way more, right? It's like. But, I mean, California, you know, getting. I think McDonald's for a family to go eat, it's like $150. It's crazy. It's crazy. Gone are the days of $20 family meals at a little burger joint. I know, right?

So right now, like, is there, do you think there's a specific mindset that a loan officer has to have to be successful in this environment? You got to be tenacious. You got to go out and get it. You got to get back to your basics. If you think that deals are going to fall from the sky like they were through the pandemic when everybody that owns a home is refinancing, those days are gone. So, you know, and I think they have to get back to how they got into the business, which is just, you know, making the calls.

You know, I started it in commercial real estate in the boiler room, you know. I remember they said I was hired. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm hired and fired every day here. You know, it's like if I show up, I'm hired. If I leave, I'm fired. You know, it's like, here's a desk, here's a phone, get to work. son, you know, and you build your database and you cut your teeth and you smile and dial and you're going to get kicked in the teeth, but you just, you know, I remember like you could do the,

you could, you know, re-engineer the math how many calls it takes to get a loan or get any transaction and you, you know, every time somebody says, no, you could, before you hang up, thank you sir, I just made 50 cents, click, you know, or whatever it is, however you want to work it. And they're like, what do you mean? Well, I know that it's going to take this many calls to get to a deal, which means this much of a commission, and then reverse engineer, how many calls that is? And if you think about, it's probably a hundred bucks a call. I don't, I don't know what that is, how, how effective people are on the phone, but that's the way it works. And with technology, I mean, I'm sure you can, you can have different campaigns, different marketing tactics that can

make you more effective through social media. That's generally free unless you're paying somebody to help you with it. But there's just so many channels to, to market in. And you've got to be everything everywhere, you know. All the time. All the time. All at once. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. So that's why I highly leverage automation. Yeah. It's great. It's great. I think AI is like the latest craze. And we had a speaker, René Rodriguez, he came and spoke at our last C2 Connect.

And he said something that resonated for me that I think that everybody's worried about. Is AI going to replace the loan officer? Is AI going to replace us as any service provider? And I think the answer is loan officers will be replaced by loan officers that use AI. So I think that's any service. I think the real estate, any kind of fee-based business, whether you're a realtor, you're seeing compression in commissions, certainly on the buy side with some lawsuits or some class actions happening in the mortgage space.

We could see some compression there. So it's constantly adding value and adding it really quick. be quick to market, quick to assess, quick to identify whether you can make a deal happen, how you can make a deal happen, and the faster you can do that, you know, than the better off you'll be and the happier the client will be too. You know, the way that René Roderriguez phrased that, loan officers will be replaced by loan officers who use AI. That's an absolute fact.

Yeah. That's an absolute fact because if you're not an early adopter to technology, then the technology will replace you. For sure. And it's those LOs that are reluctant to use technology that just will be extinguished, just process of organic elimination. Yeah, you got to get hip with the times.

And actually, I thought, you know, with Nvidia kind of driving the market, you know, they were just on an upward trend. I think the thought process was, or the general consensus in the market was once they hit about $1,000 a share or $1,100 a share, there would be a sell-off,

and that would create some trepidation in the market. And then things would start, happening. They kind of, you know, railed back a bit on their own. I think they're in like the highates. But I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and there was a gentleman speaking to it. And he said, they're just getting started, you know, which I thought was pretty interesting to hear. Yeah. I mean, there's just so much of a runway there. We're just kind of at the front, you know, the frontier of it. Yeah. I mean, really the buzzword AI started last year. I know. It's not going away. I'll tell you how much. Yeah. No, no. It's going to, it's going to turn into, you know,

I mean, it just gets better by the millisecond. I know. I think what, chat GPT just came out with 4.0. It's an app that you have on your, is it five? Five. Five. See, I mean, I can't even keep it with it. Yeah, it's five.

And now you can speak to it and speaks back to you. Right. We use AI in so many different things for our business, especially when it comes to marketing and, you know, even this podcast, which will have 5,000 derivatives of it. Amazing. I'm ready for one. So given like all your success,

like what motivates you every single morning to just do it all over again? It's that power of homeownership. You know, my best friend needed a home. We were living, I was living on the west side of Los Angeles in Mar Vista, close to Venice. And he, his wife had just gotten pregnant. They were, she was expecting.

They were expecting. and it was time to get out of an apartment that they had in Mar Vista, and he's a successful entrepreneur. And I put him in touch with one of my top loan officers and found the best lender to get them alone, to buy a home. And I have a photo when I visited them after they got into that home, holding a baby

with their dog in front of the front door. And that's what made it for me. You know, that's what makes it for me every day is that opportunity to deliver that experience. And that is, you know, the foundation of what this country was built upon. And I'm sure that that has changed. I'm not saying that that white picket fence, husband and wife with a kid and a dog is that for everyone.

But it's a version of it. And if we can continue to deliver that, then I think we're still going to be in a great place. That's awesome. Now, you got so much awesome talent at C2, some of the top originators in the nation, many of the top originators in the nation. How are you continuing to foster talent? It's a really an authentic community that we've, you know, built and grown, and it's happened really organically. And I think it's, you know, the power of attraction, you know, people want to be with a tribe that they align with. And I remember you and I and a few other, the big hitters got together was probably a year ago at this event where we all got together, you know, and.

And we were in the room. Yeah. We did the big five. Right. Exactly. when we were kind of wrapping things up, it's like, you know, we can have these conversations because everybody in, you know, of the big five, we all have mortgage brokerage companies with slightly different models, slightly different cultures that will gravitate towards people or people

will gravitate towards them if they align with that culture, you know, and I think that that allows us to all get along and somebody's going to be perfect for C2 that's not going to be, you know, perfect for one of the other shops or vice versa. And I'm not offended by that at all. People are going to resonate with how I come off versus someone else or resonate with how you are and versus me. And so from that perspective, I'm not, I don't get upset over that. I am who I am.

We are who we are. And we attract the people that align with our vision and our values and want to get on our ship, you know? And the goal is to kind of keep souping up that battleship and make sure that it's, it's moving faster and faster. And that's kind of how we grow, which I love about it. it. You know, Tom Hollis says this about all the big companies. He's like, we're all F1 race cars. And some people are just going to like this driver versus that driver, because we're all

supercars. Yeah. So, so like this supercar has a little bit different to it. This driver is a little bit different than that driver. It's like you gravitate towards whichever driver, but they all got the same chance of winning. They're all supercars. So you really can't go wrong with any of them. I love that. My car's license plate says C2F1. So, perfect analogy, yeah. So he said that, yeah, we're all F1 race cars. So which race car driver are you? You know, it's like, you know, I'd like to say I was Lewis Hamilton, but he lost.

So he's getting signed. Yeah, he's getting signed to Ferrari, so he's doing something right. And McLaren won recently. And, you know, you got, I mean, there's certainly, yeah, Mercedes, McLaren, Porsche. There's, you know, Ferrari, all those, you know, we're all driving our own, right? Yeah. And they're all very, very fast. Yeah.

So if there was one thing you would change about your younger self, or you could tell your younger self, what would that be? Listen. You know, be a better listen earlier. I think that's something that everyone can be better at is just, you know, be a better listener. I think it's important more than anything. And, you know, and learn people's names.

You know, have a way to learn people's names. If you can walk into a room and be, a ton of people and remember their names, that is like, that goes a long ways. It's so hard to do that. I know how Matt does it. You got to like tie it to something. There's a, there's a method. There's, you know, there's a formula for it.

I'm still trying to figure that one out. Yeah, what is that formula? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'll let you know. Yeah, tell me what that formula is, you know, because I'd love to learn, learn that trait, you know, it's like something that I personally always fail out.

Do you have any superpowers for parties? You know, like anything that... For parties? I mean, any superpowers, any special tricks that you have at a party? Oh, shoot. I did get invited to a beer Olympics and I won, so I'm pretty good at drinking games. I've actually taught an entire country how to play beer pong. One of my best friends is from Liechtenstein.

We met when I was backpacking around the world. And I came and I was like, hey, what's there? I went to, you know, a college in the United States. So I tell him, you know, if you've seen Van Wilder or anything like that, it's how it goes down, you know. So I was like, get a keg and ping pong balls and red cups? I'm like, yes, let's do it. So I showed the entire country of Liechtenstein how to play here. There's a country called Lincolnstein?

Leakinsstein, yeah, it's a small principality in between Switzerland and Austria. One of my best friends is from there. So it was pretty sweet. And you taught them all the game. I taught them all how to play the game. That's awesome. See, that's pretty notable. Yeah, I thought so too.

If you're throwing a party, I can show you, you too. That's awesome. I like to close out the podcast with a couple last questions. And the first one is, it's a three-prong question. What's a goal that you have for yourself? What's a goal that you have for the family? And then what's the goal that you have for the business? Well, for the business, we want to grow organically to have 5,000 loan officers in five years.

But it's not a head count, really. It's more the talent that we, you know, it's not a number. If we get there great, but it's all about having the right people to get there. So that's a goal for the company. For me personally, I've got quite a few goals. I generally always do. One of them was being the best shape of my life by the time I'm 40. I'm 40 years old.

I still think I'm in pretty good shape, so try to keep that going. I think that routine in the morning will keep me getting there and surfing and playing golf. And I would like to get from a 17 and a half handicap down to a 12. So that's a challenge with how much I work. Yeah. How much golf do you play? I play at least once a week if I'm in San Diego,

but I've been traveling a lot for work. Some travels for golf too, or surfing, but that's one of them. And I'm a single guy, and my vision was always to have a family. So I, and that was, you know, why I thought my dad was so successful, and that's something that I'm working on as well.

Yeah, yeah, and God willing, you're going to get there. And, man, I can't believe the ladies haven't left you. You know, you're stuck. I can't believe that hasn't happened yet. It's probably by choice so far, I'm sure. You know, she's out there. I'll find her. You know, one or the other.

Yeah, you'll get her. She's probably watching the show right now. Yeah, maybe. I'll be patient. You know, what my spiritual mentor told me is just like, you just got to ask God for her, and then he just delivers every single time. But just you sincerely ask, and then boom, it comes.

Yeah, I think one of the books that my dad really liked that he, you know, passed down to me was Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Malz. And it's just the power of making goals, writing them down, and you're, and having the routine and the activity to hit them and your body is like a heat-seeking missile to hit it. And like when you write it down, the universe kind of manifests it if you put yourself in the position for it to happen. So I've written a lot of things down. Some things happen later.

Something's happened sooner. But it has a way of working its way through and you achieving your goals. So write your goals down and hold yourself accountable. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Now, my last closing question I asked this to everybody on the show is, when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? That's a great question.

I have a joke for that, but I don't know if it's fully appropriate. You know, I think he would ask if I lived a fulfilled life. I think I'm on my way. Yeah, good. Thank you. Dave, it was awesome to have you, bro. Thanks for coming on the show. For sure.

Thanks for being on the show with me and getting deep with me. I appreciate it, my man. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. All right. Dave Temco, president, CEO, C2 Financial. Let's go. Let's go.