Mortgage Media ft. Founder Andrew Berman | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 53

0:00What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers. Today, we're going to dive deep into the heart of the mortgage industry. Our guest is a visionary leader whose recent strategic move has significantly reshaped the media landscape for the entire mortgage industry. He played a pivotal role in a major acquisition that combines a top mortgage magazine with a national news network, creating a powerhouse of industry news, webinars, and live events. Together, they reach over 160 ,000 professionals every single week, setting an entirely new standard into how Mortgage News is delivered.

0:46Please join me in welcoming the head of engagement at American Business Media and the founder of National Mortgage Professionals Magazine. Welcome today, Mr. Andrew Berman. Joe, thank you for that introduction. I appreciate that very much, very much. Very much deserved, Andrew. And, you know, I've been a fan of NMP Magazine for, shoot, since I feel like over 10, 15 years since it started. What year did it start? So it was 2009. Yeah, I've been tracking that magazine ever since it started. If you see the latest issue, I mean, the cover, can you beat that? No, the cover was pretty good. I mean, we got to throw that on the camera.

1:30Yeah, throw that on the front. When we re-air this, we'll throw that on the front. But yeah, it's a great magazine and very informative. It continues to be a staple in the mortgage industry. I feel like you have 100 % market share of the mortgage industry because you are the primary publication of any true value in the industry. And what an accomplishment to have that sort of market share. Well, at least for those that are winning in the mortgage business and those who are aspiring to win, they're reading our publication. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And full of insight, guys, if you're not watching that magazine or watching it, because you also publish it online, you have the video format of it, and then you have the written magazine, you have the digital print magazine.

2:14So people aren't in tune with what's going on with NMP Magazine. They got to be reading that publication. Excellent publication, excellent editors. So good job on that. Good job on continuing to always be at the forefront of the vision of the industry. because one thing I really admire about what you're doing is you're always collaborating with other leaders within the mortgage sector. Of course. Of course. That's one of my favorite things about what I do. So I came up with the title a few years ago as the head of engagement and outreach because really what I love doing, I love talking to leaders.

2:48I love actually meeting with guys like you who actually are visionary leaders who have just this great story to tell and helping you share that story. I mean, obviously, you know, what you've done, you know, in creating your own format to be able to help not only tell your story, but, you know, get inside the mind of other, you know, leaders in the industry and share this on the podcast is phenomenal. I mean, I really am so impressed. I've been actually plugging into some of your episodes. And, man, so insightful because one thing that you have, actually that I love is, you know, it's like out in the street, you know, it's like to build up mortgage company, you know, it's like to be out there and you have all the wounds, you know, where all the bodies are buried.

3:33And it's something that has definitely been, it's helped this show greatly, I believe. Thank you. Thank you. Andrew. So we like to start the show with just a quick icebreaker. And it's something that everybody does. So what, what is your daily morning routine? How do you start your day? Okay. So four o 'clock in the morning, alarm goes off, go inside, wake up. Basically it's four o 'clock. I go meditate, you know, right off the bat, meditate, then meditate, then quick workout. You know, there's a later workout later on the day, but there's like a, you know, like a five minute quick workout just to get the blood pumping, do some reading.

4:15I got a little bit of a journal, just write in a journal and just, And this might sound corny, but, you know, something that really helps me every day. I look in the mirror. I just kind of give thanks and, you know, basically have a conversation with myself and remind myself, you know, of the things that are important to me and the things I want to get done for that day. And that just kind of sets the path. I mean, it's something that I've done little bits of these things for a lot of my life. But this practice of doing this has ramped up, I would say, over the last two years. And it helps me have a day with purpose.

4:55It helps me have a day where I'm controlling the day. As I start off the day, actually, it was just this great mindset. No matter what happens to me, it's difficult to get me off that great, strong mindset. Man, that sounds like a winning morning routine right there. I mean, that's pretty regimented. you know journaling working out meditation prayer you know a motivational boost for yourself that's pretty legit and this is why i love to ask that question because anytime i i speak with the founder everyone's got a great morning routine and everyone's got some some sort of insight i personally like to always you know learn from so what's your morning routine like uh my morning routine is i wake up i have to do a bunch of chores i gotta put away all the dishes for the kids but while i'm doing that i'm doing some red light so i like to do things concurrently i do the dishes red light therapy concurrently and then i do uh then i do a stretching routine i use an app called pliability um and then uh and then uh we get the kids ready we get them off to school and then i do a workout so then that's every single day i try to fit in you know some prayer time as well.

6:02And this is why I asked this, like I had a five minute gratitude journal that I was doing, and then I fall off the bandwagon. I have to continually remind myself that I need to reincorporate. It's so great. We have so much to be thankful for. You have so much to be thankful for. So much to be thankful for. And it's, it's amazing. You've got a healthy family, healthy, beautiful family, got a great business that's just growing. I mean, there's so much in this world to be thankful for i mean and forget about all that even if we just we just walk and we have the sun shining at us you know i just to be alive you're thankful it's a miracle i mean you know i mean there's so many things first off to just be born that itself is a miracle yeah you know and then actually then you you've made it actually you know to to to you know our 40s here you know uh you're in the early part i'm in the end of my 40s but uh you know like the fact actually is that there have been so many things that have happened that could have actually turned a different way.

7:00And thank God we're actually doing all the right things. Got healthy kids. They're aspiring to be good people. And that's all we want as parents, right? Be good role models for our kids. So you got a fascinating story how you got started in the mortgage industry. I know you have a lineage in this space. So let's talk a little bit about that. What year do you start in the mortgage industry? All right. So my dad was a mortgage broker going in. And this is like in the 80s. He was a broker. And in the 90s, I started getting involved in this mortgage company. Like I was an originator technically at 17 when I was legally not allowed to sign documents.

7:43But back then, there was no rules. You charge what you wanted to, did what actually whatever you wanted to. And it was, which is not a great time, I think, for a lot of people. But in the mortgage business, what I loved about it is that the work that we were doing was great. I mean, you saw the fruits of our labor. But I felt actually that there was something bigger for me. I felt actually that the ability to kind of inspire people to have mortgages, to kind of help our originators you know, right mortgages. I had a better calling for that. So I started working on the marketing in the mortgage company.

8:24And then we just as a side hustle, it was at the end of a refi boom, we just started publishing a magazine for the New York mortgage professionals, New York mortgage brokers. And it was a little side business that we did. And I'm like, whoa, hold on for a second. So rather than actually, you know, just helping actually a handful of We had two originators at the time. We can inspire tens of thousands of brokers. Well, at that it was thousands of brokers to help them close more loans. And we just started publishing these magazines and started taking this approach to say, hey, you know something?

8:58We're not going to just do this in New York. We're going to take this and we're going to do this to all these other states. And we became the official magazine for mortgage brokers in the Mortgage Broker Association in 37 states. and we had about 270 ,000 people that were reading our publication and it was the publication for Mortgage Brokers. So if you were the mortgage broker in the 2000s, you were reading our publication, you were going to our events. We had these big events. One of our biggest was, of course, in Irvine. We had 3 ,000 people showing up for it. Melville, which we had 5 ,500 people showing up for it.

9:39But that was actually our, you know, the publication that we started. And then in 2008, things went a different way. And we saw actually the mortgage broker got their teeth kicked in. They were basically made a scapegoat for the great financial crisis. And from that, we saw actually a change in the market. And we said, but there's something that was happening in 2009 or 2008 that we said, hey, there's still some great originators. They're still cranking out loans. And that's when we created a new model, National Mortgage Professional. And that's what you see today. NMP is National Mortgage Professional Magazine.

10:19That's what you were on the cover of, where we basically said there were people actually through the 2000s and today that always figured out a way to not focus on the negativity, not focus on all the bad stuff. because there's so much bad stuff that you could focus on and just focus on how do we help people? You know, what do we do to kind of continue to drive loans? I love that. And I love that you built the company during the greatest pitfall in the mortgage industry. But one thing that that's number one, it's very inspiring. But number two, this is what, you know people would say you were crazy to do but why were you crazy enough to start a company in the middle of the greatest recession in history you know it was it was it's the people like like during that time and it was a dark time i mean like you know to see i mean we we had um we had a million dollars in bankruptcy clawbacks where you know companies were going out of business and the bankruptcy courts were coming after us and say, hey, the money that these companies paid you, you need to pay back.

11:24And that was a difficult thing. But you saw that. You saw actually, and there were loans that were just bad. You know, you just looked at these and like, what were we doing? I mean, why as an industry were we embracing some of these loan types? And there's a lot of things that we could be negative about. But there were some great people that were still cranking out loans. There were some great people that had some great strategies. and we built a model based on that. And part of that actually was this group, Mortgage Revolution. There was a handful of these guys that got together, created an event called Mortgage Revolution.

11:57And that Mortgage Revolution just kind of opened my eyes and kind of inspired me to kind of grow and focus on people that were kicking butt, that were doing great things, doing great business in 2009 and didn't make a difference what was happening with the rest of the market. I love that. But, you know, one thing I really admire about what you do and, you know, you're always on, it's like you got this crazy work ethic and you're always grinding. You got some new idea. You're putting on, you're publishing the magazine. You're doing the events. You're networking with, you know, all the biggest leaders in the space.

12:34You know, you got, I think you got other, you got two other businesses that, you know, as well. And we won't talk about those other companies that you have. You have a couple other companies. Your work ethic is like next level. What do you think is the driver for your work ethic? So at the end of the day, I just like helping people. I mean, whatever it is, I like helping people. And that usually starts with having conversations with people. and all of the businesses that I'm involved in it all it's all based on conversations you know like understanding actually what's going on inside your head how I could help you how it can help you grow your business how it can help you you know do the things that you're looking to do and that's basically it so so helping people you know just starts with having conversations I love having conversations and that's why I just came up with this title of engagement and outreach because the more you engage with people, the more you're going to be able to help them find out what they need and be able to serve them.

13:43And with NMP, it's working with our clients on helping them figure out what they need to do to connect with more mortgage professionals out there, whether it's mortgage brokers that are being sought by wholesale lenders or the tech vendors out there that are trying to connect with more mortgage professionals. But what is it about their solutions that they feel that can help the mortgage professionals? And this is what I love doing. I love that. So being of service is your primary catalyst to really starting NMP. 100%. That's it. Whatever I do, actually, whether it's things in my community, whether it's things I've done in my synagogue, it is always actually just, what can I do?

14:28How can I help? I have a difficult time saying no to people, which is probably one of the things that is one of my biggest flaws. But if somebody needs help, how do I say no? Yeah, so you guys just got done celebrating Passover. So just blessed Passover feast to you. Thank you. Now, let's talk about some of the challenges that you faced with NMP, the early challenges. So talk about when you started NMP Magazine, what do you think some of the biggest challenges were for you? Or do you want to go back before NMP? And then what kind of day? Well, you know something? Because I'd say before NMP, every month was just better than the previous month.

15:13We couldn't do anything wrong. And when we started in 94, we just grew and grew and grew and grew. So, I mean, there was no challenges. I feel like there was no challenges. Obviously, there were challenges, but I probably glorify just thinking about all the positive things that happened. Because, I mean, challenges, you have day-to-day challenges, things that fail. But, I mean, you fail, you know not to do that again. You fail, actually, you know, you learn from that. And how do we make it better? How do we make sure you don't? But I'd say, actually, my biggest challenge was probably in, you know, building up something from nothing.

15:49When we had to shut down the mortgage press and really actually create this new engine that would fit the new mortgage professional, that was somewhat difficult and inspiring, actually, and a team of people, actually, who were battered. I mean, we like, you know, we all we did is just cover it, you know, the the the foreclosures and even just like I'm just thinking about this. When we when we created National Mortgage Professional Magazine. So we wanted to put together a list of wholesale of wholesale lenders. The name of the list was who's left in wholesale. You know, there was it. There was only a handful of companies.

16:36This is one of those companies. I mean, today is dominating. I mean, you know, UWM, I mean, you think about this. In 2008, I mean, they really actually just said, all right, we see actually a great opportunity. 2009, I always love this. I think of, you know, we did an interview with Matt Ishbia. And in 2009, Matt said something to the effect of, I'm paraphrasing here. He said, we believe that the best option for homebuyers is the mortgage broker. We interviewed him. He still says that. That's still like a tagline. The only thing that's changed on that, 2009, he said it with much greater conviction.

17:21I'm paraphrasing here, but we know the best place for borrowers to get their mortgage is through the mortgage broker. Now that's supported by Hemda data. Like, hey, it's$9 ,400 cheaper to go through a mortgage broker. That is a statistical fact. And the other thing I also love about, you know, and this is actually, you know, we're going into a different direction, but talk about my love for the broker because my dad is a broker. I believe actually in the broker model because, well, you know, the brokers are better. The phrase kind of gets me a little weird because I feel like it's too much focused on actually a business model.

17:59But one thing that's undeniable, mortgage brokers are better for our communities. Mortgage brokers, because when you have a mortgage broker, mortgage broker, the money's being kept in our communities. Money is going to support local little leagues. Money is going to support higher people locally. It's being spent locally in local businesses. So I think that is an undeniable fact, actually, that mortgage brokers are better for our communities. And in most cases, they're going to be better for borrowers. Whenever people ask me where they should be getting their mortgage from, my personal friends, I'm introducing them to mortgage brokers.

18:35Yeah, it's a fact. It's a fact. Now, you have such a solid, grounded lifestyle, and you were inspired by your father to enter the mortgage space. Now, do you think that your children are going to be inspired to enter the mortgage space?

18:57Probably not, but then later on, you never know. You know, like most people that go into the mortgage business whose parents were in the mortgage business never intend to be in the mortgage business. You know, I mean, if you think about this, like most of the people that I know, at least, that have been in the mortgage business, they went on and they did other things. And they came back because they're like, hey, you know something? It's such a great business. I still think it's a great business. You know, so and I'm going to turn this on you because that's my feeling. I don't think my kids are right now.

19:29They're not looking at the mortgage business. Well, one actually is destined for college. She wants to do child psychology. The other one, she just wants to be an influencer. So what about you, Jay? Do you think actually your kids are going to be destined for the mortgage business? For me, I love that because you do podcasts too. So we have this like reciprocated podcast going on here. I don't know how to ask questions, not answer them. I know. For me, because I'm Egyptian, and in my heritage, your parents always want you to be a doctor. Now, I would like my kids to go down that route. I would like them to be doctors.

20:10And the reason why is because I know the struggle of when you start in the mortgage space. I know how much I had to work. I know how much I had to get denied. I know how thick a skin I had to have. to just prepare i still get denied all the time if you watch my content right now it's very bold and it's i'm always being denied but i have such thick skin that i'm so good at just getting rejected yeah so i don't know if i want my kids to suffer through that you know character it does i mean it's it's i mean like failure does build character it's just hard to watch your kids fail i know but you know something i i believe me i know i'm i i wrestle with this all the time.

20:50I'm always like, you know, I say to my wife, I'm, I'm the one. And well, maybe we should just let them do this. But if your kid wants to be an influencer, all that is the only way to be an influencer is to get rejected all the time because influencers are the ones who do the content that no one's willing to do. I mean, so, so you have what was a thousand originators that work for you right now? Yeah. About 900 ish. Okay. So how many people have told you, no, to get that thousand? Like you, you probably, yeah, that's always 20 ,000 originators, you know probably even more to actually join your team to get to the thousand people yeah to have the kind of production you have yep that's right but now thankfully because of social media and and having such a big brand it's a lot easier and i don't have to be doing the recruiting anymore i just build a i continue just to build the brand and make it like the pepsi of the mortgage space so people are like i want to drink pepsi or you know their kids know me so they're like i want to work there yeah or the coke yeah so so it's it's getting a little easier um but you know it's it's funny to talk about do we want our kids to enter the mortgage space and you know that was actually my next question it's like what trends do you foresee in the mortgage industry on your side because i see you know ai doing a lot of this and wiping out a lot of originators because we're doing it now with AI.

22:08Well, so here's the thing. And listen, right now, financially, it might not be the best time to buy. If you were looking actually at buying a home from just a financial case, there are many cases where home ownership doesn't hold water. However, emotionally, it does in so many cases. If you want to stay in the same community, if you want to actually have your kids go to the same school, if you want to be able to control your community and not be based on what's going to happen with what your landlord wants to do with that piece of property. If you want control, it's based on home ownership. I don't know actually how AI, at least in the foreseeable future will be able to have that feeling.

23:07Yeah, it's not going to get, yeah, AI is replacing a lot of the marketing efforts for originators. It's replacing a lot of the monotony of going through the application. What AI can never, ever, ever do is replace the relationship. The human relationship, exactly. Right here. So what people, originators are going to have to get good at, which they have lost that skill set, is this. Because what COVID did, the worst part about COVID is it took humanity away. And it turned into a digital world. So that's why I refuse. We have yet, we've done 30 podcast episodes. I've refused until I get, I don't know, I'd have to interview Donald Trump or something.

23:57but I've refused to do any podcast over, over stream yard, over zoom because the human connection is everything. And like we were talking about earlier, like if I sit with you for one hour and I have a cadence of questions of 20 questions, I'm going to talk to you about like, we basically just had the best date you can ever have. Like we just hit it off. Like, no, think about it. Like if you sat with your wife right now and did this, how much better of a relationship would you have in just in a one hour podcast i you know goodness yeah but people should be doing that it's 100 like so one of the things uh like i i do and my my wife we we take walks we we you know we've talked about this you and i yeah the talks you and your wife take the the walks you and your wife take yeah because because we equate it to like this podcast i mean this is this is something because i i whether whether actually you do it actually as a as a mic in front of you or take walks um but like i think actually that's that's something that is an important thing.

24:58I'm curious. So you and Sam, do you guys have conversations where you were – have you had the opportunity? Because you guys are obviously talking to each other, communicating with each other, and spending time. But do you have conversations like this? We do our lunches. We do it. And we just had one yesterday. And then I took them over. And then after that, we extended lunch, and we drove down to the Travis Matthews headquarters and did a, but, you know, it is imperative for our business relationship, even though we've been friends for three decades, as business partners to have these luncheons at least weekly, even though we're buried, back-to-back meetings all the time, to have a meeting where we just, you know, there's some business elements to it, but then it's like, hey, like, let's remember we're friends and have the, you know, but one thing, and I've been meaning to do this with my wife and my business partner is have this podcast with them.

25:56Because I feel like it's just going to. Oh, my goodness. I can't wait. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I'm going to have a podcast. I'm going to do a podcast with my wife. I'm going to do a podcast with my business partner. And the one I'm really going to do a podcast, I really want to do a podcast with is my mom. Yes. Yes. Oh, my goodness. So Jay Duran is like a guy who's been inspirational to me. He focuses on culture. Jay Shetty, you mean? No, Jay Duran. Okay. Jay Shetty also, he's the one who gave me the idea. He's one of the biggest podcasters, and he did a podcast with his mom. Well, so Jay Duran had actually his mom on, and it's beautiful.

26:39It's beautiful, especially if you understand a lot about the podcaster. So your mom being on here, oh, my goodness. I can't wait for that. When are we making this happen? They're going to be guests. I've got to figure out. Please, get all this, please. Oh, it's Mother's Day. Oh, that's a good idea. Oh, beautiful. There you go. Yeah, yeah, I got it. You know what? Because just to like dive, I can honestly say I don't have super deep conversations with my mom. And I think that your parents are owed that. But as kids, do we do that with our parents? Do we go, hey, so what's your goals? Like, what do you?

27:20you know like it's it's like it's transactional it's like yeah it's very transactional it's you know it's not fair it's not fair so when was the last time you like went out to dinner with your mom or just just we yeah not me and her but my mom is always she's like she always cooks she's amazing she's greek and egyptian so the food is you know big part of our culture yeah it's like an incredible cook you know um and uh my kids all know that and uh you know i don't get to i don't get to go on dates with my mom like i'd like to right um but uh it needs to be more on the radar and being so busy now you know my wife wants a date my daughter wants a date my youngest my my two boys want daddy daddy sundays it's like everybody wants a separate day and i have zero time to begin with like how much do you sleep uh about six hours a day five to six hours comfortably Yeah, that's good.

28:16I do 10 p.m. to 4.30 a.m. Is that like 10 p.m. hard? Yeah, it slides out. I got to get to bed. Yeah. Because I also have toddlers. They'll be up at 5 anyway. So if I'm not going to bed by 10, I'm not going to sleep. Yeah. So what do you foresee in the mortgage industry? Because you do what I do. You talk to a lot of industry professionals. Any trends you're seeing on the horizon? I mean, sadly, I think we have a lot more pain to go through. I think as an industry overall, we have a lot more pain. I don't think – well, everyone's agreeing pretty much that we're not going to see rates come down this year.

29:04That's pretty unanimous now. Federal Reserve has no intention. No. I mean, the biggest indicators showing actually it's not happening. I personally don't think – I think actually we need to see more – Bloodshed. Yeah, more bloodshed. We need to see the employment change significantly. So, I mean, we're talking maybe end of next year, middle of next year. And right now, so many lenders, mortgage bankers, they're not running on fumes. They're out of the car pushing the car. You know, they're in some cases injecting their own capital to keep their businesses floating. And we see acquisitions all the time.

29:48There's no such thing as a merger. You're basically getting acquired. If it's a merger, that's basically just making you feel better about that merger. So I think we're going to see a lot more blood on the streets. But on the other side is the broker is just doing phenomenal. I mean, every story that I know of people winning are brokers. are brokers actually just in this great place? Because as brokers, first off, we have this variable cost model, you know, where really actually, you don't necessarily, yes, I know we have big, beautiful, giant office space here, but you're empowering, you know, almost a thousand originators of that.