Scaling For Success with Sean Lee

Welcome back to Mortgage Daddies. We got a special guest here today. Flew a lot of hours to come see us. You came just for this podcast, right? I did. Across country from Washington. He might be the furthest guest to ever join the show. Definitely is. Thank you for coming, my man. Thank you for having me. So this is Sean Lee. Sean, tell everybody about yourself. Yeah. Great to meet you, Sean Lee. Super excited to be here with Milestone Mortgage Solutions. Yeah, I’m in business development for the company and primarily going to be recruiting and bringing in top talent to help scale this company to the next level or hopefully several levels. Hopefully several levels. Come watch, Sean. Exactly. It’s going to be several levels. There’s no question. Did a lot of research before I made the commitment to come here and couldn’t be more excited about the platform, the opportunity, the leadership team, the current LOs, the partnerships that are in place. So a lot of good momentum for Milestone and I’m happy to help accelerate that even more. Now, you’ve been doing this for quite a while, right? Your whole past has pretty much been in business development and recruiting. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I actually owned a recruiting firm in the mid2 thousands right before the crash, one of the worst job markets of all time. And following that, I actually went to Zillow Group and I was at Zillow Group for 9 years in business development there. I was actually in Zillow’s rental businessAnd I started in the multifamily industry and kind of kicked off Zillow’s first sales team in the multifamily space. Did that for a few years, led the national team, and then I pivoted. into the single family rental space and help Zillow monetize that industry. It had never really been done before, at least at that scale in the United States. There were some other countries like Canada, they had monetization kind of models in the single family rental space for advertising. But I was able to lead that initiative there and took a business from 0 to two hundred million dollars in just about four and a half years. It’s a really good experience. While I was at Zillow, I knew at some point I wanted to kind of get out of corporate America. So I got my MLO license in 2018, started brokering some partnerships in the mortgage industry while I was still there. You know, a little bit of a side hustle. And those grew to the point where it made sense for me to come into the mortgage industry full-time. So I’ve been doing this full-time since, uh, 20, 21. Oh, that’s awesome. That’s some great experience. You get a lot of connections through the years working for Zillow. I can’t even imagine. We’re just lucky to have you here at Milestone. I mean, you’re an industry leader in what you do, the recruiting platform. Uh, you know, I’m just really excited to have you on board. to grow the entire footprint, right? And every single week, it feels like we’re adding a state or 2 states. I think we’re up to like, 29, 30 states at this point and continuing that growth. So it’s going to be really instrumental for us to continue our growth, to have professionals like you’ve done it before. You’ve gone through these, you’ve seen cycles on the mortgage side, development side. So we’re lucky to have Sean Lee, part of the Milestone team, and we’re looking forward to it, my man. So everybody knows Sean Lee is a savage at what he does. He’s one of the top recruiters in the country. But what do you like to do for fun, man? I mean, I heard you, overheard you talking with Wendy earlier today. You spent a little time in the urgent care. So I’ve been out to see you in Washington. Crazy place up there. You live in Snoqualmie, but then you have a place in Snokadia? Suncadia. Suncadia. By the call of Snowcadia. I drove through this place. It started off as sun, rain, sleet, blizzard. Got to his house and I’m like, where am I going right now? I’m in a whole different weather pattern. Yeah, yeah. Lots of different climates in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, sure. For fun, love spending time outside. Grew up on the East Coast skiing, so my roots are here. I was actually born in Boston, but grew up skiing Stowe, Killington, Poconos, Blue Mountain. And that brought me out West. That brought me to Colorado. I graduated from the University of Colorado and did a ton of skiing, whitewater kayaking there. And now in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah. So on Saturday, I was doing a run. It was a bit of an exploratory. I hadn’t done it in several years. Probably one of the most technical whitewater runs in the country. It’s called Ernie’s Canyon. It’s 7 miles of class 5 plus whitewater. Craig wants to do that with you next time he comes out there. I’m good. I’m good. And I tagged my elbow and split it open and got a couple stitches before I flew in. That’s awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video of whitewater rafting that’s ever made me say, I want to go do that. It’s like jumping out of a perfect airplane. I think I’d rather do that than go whitewater rafting. At least it’s over with in like 3 minutes. Start to finish. Yeah. 7 hours. I mean, how long does that take you to get down? This one, it was about 4 hours. If we’re dialed in and we know there’s no logs in the river or anything like that, we can do it in a couple hours. Yeah. nice. 4 hours, whitewater rafting. Kayaking. Kayaking. Kayaking. Very different. Very different. And more dangerous, I feel. Yeah, it depends on the riverbed and what’s going on with the waterbed. Before we started talking, before we turned the cameras on, we were talking about the market and what you foresee in interest rates. There’s been a lot of big news with Redfin and Rocket busting out some big news there. I mean, how do you feel like the market plays out over the nextLike, anybody tells me they’re going to predict what’s going to happen in the next 6 to 9, 60 to 90 days. Okay, I’ll take your crystal ball and you’ll be right half the time. But, you know, from your standpoint, where does that kind of put you as a development guy? And where do you really see the industry with like AI and things like that popping out? Yeah. Excuse me. So tons of opportunity. I think when I look forward to the market, I’m not an economist, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on. I do my best to follow the data and the reports that are coming out, you know, keep up with, you know, some of the broader kind of indexes, butIt seems like a lot of volatility right now. That volatility will open us up for a little bit of refi opportunity here and there. I think that might come in quick bursts. But I don’t see things changing too, too much, which is great for Milestone. It’s great for recruiting becauseWe need a little bit more pain, right? From a recruiting perspective, I don’t want to see a big refi boom because- Nobody wants to leave. Everybody gets a full pipe. They don’t want to leave. It’s impossible to walk away from. But right now we don’t really have those handcuffs. So that creates an opportunity for people to move. They’ve got a little bit more freedom right now. Obviously, as part of our offering, we provide a great transition kind of plan for people. So even if they do have a pipe, they’re not going to lose anything. But it does make things more challenging if they do have that pipeline. So yeah, I see a lot of volatility. I see a lot of opportunity for us to continue to gain market share in the same way that we have over the last several years and opportunity for growth. From an AI perspective, it’s going to be all about data,Whoever has the data and understands how to leverage the data, understands how to leverage relationships to get data is going to win. I’m confident that AI is going to be an enhancement for the LOs that focus, that work, that have relationships in place and do what it takes on a daily basis to be successful. If you don’t adopt it, you’re going to be left in the dust because the efficiencies that are coming to market right now areUnlike anything that I’ve ever imagined, we are going to put loan officers in a position to just do so much more than we ever thought was possible from a production standpoint. And it’s really exciting. But you’ve got to put the time in now. You’ve got to put the data in. And you’ve got to be able to learn how to use these systems to your advantage. I think one of the questions I wanted to ask you was, what made you want to be a recruiter on the broker side? I think a lot of people kind of look at this business who have a little bit of an inside scoop and they kind of think most of the time like brokers, small shop, word of mouth, people join. retails more on the recruiting side. And that’s really what they focus on. They spend a lot of money doing that. Obviously, on this side, it’s a different pitch. It’s a different angle. What insight do you have on that? Yeah, it’s a great question. I’m glad you asked it. And like I said, I did a lot of research before I decided to join Milestone. um before i moved into the broker world i was with my previous company was also a brokernot delegated correspondent, lender, and did a lot of research there too. And it’s pretty clear that there are efficiencies in the broker model that exist nowBecause of technology, because of some of the systems that the investors have put into place to allow brokers to operate on a level now that they couldn’t in the past. There’s too many hoops to jump through. The industry from a system and software perspective was very fragmented. And now it’s more consolidated. So the flow of the loan process is much smoother. Because of that, we can allow loan officers to complete the transaction more affordablyAnd those cost savings pass through to the borrower. So when we do a loan here or at another broker shop, you’re typically going to do it at a cost savings. I think that the most recent number from the HMDA data was on average, you’re saving, is it,Which is wild to think about. Which is wild. So, and that’s just based on your average loan amount throughout the US, right? I’m operating in a lot of markets where the average loan amount is twice that. So you would think the savings to the consumer is, you know, maybe 20000, right? 25000. On government loans, it’s even more so. We can go to market much more confidently than someone that’s currently working for an independent mortgage bank because we know we’ve got the best pricing. We know we’ve got the most efficient processes in place. We know we’re going to close on time. And that all translates to confidence. Confidence translates to sales. And that means we’re winning. End of the day, that’s all it’s about. It’s just winning, doing the best thing by the consumer. I’m excited for twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six and beyond. We got a great nucleus here at Milestone. We got an amazing operation, the AI platform that’s being rolled out. I mean, we’ve talked about this. It’s just. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about the mortgage industry as a whole since I first got into it, where I was like brand new. So everything, it was like, you know, first time you rode your bike, you were just excited to go anywhere, right? Like now I wake up in the morning, I’m like, all right, what are we going to do this week? What are we going to do this month? It’s crazy. Even forAll the time you spend at Zillow and just seeing the markets change now. Craig’s been doing it 6 years. So now like we’re just sitting back and we’re like, let’s wait for a refi boom. Like we got a couple of big things going on at Milestone. We’re like, give it till June. Give it till June. Like, you know, let’s leave rates. Let’s leave that ten year bond floating right around 4. It’s going to be fun, man. So I know all the viewers are asking for this one question for me to ask. And I’m just sitting here. I was like listening to you. We’ll make Javi turn this into a reel just to get like the perspective and the percentages. Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks? And the reason I asked this to Sean Lee is when I was out in Washington, you can’t drive more thana mile without seeing multiple Starbucks. Starbucks is huge on the West Coast. Right next to the hotel I was at, there were 2 Starbucks in the same shopping plaza. One was a drive-thru and the other one was like a walk-in. You could go hang out. These things were about two hundred yards away. It was near like a gas station. I’m like just sitting there. I’m like, Starbucks is like Dunkin’ Donuts on the West Coast. It’s wild. So if you had Dunkin’ Donuts before, I know we’re going to upset a lot of people. I grew up on Dunkin’ Donuts. Yeah. I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. So at, you know, at 2 a. m. when I needed a croissant breakfast sandwich, like Dunkin’ Donuts. Yeah, I love it. If you need to fly for a few hours, Starbucks. Starbucks has got a little more juice. It definitely has a little bit more juice. Oh, for sure. Unless you’re getting a munchin’ special with a couple shots of espresso from Steve White. I’m a Starbucks guy. not saying that out loud. I don’t know if I can say that out loud. I just think the market share just went down. I just more of coffee. Yeah. I drink black coffee. So Starbucks, a little more flavor to it. There’s actually black coffee as well. I’m a black coffee guy. There’s 3 Starbucks. in that, in that area you were talking about. One of them’s in, one of them’s in Safeway and then they’ve got the 2, the 2 other, oh my God, there’s one in Safeway too. So there’s 3 right there. Yeah. And it’s very common in, in Seattle. I mean, they’re everywhere. You’ll, you’ll see one on each corner of a block in downtown Seattle. It’s,When I was out there, my wife’s like, we have to go to the first ever Starbucks down in like that fishing area with the market, the market area. Pike Place. Pike Place. we go down there. There’s a line that’s got to be two hundred people deep, wrapping all the way down. So then we paid a tour guide, jumped in with a tour, and the guy’s like, that’s not even the real Starbucks. That’s the second one. The other one was way over here. It’s not even opened anymore. So they have all these people going there to buy merchandise, buy stuff, and it’s the second. So I looked at my wife. I’m like, we’re not waiting in that line for the second Starbucks. And if it was the first, maybe we can get away with it. But Washington’s a cool place, man. Going out there, visiting you and Adrian. it’s just a whole different world. Like Seattle is a pretty cool city, Kirkland, and we’re opening an office. Is it in Kirkland? Yeah, it’s in Bellevue. Bellevue, which was another, that’s where we had dinner that night. That was an awesome place. So we’re excited as a company just to be going out into the Pacific Northwest, not the Northwest, the Pacific Northwest. Oh, so many things. So many things. You touched on like pain points for people, right? You want a little bit more time for people to feel the pain. Yeah. I know, you know, from my side of it, when we were talking to people or trying to recruit people, it was difficult because on the retail side, you know, people knew what they were going to get a little bit more. people who are on the retail side are very nervous about coming over i feel like that’s changing a lot you know i think the persona or the view the technology everything you touched on is is helping but i think that there’s so many loan officers that have just gotten killed their business has drastically plummeted over the last year or 2 since rates jumped up that they’re now looking not so much for that signing bonus but where can i go and rebuild my businessDo you feel like that’s something that’s coming up a lot as you’re recruiting people and talking to people and they’re looking to make a switch? Because most broker shops, we’re not offering crazy sign-on bonuses or any sign-on bonuses at all. So you’re really coming here because you want to build your business back up and get back to a level that you were pre-rates increasing. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, we’re seeing a lot of that. I mean, there’s a number of different reasons why someone from a retail shop or an independent mortgage bank will make the move, right? There are a lot of different pain points. Pricing is certainly one of them. Comp, lack of transparency, limited product mix. So there are any number of reasons why someone might make that move. I look at my job as like, okay, I’ve got to have a conversation with you to understand exactly what it is for you. But yes, I mean, you can see in the data that the market is shifting from We’re getting market share from independent mortgage banks. They’re losing it for any number of those reasons. We’re beating them on price. They’re losing headcount to our channel. AndIf you do want to build great relationships, if you need to rebuild your business, or you just want to re-accelerate your business, this is the place to do it because you’re not going to lose on price regardless of what type of scenario, borrower scenario you’re presented with. No matter what the borrower situation is, you’re going to be able to find a product or an investor that will fund that loan. So you don’t have to turn away business. And at independent mortgage banks, these loan officers, they have to turn away business all the time or they’re losing out and it just creates frustration. So we’ve kind of solved for all of that and created a platform where these businesses can grow, they can thrive. And yeah, bring your team here, come in, plug in as an individual. You’re going to get the best coaching in the entire industry. You’re going to compound that withcutting edge technology and there’s no reason why your business should not accelerate if you come to Milestone. You heard it. I’m sold. Sean Lee. Sean, man, it was a pleasure having you. Really looking forward to seeing what we can do together and getting that word out there. I think we’ll have a lot more to talk about as some of this technology stuff rolls out that we’re coming up with and looking forward to seeing what we can all do together becauseyou know, the recruiting side of things is something that I’m not, you know, super keen on or really, you know, I’m always on the origination side, go, go, go, go, go. But seeing how you talk to people or kind of how you can figure out, you know, what are those pain points is important because, you know, I’m starting to learn from that. And, you know, Vern is too. So we’re really looking forward to having you here, man. And I appreciate you making the journey. Thanks, man. It’s going to be fun. Let’s go. 20 25. See you guys next time.