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This Small-Cap Stock Announced a Deal With Eli Lilly. Then Its Shares Doubled


Eli Lilly (LLY +0.61%) is a top healthcare company, and it has a ton of money it can afford to invest in emerging opportunities. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest ones right now, as using AI to accelerate drug discovery could do wonders for its business.

The company has launched Lilly TuneLab, which uses AI and machine learning to potentially speed up drug discovery efforts. Last month, Lilly reached a deal with biotech stock Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA +18.10%), which programs cells. Ginkgo has billions of data points that Lilly can leverage, and these can be made available quickly with the help of AI.

The excitement around this development appears to have created a tremendous amount of bullishness around Ginkgo’s stock, which has now doubled in value since that announcement came out on Sept. 15. Its market cap is around $1 billion. Is it too late to buy shares of Ginkgo, or could there still be more gains ahead for investors who invest in the business today?

Image source: Getty Images.

Deals haven’t translated into strong financials for Ginkgo in the past

Ginkgo has secured deals with many types of companies in the past, but its financial results remain choppy, and profits remain elusive.

In its most recent quarter, which ended on June 30, Ginkgo’s revenue totaled $20.2 million, a sharp decline from the $39.1 million it reported in the same period a year ago, as the company has been in the midst of restructuring efforts. And even with lower operating expenses in the most recent quarter, the company’s operating loss of $58.5 million was slightly worse compared with the $58.2 million loss it reported a year ago.

While there is significant potential for Ginkgo in the healthcare industry, the problem is that the numbers just aren’t there to show that the business is on the right track. And although the stock has been rallying of late, it’s still down an incredible 97% in five years.

Ginkgo Bioworks Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(18.10%) $2.24

Current Price

$14.59

Ginkgo’s stock remains highly risky

Investor sentiment around Ginkgo has improved significantly since the company announced its deal with Eli Lilly. Prior to that, it was looking like 2026 would be another down year for the stock.

However, investors should tread carefully here because this is not exactly new territory for Ginkgo. It’s been involved in many deals in the past, with seemingly plentiful growth opportunities ahead, only for the results to fail to live up to expectations. The same could happen for investors who invest in the stock today. While its ambitions are high, that doesn’t mean there will be a payoff for investors who buy today.

Taking a wait-and-see approach is the safest option for investors today, because until Ginkgo can generate some much stronger results, it’ll remain a highly risky investment to own.

HECMs hit 6-year low; planner referrals offer a way out


Endorsements of federally backed home-equity conversion mortgages dropped to their lowest level in over six years, even as applications largely held steady in recent months, according to new data from Reverse Market Insight. 

Processing Content

In a challenging market, trusted referrals become even more valuable and well worth the effort for originators to utilize. 

“My advice would be to continue working referral-based strategies with financial planning communities and tax preparers,” said Cliff Auerswald, president of Orange, California-based lender All Reverse Mortgage.

“I love the idea of getting referrals from financial planners. They have a similar interest in preserving their customers’ cash.”

The pullback in HECMs points to how rapidly obstacles emerged in front of HECM originators in 2026 — many similar to those facing their forward-lending peers — with rising interest rates changing the dynamics of today’s market.

Endorsements of the Federal Housing Administration-backed reverse loan slid 6.7% to 1,790 loans in September, RMI said. The volume decreased 6.7% from 1,919 a month earlier and 19% from 2,211 endorsements year over year. 

While the rise of proprietary reverse products is contributing to slowing HECM activity, economic factors are playing a growing role in the recent slowdown. A dramatic surge in interest rates this year is reducing the ratios potential customers can draw from and driving some away when the numbers are crunched. It has also made some borrowers ineligible for loans that they may have qualified for months earlier.

“We’re seeing much lower loan-to-values available to these borrowers,” Auerswald said. “You also have that other element where you’re getting less money, but you have all these hefty amounts of closing costs too, like the insurance. And then you’ve got the third-party fees.”

HECM activity by the numbers

Endorsements declined for the third-straight month, with activity slowing even as borrower interest appeared steady, RMI said. Issued case numbers, which are assigned for new incoming applications, held at approximately 3,000 per month between May and July.

“We were wondering if decent case number issuance might pull the endorsement totals off these lows, and at least last month, it was a resounding ‘no,'” RMI said in its latest report.

Among the leading factors causing applications to fall at the wayside is the question of eligibility, according to Auerswald. “We’re seeing the highest levels of leads that are short to close, so that they’re dead on arrival essentially.”

Activity fell in all but one of the 10 regions tracked by RMI. With the lone uptick, the Southwest region saw endorsements rise 16.3% to 192 loans from a “weak” August figure of 165.

In a virtual tie for the greatest number of endorsements last month was the Pacific/Hawaii and Southeast/Caribbean regions with 402 and 401, respectively. Both totals fell, though, by approximately 7% from 433 and 429 in August. 

Meanwhile, New York/New Jersey and the Midwest saw the biggest percentage drops of over 20%. The former’s volume decreased on a month-to-month basis to 86 from 111. September numbers in the Midwest finished at 146, compared to 184 a month earlier. 

The three traditional HECM giants all posted monthly endorsement drops in September.

The leader on a rolling 12-month basis, Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, recorded 366 endorsements, down from 395 in August. Finance of America, which held the top spot when looking solely at September, delivered 408, compared to 433 the previous month. Longbridge Financial endorsements fell to 342 from 357.



Amazon Deal: 2026 Apple Mac Mini M6 for $779.99


Amazon: 2026 Apple Mac Mini M6 Drops to $779.99

This article contains Amazon affiliate links.

Amazon has the new 2026 Apple Mac Mini with the M6 chip on sale for $779.99. This configuration comes with 16GB of unified memory and a 256GB SSD.

For comparison, the same base M6 configuration is currently listed for $899 at Best Buy, making Amazon’s deal about $119 off that price.

BUY NOW

The M6 Mac Mini features a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, along with Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet.

 

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made through this article. Using links on the site for Amazon purchases is the best way you can support the site as you normally can’t earn cash back for these purchases. But, you should still check shopping portals such as Rakuten, TopCashback, RebatesMe, ShopBack and others for possible cashback. Your support is always greatly appreciated!

Why Better Branding Makes More Money Than Better Marketing


Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Key Takeaways

  • The first conversation with a customer is not the beginning of the sales process. It’s often closer to the end of it. Your first impression actually starts with whatever exists on the internet about you and your business.
  • People don’t hire the first company they find. They hire the first one they truly believe in.

For a long time, winning in real estate meant being easier to find. Get your name in front of more people, show up on more searches, run more ads and post more content. The industry built its entire marketing philosophy around the assumption that the agent who reached the most people would get the most business.

That assumption is quietly breaking down.

Consumers today are not starved for options. They’re overwhelmed by them. A buyer in any major market can find dozens of qualified agents before lunch without trying particularly hard. Search, referrals, social media, AI tools, Zillow profiles. Discovery is essentially solved. What hasn’t been solved — and what actually determines who gets hired — is something different and considerably harder to manufacture.

Who do they believe?

Discovery is no longer the hard part

The marketing problem most brokerages are still trying to solve was genuinely difficult 15 years ago. Getting found required real effort, real investment and real strategy. The playing field rewarded whoever could achieve the most visibility. That era produced an entire industry built around lead generation, impression counts and reach.

Lead generation has been commoditized. Practically every brokerage has access to the same digital tools, the same ad platforms, the same syndication networks. Being findable is table stakes now, not a competitive advantage. The brokerages still treating it as their primary strategic focus are optimizing for a problem that largely solved itself.

The harder problem, the one most of the industry is underinvesting in, is what happens after someone finds you. A consumer has now discovered three or four qualified agents. They look at each one for a few minutes. They read some reviews. They scroll through some content. They may ask an AI tool who the most respected agents in the area are. At the end of that research session, one of them feels like the obvious choice and the others feel like options.

What made one feel obvious? That’s the question that matters.

Consumers are buying confidence, not information

Here’s the thing most marketing misses about what people actually need when they’re making a high-stakes decision. They’re not looking for more informatio — they already have more information than they know what to do with. What they’re looking for is a reason to stop being uncertain.

Confidence is the real product in real estate. Not MLS access. Not showing schedules. Not transaction coordination. The thing a buyer or seller is actually purchasing when they hire an agent is the feeling that they’ve put this complicated, financially enormous, emotionally loaded process into hands they can trust. When that confidence exists, the conversation is easy. When it doesn’t, no amount of follow-up calls or drip emails can manufacture it.

Trust reduces perceived risk. That’s what it’s doing functionally in the consumer’s brain. When someone trusts you, they stop running through worst-case scenarios. They stop second-guessing. They stop hedging. They commit. And the brokerages that understand trust as a business asset, not a soft skill, are building toward a completely different competitive position than the ones still chasing clicks.

The sales process starts long before the first call

Here’s where strategy needs to shift. Every public signal surrounding a brokerage or agent is doing trust-building work before any conversation happens. Reviews. Media coverage. The quality of published market insights. Whether the agent has been quoted somewhere credible. Whether their educational content suggests they actually understand the nuances of the local market or just know how to use Canva.

Consumers increasingly arrive having already researched you. The first conversation is not the beginning of the sales process. It’s often closer to the end of it. And the agent who walks into that conversation with a trail of credible third-party signals behind them is starting from a fundamentally different position than one who showed up with a nice headshot and some listing stats.

Most brokerages are obsessed with generating more leads. Very few ask seriously why they lose the leads they already have. A significant portion of those losses happen before the first meeting, during the research phase, when a consumer is quietly deciding whether this particular brokerage feels like the obvious choice or just another option. No amount of lead generation investment fixes that problem. The fix lives upstream.

Think like a reputation architect, not a marketer

The mental model shift here is specific. Marketing asks: How do we get more people to find us? Reputation architecture asks: What does someone find when they look, and does it make us easier to believe?

Those are different questions with different answers. Marketing produces content. Reputation architecture produces signals. Content fills time. Signals accumulate into something that changes how a brokerage is perceived before anyone has spoken to them.

Every published market analysis that demonstrates real knowledge of a neighborhood. Every media mention that positions an agent as a credible voice in the local housing conversation. Every client review that describes something specific rather than just saying it was a great experience. Every piece of original thinking that makes someone pause and consider a perspective they hadn’t encountered before. These things aren’t separate marketing activities. They’re deposits into something that eventually becomes the most valuable asset a brokerage has: the default assumption that they’re the right choice.

The first agent they believe

Pull together everything that shapes who wins a high-stakes service decision. Discovery matters, but discovery is nearly even across the field now. Price matters at the margins. Referrals matter, but referrals still require a research phase where someone decides whether the recommendation makes sense. What ultimately determines selection, consistently, is uncertainty reduction. The option that makes someone feel most confident tends to win even when other options are objectively comparable.

People don’t hire the first agent they find. They hire the first agent they believe.

If someone spent 20 minutes researching your brokerage today, what story would they find? Media coverage that signals expertise? Reviews that describe specific moments of value? Published thinking that demonstrates real understanding of what’s happening in the local market? A clear sense of who you are and what you actually stand for? Or would they just find listings?

The brokerages that answer that question honestly and don’t like what they find have identified the actual strategic problem. It’s not a lead generation problem. It’s a belief gap. And closing it requires investing in something most real estate marketing budgets still treat as secondary: becoming genuinely easy to trust before anyone has asked you to earn it.

Key Takeaways

  • The first conversation with a customer is not the beginning of the sales process. It’s often closer to the end of it. Your first impression actually starts with whatever exists on the internet about you and your business.
  • People don’t hire the first company they find. They hire the first one they truly believe in.

For a long time, winning in real estate meant being easier to find. Get your name in front of more people, show up on more searches, run more ads and post more content. The industry built its entire marketing philosophy around the assumption that the agent who reached the most people would get the most business.

That assumption is quietly breaking down.

Consumers today are not starved for options. They’re overwhelmed by them. A buyer in any major market can find dozens of qualified agents before lunch without trying particularly hard. Search, referrals, social media, AI tools, Zillow profiles. Discovery is essentially solved. What hasn’t been solved — and what actually determines who gets hired — is something different and considerably harder to manufacture.

How to start investing in the Netherlands (and Europe)



In this video, I share my experience of investing in the Netherlands and how to navigate the European market. I’ll cover essential topics, including:
🏦 Choosing reliable brokers (Interactive Brokers, Degiro, Trade Republic, Trading 212)
💸 Understanding tax implications in the Netherlands
💰 Available ETFs and my investment strategy

Whether you’re new to investing in Europe or looking for specific information about investing in the Netherlands, this video covers you. Let’s dive into making your investment journey smoother and more informed. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more financial insights!

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Brokers and apps mentioned in the video:
📈 *Interactive Brokers (IBKR):* Start investing with free stocks up to $1,000:
🏦 *Trade Republic:* Earn 3.75% interest on your deposits:
📊 *Getquin:* Track your investments and connect with other investors:
🪙 *Bitvavo:* Trade up to €10,000 of crypto without fees:
💳 *Revolut:* Manage your money with a free online bank account:
🔐 *Exodus Crypto Wallet:* Securely store and manage your cryptocurrencies (Use invite code *R6R3PT* during setup):

💰 Trading 212:
💰 Degiro:
ℹ️ Modeling portfolio (in Dutch):

📺 Video about me quitting my job:

————————————————————————————

📺 Subscribe to the channel:
📸 Follow me on Instagram:
☕️ Support the channel:

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Finance and investments in Europe:
Everything about the Netherlands:

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💌 Subscribe to my newsletter:

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00:00 Intro
00:43 Investment Brokers in Europe
06:30 Investment taxes in the Netherlands
09:30 ETFs in Europe
10:50 My investments

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_Disclaimer: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you._

_This video is based on my personal experiences and is not financial advice. I am not a licensed financial advisor. Please research and consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions. Investing involves the risk of losses._

🧑‍💼 Collaboration or advertising: hi@dpashutskii.com

#investing #personalfinance #europe

source

How To Get Out Of Student Loan Default


Student loan default | Source: The College Investor

Student loan default doesn’t mean your credit is ruined for life. Missed payments and a default will show up on your credit report and pull your score down, by 91 points on average according to New York Fed research, but there are steps you can take to get the default removed and repair your score along the way.

The timing matters right now. The Department of Education paused involuntary collections on January 16, 2026, and your loan is still in default during the pause.

When collections restart, defaulted borrowers face wage garnishments, student loan tax refund offsets, and Social Security offsets again. The pause is the best window in years to fix this before it costs you.

@thecollegeinvestor Replying to @jamesstephens573 If you’re in default, here’s what happens. This is what the collections process looks like, and what your options are to get out of default. #studentloans #studentloandebt #collections #debt #default ♬ original sound – The College Investor

Here are the five steps to get out of federal student loan default, what changed in 2026, and what to do if your defaulted loans are private.

Table of Contents

Where Things Stand For Defaulted Borrowers In 2026
1. Decide on Loan Rehabilitation, Loan Consolidation, or Paying in Full
2. Prepare Your Finances
3. Contact Your Loan Servicing Company
4. Make Nine Voluntary, Reasonable, Affordable Monthly Payments
5. Take Action After the Final Payment
What About Private Student Loans In Default?
Frequently Asked Questions
Final Thoughts

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Where Things Stand For Defaulted Borrowers In 2026

Collections are paused, not canceled. On January 16, 2026, ED delayed administrative wage garnishment and the Treasury Offset Program to give defaulted borrowers time to use the new repayment options that launched July 1.

As of September 30, 2026, no restart date has been announced. Here’s whether student loans will take your tax refund and how the offset works when it’s running.

The main collection agency is changing, too. In March 2026, the Department of Educaiton and the Treasury Department signed an agreement moving collections on about 7.8 million defaulted loans to Treasury. No phase has a published start date, and ED still owns the debt. Your balance, interest rate, and path out of default don’t change because of the transfer.

The first visible result of that partnership launched September 30, 2026: the Defaulted Loans Support Center at studentaid.gov/default-support/. It replaces the old MyEdDebt site and the mail-and-fax process. Treasury says rehabilitation approvals are up 69% and consolidations up 95% since the partnership began. The launch didn’t change the collections pause or set a restart date.

However, the number of people in default keeps growing. Defaults grew by about 1.6 million borrowers in the six months ending June 30, 2026, and another 1.5 million were in late-stage delinquency. If you’re behind but not yet in default (270 days without a payment), an income-driven plan like RAP is the way to stop it from getting there.

1. Decide on Loan Rehabilitation, Loan Consolidation, or Paying in Full

These are the three paths out of federal student loan default. Picking the right one is the first step, because the choice affects your credit report and, since July 1, 2026, which repayment plans you can use afterward.

The three paths are:

  1. Paying off the student loan balance in full
  2. Student loan consolidation
  3. Student loan rehabilitation

The fastest way is to pay the loan off in full. For most people, that isn’t practical. If you want to try for less than the full balance, ED has limited authority to compromise federal student debt, usually by waiving collection fees or part of the interest in exchange for a lump sum.

That leaves rehabilitation and consolidation for most borrowers. Here’s how they compare in 2026:

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Rehabilitation Vs. Consolidation: Two Ways Out Of Default
Rehabilitation Consolidation
How It Works 9 on-time payments in 10 months New loan pays off the old one
Time To Leave Default 9–10 months 4–8 weeks
Credit Report Default removed Default stays
Repayment Plans After No change RAP or tiered standard
How Many Times Once (twice from July 2027) Generally once
To Qualify Sign a payment agreement Make 3 payments first, or choose RAP
The College Investor, October 2026

The last two rows are the new part. Any Direct Consolidation Loan made on or after July 1, 2026 can only be repaid under the Repayment Assistance Plan or the Tiered Standard Plan. If your loans are older and you’d rather keep access to IBR, which forgives after 20 or 25 years instead of RAP’s 30, rehabilitation keeps that door open and consolidation closes it.

Given the credit-report benefit and the plan flexibility, this article focuses on rehabilitation. Rehabilitation can only be used once per loan until July 1, 2027, so make sure you’re financially ready, which is what we’ll cover next.

2. Prepare Your Finances

You’ll need to make nine on-time payments within 10 months. Get your budget in order before you sign the agreement so you don’t miss one. One late payment can reset the process.

Start by listing your take-home pay and fixed costs, then carve out the rehab payment before anything discretionary. Rehab payments are often lower than people expect, sometimes $5 a month, so the real work is making sure the payment happens every month, not finding a large sum.

If you aren’t already using a budgeting app or spreadsheet, now’s a good time. It’ll help you plan the next 10 months of rehabilitation payments, track spending against your payment budget, and remove the guesswork. Our Student Loan Calculator can also show what your payment will look like once you’re out of default and on RAP.

3. Contact Your Loan Servicing Company

For loans held by the Department of Education, start online. The Defaulted Loans Support Center at studentaid.gov/default-support/ lets you compare rehabilitation and consolidation, apply for either one, upload documents, and make payments, all with the same StudentAid.gov login you already use. You no longer need a separate MyEdDebt account or a fax machine.

If you’d rather talk to someone, or the portal doesn’t show your loans, contact your defaulted loan servicer and tell them you want to rehabilitate. If you’re not sure who holds your loans, here’s how to find out who owns your student loans.

Your loan holder calculates your monthly payment from your income. If the amount doesn’t fit your budget, you can ask for a lower payment by submitting your income and expenses. That’s a right under the program, not a favor, so ask for it in writing.

Your student loan may also be with a debt collector if you’ve been in default a long time. Here’s the list of student loan debt collectors and how to contact them. Older FFEL loans held by a guaranty agency are handled by that agency, and Tate Law reports that guaranty agencies aren’t covered by ED’s collections pause. Our consolidation explainer covers FFEL loans in more detail.

4. Make Nine Voluntary, Reasonable, Affordable Monthly Payments

You sign a rehabilitation agreement with your loan holder, and once it’s approved, you start making payments. For ED-held loans, you can sign the agreement electronically and make your payments through the Defaulted Loans Support Center. You can see your loans and your current holder on StudentAid.gov. Read the full rehabilitation rules before you sign.

Your payment starts at 15% of your discretionary income, meaning your adjusted gross income above 150% of the federal poverty guideline for your household size, divided by 12. The minimum is $5 a month. If that formula produces a payment you can’t afford, you can request an alternative amount based on your income and expenses. Starting July 1, 2027, the minimum rises to $10.

You must make nine payments within 10 consecutive months, and each must arrive within 20 days of the due date. You can’t prepay all nine at once; the point is to show you can make monthly payments again. Once the ninth payment posts, the default is removed from your credit report and the loan moves back to a regular servicer. The missed payments that led to default stay on your report for seven years.

When collections are running, garnishment
can continue while you make rehab payments. Collections are paused as of September 30, 2026, but if they restart before you finish, your budget has to cover your rehab payments plus any wage garnishment. That’s why step 2 matters.

Tax refunds work the same way. Several readers below were told by collectors that after five payments their refund was safe. Until rehabilitation is complete, you’re still in default, and a refund can still be offset when offsets are running. The tax offset explainer covers the notice and appeal process.

5. Take Action After the Final Payment

Once you’re out of default, pick a repayment plan right away and set up automatic payments. Autopay drafts your payment on the due date every month, so you never miss one, and on RAP the interest waiver and $50 principal match only apply to full, on-time payments.

If all your loans were disbursed before July 1, 2026, compare RAP and IBR before choosing. If you work for a government or nonprofit employer, check whether your new payments can count toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Log in to StudentAid.gov to confirm your balance and that your payments are posting.

Stay on top of your loan holder while your paperwork is processed. Confirm everything in writing. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has documented problems with rehabilitation processing, including delayed applications, miscalculated payments, and garnishment orders that weren’t lifted on time. If your credit report still shows the default after rehab is complete, dispute it with the credit bureaus.

What About Private Student Loans In Default?

Everything above applies to federal loans. Private student loans don’t have rehabilitation, consolidation out of default, or income-driven plans. Private loans typically default after 120 to 180 days of missed payments, depending on the lender, compared with about 270 days for federal loans. Read our explainer on consolidating versus refinancing if you’re sorting out which of your loans are which.

A private lender or its collection agency can report the default and pursue collection, and it can sue you within your state’s statute of limitations. Unlike the federal government, a private lender needs a court judgment before it can garnish wages. Check the student loan statute of limitations in your state before you make a payment on an old private debt, since a payment can restart the clock in some states.

The CFPB’s advice is to contact your lender or servicer as early as possible to ask for a modified payment plan or a settlement. If someone cosigned, the lender can come after them too. Our list of student loan debt collectors shows who you may be dealing with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will They Take My Tax Refund While I’m In Rehabilitation?

When offsets are running, they can, until rehabilitation is complete. Tax offsets are paused as of September 30, 2026, but it’s likely they will return for tax season. If you’re owed a refund and in the middle of rehab when offsets resume, the safe move is to finish rehab before you file. Here’s what to expect for your refund this year.

Can They Take My Spouse’s Refund Or Garnish My Spouse’s Wages?

They can’t garnish a spouse’s wages for your federal loans. On a joint return, the whole refund can be offset, but your spouse can file Form 8379 (Injured Spouse Allocation) to recover their share. The student loans and taxes explainer walks through it.

Can I Settle A Defaulted Federal Student Loan?

Sometimes, and only for less than you’d hope. ED can waive collection fees or part of the interest in exchange for a lump-sum payment, but it rarely reduces principal. Here’s when ED can compromise federal student debt.

I Already Rehabilitated Once And Defaulted Again. Now What?

Today, consolidation or payment in full are your options. Starting July 1, 2027, borrowers can rehabilitate a loan a second time. If your loans predate July 2026 and you want IBR, compare waiting for a second rehab against consolidating into RAP now.

Will Bankruptcy Stop Wage Garnishment On Federal Student Loans?

Rarely. Federal student loans can only be discharged in bankruptcy by proving undue hardship in a separate court proceeding. Getting out of default is the reliable way to stop garnishment. Skipping payments on purpose doesn’t work either; here’s why strategic default always backfires.

Why Is My Credit Score Still Low After Rehabilitation?

Rehabilitation removes the default notation, but not the months of late payments that came before it. Those stay for seven years and fade in impact over time. Make every new payment on time and the score recovers. Our rehabilitation explainer covers what to expect on your report.

Final Thoughts

Getting out of default is the best thing you can do if you haven’t been making your student loan payments, and the collections pause makes this the cheapest time in years to do it. Rehabilitation is the better path for most borrowers because it clears your credit report and keeps your repayment plan options open. Consolidation is the right call if you need out fast or you’ve already used rehab.

Once you’re back on track, make every effort to pay off your student loans faster or keep them on the plan that fits your forgiveness goal. If your situation is tangled (a spouse’s loans, old FFEL debt, a forgiveness date in sight), a one-time plan from The Student Loan Planner can be worth the fee.

Editor: Clint Proctor

Reviewed by: Chris Muller

The post How To Get Out Of Student Loan Default appeared first on The College Investor.

Elizabeth Holmes’s new act in Nathan Fielder documentary distracts from the real story



Good morning. I spoke to comedian Nathan Fielder after a recent media screening of You Can See Everything, his absurdist documentary with director Lance Oppenheim that tracks disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes just before she heads off to federal prison. I asked why he’d spent three years on a film that could have come out soon after he’d spent 34 days living with Holmes, her partner Billy Evans, and their two kids. He told me they wanted more material on the couple’s next venture and a clearer picture of Elizabeth Holmes. Who was this woman?

Journalists love a great character, especially when they go off script. From this trailer alone, it’s clear that Holmes no longer wants to play the billionaire girl genius with a black turtleneck, deep voice, and game-changing technology that could run hundreds of medical tests from a single drop of blood. Now, she’s a clueless eccentric, an innocent in mom jeans with a beatific smile and unblinking eyes fixed on her “soul mate” Evans, a controlling striver who treats us to full-frontal nudity and other helpings of dubious judgment. We meet two cherubic babies—Holmes’s “angels”—whose birth delayed her trial and sentencing. Why not invite a comic to join the family for your last 34 days of freedom, prior to starting a 135-month prison sentence for investor fraud and conspiracy? Crazy kids! Pass the popcorn!

I like the movie. I also recommend watching Tilda Swinton’s mirror scene in Michael Clayton to get a feel for the self-conscious way in which Holmes rehearsed—and rehearsed—her now-ditched persona modeled on her perception of Steve Jobs. Go look at the number of patients and doctors who were deceived, her clueless star-studded board, the number of people who bought into the dream because they wanted it to be true. (We called her an extraordinary entrepreneur and subsequently challenged her model.) 

The problem with quirky characters is that they can distract you from important parts of the underlying story. When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan’s show last year, we paid more attention to his “masculine energy” makeover from nervous-nerd-in-a-hoodie to tech-bro-in-streetwear, complete with a gold chain and luscious curls. The host was too busy discussing bow hunting and jiu-jitsu with Meta’s newly macho main character to delve too much into his controversial policies that later led to an $18 billion settlement. 

We have an equally kooky cast of characters dominating today’s business discourse. There’s Elon Musk with his erratic X posts, moonshots, and personal push to repopulate the planet; Dario Amodei and Sam Altman publicly debating whether their products will kill us as if such things are beyond their control; Jeff Bezos morphing from a customer-centric everyman to a bulked-up billionaire cruising on half-billion-dollar yachts and sending Katy Perry into space. The stories could practically write themselves, unless we pause to look into what’s really going on.

Before getting too caught up in Holmes 2.0, though, look at the lies, damage, and corruption that landed this character in jail.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

Top leadership news

Nvidia CEO is the biggest foil to AI doomerism

Jensen Huang has repeatedly rejected warnings about AI’s existential threat to humanity, mounting a robust defense for going full speed ahead. In an interview two weeks ago, he said “2030 is not going to be the end of the world.” Earlier in September, Huang also argued that governments should be regulating “actual and pragmatic harm” instead of “hypothetical, theoretical harm.” 

Iran’s currency is getting obliterated

With Iran’s economy in free fall, the country’s currency is getting dragged down too and continues to find new depths with the regime facing a major cash crunch soon. The exchange rate hit more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar, less than a month after its previous record low of 2.2 million on Sept. 2. It was near 1.5 million at the start of this year and at 920,000 in August 2025.

Where Americans are moving by generation

According to U-Haul, baby boomers and Gen Xers favor warm, lower-cost destinations in the Southeast. Younger Americans, meanwhile, are still gravitating toward the country’s most populous states and cities. California ranked No. 3 among U-Haul net-gain states for millennials and No. 2 for Gen Z, while Census data show the state’s overall population fell 0.5% between April 2020 and July 2025.

The markets

S&P 500 futures are down 0.13% this morning. The last session closed up 0.73%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.33% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.45% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 2.40%. South Korea’s markets are closed. China’s markets are closed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.28%. India’s NIFTY 50 is up 0.58%. Bitcoin is up at $86k.

Around the watercooler

MacKenzie Scott’s first novel in 13 years is being called ‘baffling’—and critics are left asking what message she’s trying to send by Sydney Lake

Gen Z can’t control the future, so they’re paying witches and tarot readers to make it feel more manageable by Tatiana Sataua

Meet the ‘mini Erin Brockoviches’ fighting off eminent domain—and the shadow of Amazon—as a data center hands out $10,000 to their neighbors by Sasha Rogelberg

Even ‘Bond King’ Bill Gross warns ‘don’t own bonds’ as long-term debt enters a new ear of volatility by Jason Ma

‘We need to trust our employees’: This billionaire CEO went from counting cars in the parking lot past 6pm to embracing hybrid work by Preston Fore

CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.

[AZ] VantageWest Credit Union $200 Checking Bonus, Direct Deposit Not Required


Update 10/3/26: Bonus is back, this time for $200 (was up to $300 but required the premium account) and can be opened online. Was in branch only before. Hat tip to reader Bockrr

Update 10/17/24: Extended to October 31, 2024.

Update 10/5/24: Deal is back until October 15, 2024. Seems to be in branch only Hat tip to DesertActor

Update 7/23/22: Deal is back until December 31, 2022. Hat tip to payyoutuesday.

Offer at a glance

  • Maximum bonus amount: $300
  • Availability: Must live, work or worship in Pima, Pinal, Cochise, or Maricopa Counties, Gila River Indian Community Reservation, Arizona’s “Copper Basin” Area
  • Direct deposit required: No
  • Additional requirements: See below
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
  • ChexSystems: Unknown
  • Credit card funding: $2,000
  • Monthly fees: $12, avoidable
  • Early account termination fee: Six months, bonus forfeit
  • Household limit: None
  • Expiration date: December 31, 2026

The Offer

Direct link to offer

  • VantageWest is offering a bonus of $200 when you open a new Essential Rewards Checking account. Bonus requirements are as follows within 45 days of account opening:
    • Deposit an aggregate total of $1500 in new qualifying ACH credits and/or direct deposits into the new Essential Checking account
    • Complete five debit card transaction

 

The Fine Print

  • To qualify for the 20,000 Rewards Points bonus ($200 cash value) you must open a new Essential Checking account during the promotional period and complete each of the following within 45 days of checking account opening: 1) Deposit an aggregate total of $1500 in new qualifying ACH credits and/or direct deposits into the new Essential Checking account; and 2) Complete five (5) qualifying debit card point-of-sale (POS) purchase transactions using the associated debit card.

     

  • Promotion runs October 1, 2026 – December 31, 2026. Your checking account must remain open for at least 6 months. If it is closed within 6 months of the open date you may be responsible for reimbursement of any bonus awarded. Minimum opening deposit for Essential Checking is $20.00. Limit one new Essential Checking account, per membership and per member, will be eligible for the bonus. Offer only available to individuals who have not had a checking relationship with Vantage West in the past 6 months. Offer valid for new Essential Checking accounts only. Members with any existing Vantage West checking relationship are not eligible for the bonus. Conversions between checking accounts are not eligible for the bonus. Offer cannot be combined with any other offers associated with opening a checking account.
  • All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Premium Rewards Checking ($200 Bonus)

This account has a $12 monthly fee. This is waived if you do any of the following:

  • minimum daily balance of $3,000, or
  • combined average daily balance in all deposit accounts of $10,000 or
  • monthly net direct deposit of $750

Essential Checking ($200 Bonus)

This account has no monthly fees to worry about.

Early Account Termination Fee

Account must be kept open for six months, otherwise bonus will be deducted.

Our Verdict

This offer is significantly better than the old $200 bonus as no direct deposit is required. VantageWest also offer a 5% card. This bonus is definitely worth doing and even better due to the higher than normal bonus and the credit card funding available. Will be added to the best checking bonuses.

Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:

Deephaven discusses filling the pipeline in a tough market


00:00:00 If you’re not focused in the non-agency space, it’s then you’re leaving potentially one out of every four, one out of every five deals on the table. >> We shouldn’t be shy offering these products. We’re not only competitive, but we’re bringing real solutions to the market. >> It’s just knowledge and comfort level with the programs. >> It keeps us relevant as long as they’re happy. >> It brings the loan officer another avenue to get to the top of the funnel

00:00:22 on the listing side as well now. >> [music] >> Hello again and welcome to the latest edition of MPA TV. I’m Matt Sexton, mortgage journalist here with Mortgage Professional America. On today’s episode, we are discussing opportunities in today’s market and the importance of equity solutions. I’m honored to be joined by our guest on today’s episode. They are Tom Davis, Chief Sales Officer for Deephaven Mortgage, Matt Roll, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Deephaven Mortgage,

00:00:53 Mark Hammon, [snorts] Wholesale Account Executive with Deephaven Mortgage, Paul Schwes, Mortgage Broker Southern Mortgage Corp and Southern Mortgage Commercial, Brian [snorts] Schwes, Independent Mortgage Broker of Southern Mortgage Corp, and Diego Londono, Managing Partner of Lending Spot. Thank you all for joining us today on MPA TV. We’ll start things off with Tom. What would you say is the biggest shift you’re seeing right now in borrower behavior this year given tight affordability, limited inventory, and

00:01:24 historically high credit and auto debt right now? >> Yeah, look, the market over the last couple years has been challenging, right? But I’m a firm believer in every market there’s opportunity. Either you take share or someone takes shares from you. And what we’re seeing is mortgage brokers originators across the country who are focused in the non-agency space are really thriving in a challenging market. They’re using these products to tap into the referral sources, new referral

00:01:52 sources. They’re tapping into self-employed. They’re tap They’re helping their borrowers tap into equity. Uh so, there’s plenty of opportunity uh in the market and the non-agency space is this year’s going to be about a $400 billion uh market. Uh between non-QM at 150 to 180 billion, equity, which I think is a generational opportunity, should hit about 150 billion. You have RTL and some other esoteric products. But, if you’re not focused in the non-agency space, it’s

00:02:22 then you’re leaving potentially one out of every four one out of every five deals on the table. And, you know, uh so so uh I think today we’re going to really dig into the the equity space and talk about that. Like I said, it’s a generational opportunity. You have 24 million millionaires in the United States, of which 75% of them are millionaires cuz of their equity. Uh people are renovating their homes cuz they’re staying uh at their homes cuz they’re locked into these lower note

00:02:50 rates. So, uh you’re seeing a lot of renovation projects. In 2026, there’s going to be about 600 billion of renovation projects. You talked about consumer debt. That’s at 5 trillion, all-time high. People are consolidating their debt. And, people are leveraging their equity to fund their businesses. The the investors are tapping into the equity to rehab their portfolios, buy new investment properties, right? Uh maybe start ground up or fix and flip projects. So, having these tools, you

00:03:18 know, definitely gives you an edge in the market. And, the brokers that we have on this show with with us today are actually ones who have really embraced early on these products and they’re they’re thriving in today’s challenging market. >> Yeah, if I could jump in there and piggyback off of what he said. So, consumer behavior and spending is at all-time high, right? You know, they’re they’re they’re keep on spending at a rate when when the income isn’t isn’t uh

00:03:42 keeping up. So, for for me here in this market, it’s it’s right right what he said, right? It’s you know, people are consolidating their debt, right? They keep on spending money. Um most of most of everybody’s wealth is trapped in their home, right? As as we all know. And and then when you look at affordability, you know, because we had such a big increase during the last refi boom in in equity uh for for property values, nobody wants to go ahead and buy any new homes. So, what are they doing?

00:04:06 They’re upgrading the home that they have, right? So, for me it’s been a big game changer being able to to to offer these products and especially the way uh DPA has come out with them for me. Um, you know, self-employed borrowers can now tap into the equity of their homes, you know, they’re doing major upgrades. It really has been a game changer for us here. It’s about 15 to 20% of our business and I see a bigger growth in our office with that. >> Anybody else with any thoughts before we

00:04:31 move on to the next question? >> Yeah, and then I’ll just add that, you know, during COVID uh there was a lot of refinances, a lot of cash-out refinances, and uh that is nonexistent today. There are no cash-out refinances. Uh but the tools that loan officers used to identify, you know, if the equity’s increased on their on their past customers, they have tools in place and that’s what they used to use for that. That same marketing strategy can be used on the HELOCs and closed end seconds to replace

00:05:05 that cash-out refi. And the refi that they did during COVID, that was uh 6 years ago. They have equity in their home and you could go back and offer them an equity product to tap into uh that equity to to cover some of the things we’re talking about, consolidate debts, credit card bills. >> Matt, just to to finish off there, too. In Q1, I think uh we discussed this on a different call. In Q1, there was $47 billion in uh in equity extraction in Q1 of 2026. 25 billion of the 47 billion was done

00:05:38 through equity products, second liens. So, more than half of the equity extraction in Q1 was done through equity products. So, if you don’t have equity products or you’re not embracing these products, your borrowers, they still have the financial need as you know Diego mentioned, but guess what? If you don’t offer it, they’re going to go somewhere else. And a lot of times they go to the servicers. And the servicers, when they take that loan and they do the second, then it’s time to do the next

00:06:04 loan to refi cash out. They have about a 90% recapture rate. So, it’s having equity products is a critical piece of your should be a critical piece of your product offering and your retention and recapture strategy. You know, not just this year, but I think elevate rates are going to remain elevated for some time here and the folks who embrace these products are definitely going to be thriving in the market over the next 3 to 5 years. >> Tom makes a great point. You know, I’m in mortgage banking is kind of unique.

00:06:34 There’s no annuity, right? For most mortgage bankers, especially mortgage brokers. So, every month you’re starting over again with the new pipeline. And so, with with all the things that we we said so far, it’s even more and more important for our mortgage brokers to be at the top of the funnel. And so, these digital products help you stay at the top of the funnel for a lot of reasons we’re going to talk about. >> Well, let’s get into the originators and how they’re using these products. And I

00:06:57 know Brian wants to start us off, so we’ll start off with him. Brian, where are the biggest opportunities for brokers who haven’t yet build out a non-QM or equity solutions offering? And what’s holding most of them back? >> The biggest opportunity from my perspective is serving the self-employed borrowers, real estate investors, and homeowners with significant equity. Most brokers aren’t offering these solutions simply because they aren’t familiar with the products. Dee Pay another wholesale

00:07:22 lenders have these products and we’re very confident that mortgage brokers would like to sell these products. >> Paul, Diego, you have any thoughts on that? >> Yeah, I think the biggest opportunity from my side it really has been you know, when you think of these products, people traditionally go to the retail banks, right? That’s always been the case, right? They don’t know that we as mortgage brokers can offer these products to them, right? And we offer them with with a great amount of

00:07:46 flexibility that they haven’t had in the past. So, you know, through my conversation with [clears throat] my clients and I tell them, “You know I can do a bank statement loan. You know I can do a DSCR loan, right? I can There’s many ways to extract equity out of the property that you have. So, I think I think education is is at the forefront of what we need to do with everybody. Letting them know that they exist outside of your traditional banking system, right? And that and the rates

00:08:10 are actually very competitive. I I offer rates 8 and 1/2, 8.875, and they’re going to their banks and they’re getting the same rates and sometimes even higher. So, you know, we shouldn’t be shy offering these products. We’re not only competitive, but we’re bringing real solutions to the market. >> Yeah, Diego, you know what’s interesting in your market. I live in South Florida as you know, too, but Miami in general has had more $10 million sales than any other county or any other city in the

00:08:34 United States the last two quarters. And think about all the equity appreciation and the homes on the water. It’s yachting capital of the world, right? I I mean, Diego, having a a a jumbo million-dollar HELOC, having a closed-end million-dollar HELOC. No other I’m not aware of any other investor that has a jumbo million-dollar product. Like how how does that like really open doors for you there? >> Well, you know, I was on you about that for a couple years, right? >> [laughter]

00:09:02 >> I got that one out and and and it really is a game-changer. Like I told like you know, like I preach to everybody in my office and and in my company, you know, most of these seconds that I’m doing literally 5 years ago, it was a first mortgage. I mean, if you look at the loan balance, right? I mean, at least in in my in my neighborhood, right? So, you know, we’re doing four or 500 seconds, you know, even 600 seconds and and it’s crazy, right? And and everybody they don’t you know, you would think

00:09:25 that the consumer is going to balk at a at a 8 and 1/2 interest rate, you know, like I previously mentioned. They don’t. They accept it. They love it. They don’t want to touch their first mortgage. They love their 2.875 interest rate. And and with these loan balances that we’re doing it it really it really has it’s it’s shifted the momentum of of how my loan officers view the mortgage industry too, right? Now they have confidence. Now they’re closing deals, right? It’s keeping food on the table.

00:09:50 So it’s just there’s a big psychology that goes behind this and already for the consumer but also for the people who are offering these products. >> Um well, let’s move on we’ll move on to our next question. We’ll start with Diego this time. Can you walk us through a specific loan scenario you closed with Deephaven that wouldn’t have worked through conventional channels? >> So yeah, it’s actually a good one and so, you know, back to the million-dollar loan that that Tom and I were talking

00:10:15 about. Uh the product came out he gave me a call I think it was on maybe a month ago month 2 months ago and and had an old client um has a house in in Park Avenue, right? $5 million house sitting on a $2 million first mortgage, right? He calls me he’s like, “Diego, I I I need capital, right?” He’s got a great business. Um he builds seawalls and he goes, “I I I need, you know, business is booming. I need access to capital. I went to my bank and my bank said, “Look, I I I we can’t lend this to you, right?”

00:10:41 When you know, most people are self-employed, uh God bless them they’re very savvy with their taxes and you know, they’re able to keep some money on their side with strategic um tax filings. Um and he goes, “Diego, I I I need access to I believe he told me something like 4 or 500,000.” I said, “I have a HELOC product where I can offer a million dollars, right?” Because everybody always when you talk to a consumer, they’re always going to tell you the bare minimum that they need. So

00:11:05 you got to you got to walk them through and tell them, “Look, I’m going to give you extra cash, right?” Because you don’t want to come back to me and pay closing costs all over again, right? So we we were we had the opportunity to turn a four or five hundred thousand-dollar first, I mean sorry, second HELOC, right? Into a million-dollar HELOC, right? He ends up drawing most of the money as we all know he was going to anyways, right? Cuz that’s just the way they they it always works out, right? Um

00:11:28 and we and we did that and we did a bank statement loan, right? I mean great cash flow, he’s in business, right? You know, he has easily 3 to 400,000 dollars deposits, you know, has has has the cash flow to to justify. And he really does have the means to justify the mortgage, right? Um it’s a win-win all around, right? And without without this product, you know, uh I don’t know if we would have been able to get it done anywhere else, right? >> Brian, any thoughts on that? >> So, just this past year, we closed a

00:11:55 loan for a self-employed borrower uh who didn’t qualify with their tax returns. And the tax returns do not reflect the true cash flow. Using bank statements program that Dee Pay Haven has instead of tax returns, we were able to qualify them and get them the cash out that they wanted for their property they own free and clear. Something that conventional financing that could they couldn’t accomplish uh on the on the market. So, uh that’s kind of just one of the solutions that Dee Pay Haven and other

00:12:17 lenders offer on the wholesale mortgage broker space. >> Yeah, I would just like to piggyback just recently uh as late as last week early last week, we rolled out a DSCR HELOC on first liens up to a million dollars and on second liens up to half a million. And look, there’s 19 million investment properties in the United States, close to 50 million units or doors. And savvy investors that are stuck in these lower note rates that, you know, they’re cash flowing, they still want to take cash out to rehab their portfolios.

00:12:46 They still want to take cash out to buy new new investment properties, right? You see folks doing fix and flips in bridge down in South Florida. Like uh they’re they’re they’re tearing down homes and they’re putting new homes up, right? Investors need leverage. And, you know, we we rolled that product out and, you know, similar to uh you know, the scenario um regarding the the borrower needed to get out three loans to get the 500,000. Well, we’re seeing loans five DSCR, you know, HELOCs for a one investor. They’re

00:13:17 taking money out and they’re they’re they’re starting rehabs or buying new investment properties. We’re seeing multiple scenarios where these investors are taking money out so they They go uh they could leverage their their their their capital and go buy more investment properties. So, uh, investment transactions last year were 30% of the overall purchase market. So, imagine having access to that product and going to investors who are professional investors, that’s a big way, a great

00:13:42 door opener to get your door into these investors who transact five to seven times a year, unlike a consumer that might be doing a a transaction once every five years. >> No question about that. Paul, I I don’t know if you heard the question or not, but can you walk us through a specific loan scenario you’ve closed that might not have worked with conventional channels? >> Sure, I’ll give you an excellent example. Uh, a great resource here in Atlanta for us is these private bankers that have

00:14:10 clients that don’t fit the guidelines that the private bank has. So, they refer them out to us as brokers because they know we’re not going to take the depository relationship. And a great example I have was a client that wanted to start a business. He needed about half million cash flow. He had three properties that he owned free and clear, one had a small loan on it. We pulled the cash out of all the three rental properties, and we did a great It was a bank statement loan because he had great

00:14:33 cash flow going through his bank statement. But, he wasn’t showing the income on the tax returns, and it worked out excellent for him because he was able to get the $500,000, start the business. The bank was happy we took care of the client. So, a great resource for us has been the banking relationships, uh, because the bankers want their clients to start the businesses, get the cash flow, but yet they can’t provide the loans for them, but we can do through the DPA products. And that example was a great example for

00:14:58 us. We made a happy client, and I’ve since gotten other referrals through the banker for DSCR loans, for bank statement loans, for P&L loans. So, it’s been it’s been a great source of, uh, products that we can service our clients with as brokers here in the Atlanta area. >> Now that we got you back, let’s go back to that answer to question two about, uh, the biggest opportunity for brokers who haven’t yet built out a non-QM equity solutions offering and what may be holding most of them back.

00:15:25 >> I think it’s just knowledge and comfort level with the programs because once you start closing these programs, the digital HELOCs, the the bank statement loans, the P&L loans, the DSCR products, it’s you become comfortable with them. It builds confidence as you close them and also it it gives the cash flow to the clients and the cash they need to start businesses, to consolidate debt and so it they need to find I mean in our we have a great relationship with our account rep Mark Hammond. I’ve known him for 30

00:15:55 years. And I actually had a meeting with him about five years ago about going into this space and I said Mark it’s probably the best move you’re ever going to make and and he’s done really well with Deephaven and so it’s it’s it’s important to have a good account rep to work with when you’re selecting a non-QM company because the products are out there but the account rep can help you put the deals together and the knowledge. And especially in our firm, we’ve got myself, we’ve got a guy that’s

00:16:20 83 believe it or not that still produces. We’ve got Brian who’s on the call who’s 28. So Mark can work with all of us to help us put the package to get the deals together. Especially Brian, he’s young, he’s got a lot of deals and and Mark helps him put them together and they get them closed. So and that’s that’s the important thing about having an account rep that understands the products and can help you put the deals together. >> No question about that. Let’s move on to the next question and

00:16:45 we’ll stay with you Paul to start this one. How are equity solutions helping you retain or recapture past borrowers who might otherwise shop elsewhere? >> Well, the most important thing from from me being in the business for a while is having that database and the database calls when you determine that there’s equity there and especially if you look at what people are paying now with credit card debt, car loans and other consumer loans, you can consolidate with the Deephaven products. Especially right

00:17:13 there on the phone with the digital HELOC. I mean you can have an answer immediately. It’s a soft credit pull. You send the information to them there, and you’re staying on top of it as opposed to the servicers hammering with free appraisals, free off-road backpacks, whatever it might be to get them to call in. So, having the deep haven digital HELOC has been a game-changer for us because, I mean, even you can ask even Brian. He closed a loan in less than a week for one of his clients that needed some cash out to buy

00:17:40 his property in North Carolina. So, we’re big proponent of the digital HELOC. Some big fan of them. Um it’s it’s been excellent. One guy we’re heavily involved with networking in my BNI group. Um I welcomed him into the group on Monday, and he said, “Well, I’d like to talk to you about a HELOC.” I approved him on Monday, and the next meeting was Wednesday, and he he announced that he was glad to be in the group in the networking group, and he also announced that he had closed on his

00:18:06 digital HELOC and got the cash in like 3-day window. So, it was it’s it’s it’s just a it’s pretty pretty cool what we can offer as brokers having the you know, partnering with the non-QM, especially if you got a a company that can produce the products and get them closed quickly for you. >> Brian, tell us about your perspective on this. >> Absolutely. I think equity solutions give us another reason to reconnect with past clients. And I think in sales, I think it’s important to follow up

00:18:35 without being annoying per se. So, they realize to be like I said, equity solutions give us another reason to reconnect and follow back up with our clients. Instead of telling them to wait for rates to fall, we can help them access equity for renovations, debt consolidation, investments, or other financial goals today. As soon as 1 week, we can get them their cash out of their equity in their home. It keeps us relevant as long as they’re happy. >> Diego? >> Yeah, a lot of what they just said,

00:19:04 right? And and that’s going to be the theme throughout throughout this conversation when it comes to this topic. I’ll give you a story just to piggyback, right? Your database is is is the most important thing that you have as as a professional. And and to for me to be able to reach out to my clients and have a different conversation is is gold, right? Because you’re you’re constantly touching out to me and it’s and it’s constant contact, as we say. So, we did an email campaign about 2 months ago

00:19:30 where we blasted all our clients and we put a digital calculator where they can kind of put in the numbers of what they wanted in cash and they would see the payment on the right hand side. So, a lot of these consumers sometimes they’re afraid or they’re shy to say that they’re in debt and and to call somebody. You know, it’s some for them it’s it’s a very personal subject. So, what we did is when we blasted everybody and we put the digital calculator and we said, “Look, you can access and you

00:19:53 know, you know, just some some numbers of 8 and 1/2, 9%”, right? On on on a HELOC or or a HE loan and they saw and they saw what they could um obtain and they saw the payment, we had a huge response. Huge response, right? I I I think, you know, we’re very big into marketing and I don’t think we’ve had such a big response as we did with that campaign because people, you know, now now now they feel empowered and and they they give you a call like, “Diego, yes, I want to access 50. I want to access

00:20:20 100. I want to access $200,000″, right? “I want to pay off that. I want to do these things.” So, so again, you know, being able to to talk to your consumers about something different is is always an opportunity, especially when you’re bringing real real value to them. >> I mean, just think about it, right? Your past database, right? Um what a great conversation to have if you just could pick up the phone. The emails work great, you know, a lot of these digital HELOCs, like

00:20:45 ours, you can we have a link customize your link, right? You can put it in and it goes out, you know, looks like it’s your website or your HELOC, but what a great conversation you could have by picking up the phone, calling your past client and saying, “Hey, congratulations, Diego, on your rate, the 2.875. You’ll never see that again, right? Congratulations on the equity your house is worth, you know, you picked up an extra $300,000 in equity. Uh just checking in to see are you looking to

00:21:16 renovate your home? I know it was built in the 1970s. Are you looking to uh add some square footage? Are you looking to put on a roof, a pool? Are you looking to consolidate debt? How The kids are going to college. Are you looking to fund your business? Right? That You’re adding value. You could have that conversation with every single customer you’ve ever done a loan for because they all have equity. And not only that, you could do it with people that you’ve never closed a loan for, right?

00:21:44 Because 75% of America’s millionaires are millionaires cuz of their equity in their home. So, if other loan officers are not embracing these products for whatever reason, you can market to their past clients, and you can pick up new relationships, right? And they’ll remember when when you helped them consolidate debt. Uh they’ll they’ll remember when you helped them renovate their home, right? They’ll the The investor is going to remember you when you helped them, you know, cash out

00:22:13 to go start another project or to rehab their, you know, their their existing, you know, uh uh investment portfolio. So, it’s just a great conversation, right? Instead of waiting for the phone to ring, like let’s let’s It’s not that the phone’s not ringing. It’s the person making the phone ring. You got to make the outbound calls. And that’s the best I I think conversation starter that you could have today because the equity deal, you might be able to say, “Hey,

00:22:37 how I’m the investment property looking at, you know, I have this product you can cash out.” They cash out with the equity, and then now they’re going to buy an investment property. Now you got two deals out of one transaction. >> 100% 100%. For me, again, back to the value proposition that you bring to the client on this subject matter changes the dynamic of the conversation completely, right? And that’s where the value is for me. >> Let’s come back to Matt, cuz I want to

00:23:04 talk a little bit about Deephaven specifically. What is it about Deephaven’s non-QM and equity product suite that solves problems brokers can’t solve elsewhere, and what’s a misconception about these products that you find yourself correcting most often? >> Yeah, so I’ll I’ll concentrate on the the HELOC, and then let Tom follow on the on the rest of our second suites of products. But, you know, the the word digital HELOC’s been mentioned already in the call, and it’s

00:23:34 it’s ease of use. And the the automation is great, but it’s great for the easy loan, if there is such a thing. That’s your salaried W-2 person, uh loan amounts under 400,000, we use an AVM, those go quick. But, all loans are not that easy. So, what we’ve done is it’s a hybrid. We use automation when we can on the easy one I just described, but when it comes to uh somebody is self-employed, very complicated bank statement, and you probably already know that as an LO cuz you’ve done a loan for them before, the

00:24:09 automation is not going to work and come back with the the income that you would from uh a regular underwriter looking at it. So, we use the automation to a point where it gets to a complicated borrower, and then we have a human lens on it uh to be able to analyze the bank statements and come up with the true uh income for the borrower for the complicated one. And then, so we’re able to call time out on the automation, insert the human lens, be able to look at the the bank statements. And then,

00:24:40 also on your higher loan amounts, we have a ability to call time out and order a full appraisal. And even that easy one I described, you know, you you run an automated valuation, again automation, they’ve been in their house 15 years, it’s not going to pick up the improvements they’ve done in the past or anything to make the value of their home higher. A full appraisal is needed on some of these for the borrower to get the maximum cuz, you know, they don’t want to, you know, get a new HELOC every

00:25:09 year. The the closing cost was mentioned by Diego. So, by able able to or do a full appraisal, they’re able to get the max. And then the other thing is we’re able to do this on primary, second home, investment. We can do the W-2 salaried, we can do fixed income, we can do the bank statement analysis. And as Tom mentioned, we have a DSCR. So, if you’ve got an investment property, here’s your mortgage, here’s your you know, your your lease, your rent you’re getting from that, we can use

00:25:40 that. And we’re not going to ask about any other debt or do a DTI like we would on a bank statement or salary. We’re just using that DSCR calculation. And then one more step on that, we could use asset utilization. So, somebody’s got, you know, money in their retirement account, we can have that as the primary means of income or supplemental to their bank statement or or or full doc salaried. So, there’s many different ways that they can qualify with us and that automation just is not going to be

00:26:12 able to pull off. So, we add that in and then the biggest thing is this HELOC is 5 years interest only. And I touched earlier on the refinance. So, we have no refinances on the horizon in the next, I’d say, 18 to 24 months. I don’t think rates are going to get below that 5 and 1/2. It’s kind of a magic number for that to to get the people in the past couple years to refi. But, cyclically, the industry every 5 years we have a rate drop for the cash-out refi. So, to say that you could give somebody access

00:26:48 to this capital without touching that first and be able to have an interest only payment based on whatever you have drawn out and then that interest payment’s lesser if you pay it back is really powerful. And then finally, and I’ll let Tom take the floor here, but misconception is we can do first lien position. So somebody is paid free and clear or they paid cash for the property, we can give them a HELOC on everything I just described even if they don’t currently have a first mortgage right

00:27:20 now. >> Matt, you bring up a great point. 40% of Americans own their home free and clear, right? And most originators target people that want to purchase or do a refi cash on an existing loan. They’re not even targeting the 40% of Americans that have their home free and clear. And and and these folks that, you know, that have that want to renovate, right? They paid their home free and clear, more than likely, you know, the The reality is we have an aged housing stock. The average age of a home in the

00:27:45 United States is 40 to 50 years old. So homes need to be renovated and people in. So those are all great points on the first lien HELOC because we’re seeing a lot of that traction as well. Matt, going to the your question on the the you know, just like what makes us different at Deep Haven, the product suite, I would say, you know, I don’t consider us a non-QM investor anymore and you know, that’s that’s the message that we’re we’re championing with our sales team. We’re really a

00:28:13 non-agency investor. And what what do I mean by that? You know, right? We have a full suite of non-QM. We have a full suite of equity products, which includes a a a you know, a closed end second and a HELOC up to a million. We also have alt doc, whether it’s bank statement, P&L, DSCR, asset utilization. We have a first lien HELOC, right? And then we all have also have access to RTL, which is fix and flip and ground up construction and bridge to 15 million. So many of our competitors, you

00:28:48 know, might only have non-QM. They don’t even have equity on the road map, right? You know, building out a digital HELOC in your technology, there’s only a handful of players in the the mortgage space that have that product, right? Maybe less than five on on a hand, right? When you look at IMBs. And we have, I think, if you look at our overall suite, like you would have to get approved of five three or four different investors, one for non-QM, one for digital HELOC, one for alt-doc, closed on seconds, one for DSCR HELOC,

00:29:18 one for RTL potentially. So, you would have to get approved of four three or four different investors to get the same product offering that Deephaven Deephaven has in in in one, you know, one place. So, I personally believe that we have an arsenal of products, right? And it allows, you know, not in in in it allows our our customers to to to work with their clients and provide access to all these options that we have, and their clients don’t have to go anywhere else, right? Whether it’s equity, whether it’s

00:29:50 non-QM, you know, we talked about investor solutions being or investor transactions being 30% of the market. If you have access to a non-QM, DSCR, a five-to-nine, a DSCR you know, HELOC, a DSCR second closed on second, then you can do fix and flip, bridge and ground-up construction to 15 million. Why does that investor That investor is going to go nowhere else. You could help them acquire the land whether with the DSCR second lien, right? Then they could do the fix and flip, then they could do the the the

00:30:23 DSCR take out. So, you get three transactions on one deal, right? So, having a full suite access to an arsenal of products really gives originators an advantage a competitive advantage in the marketplace. It allows the originators to tap into the referral sources that maybe in the past they haven’t really, you know, tapped into accounting CPAs you know real real estate attorneys. You know, there’s all these different avenues, right? The top 5% of realtors in the United States, they control 95%

00:30:55 of the listings, right? The originators that are successful in today’s market, they’re taking this full suite of product and they’re going to those realtors and they say and they’re telling them, “Hey, I have a full suite of products. I can help you do more deals. I can help you transact more. I can help you with builders. I can help you with all your past clients ever bought a house out of equity. They can take the cash out to go buy more, you know, more properties, right? So,

00:31:18 they’re leveraging these products and you know, the all the brokers and you know, on this this this call have talked about, you know, education and having expertise and they’re known for their expertise, knowledge, and focus in this space and people come to them because they’re pros in this market and these products. And so, that’s what I would, you know, the the takeaway for the from this call till end would say originators embrace these products, become product knowledge experts, be known in your

00:31:46 market as a non-agency you know, go to originator and leverage these products to the tap into different referral sources and take a tactical approach, have a strategy, and you’ll thrive in in today’s market. >> As we get ready to wrap up today, a question Tom that I always like to discuss with you every time we get a chance to chat is where do you see this segment of the market heading over the next 12 months? >> Yeah, I think the market’s going to the non-agency market’s going to

00:32:18 continue. We’re going to see 30, 35% you know, year-over-year growth. I think the biggest area of growth is going to be loan officer adoption, right? Really, you know, embracing these products. I think equity is a generational opportunity. The backdrop couldn’t be perfect for that those type of products. And I you know, you see the agencies, they’re they’re actually, you know, they’ve pulled back on certain, you know, you know, investor or or second home LLPA’s. You they’re they’re they’re

00:32:45 they’re they have some changes on the condos coming in August and there’s going to be a change in, you know, I think in January around the budget, you know, you know, for condos. And how they treat those budgets and you know, certain requirements. So, and I what I’m hearing, you know, based on you know, conversations are being had with the agencies from some, you know, industry executives and key leaders in our industry, like they’re not going to budge on that stuff. So, guess what? Not

00:33:13 Don agency is going to fill that gap and you know, Diego, you got a ton of condos in South Florida, right? Like that’s that’s going to be big for Diego to to help all his his his loan officers and you know, you know, and all their their their clients that that [clears throat] purchase these these condos with the with the you know, the the the non-warrantable products that we have at Deep Haven. So, we’re always trying to innovate, trying to serve, trying to you know, help our brokers. We take a lot of

00:33:42 feedback from them and you know, leverage that feedback to to you know, innovate new products. >> No, it’s funny. I, you know, I tell all my loan officers, if you have a condo and you’re not going straight to Deep Haven, you’re just wasting time. I literally tell everybody that. I You guys have one of the best condo products in the market. I’m sure it performs well because you guys, you know, haven’t dinged it up in any in any way. Um, it truly is what Deep Haven does to give me as a

00:34:09 loan officer and and and my group is is second to none. I’m a big fan, always been big fans and and thank you for for for everything you guys do. 100%. >> That’s just about going to wrap things up for this edition of MPA TV. Thanks again to all of our guests and thank you for watching this edition of MPA TV. For my guests, I’m Matt Saxon saying so long and we’ll see you again next time. >> [music]

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