Episode 34: Shana Daby, From Underwriting to Originating

Mordecai interviews top originator, Shana Daby of Greystone, in this 34th episode. Shana discusses her path from underwriter to originator, the similarities between selling and teaching, focusing on service, and her drive to take on the complex and "hairy" deals.

TIMESTAMPS: 

02:00-05:07   Early Sales Experience 

05:07-07:13   Transition into Lending

08:38-11:16    Selling vs Teaching: The Similarities

12:41-15:11    Selling the Long Term

15:11-20:07    Inflation 

23:10- 30:03    Brokered vs Direct Business

30:04-32:59    Focus on Service Over Product

37:42-40:24    You Can Do Nothing Wrong and Still Lose

44:40-49:07   Accountability

lenders, market, people, loan, client, equity, selling, deals, screen protectors, year, calls, rates, business, borrower, easy, long, sales, chase, interest rates, debt

Transcript

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:14

Hey, it's Mordecai, and welcome back to the Origination Podcast where we speak to the top salespeople in the multifamily industry to try to understand what separates the top performers from the rest back. On this episode, I'll be speaking with Shana Daby, Shana is a managing director at Greystone. What's very interesting about Shana is that her path to origination was through a very accomplished career in underwriting. Now, there are lots of underwriters who think that they might try origination, but the path from one position to the other is not always so easy or clear. But Shana did that very successfully and last year, closed over $400 million of deals. So if you are in underwriter and analyst trying to figure out how to make the transition, or you're a salesperson who wants to hear about how Shana does a great business that she does, to close such amazing numbers, then this interview is for you. So without further ado, let's speak to Shana. Here she is Shana Daby, welcome to the Origination Podcast. It's a delight to have you here.

Shana Daby: 1:39

Very happy to be here--still hard to think of myself as an originator not an underwriter. But I'm I'm growing more comfortable with it by the day.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 1:47

Hmm. Right. That's interesting, right? So you could you start, you grew up in underwriting, and then you made the shift. So I'm gonna come back to that point. But I'm curious, though, that was certainly a shift from sales. But I'm curious if there if there if, if there's any sales that you had encountered earlier in life, you know, maybe in college, high school grade school, after college, but like, if I said, What was the earliest sales experience that you you've had, would you say, or Jason, would you point to something earlier on in life,

Shana Daby: 2:25

I would, I opened a restaurant in college, and was the manager of the food and beverage aspects right next to an event center in downtown Minneapolis. And therefore training staff in service and promoting the restaurant itself. And the new location was my per first foray into a sales like environment. The remainder of my career was more analytically focused. I actually went to Cornell to urban planning school, with no intention of doing real estate. But I was going to do international economic development, but quickly switched and had an undergrad in finance. So made the shift to real estate. So I didn't set out for a career in sales. It found me.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 3:28

Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. It's, you're considering international economic development, but FHA was just so much sexier. So yeah.

Shana Daby: 3:38

Actually, it makes me a geek for FHA because I am interested in the policy and the larger foundation of HUD as an agency. So the the laws and the regulations and the history all in thrall of me and that really throws me in a geek camp, I guess.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 4:03

Yeah, that's that's very, that's very interesting. So when did you think we're so analytical mindset you know, when in came into the industry, with that you became a a an underwriter and a very talented underwriter at that. When did you first do you remember a time where you first thought like, oh, yeah, maybe I could do origination or maybe I should think about it. Your when what did you see? Was there a moment, you know, or just just something that kind of grew over time?

Shana Daby: 4:40

I went into the type of underwriting that I did so that I could purposefully blend my seeking of doing social good with the real estate finance so I started out in affordable housing underwriting low income housing tax credit equity, and that's such a complex product that there there's a years of runway before you master the product and really to originate it, before you've mastered it. I guess for my roots. It just didn't. It didn't make sense in the rational sequence of events of of a professional life. And then when I switched to debt with a focus on affordable, again, it felt like I had years of runway to before I would reach a level of mastery in the subject matter. It is once I felt like a technical expert on a product starting with HUD that I've started to think about originations, but I grew up with leadership that emphasized the safety and security of underwriting and the fact that it didn't carry with it so much pressure to perform, but it also didn't have the upside. And so it was actually your brain trust, I think that had the idea that underwriters with originator personalities, might be good hires, or good originators. And so I had the voice in the back of my head, telling me to do originations, but I also had equal fear of not necessarily knowing that I would succeed and also still enjoying underwriting, so I didn't have job dissatisfaction. And then I think the the defining moment was when I had clients that I had underwritten for seek me out deliberately. And so there were several, and I took that as my opportunity to rip off the band aid and just go full bore into originations. Hmm.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 7:13

So you said that you started with tax credit equity and and then affordable housing debt, and that you didn't feel like you would want to take the time to origination until you have mastered that. But does that mean that there was something in the back of your head that Alright, once I've mastered this, then I'll consider the sales side? Or was it more of a natural evolution? Well, I guess, I mean, it's always gonna be natural evolution. Was it more an idea that you had kind of 10 years into your career or whatever point that you said, you know, what? Maybe I should think about this. Or maybe it's only when clients are coming to you that you realize, oh, yeah, this does have legs like did people actually want to work with me? So was it because it is a crazy thing? I mean, origination is like a crazy thing to jump into. It is where the upside is in our industry. So that's, that's, so maybe that's kind of the reason why people will always consider it, but it is a far cry from underwriting in terms of a lot of a lot of regards. So. Yes, if you think there was like that, that seed or it was just like, well, if I want to kind of achieve the upside, at some point, you realize that it would be nice to

Shana Daby: 8:38

So I was a late bloomer to the idea of originations being attractive. I was content doing the analytical work as as you know, it has a tremendous amount of complexity, the transactions that we work on are not especially the ones I do are not commodity type transactions. And I have more fun, originating products that I feel like I have, I can speak about in my sleep, like HUD, I feel very uncomfortable selling things that I have to say I'll get back to you later or bring someone in and so I think that the excitement about it, and the eagerness to try it aroused in me, after I had gained that level of sophistication with the product type and the analytical skill set. There are some people well, we would always and you've probably experienced this too. You'd interview as underwriters and you can tell right away there their intention is not to be an underwriter it is to be an originator. And I'm a firm believer lever that an underwriting career can only help you become a more effective originator?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 10:08

I think it depends on the personality. You know, I think there's you know, we we use at Greystone, you're familiar with the Kolbe profile, right? So if the Kolbe profile is a measurement for the listeners, it's it measures your, what they call your cognitive ability, with not your cognitive ability, but your cognitive and that is how you are most comfortable working, what's your style of working, if left to your own devices, that four categories are, you know, there's a Fact Finder, which is someone who needs to do research first, right? So if you have examples, like, let's say you want to start a business, so Fact Finder would have to do a lot of research about what's going on in the market and all that. Then you have follow through the second category, which is someone who's very structured, so they would want to outline Okay, well, let's think about what are the things that need to happen? What are the what are the, let's figure out the timing and structure and how's this all gonna work. The third category is Quickstart, which is like, which is, they their market research is putting up a shingle and starting to sell, you know, and then figure it out, you know, it's like, they just want to want to go and follow. And then the last one is implementer, which is more, if you're good with your hands, you might start to like Mark, if it's a physical endeavor, we start to create the physical model, which is not so flexible in our in our industry. So there are some people who are you and I think are both factfinder leads. So for us, there's, we're most comfortable when we're when we have done research, we understand all that for we're going out there. And I remember like when when I started working with Donny, my brother, and he was coming out, he had just come out of college, right? And was just starting. And so we were working together and I was trying to teach him. Well, yeah, I guess to teach him what what I knew of originations. And we would, we were working on seem to get together with just the two of us. We had a client list that we were calling off of, I always wanted to do some research on the client before I would pick up the phone and say like, Let's go on a website and see what they're doing. Let's see if we could find out what they've been buying, look at the news to see if they're in press releases. So we can have some more information about that time. It was like, let's just call we'll figure it out on you know, if they pick up the phone, we'll think well, you know, we'll we'll figure it out on the fly. That's, you know, for for his personality to spend 10 years underwriting like that wouldn't have worked, you know, but so I think it's everyone, you have to pay attention to just what your natural comfort zone is. There's some you and I know, a lot of originators, who never would have cut it as underwriters, you know, they're, they're not detail oriented enough. And there's wouldn't be it wouldn't be their natural capability. So I think it's, it's, if it kind of just be attuned to your natural strengths, you know, and how your brain operates.

Shana Daby: 13:30

Yes, and I have to, so I have to push myself out of my comfort zone to be more like Donnie. So I think ideally, I would have both and that I would develop my strength in that arena. So I think I alluded to my success, being based on inbound calls, due to a track record of execution for my clients and word of mouth. Now, I am pushing myself much more towards outbound business development, in the calling and emailing, and I do have to conquer that conflict that I have between the research that I want to do and then the number of calls or emails that I'm making, right, because there's only so many hours in the day. And I don't love I don't love that aspect of calling. But I know it's integral to the job.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 14:32

Maybe, right, I think that there's, you know, my executive coach, Dan Sullivan, you know, he says that, like the problem is never the problem. The problem is how you're thinking about the problem. I understand exactly what you're saying. And I certainly feel that way a lot. Also where there's some things that I would like to change about how I'm operating and it's like, well, I have to be more x, right. And what that really means is like sometimes you do have to be warrants and sometimes what you're saying is I want to be more excellent less myself. And I think what you have to do what all salespeople have to do, all people in general is you have to kind of recognize who you are and what you're how you operate. And then you can kind of back solve into that. So if you're someone who's just not going to be comfortable making 50 calls in a row without any background information, well, then that's gonna be a stressful way to do business. Right? So maybe you can only do 20 calls a day, or 10 calls a day, but you're but your research enough where you can call it confidence. You know, but maybe there's a way to foster more referrals. Right? Or maybe there's, you know, I think they're, the focus on affordable is, is a niche right now, like you said, not everyone has that expertise, there's value that you can offer to developers and clients who are thinking about it, they building something, or buying something or doing it bond deal or tax credit deal, if there's just advisory services that you can offer. And just to that's kind of another potential path to go is, seek first to like, add value before you are at our selling. So you could call and say, Look, you know, I'm an I have, however, many years of affordable housing underwriting experience, we've been seeing this in the market, I just want to know, if you're interested in just hearing what's in the market, what's going on the markets and the trends we're seeing with tax credits and tax exempt bonds, like, you know, there's, you let me know, yeah, there's a new structure that we've got, that is now possible with FHA because of, you know, not requiring prevailing wages or whatever it may be, it's something that you, you can start by just adding, adding adding value, that the main thing that, that I'm saying is that I feel like you do have to just life will be easier if you can just understand how you operate, and kind of back solve into that figuring out how to sell and still be true to who you are and your, your natural way of of, of working. How's it how's that sound?

Shana Daby: 17:28

Yeah, my marketing, so far has been that I function more as an advisor than a relationship manager slash marketer, and that I'm an advocate for problem solving on deals. And that is, what keeps my biggest clients coming back, is they know that I don't have the cold call and then the handoff, but you know, so that that is both my advantage and my limitation in that there's a balance between how efficient that is for being an originator is not doing a clean handoff. On the other hand, that in that bolsters my ability to sell myself as an advisor, and so, yeah, I definitely think part of my sales pitch will always be that I serve in my value add is the structuring and identification of issues and following along to the deal more than making a salesy type pitch. I'm very, I'm very honest about that when I speak to people.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 18:49

You sometimes you're like, you can use it to your advantage and say, like, Look, I'm not a salesperson. Yeah, underwriter, you know, so, like, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna, I can tell you what I know and what I can do. Yeah, yeah. Interestingly, probably every single salesperson who I've interviewed, like, a lot of them don't necessarily consider themselves salespeople, you know, their listeners and advisors and they it's very, it's very interesting. The fact that people did perceive you that clients did seek you out means that they did no you do they had experience with you as an underwriter. I'm curious about, you know, any advice that you would have to someone who is in an underwriting position? It seems like there's different ways that that some groups operate, where sometimes the underwriter is like totally behind the scenes, you know, and is not really working directly with the client. Other times, there's a handoff and an underwriter is like just right up right out there, leading the charge after he'll sign up. Any any advice as far as how an underwriter should and approach their work and what kind of, you know, environment they should look for. So I would imagine that you're building a lot more. You're a lot more valuable as an underwriter if clients will follow you, if you leave. It's not, there is a lot of loyalty to the originator. But we have also, I think clients also recognize that behind that originator is the people who are actually getting their deal done. And if it's a great underwriter who they had wonderful experience with, like they'll they will follow an underwriter sometimes. So like, what advice would you have for someone in underwriting position in terms of how to maximize their own value?

Shana Daby: 20:49

Yeah, for me, I always had a strong desire to win on deals. Even when my compensation structure was different. So it, I had a grit and a grind to get to the closing, and would drive a deal towards that. I think, being proactive and staying on top of outstanding issues and the things that are linear and the things that can occur in parallel. And having a strategy to, really push a deal forward is the most effective underwriter the the passivity in that role, I think is a detriment to both the deal and your performance as an underwriter. But that type of underwriter if they aspire to be an originator, I think is going going to have the hardest time being successful. So there has to be a determination and a competitiveness to close deals. At kind of at at your core, backed up by follow through and pro proactivity that really gives deal momentum to move forward.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 22:17

Yeah. What do you think, contributes to that? And why are some people is it? I guess, maybe some of it is just personality? Is it also environment culture? Like what do you think are the contributing factors to that?

Shana Daby: 22:35

Yeah, I think it could be a variety of things. I think workload can impact that. I think I've worked for several lending shops, and they all have different approaches to how you know, the volume of deals an underwriter can handle at one at one point in time. And it varies pretty dramatically between the shops that I've I've worked at. It also has to do with level of training and support that that you have, and then personality type. Yeah, you know, some some people this this business, it has inherent chaos to it, because there's a lot of deadlines and pressure and constituents, all with varied interests and levels of motivation. And so people's ability to perform under high pressure and stress, I think, varies. Some people shut down. Some people deliberately just go into zen mode. And then some people are motivated by it.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 23:55

Yeah, that it's interesting that you say like, just that competitive drive, like you wouldn't say like oh, underwriter competitive, although now that I'm thinking about it, we do have an embrace under a bunch of competitive underwriters. Yeah, I think, you know, we used to track just how many loans underwriters would would underwrite on that and we compensation that was somewhat correlated to that and there were like, definitely some like I know it feels fair like every year like he wants to do more than you did the year before you know and want to be that that to do more deals and then any other underwriter like and that's I guess what that does is it makes you valuable as to a client right because they're your deal doer, right, you're getting the deal done but also, as an underwriter you really want to be the go to like the most requested underwriter for from all the salespeople, right. You want every salesperson to want you right and yeah, and the reason why they want you is because you're going to be an advocate and a ally rather than an impediment.

Shana Daby: 25:09

For example, field number of deals was his was a big achievement for him when I when I was in my underwriting career, I always received the most complex deals structurally right. So I wasn't necessarily motivated by I closed this many deals, and I want to be a total machine and increase that number by three. Yeah, I would pride myself on closing deals that other my peers just couldn't probably wrap their head around in the timeframe that I did. So it wasn't necessarily a deal, number of deals. But complexity of deals, and I would, so I would seek out solutions until I found them. And that was more of my competitiveness on.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 26:02

Yeah. Did someone say hairy deal?

Shana Daby: 26:07

Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm best at? Is the really hard deals as an originator all now, I'll do any deal. But I think, for developers, if they're picking their horse as an originator, they'd be best served with sending the more complex structures my way I let the most value.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 26:36

Yeah, that's also like, that's a good calling card to have. You know, I feel like there's there's another line that I've heard, I forget who said this, but that the smaller the niche, the greater the opportunity, the bigger the opportunity, right? Because like, if you sit down with a client, you're sit down at a table next to someone who owns multifamily real estate, and they say, Oh, what do you do? I do multifamily finance, like, Okay, I got no interest in talking to you like because I there's, you're just generic. But if you said that, Oh, I do affordable housing, I do very highly complex structures and figure out how to get the deals done. Now you're that person will have a need for that. And then they'll say, Oh, well, have I? Do I have a deal for you that I need to talk to you about? Or they'll have no interest in talking to you? Because that's not what they do. And that's fine. Also, right. So you're, you're, you know, with that the right marketing, is you're attracting the right fit customers, and you're repelling the wrong fit customers. So, you know, if you were to talk to an attorney, and there's so many attorneys involved in affordable housing deal for zoning, and, you know, all the different building approvals and the whatever. But if there's, you have to get the word out to the attorneys, which I'm sure you've done, that look if there's a contract kind of a complicated deal. And, they should, you should think of being right, because that's a real, it's not just date. If it's an attorney would feel would be a hero to their client, by bringing you in, and that's a good referral, not just like, oh, we took my you know, let me just do a favor and say, you know, when you talk to my friend who sells insurance?

Shana Daby: 28:34

Yeah. It's interesting, I partner with people in the firm, particularly on FHA and affordable deals, and there are originators of the the opposite personality skill set, right, who they they do the calling the customer is always right. And they'll they'll they'll tell me that but my most valuable customers appreciate me pointing out the problems early, and why we can't do a certain thing that they wanted. Right, which is a flip from the sales approach. I have a lot of successful people. And to you know, to me, the customer is not always right. And they they appreciate being told what is and what isn't possible upfront.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 29:27

Yeah. Yeah. That's you raised another good point, which is there is the capability of internal originations also, right that there are, you know, we have a number of cases of success, you know, at Greystone, where, where we created roles for well, actually, a lot of them weren't people who were underwriters, but had the heart of an originator and But weren't necessarily going to be out there at cocktail parties, you know, just shaking hands and kissing babies, right. But if your other sales you can do once you have a niche, other salespeople who don't want to do hairy, affordable deals, right don't want to work with you and partner with you on those deals.

Shana Daby: 30:19

And I truly believe it's a value add for Greystone because it minimizes the number of one deal only experiences that we have, especially on complex, affordable and where the originator that wants to be out, schmoozing can set it and forget it and have faith in the execution being effective. In the eyes of the client.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 30:45

Yeah. I wonder you mentioned before, also that impact that workload has on, you know, underwriters ability to, you know, kind of really push a deal a deal forward. You know, one of the things that I found was that, you know, when we were when I was running FHA, and we created the Fast Track program, and we figured out, you know, our goal is, alright, could we do a full underwriting in two weeks, you know, whereas, yeah, and then with GTL, which is the innovation group that I lead, now, you'll want to do, I'm an agency side, yet to see if we could get from your application to closing in in three weeks and see if we could like or maybe get too close to closing. So it's what we what, I found is that if you do a smaller if you're handling a smaller number of fields, right, and they have your complete focus, you can everyone is kind of on the same page, you can get deals done very, very rapidly. Now we were on average, it takes 100, it took thinking 180 days to underwrite an FHA loan, when we started that fast yet, this idea of the fast track process, and that's just the lender. So before you get to FHA was 180 days, a lot of that was was client leads, maybe they didn't give us all their, their documents, but that's what it was taking notes. At the end, we were able to do it in two weeks. Not every deal. But everyone was motivated, right, the client was motivated, we had kind of a dedicated team. If you were if you were you were just focusing on one or two deals, you could finish a deal in two weeks. And when they asked our underwriters who did Fast Track deals like it was stressful, they said actually, it was sometimes less stressful, because you could just focus on this and then get it done. Didn't have to like let it's been just drag. So you can do the same amount of volume over the course of the year, but it's doing smaller amounts of deals more rapidly. What do you have any opinion, do you think that's something that that is that people should be thinking about is as a strategy, or is there something you maybe just doesn't work for any other reason?

Shana Daby: 33:01

Yeah, I think that that approach works for more plain vanilla deals, which as I said, hasn't been my focus, I think where I've seen effective let's call it outsourcing. To make an underwriter more productive and efficient and able to produce a an application faster has been the addition of internal technical specialist right. So someone to help with the PCNA and Phase One Review. Appraisal review, I think where you can have an underwriter who's able to outsource specific aspects of their job. You know, it can make the process go faster.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 33:50

Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Shana Daby: 33:55

You know, the, the emphasis on automation at Greystone, the technology, investment and focus here is has a lot and and the brain trust that's here. It plays a huge role in employee retention, at least from my perspective. Because it takes out the manual type nature of an underwriters job that that exists without technology.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 34:32

I always thought that a good goal was was to be the easiest lender to work with and the easiest to work for. Right and and I would spend more time focusing on being the easiest lender to work for. Which is, meaning how do you make it easier for all of your people on your team to do their jobs? Because if, if you're making it easier, to your point before About like workload, the only way they're gonna be able to better serve their, you know, your clients is if you make their jobs a little easier, you know. So any sales role models that come to mind like things that you saw in maybe in? In past firms like any people who you look who you kind of looked up to it's like, wow, they were like good, talented salespeople?

Shana Daby: 35:30

Yeah I think the ones that I've looked up to the most are the ones that know all the product types. So Fannie, Freddie HUD, and like, beyond superficial levels, but where they actually have the technical knowledge to answer all the questions that might come up about the full product array. And it's rare that you have someone that can do that advisory role on the fly in a meeting. And so if, you know, I, I'll use a spear as an example, whose team I'm a part of he, he has a advanced level of understanding of all the product types that Greystone offers, and he stands out in that way. My aspiration currently, is to acquire a higher level of sophistication in the products that I haven't closed over and over and over, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. So I'm really laser focused on learning agency, all of the product types within agency, and equity, and speaking, the language of owner-operators, so from, you know, understanding the deals from their perspective of, you know, what drives their investor models. So that when I'm in the room, I can think of solutions with a holistic understanding of what the developers motives are.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 37:26

Yeah, I think that's such a great idea, great point that all lenders have models, and you want to know, your own models, and maybe like for another product and other models, but we never see that developers, they'll send us their, their model, their development model. But to understand what's driving a decision of go or no go or one of that one of the levers that you're looking at, in terms of, could be developer fee is that, you know, anything dirt, you know, is it about recourse is it about, certain paperwork, or when you have to deploy equity or the timing of that, there's just really understanding what it is that they are looking for, and I bet like hardly anyone asked that question.

Shana Daby: 38:22

You know, and what's their equity raise model and what what's driving their decision-making cash on cash returns, you know, IRR, it's the you see those pages in the model and when you're selling debt or underwriting debt, you're not necessarily looking into the drivers or the formulas behind that aspect. And I think to be the most effective advisor you need to be able to understand both sides.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 38:53

Yeah, cuz really, you would love to be able to add that to like when we send over our sources and uses or like our model, the client segment information and plugging it in somewhere else, right. And it would be really great if like underneath you know, our here's your p&i payment. And here's your interest rate to see like, Alright, based on your assumptions, here's what your IRR is, right? Here's what your cash on cash return is in year, whatever. Or over the course of five years three, utilizing their their assumptions, you know, because that's really what you can do. I feel like the less someone has to think, the easier it is like you don't assume that I'm going to show this to you and then then you're going to have to come to your own conclusions. If you can just kind of hold their hands and take them to where to where they're want to go, that's an you is the way to add value to the client. Like just, you know, if you can let me think less, you're, you're a friend.

Shana Daby: 40:11

Exactly. And I'll get calls about what a refinance event might impact their their walk investor waterfall, right. And it's something that I need to spend more time learning so that I can be a true adviser in those instances so that I'm at the top of their head when they have deals.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 40:34

Yeah, that would be a good ally, to have a good, you know, some kind of a partnership, or just just to work together with someone who really knows how to do the calculations on those waterfalls, you know, on tax credit DLC, they're they're very complicated terms of what your through your capital account is, and depreciation.

Shana Daby: 41:03

Exactly.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 41:06

So, that's, very interesting. How do you you know, one of the challenges with origination is that you're kind of always on the other, you're on call to a certain extent. How do you handle that? How do you like recharge? You know, are you able to, on the weekends to kind of stay offline? Or what's that how you recharge, if you're from from the day to day grind?

Shana Daby: 41:43

Well, for most, I remind myself that I would much rather be in the constantly on call job than watching a clock at work. And loving and being energized by what I do, as, as that's my message that I use just kind of as a mantra that it's just always going to be somewhat like that. But there are worse alternatives. And then, yes, I went when I'm with my kids, you know, on the weekends, I will try my best to just check my email, you know, interludes throughout the day. I know there's some people that I interact with where I wonder if they sleep, you know, I don't I do sleep, I do have some balance. There's, you know, I hit my yoga mat if I need to. Yeah, and I have a huge competitive edge to me and a tremendous amount of drive. But I don't have to be the number one, one producer, I, I'd be okay. In the top 10.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 43:04

Yeah, well, you're doing phenomenally well. So you're doing something right. Having the experience as an underwriter also gives you a different perspective on the client's experience you're going through in underwriting. What what do you think are the most energy draining parts of the underwriting process for a client? anything come to mind? Like where they feel like, you know, that it's, it's one thing, can you get the deal signed up? But now, where do they get frustrated along the way? You know, it could be administrative things like filling out certain forms, it could be, you know, just lack of clarity about certain things, or would you anything come to mind as far as where things are energy depleting for a client during during the process?

Shana Daby: 44:04

Yeah, I think when the timing is always the most frustrating, you know, you there's a balance between giving a date that, you know, isn't true, especially with HUD, in particular, there's because of the lack of accountability that is created by a government bureaucracy and their motive. They don't have financial motivation, like we do. It's very, very difficult to navigate communicating with clients about timing. You know, and even even on the agency size side these days, just given the volumes and the volatility. It's hard to deliver a truthful message about timing, you know that that's aggressive, but not just a bold faced untruth.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 45:08

Yeah, because it's because we don't know. It's, I feel like to be a hero to someone, a lot of times it's about providing confidence and providing clarity. You want to know, that if, like, if, if I ordered something from Amazon, and they said, well, when's it gonna get there? It's like, well, I don't know. You know, could be a week, but maybe six months, you know, it doesn't feel that great. It just tells me, it's gonna be six months, it's gonna be six months. But when you don't have that tracking, you can't just like track your package when it comes to getting response from the agencies or FHA becomes more challenging, more challenging.

Shana Daby: 45:59

Yeah. And especially with FHA, the unpredictability of the response you're going to receive that on so different agency, underwriter, or originators in the firm that I partner with, they they want rational explanations to HUD decision making, and sometimes they just don't exist.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 46:23

How do you sell that? Well, we've got a loan product, you know, the decision makers are totally irrational and unpredictable. guarantee the timing, but like, how do you fit but you say, Hey, you kind of fell through that.

Shana Daby: 46:35

I had one of the more enjoyable aspects of HUD is your ability to underwrite to a pro forma. So a future expectation, which the agencies don't do. I mean, it is all about T1, tnow, T3, right? With HUD, we can do really creative things about what we'll have an acquisition, we're going to run it differently. There's going to be a rehab, you can underwrite to pro forma, you can push on a newly stabilized deal, you know, to recent lease turns, which, you know, you're not going to be able to do that with agency, you're going to be stuck with your your T1. So what I'll do and instant and I've pulled off some pretty incredible feats with HUD in terms of not being recklessly aggressive, but certainly getting top dollar proceeds to the to the borrower. And but I'll give them scenarios, and I'll say, Look, this is what we're going to ask for. But this is where we could end up. So if I win this most favorable outcome that I better be your hero, but you can't hate me if I don't.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 47:58

Yeah, that's also a great concept is like when when you have lack of certainty, and you can't get more certainty. A great way to manage expectations is to lay out multiple scenarios and say, look, here's where I hope we can get, I think we can get there, But it's possible that they'll say no, and here's what you would do. Here's the alternative, So make sure you're comfortable with this. Or maybe they'll say look, if you can get me that higher thing and great. If not, if you if it's lower amount then I'm not comfortable with that. But now everyone was forward understanding that risk you move forward and inventories. What about, for underwriters as an underwriter, you kind of assume they were at the catcher's mitt, you know, lots of times you may not get involved until a deal is signed up, if you're bringing, tough deals to under an unsuspecting underwriter, you know, that doesn't make you a lot of friends, either, so you want to as an originator, I think you want to you want the underwriters to like you also want to want to work with you. What are the things that you've seen that in originator can do or not do it that makes them pleasant to work with you as an as an underwriter?

Shana Daby: 49:23

I love this question. So my daily goal is to have the underwriters view me as an asset to a deal that they're are assigned, which means I have a heavy touch. I try I mean I have I've I've been accused of having a bravado and that's just kind of a certain part of my personality, but I try and offset that with the ability to help carry the weight right. And to help run calls and point to issues and remind what needs to happen next, that kind of deal driving that I said can be missed can be absent sometimes, but do it in a way that they appreciate it like they're being bolstered instead of squashed. So I think, you know, I don't constantly follow up without, you know, I think originators can be unpleasant for an underwriter when it's just a constant follow up with any following along. So my goal every day is to is to help an underwriter out. Because whether it's how I was brought up, or how I was trained, I know the struggles of doing that job. And I more importantly, know how critical they are to the experience and that my client has on the outcome.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 51:02

Yeah, Because there is there is an imbalance like to say, Oh, hey, what's going on with this? It's like, that's just a four or five word, email. But it's gonna require multi paragraphs to response. So if information already was sent before, it's being respectful of people's time and effort. One of the things, when I had started running the FHA group, this is before you were at Greystone, there was a lot of conflict between credit and production, which is natural, and in probably most companies, it felt like there was a lack of trust and appreciation. So that's when we started doing these, like these all hands meetings, where it everyone in the group, it was maybe at the time, it was like 85 or 100 people come to a location. And we did a day in the life. So we said, Alright, what is a day in the life of an underwriter look like? Here's some of the things that you don't know. Why are you here? Here's a day in the life of the originator. Here's how many calls you have to make before you get a return call. Here's how many like conversations you have to have before you can even get an application out. So to realize that, that was the hard job. Also, we realized that our processors had the most amount of contact with the client than anyone in the process. Right, they had, maybe tenfold. So that's when we change their names to project managers to realize they played such an integral role in the process. But I think there's something about just understanding, if you had to spend a day in the life of the other. You could be a lot of things might become easier on both sides. And I think you haven't grown up in underwriting and natural origination?.You've got a lot of that. One other question I want to ask you before we end, which is you spent a first part of your career kind of watching originators, and now you have been an originator? Any surprises, like anything that you thought would have been the case, and it wasn't. And anthing surprising to you about that role.

Shana Daby: 53:42

Yeah. Especially now the highs and the lows. So given the nature of transactions I work on, we'll just use a D4 as an example. I can execute on a D4 better than anyone else. And there are still things that go wrong that you can't control example, HUD changes their rules on pipelines in Texas. I can't reverse that. And so you'll have put hundreds of hours into a deal that's going to have a high payout. And then it's just gone. But then the next day somebody will call you and with two more opportunities that you weren't thinking of the day before when you got the bomb dropped that your previous deal was dead. So the high stakes and the highs and lows are something that I didn't expect because while I had that determination and drive as an underwriter, I wasn't as devastated when something didn't go forward for a reason that was out of my control.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 54:58

Yeah, and another Episode that I did with Aaron young grace, you know, he talked about the pain when a deal like dies. And he said, you know, then it used to be the beginning, you'd have to go home from work afterwards like, Alright, I'm just like done. And then he was able to just kind of walk around the block a couple times, just take 10 minutes and come back and kind of get back to work. And by this point, you know, by the time he's hung up the phone, he's on to the next one, so I think it's a muscle that you build, your point about the highs is also a good one to remember, I feel I keep trying to keep this in mind just in life in general, there are things that come up that are real, that really bring you down, maybe it's something that happened with one of your kids, or it's, I don't know, something that's like stress inducing. But then you remember that all it takes is, like how the smallest thing can actually like, lift you up It's like, all it takes is someone to call you and say, Oh, I have a deal I want to talk to you about and boom. It's like, you're free, you're totally restored. It could be just a nice email, or it could be someone running into a friend, an old friend. Like it's just our state of mind is very delicate. So, you want to just be able to develop the muscle over time to just kind of roll with those highs and lows, because they aren't there. They're part of organization, but they're part of life.

Shana Daby: 56:35

Yeah. And one of the beautiful things is that I live a lifestyle that could be supported by a senior underwriter salary. I like that job. So that helps to temper the erratic nature of the business of originations.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 57:01

Yeah, you haven't you haven't followed the ladder of flexing?

Shana Daby: 57:10

Yeah, I mean, it allows you to have nice toys, when when something hits the bank, but I don't have to.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 57:17

Right. That's actually another good great piece of advice for people, which is like, you know, especially when you start in a hot market, which today is not the case. But like, let's say, you started a phase, you were an investment sales broker that just started two years ago. It's like, Man, this is this is good. This is easy, right? And it's easy to just kind of spend as you earn, and it's, it's helpful if you can control your expenditures, even as you earn more. Some of those things are not controllable. I mean, to tuition and kids stuff , but there's definitely a a spectrum there. Well Shana, this was a lot of fun.

Shana Daby: 58:05

Yes, I agree.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 58:08

Thank you for joining. And I feel like I could have gone for another hour or so, happy to have you back at some point.

Shana Daby: 58:18

All right. I'll go originate so I'll have more more stories to tell.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 58:24

All right. Thank you.