In this week’s episode of the Power House podcast, HousingWire President Diego Sanchez sits down with Chad Smith, president and chief operating officer The better. The two discuss Smith’s decision to join Better, the company’s new platform and AI loan assistant, and growth strategies going into 2025.
This interview is edited for length and clarity. To begin the conversation, Sanchez delves into Smith’s decision to join Better following the company’s recent troubles.
Diego Sanchez: At best you’ve had a bit of a hard time with PR over the past few years. Why did you decide to take the position of president of a company with a damaged reputation?
Chad Smith: I’m a little surprised at how long the PR hangover, so to speak, lasted. When Better called me, I was honored to receive the call. With what has happened in the scene over the last few years, I have a better chance of disrupting that and being part of a team that can innovate and make changes.
Sanchez: How can the mortgage industry do a better job of avoiding this trend of boom-and-bust lending?
Smith: One Better Thing has done a great job of being one of a kind with the Tinman platform. You don’t have all these separate mergers or contracts for the estate agent. We’ve been able to reduce production costs by 35% above the industry average, and I think that should be a big industry response. We focus on making people more productive.
Sanchez: Let’s talk a little about Tinman, since it’s a proprietary platform, coming out in the end. How do you help Tinman grow better and gain market share in 2025?
Smith: We are concerned about driving costs down on the fulfillment side. I think clients do a lot of homework from an accessibility standpoint. If you can use technology to make fulfillment costs lower, consumers should benefit and that should improve conversions.
Sanchez: Do you make Tinman available to other lenders?
Smith: We have a pipe. We focus on that. This cycle, we have been focusing more on our homes. That said, when people are looking for fulfillment, solutions and quote, don’t quote, “loan in the box,” we certainly enjoy those conversations.
Sanchez: I want to talk about Betsy. That was an interesting press release you just gave. What’s going on?
Smith: Betsy is the first voice-based AI loan assistant in the real estate industry. It uses AI and language models to create solutions for consumers and internal customers. He is fully integrated with Tinman. We feel empowered to scale through 2025 and beyond.
The interview concludes with Sanchez and Smith exploring Better’s growth strategies for 2025 as technology becomes more prevalent due to increased recapitalization.
Smith: Services have more MSRs and are slower. They are in a good position to capture small amounts. For us, it’s about being in the right place, making sure you’re monitoring your marketing channels and maintaining relationships with consumers.
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