In this week’s episode of the Power House podcast, HousingWire President Diego Sanchez sits down with Chad Smith, president and chief operating officer at Better. The duo discuss Smith’s decision to join Better, the company’s new platform and AI loan assistant, and its growth strategies going into 2025.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. To start the conversation, Sanchez dives into Smith’s decision to join Better following the company’s recent struggles.
Diego Sanchez: Better has had a little bit of a difficult time with PR over the past few years. Why did you decide to take the president’s role at a company that has a little bit of a damaged reputation?
Chad Smith: I’m a little surprised at how long the PR hangover, so to speak, has lasted. When Better called me, I was honored to get the call. With what’s happened in the marketplace over the last few years, I have a better chance at disrupting that and being part of a team capable of innovation and making change.
Sanchez: How can the mortgage industry do a better job to avoid this boom-and-bust hiring trend?
Smith: One thing Better has done an excellent job at is becoming one system with the Tinman platform. You don’t have all these different integrations or legacy vendor contracts. We’ve been able to lower manufacturing costs by 35% over the industry average, and I think that really has to be the answer for the larger industry. We focus on making people more productive.
Sanchez: Let’s talk a little bit more about Tinman, since it is a proprietary, end-to-end platform. How does Tinman help Better grow and gain market share in 2025?
Smith: We’re obsessed with driving costs down on the fulfillment side. I think customers are doing a lot more homework just from an affordability perspective. If you can leverage technology to drive the fulfillment cost lower than the price, consumers should benefit and that should improve conversion.
Sanchez: Do you make Tinman available to other lenders?
Smith: We have a pipeline. We focus on that. In this cycle, we’ve been very focused on our own house. Having said that, when people want fulfillment, solutions and quote, unquote, “mortgage in a box,” we certainly entertain those conversations.
Sanchez: I do want to talk about Betsy. That was an interesting press release that you recently released. What is it?
Smith: Betsy is the first voice-based AI loan assistant in the mortgage industry. It uses AI and language models to create solutions for consumers and internal customers. She is fully integrated with Tinman. We feel strongly about being able to scale in 2025 and beyond.
The conversation ends with Sanchez and Smith exploring Better’s growth strategies for 2025 as technology becomes more prevalent due to impending growth for refinances.
Smith: Servicers have a lot of MSRs and are in a slow grind down. They’re in a good position to capture minor refinances. For us, it’s about being in the right place, making sure you’re testing your marketing channels and maintaining a relationship with consumers.