[ad_1] If you added up the impact that HousingWire’s Vanguard winners have had on the industry, you’d likely have a comprehensive list of the initiatives that have moved markets forward. These are the leaders who have dreamt, shaped and molded a better way to execute the home-buying journey. From injecting technology into the mortgage process to redefining the real estate agent and home shopper relationship, these leaders have laid the foundations for millions of homeowners. HousingWire sat down with three of these leaders: James O’Bryon, RE/MAX Gold Nation CEO, Cathleen Schreiner Gates, SimpleNexus CEO, and Phil Shoemaker, Homepoint president of originations, to learn more about the housing trends they’re closely watching, what they think will define 2022 and what they hope people remember them for when they retire. Here is the interview with James O’Bryon, CEO at RE/MAX Gold Nation. Brena Nath: First off, congrats on being named a 2021 Vanguard. Who would you want to thank for helping you get where you are today? James O’Bryon: In that question, I would change one word, and that would be the “You” because really, there’s very little about me that allows me to win this award. It’s my partners. It’s the executives who lead this organization. It’s most obviously the 2,700 agents who are a part of the organization who perform at an extraordinary level consistently. In everything we do, I can find a person who has done the heavy lifting, which I end up getting credit for, but I didn’t do it. So, the most obvious answer to the question would be, my partners, our leadership team, our incredible support group, the agents, it’s a community of 3,000 people. Because I’ve been in the industry as long as I have, I know what they do, and I know how challenging it is. I’ve done most of their jobs at one time or another. And I recognize that every single thing that each of them does, in its own way, is as challenging as what I do. And so, I get the collective credit for what it is that they’re all doing. Brena Nath: What’s one accomplishment in your career that you’re really proud of? James O’Bryon: This ties back to your first question. The thing that I’m most proud of is I have developed and kept relationships with people for decades. The relationships that I’ve been able to build and sustain are absolutely, above all else, what I’m most proud of. And then secondary to that is the fact that those people have entrusted each other and entrusted me to build a vision, which has been consistent since its inception. So, the vision was to build the largest, most powerful, RE/MAX branded real estate organization in the world. And that vision was established in 1995, and it survived for 26 years. It survived, not by being the weight on my back, but also by being the weight on this collective back. Absolutely. The thing I’m most proud of would be those people that we talked about in question number one, combined with the fact that they were so indulgent with me when we first started talking about this concept when it seemed like it was crazy. BN: How are you helping move markets forward? JOJames O’Bryon: Historically, a brokerage in our industry was a single woman or a single man on an island attempting to drive a company. And historically, the amount of synergy it took to take different mind trusts and different perspectives and mesh them into something really extraordinary, it didn’t exist. I mean, it was this little company and a bunch of little fiefdoms out there trying to do their own thing. In terms of moving the industry forward, what we’ve managed to do is create a brain trust, which covers five states, and I’m anticipating will cover many more as the time goes by, with brilliant people who have different perspectives and come together to create this juggernaut presence. When we have meetings, we’ll come out of them smarter, stronger and more capable of driving this juggernaut than if we were trying to do it individually on our own. I have the luxury of that with leaders across five states. The collective IQ becomes incredibly powerful because it’s not just me trying to figure out how to do stuff, or just me and our executive team trying to figure out how to do stuff. It’s their executive group and somebody else’s executive group. So, somebody will say, “Have we tried this?” And part of the leadership group will say, “I didn’t even know that existed what you’re talking about.” And then in some cases, we’ll try it, and it’ll be great. In other cases, we’ll try it, and it won’t be so great. But it moves the conversation forward because together, we’re so much smarter than we are individually. BN: What are two trends in the mortgage and real estate industry that you’re closely watching? James O’Bryon: One is just the overall global change that we’re seeing in a variety of different areas. So, the most obvious is the pandemic. There’s also, regardless of what one attributes them to, all of the natural disaster changes that we’re seeing. California right now has a 3-to-4-month fire season that it didn’t have 5 or 10 years ago. So, the things that are global, that are largely beyond our control, and yet, we must accommodate. And usually, change that’s beyond our control is the most challenging and paralyzing because we figure that we can’t do anything about it. And in these instances, there’s very little we can do about a pandemic, and there’s very little we can do about the natural changes in the environment. There’s also is very little we can do about regulatory change, but we have to adjust and accommodate each of those things. So, watching those things and how they impact our market and what needs to be done in the future, that’s probably for me
