In this week’s episode of the PowerHouse podcast, HousingWire President Diego Sanchez talks with Lower CEO Dan Snyder about the digital lender’s recent acquisition of Neat Labs, its in-house tech development efforts and coaching programs for top producers.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. To start the conversation, Sanchez asks a question about Lower’s most recent acquisition.
Sanchez: You broke the story of your latest acquisition with HousingWire. Could you tell us more about the Neat Labs purchase?
Snyder: We were in the news for some of the mortgage company purchases we did last year. But we’re really excited about this. It goes back to just trying to differentiate and redefine how to do a home purchase or refi faster, better and cheaper for the customer and the originator.
We have some really good tech on the front end. But the guts of it — the LOS, the pricing engine, etc. — were so reliant on the third parties, we kept thinking, “Is there a better way?”
And there really are not very many options out there. I had been kind of thinking about it while talking to people that were in the know, and I found Neat Labs.
Sanchez: I imagine there’s a debate each time you make an acquisition. How do you think about that maybe as you make more acquisitions in the future?
Snyder: I think it should. We really were built organically — same-store sales growth for years. Then we just sit with a pretty unique value prop. It’s my co-founder, Mike (Baynes) and I. We’re still owner-led. Now, how do you integrate it successfully? There’s a people side, an operational flow side, and then there’s the tech side. Everyone will kind of move into that in our existing environment.
Sanchez: We’ve seen other lenders that have built proprietary tech stacks that aren’t layered over something else. We’ve seen some of those lenders go to market and sell that tech stack to other lenders. Is that something that you’re thinking about?
Snyder: We’re really going to be committed to making sure we’re deploying first principles. We actually need to manufacture the loan as quickly, compliantly and secure as possible — and nothing more. We’re not trying to become a software provider.
Sanchez: Where do you see those costs dropping as you build out this tech stack internally?
Snyder: There’s a lot of really good vendors out there that provide a solution within that tech that is either user-based or loan-based — and it just keeps adding up. Are we going to have to have more software developers? But we are doing the math at scale, and it’s far cheaper to own it yourself.
To end the conversation, Snyder explores Lower’s initiative to build coaching teams to push its top producers even higher.
Snyder: That was a big initiative. The second big initiative for 2025, which we’ll have some announcements here, it is going to be really like we’re delivering online and offline from a lead and marketing perspective. We’re providing value through coaching and how to get more referral partners but also how to become a personal brand and influencer in your market. We feel like that’s super important.
