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Treichel: Hey everyone.

This is Mark Treichel with another
episode of with flying colors.

I'm excited today to be back with
a former guest of the podcast.

Tori Hagerty.

Tori, how you doing today?

I'm great, Mark.

I appreciate

Tory Haggerty: you having me here today.

Treichel: You got it.

And it's it's exciting times later
this week while we're recording this

a little early later this week that
I'm releasing this podcast, you've

got your second book coming out, your
first book we talked about on my last

podcast, which was called unfair lending.

What's the title of your new book
that's coming out this week, Tori?

Tory Haggerty: So my new book is
called Thick Red Line, and we dive

deeply into specific redlining in
American communities and how redlining

devastates our communities and how
solving this problem can have our whole,

allow our whole country to prosper.

Treichel: Now that it's it's in the news
a lot lately, both, all these topics

tied to this, and I'm excited to do a
little bit of a deep dive on your book.

But for for.

Obviously, most of my listeners
are credit unions or people related

to credit unions for listeners who
didn't know who you were until this

episode popped up on their app today.

Give us a little bit of background.

In addition to writing those two
books, if you could give us a

little background about the Tuscan.

Consulting and what you did
before that, et cetera, et cetera.

That brought you to the point of being
able to write these two great books.

Tory Haggerty: Sure.

Absolutely.

I started my career as an
examiner with the FDIC.

That's really how I learned the
trade of compliance and fair lending.

Had the chance to go through
their fair lending school, do

dozens of fair lending exams.

I went to work for a few different
organizations after that, before

starting my own company, Tuscan
Club Consulting back in 2017.

And I had several clients reach
out to me right away, asking

me to do a fair lending on it.

And I quickly realized that not a lot
of organizations do fair lending audits.

And some of them that do,
they're just pretty high level.

And I said, yeah, absolutely.

I can do a fair lending audit.

I learned as an examiner, I know that
the techniques I have access to tools.

So I started doing them
and then eventually.

I had people ask me what are you doing?

How do you do this?

So then I started
offering to train people.

And then that sprouted into the idea,
why not create a fair lending school?

There's no commercially available fair
lending school in the industry, at least

not at the time when I created mine.

So back in 2019, we got the idea.

I literally spent a year of my life
writing this manual, filming videos

and creating the fair lending school
under Tuscan club university and our

fair lending expert FLE certification.

And then over the span of my career,
over a decade and a half and over 400

exams and audits, I just, I saw so much.

So many different organizations, so
many different ways of doing things.

Some of them really good, really smart.

And some of them really
bad and really dumb.

And I collectively put those
together, created the school.

And then, I got the idea
let's put this into a book.

Not everyone's going to go through
the fair lending school and not

everyone should, it's really devoted
to compliance officers and auditors.

But what about the average lender?

What about the average.

President or CEO or chief credit officer.

They need to learn these things too.

So we summarize some of the best
ideas, put them in the book.

Now in the original book, unfair lending,
we walk through the whole light loan

life cycle of fair lending risks.

It's not just redlining there's
application risk and steering customers

into products, obviously underwriting and
pricing are big ones and several others.

redlining is really the culmination
of kind of fair lending overall.

And.

We just, I just determined that
this really is a large enough

topic to write another book on now.

You probably heard of and most of the
listeners probably have heard of the

combating redlining initiative from
2021 from the federal government.

And they basically said, we're
going to really dig deep into this.

And that's why we've seen so many
redlining cases over the last 2 or

3 years, because the DOJ and the
federal regulators are partnering

to, try to put an end to redlining.

The sad thing is, or the odd thing
is these issues just keep getting

repeated over and over and over again.

I mean, you can look at redlining
cases from 20 years ago, and the exact

same problems are getting repeated
over and over again, which leads me to

believe that it's an education issue.

We need to teach people, and that's
what this book is focused on.

Here's what the issues that you run into,
here's how you fix them, here's some

other things that lead to redlining risk.

Treichel: Got it.

So before we get into more of the
details of what's in the books and,

how financial institutions can do
better, et cetera, et cetera let's

do a reminder of the definition of
redlining by law and, or by Tory.

Tory Haggerty: The definition
of redlining is long.

It's a form of a legal disparate treatment
in which an institution provides unequal

access to credit or unequal terms.

There's a long formal definition, but
it basically means an organization

is not lending in a particular
geographic region and spoiler

alert, it's high minority areas.

So redlining dates back, nearly a century,
well, probably longer than that, but

really with the creation of the FHA
in the 1930s, then later the VA, they

literally would not approve home loans and
guaranteed home loans for people of color.

Now, notice I said the VA, and
I mentioned this in my book,

I'm a 20 year Air Force veteran.

So that, it pains me to believe that
an African American can go fight in

World War II, three years, come back,
and then can't get a home loan approved

because of the color of their skin.

And this happened for decades and the
federal government along with state and

local and municipal governments created
neighborhoods and barred people of color

from living there and people of color
were not allowed to get home loans often

had to rent government housing often
run down far away from where you work.

Near maybe landfills or power
plants and undesirable areas.

Obviously, that has higher pollution,
which leads to more health issues, not

building equity in a home, which is the
best way for almost all families to build

up wealth, including generational wealth.

And that's why there's such a wealth
gap in a home ownership gap between

white and any other race of people
in this country, because, anyone

of color was just restricted from
getting a home loan for so long.

And it's so hard to catch up.

And now with housing prices
and, rates where they are.

It's literally impossible
unless we do something out

of our way to make it happen.

Treichel: And that red line that
we're referring to was literally a red

line on a map that said where people
could and could not, could not live.

Tory Haggerty: It was basically
maps for banks to say what are

desirable areas and undesirable areas.

Desirable areas implying
white neighborhoods.

Undesirable areas implying neighborhoods
with, minority individuals.

And the red shaded neighborhoods where
those were people of color resided

and that's where you don't make loans.

That was the whole.

That's a great summary here.

Treichel: Yep.

Yep.

That's a great summary as we
now we'll start a deep dive.

And you can go

Tory Haggerty: out and Google those too.

For anyone that doesn't believe
me, which I don't think there are

many, but literally Google red
line maps and boom, every major

metro area has them pretty much.

Treichel: Interesting.

Yep.

No that's Again, a great primer for
what we want to chat about here today.

Redlining examples, you talked about
the different examples you've seen

in all the audits you've done and
probably the people that you've taught

have told, I've shown you some others.

You said there's a definite theme
to the mistakes that are happening.

What would you say most redlining
cases actually have in common?

Tory Haggerty: Yeah, that's a great
question one of the first things that

we look at is brand is their branching
structure So we want to know or the

regulators want to know do you have
branches in high minority areas?

Oftentimes they use the term majority
minority census tracts a census track is

just a smaller subdivision of a county,
and they look to see does a lending

institution actually have branches in
and around these high minority areas.

So, number one, we look at
your branching structure.

Number two, the applications that
an organization has received.

If you receive applications two
and three and four times less

often, from high minority areas
and minority individuals than your

peers are, that's a major red flag.

The next thing we look at, factor
number three, is advertising

and marketing efforts.

Now, you can have branches in high
minority areas or near them, but if you

are not advertising and marketing in those
areas, or another issue that we've seen

a lot lately is devoting lenders to those
areas, most specifically mortgage lenders.

If, You have a branch, one
branch in a high minority area.

You're not marketing, you're
not advertising, and you don't

have any mortgage lenders there.

Guess what?

You're probably not going to
get applications and you're

not going to be making loans.

The fourth factor, we look
at loan origination rates.

Now this is one where we use ratios a lot.

If you have good, if you're a HMDA
reporter where you have to collect

information on all your home loan
applications, And you have significant

data, and sometimes that can even be a
few hundred applications is enough to get

some good indicators on your performance.

You can employ fair lending software,
either purchase the software yourself or

have somebody review it for you and look
and see what are our origination rates.

Two minority individuals in high
minority areas compared to peers.

When you are two, three, and four
times lagging behind what peers are

doing, those cases, those are cases
that have been settled by the DOJ.

Those have already been
referred and settled.

So I've seen, and had clients that
are five and six times behind there.

So what we do is we identify those
issues and those anomalies and

determine what the root cause is.

And then immediately put
corrective action in place.

If you catch these things early and
you're serious about it and you devote the

resources to fix these problems, I've had
clients where we found these issues early,

they've implemented corrective action.

The regulators said, okay, we're
good with that, but you better, make

good on your promises and we're going
to be reviewing that and they have

staved off, referrals to the DOJ.

The fifth factor I like to talk
about is product offerings.

If you don't offer products.

In an area that people are going
to qualify for, they're probably

not going to get loans from you.

Because of the racist history
of our country in barring people

of color from home loans, they
appear less credit worthy.

Okay?

A credit score is a great example.

A credit score is not a perfect process.

It takes your, repayment history
and your debt utilization on

a lot of different things and
comes up with a numerical score.

What about somebody who rents?

If you're, if your family or you've
been barred from getting a home

loan, you got to live somewhere.

That means you're going to rent, but
rent doesn't get reported to the credit

bureau oftentimes where a mortgage does.

So somebody could be for the last 10
years living, and paying their mortgage

every, or paying the rent every single
month and not get credit for it.

Therefore they're going to look
less credit worthy on paper.

If we don't consider
other factors like that.

Factor number six is
community involvement.

With banks and credit unions, one of
the best ways to get customers and be

involved with your community is know those
community members and those organizations

that can reach the people that you are
potentially currently not reaching.

Those high minority areas, those
minority individuals, sometimes

low and moderate income areas.

So those are some of the things that,
that we see as continual problems.

That pop up in almost every
single redlining case.

It's just like one gets copied and then we
slap another organization's name on there

and it just gets repeated over and over,

Treichel: As you're going through
those, I got my mind's popping in a few

different directions but so just a general
statement, there, there's intentional and

there's unintentional and there's bias and
there's unconscious bias and some of the

things I think probably some of the, yeah.

Listeners are probably hearing
some of those things going,

Oh, I could do better in this.

And I could do better in that.

And we can maybe get into that a little
bit, but one other, so you talked about

advertising and if you don't advertise
in a particular area you're, they're not

going to know what you have available and
they're not going to come into the branch.

And then they're not presuming
you have a good brand structure.

And advertising has kind of
morphed over time, right?

It used to be when.

When when these maps we talked about
were published in hard copy advertising

was the morning and the afternoon
paper, then it went from just the two

papers a day to the morning paper.

And today you got, you got people
that, and TV over the air versus cable.

And it, advertising on
Facebook, et cetera, et cetera.

When I throw that out there Advertising
today versus advertising in the

days long ago, does that trigger any
examples or of any situations where,

aha, someone could do better on
advertising in today's world in this way?

Tory Haggerty: If you have issues with
redlining, if your application rates

and your loan origination rates are
lagging significantly behind peers, one

of the first places regulators go is
your marketing, is your advertising.

Are you even advertising in these areas?

And you can't really use
advertising as an excuse anymore.

Yes.

Back in the day when there was only a
few networks and maybe TV was the most

prevalent advertising that was expensive.

And you're broadcasting
it over a mass market.

Now you have obviously local markets.

If you work in a Metro area, you can
do as well, but now you can target

market into certain geographies, into
certain individuals, if you do that,

when it comes to loan products, though,
the equal credit opportunity access,

you can't discriminate based on race,
color, religion, sex, and national

origin, and there's other characteristics
in the fair housing act as well, age

and marital status, things like that.

So when you target market an area,
a lot of times what organizations

will do is they'll geo fence.

In other words, they will say
everyone within, two miles or

five miles of our branches, that's
where we're going to market.

And that's generally safe, but guess what?

If you don't have branches in high
minority areas, you're not going

to market in high minority areas.

So there are things that
you need to be aware of.

But yeah, the first thing you
do is you look at why aren't

you taking an application?

You don't have any branches there.

You're not marketing there.

You can't expect somebody to drive 30
minutes to your closest location, pass,

five banks and credit unions on the way
or not want to go online and come into

your branch and fill out an application.

Treichel: Yeah.

Great example.

Great example.

As I mentioned I, my audience is credit
unions or credit union listening today.

Who's going, gosh, I might
have some blind spots here.

What would you recommend they do so that
they could identify those blind spots

or any issues that they may be where
they're not meeting their members needs

in the way that they actually should.

Tory Haggerty: Yeah, absolutely.

Some of the things that we covered
are great ways, looking at what

your brand structure is, figuring
out what your marketing is.

Doing a fair lending audit, if you don't
know how to do a fair lending audit,

that's one of the things that our fair
lending school teaches you how to do.

It's tcuniversity.

us for Tuscan Club University and our
fair lending school, it's designed

for audit and compliance professionals
on how to do these types of reviews.

You can also pay, external
auditors to do audits.

We also do audits as well, but
we're a pretty small company.

Some of the corrective actions to
put in place, though, so we talked

about what are some of the issues
and how do you identify those?

Now, if you find those issues,
what are you supposed to do?

Number one, obviously, open some
branches in previous red line areas.

There are tools out there with the
fair lending software that will

geocode your branch locations,
overlay it on a minority map.

And it will show you where your branches
are and where they are not and how

they are avoiding high minority areas.

And guess what?

They often make what's called a horseshoe.

If you don't know what a horseshoe
is, it's like the letter C,

except, maybe turn sideways.

But a horseshoe basically is
where the branches surround.

high minority areas, but they're
not in those high minority areas.

Now, obviously opening a branch
is not cheap either, especially

if you're going to have cash and
a vault and all the security.

So sometimes a loan production office
is a great way to get yourself a

physical presence in an area, test it
out for much cheaper than a branch.

And organizations use those as well to
see is this area going to be profitable?

And oftentimes they turn it The second
one is doing a community needs assessment.

And that's where you go out and
you say, okay, let's figure out

what our community actually needs.

Do we need low income housing?

Do we need, to finance small businesses?

Or, what kind of needs does our area,
basically talking with individuals,

talking with real estate agents, talking
with the small business administration,

talking with experts in the industry to
find out, Okay, are our credit products

matched up with the needs of our area?

The third one is forming those
community partnerships, getting

your loan officers and getting your,
management team out into the community

and becoming members of these groups
and reaching out to these groups.

Oftentimes one or two connections in the
right group can get your foot in the door.

And I've seen it over and over again,
especially with immigrant populations

who have a language barrier.

Let's imagine Mark, you move your entire
family over to Japan and you don't speak

a word of Japanese, but then all of
a sudden you find one bank over there

that has English speaking personnel.

Guess what?

You're probably going to bank with
them and then you're going to tell

your family and your friends who
also moved over there with you.

Hey, these guys understand us, so it's
a matter of meeting those community

needs and forming those partnerships.

The next one is a loan subsidy fund.

You don't have to go out of your
way to do this, but this is one of

the items that frequently shows up
in every settled redlining case.

The regulators force you to create a
loan subsidy fund, which is used to

subsidize loans for people that need them.

They otherwise couldn't afford it.

And that could buy down rates
that could buy down or help

with down payment assistance.

And, Make payments more affordable.

Another one is special credit
purpose special credit special

purpose credit programs.

And that's basically where you develop
products specifically to meet areas

or meet needs of those individuals
that otherwise wouldn't qualify.

Now, one of the downfalls with that is
if you see a need for a special credit.

Credit product in your area, see who
else is offering it as well, because if

three or four other organizations are
offering it, you offering it may not have

as much impact as another product would.

And then of course, invest in
marketing and advertising, take some

money and invest it into, to Google
searches and Google advertising.

So when they search best deposit
account, best consumer loan, best

home loan, your name shows up.

Invest in social media marketing, And then
the last one is you can hire experts to

assess your compliance management system.

Every fair lending review we do, that's
the heart of the fair lending review

is, do you have policies in place?

Are they clear?

Are your procedures clear?

Are they free from guesswork?

Are you training your individuals?

What type of monitoring
and auditing are you doing?

Having somebody that understands
that and then gets into the testing,

then test interest rates, then test
denial rates, then looks at HMDA data.

And that can tell you where your holes are
and where you have room for improvement.

Treichel: That loan subsidy fund.

I like that.

It's if you see it and if you see it
as a resolution on how to get back

to doing it right, why not build it
in on the front end as part of the

offerings that you do have to make sure
that you are doing all that you can.

I like that a lot.

Tory Haggerty: If your listeners are
wondering how I came up with my list.

I read every single enforcement action.

There were about a dozen of them in
2023 and I studied them and I took

notes and I said, what do we see in
pretty much every single one of these?

And these enforcement actions are set out
to ensure that a bank or a credit union

or even a mortgage company, yeah, actually
makes a difference and fixes these issues.

So why not steal those ideas and start
them now before you're forced to.

Treichel: Yep.

Love it.

Love it.

Love it.

We've talked a little bit, I think, last
time we were you were on the podcast, we

talked a little bit about appraisal bias.

Any thoughts on the link of appraisal
bias to the topic of redlining and

anything you'd want to discuss on that?

Tory Haggerty: Yeah, absolutely.

So appraisal bias, I hate using a
buzzword or a hot topic because this

is a major issue and it's been a
major issue for a long, long time.

So I hate when people even say
fair lending is a hot topic.

It's not it's something
that we need to do.

It's something we must do just because
the regulators are focusing on it

more doesn't mean it's a hot topic.

It's a major issue and it always has been.

So appraisal bias is basically
where an appraiser is.

allows their personal bias or
unconscious bias to come through

in the appraisal process.

So it's not like buying a car.

You go out to the, Kelly Blue
Book or NADA, and it gives you

a pretty fair value, right?

You may put your zip code in there
because it wants to know what part of

the country you're in, but it doesn't
know what neighborhood you live in.

It doesn't know your race.

It basically says, here's a fair
market value of your vehicle.

Obviously on a mortgage or on a home loan,
if you've ever went through that process,

which a lot of your listeners have.

We don't have that.

You can't plug and play
and get a value out there.

A person has to go out there, a licensed
appraiser, and give their value based on

a lot of factors, based on comps, based
on improvements, based on the market.

Unconscious bias comes through, and
those appraisals are often devalued

by sometimes as much as 50 percent
for individuals of color, or if a home

is located, In a high minority area.

So there have been a several major
cases lately, but the Austin's out in

the San Francisco Marin County region.

I do reference them in my book.

They were one of a one
of the big examples.

So back in about 2016, they had purchased
a home and they spent a lot of money

and did a lot of renovations on it.

And the original home, they,
I think they purchased for

just under a million dollars.

And.

Through all these renovations and
whatnot, the value is up to about 1.

4 million.

And then they go back in to refinance
it all, put it into OneNote, and the,

they just had an appraisal done a
year prior, and then they had a female

white appraiser come out and they
appraised the value at about 950, 000.

And they knew this is, this can't be,
there's no way it was just appraised

for almost a half a million dollars
more than that just a year ago.

So they complained to the bank and
the bank said, yeah, let's get another

appraisal and what they did was they
caught, they whitewashed their home.

Now, if you're a person of color
listening, this is probably old news to

you, a 40 year old white male like me
living in, the middle of upper Midwest

and South Dakota, I've never heard
of this term before a few years ago.

And essentially whitewashing is where you.

You remove all evidence
of who lives there.

Now, when you sell your home,
it's probably a good idea anyway.

You don't want pictures of your family
all over the place because people won't

imagine that their family lives there.

They'll see your family.

But what about the Austins?

They're just refinancing.

Why do they have to pull down
pictures of their, of their

family and things like that.

So they whitewashed their home.

They pulled everything off the walls and
they actually went so far as to have a

white neighbor pose as the homeowner.

On the new appraisal came back almost
500, 000 higher and higher than the one

a year prior, which is pretty common.

Although, appraisals can fluctuate in the
short term and of course, and they filed

a complaint and it's settled out of court,
but issues like this happen all the time.

And oftentimes the average
consumer may not know it.

They may suspect it.

They may say, Hey, that
value seems artificially low.

Now, in this case, it was so obvious that
it was an easy slam dunk and they had

the resources and they wanted to fight it
and they did and they took it to court.

And there's a few other cases
of that where it happens, but

oftentimes we don't know it.

So how can a lender,
how can a credit union.

Or ensure these things don't happen
because there was a recent court ruling

as well, that basically says you as an
organization, you as a lender, if you

rely on an appraisal that we know has
appraisal bias, that is artificially

low, and you could have, or should
have known that you can be held liable.

So now some of this liability
is falling on lenders,

following on underwriting staff.

The biggest thing you could do is
number one, understand your area.

Be educated.

What is the typical value,
a home value in this area?

Number two, if you suspect
something, say something.

I understand appraisals are
slow, and they are expensive.

But if you know that something is
wrong, you have to say something.

Challenge the valuation.

Work with the appraiser, and if they're
unwilling to work with you, and you

know that this appraisal is not good,
Then you have to go out and get a second

one is basically what they're saying.

So it's a matter of
understanding and knowing.

And if you see something, say something,
cause bury your, burying your head in

the sand is no longer going to fly.

And it's unfortunate.

And it's a lot of training that needs
to be done, not just in the lending

industry, but in the appraisal industry
and as more of these cases happen,

hopefully we'll see them less and
less, but as of right now, it's still

a major issue that we're working with.

Treichel: That's a great example.

And so the, you talk about
the lending industry, you talk

about the appraisal industry.

Are there any other players that we
should discuss here today that play a

role in this type of discrimination?

Tory Haggerty: There is.

And, Mark I'm not here to
throw anyone under the bus.

I'm very impartial.

I'm not a, I'm not a political guy.

I think both.

Political parties are terrible and most
politicians are terrible, but, I'm just

here's the facts and I see them and
that's how I present them and a lot of

people like the fair lending school that
I built and they liked the books because

I don't really have a lot of bias.

I, or I might, I just, I try
not to let that come out.

So that disclaimer out of the way the real
estate agent industry is another big one.

And this is one that really hit me.

Oh, I don't know, maybe six months
after the last book came out in 2022.

Now I live in the upper Midwest.

I live in South Dakota in the
biggest community in Sioux Falls.

Not a lot of, minority population, maybe
15%, but there was a major bank and I

don't even remember which bank it was.

If I remembered, I wouldn't even say
it, but a major bank came out with

a special purpose credit program and
it was designed to help people of

color get into homes because of the
reasons why we've already explained,

because they've been denied these.

Opportunities for a century or longer.

And so this bank came out with a
special credit program to help, black

and Latinos in a certain metro area.

I don't remember what metro area was.

Let's just say it was Dallas and a
local realtor, a real estate agent

saw that and shared the story.

And they just said, this is illegal.

You can't do that.

And somebody knew who I
was and knew what I did.

And I just wrote a book on this
and they forwarded it to me.

They're like, Tori, look at this.

What are you going to,
what are you going to do?

And so of course I just,
Oh what's illegal about it?

What law is it breaking?

And it, and their
response was all of them.

And I'm like, could you be more specific?

And they're like there's
federal laws that prevent this.

And so obviously I know right
off the bat, they have no idea

what they're talking about.

So I start actually the equal credit equal
credit opportunity act, fair housing act.

This is what it says.

This is what you can and can't do.

Here's a brief history of
why we need these programs.

So explain to me what's going on here.

And then in the meantime.

You're friends with a lot of other people
that you work with and in your profession.

So this person that made the post had
a lot of real estate agents that were

friends and they started commenting,
you can't do this, you can't do that.

And it just blew up.

And as I'm watching this unfold over the
span of about 20 minutes, Oh, right after

supper one evening, I just realized, I've
been so ingrained In banking and mortgage

and credit unions and just lending.

Treichel: Right.

Tory Haggerty: And I haven't
considered appraisers.

I haven't considered real estate agents.

I haven't considered policymakers.

And when I started watching this
unfold, I just thought, wow this problem

is way bigger than I ever expected.

While I was doing research
for my current book.

I had, I spoke with an expert in
the appraisal industry and yeah, I'm

doing, research on appraisal bias and
whitewashing and things like that.

And I interviewed this person
and they told me to go to this

appraiser Facebook group and they
said, yeah, this is a big one.

They're a little bit
lax on who they let in.

Just fib it a little bit.

And so you work in the industry,
which I do, and they let me join.

And this person said, you will
be amazed at some of the comments

that you will see in here.

And I'm like, okay, I'll join.

I'll monitor for a few weeks
and I'll see what happens.

They let me in.

And the very first post was
some of the just worst, most

racist crap I'd ever seen.

Somebody posed a question and said, how
are you using the term master bedroom?

Are you still using that?

Are you replacing it?

Master bedroom implies,
an homage to slavery.

And my wife and I, we watch all the
HGTV shows and we've known over the

last two or three years, they don't
use that term, they use primary.

They stopped using it.

They

Treichel: stopped using it.

Yeah.

Primary

Tory Haggerty: Or secondary
bedroom or primary bathroom.

I was like it makes sense.

I understood why it's a racist term.

And then of course as people are
like what, why are you changing it?

When are we gonna stop having
master's degrees and master

plumbers and all this other stuff?

And somebody responds to that and
they're like, we're trying to, be

sensitive and change with the times.

And then a whole bunch of people, laughed
at that and thought that was ridiculous.

And of course there was all these
other just really insensitive

comments, which leads me to believe.

I'm like, do you understand the history
that we're fighting against and the

problems that we're fighting against?

And when you can't
acknowledge these problems.

Even something as simple as terminology
and the, so the appraisal industry, the

lending industry, real estate agents,
it's a hard problem and it's going to,

it's going to be a hard one to solve.

And, at the beginning of my book I make
the argument deliberately racist policies.

And a lack of education
got us where we are today.

And by that, the racist policies
implemented by the government, not

allowing people of color to buy homes
and the lack of education, which,

I've described a lot of examples.

And then at the end of the book, I talk
about deliberately anti racist policies.

In other words, special purpose
credit programs and loan subsidies

and doing things to make sure
people that cannot afford a home

loan because we've discriminated
against them for so long, get access.

And the education piece.

I don't set policy and I don't
ever want to be a politician.

So there's probably a little
I can do on that, but I can

help on the education side.

And that's why I'm writing books
and that's why I'm doing podcasts.

And that's why, I speak on this topic
often because I feel the more people

that understand these problems and
the root causes of them and what

it's going to take to fix them.

The more actual impact
we're going to have.

And, one of my life goals is to
see an ending to, discrimination

in the lending industry.

And I know that's a big lofty goal,
but I'm going to do whatever I can to

make a dent in that before I'm done.

Treichel: It's a good goal.

And it reminds me, it makes me think
we've come so far, but then those

examples show that we have so far to go.

And there's a quote, we
haven't come this far.

Just to come this far, there's a long
way to go and a lot more improvement,

a lot more improvement to come.

There's no doubt your book and
your training is is adding to

people's abilities to do that.

So Tori, if if I haven't, if
there's a question I should have

asked you today that I haven't,
what would that be and what would

you have to say in response to it?

Tory Haggerty: I just re echo, just
become educated, become educated on

this topic and learn more about it.

My books this is my second book.

Now they're quick reads.

They take about two hours
to read, maybe even less.

I realized that if it's a topic you're not
highly interested in, you're not going to

spend 10 or 15 hours reading through it.

And actually on Thursday, on May 23rd,
we're having a free download on Amazon.

So at 9 AM, you can hop on Amazon,
download the book for free, spend an

hour and a half, spend the 30 minutes.

And if it's not for you, it's not for
you, but you spend the 30 minutes,

you're going to be a fourth of the way
through the book and you're going to

start seeing, okay, there is a lot more
to us, to this than, what I realized.

And it's the education
piece that I'm trying to do.

And the more people I can get.

To understand these problems
and especially in the lending

industry where, I spend my time.

I'm a compliance auditor by trade and
I audit clients across the country to

try to find these problems internally.

But guess what?

If we for all educated on it, we build
prevention into our programs, which

is what I addressed in my first book.

And we don't really need auditors.

We don't really need
those types of things.

Now That's a nice way to think
about it and it may never happen.

I know, Mark, you spent your career
in the regulatory industry and your

company too, helps credit unions suffer
through and get through their exams

just the same way I do on the bank side.

And there will always be a need
for us and what we do, but just

imagine if people were educated on
these things and implemented them.

Simple corrective action internally,
the impact we can have on our nation.

And the last thing I want to say is
when you have whole communities and

whole groups of individuals that
can't buy a home, let, take an entire

neighborhood in any metro area.

Guess what?

If you don't have all these homeowners
and small business owners, you're

not going to collect that much in
property taxes and income taxes.

So what does that mean?

You have less tax revenue.

Which means you have less support,
you have less fire, hospitals are

run down, schools are run down.

So these communities become impoverished
and generationally they're impoverished.

Guess what?

If we actually get them access to
credit, get them in a home, start

building equity, make sure they can go
to college, make sure they can start

a business, those communities will
start to prosper and we will start

to see poverty shrink in our country.

So whether or not you're a minority,
whether or not you've been redlined,

whether or not where you live, if
we can solve these problems, every

community will become stronger.

Our country will become stronger.

We'll have more revenue and
everyone will prosper for it.

So if that's a selfish reason and
that's the only reason, then fine.

Whatever reason you have to get
educated and do something is going to

be good enough for me at this point.

Treichel: That's a great
place to wrap, Tori.

Great summary there.

And so if someone's listening and number
one, they need to take advantage of that

free download on Amazon later this week,
number two, after they read it, or if they

just listen to this and they want to reach
out to see how you might be able to help

them with training or otherwise, or just
converse with something you've said here,

what's the best way for them to find you?

Tory Haggerty: Mark.

It's a great question.

Find me on LinkedIn.

First of all, I'm very active on there.

Just search Tory Hagerty.

You'll find me on LinkedIn or you
can shoot me an email as well.

Tory T O R Y at TC consulting.

us.

You can go to our website, TC consulting.

us is our consulting website.

TC university.

us is where we house our
fair learning school.

So any of those are.

Great ways to get ahold of me.

I love connecting with people
on LinkedIn and sharing ideas.

I'm a lifelong learner.

So I read, on appraisal bias and
AI, that might be my next book.

I don't know, I'm trying to always
learn and I learned from other people.

LinkedIn is a great way to get
ahold of me and share ideas.

Treichel: That's great.

Thanks, Tori.

Thank you for your time today, Tori.

Appreciate it.

All right, Mark.

Thanks so much for having me.

You got it.

And listeners, I want to
thank you for listening.

I hope you'll listen again soon.

This is Mark Treichel signing off.

With flying colors.

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