Guild Holdings Company

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Guild Holdings Company's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session with instructions to follow at that time. As a reminder, this call will be recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good afternoon everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that comments on this conference call may contain certain looking forward looking statements regarding the company's expected operating and financial performance for future periods and industry trends. These statements are based on the company's current expectations. Actual results for future periods may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward looking statements due to a number of risks or other factors that are described in greater detail under the section titled Risk Factors in GILDS Form 10-K and 10-Q and in other reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Additionally, today's remarks will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures, the corresponding GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release furnished today with the SEC and are also available on GILD's Investor Relations website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Terri Schmidt. Terri?

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our third quarter results and strategic update. I am joined by our President, David Nalen, as well as our Chief Financial Officer, Amber Kramer. In the third quarter, We continue to adhere to the strategy we have consistently communicated with our focus on the retail purchase market and dedication to customer service, along with continuing to gain market share to position Guild for accelerated growth when the cycle turns. The ongoing industry headwinds in the mortgage market have been well publicized with high rates and prolonged limited housing inventory. The Federal Reserve aggressively raised the Fed's funds rate during 2022 by 425 basis points and further raised it by an additional 100 basis points through July of 2023. Rates have remained unchanged ever since, but future rate changes are uncertain. According to the MBA, existing home sales in Q3 were down an estimated 16% from the prior year, and many homeowners with mortgage rates well below the current rates are choosing not to sell. This lack of supply, coupled with the increase in mortgage rates, continues to put a strain on home buying affordability and overall activity. This led to an industry-wide sequential pullback in originations in the third quarter. Our results similarly reflect these challenges, and we anticipate ongoing muted demand in the near term. However, with this backdrop, field has maintained its proven approach centered on providing a personalized mortgage borrowing experience delivered by our knowledgeable loan officers and supported by our diverse product offerings. We are a retail distributed growth company and we leverage our relationship-based loan sourcing strategy to execute on our mission of delivering the promise of home ownership. Furthermore, we are innovative and continue to develop products that not only contribute to the options we have for our customers, but also allows us to expand our outreach in communities we serve. Our customer relationships are a competitive advantage with our focus on the client life cycle, starting at origination and extending through servicing. This focus not only allows us to generate more reliable income, it enables us to build an ongoing asset. We are not about a single transaction. We are about building relationships and being the lender of choice for our customers for all future transactions. We have built a brand in the industry that attracts like-minded companies and loan originators. In this challenging environment, we believe there continues to be consolidation in both M&A and organic originations with Guild increasing market share. We are confident in Guild's standing as one of the industry's dominant retail mortgage companies. We have continued to invest in our people and our platform to both drive market share in the near term and to be positioned to accelerate growth when this cycle turns. We are well capitalized and remain confident that we have the right platform, products, and people to allow us to deliver on our strategy. Now, I'd like to turn it over to Dave Nayland. David?