Redwood Trust, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, greetings and welcome to the Redwood Trust third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Caitlin Morris, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Redwood's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With me on today's call are Chris Abate, Chief Executive Officer, Dash Robinson, President, and Brooke Carrillo, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I want to remind you that certain statements made during management's presentation today with respect to future financial and business performance may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions, and include risks and uncertainties that cause actual results to differ materially. We encourage you to read the company's annual report on Form 10-K, which provides a description of some of the factors that could have a material impact on the company's performance and cause actual results to differ from those that may be expressed in forward-looking statements. On this call, we may also refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. The non-GAAP financial measures provided should not be utilized in isolation or considered as a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are provided in our third quarter review, which is available on our website, redwoodtrust.com. Also note that the contents of today's call contain time-sensitive information that are only accurate as of today. We do not intend and undertake no obligation to update this information to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Finally, today's call is being recorded and will be available on our website later today. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Chris.

Thanks, Kate. As we work towards the end of a productive year, we find ourselves at the dawn of a new rate regime and a too close to call presidential election, which is now less than a week away. Many macro questions remain, particularly with respect to the speed and impact of monetary and fiscal policy shifts. What we do know is that the U.S. will have a new administration and a fresh take on improving access to quality housing, a challenge we have undertaken since Redwood's founding three decades ago. Each major party candidate has acknowledged the need for more scalable solutions, with proposals that include enhanced down payment assistance programs, incentives for increased construction, and easing of the maze of local regulations that blunt housing development. In an otherwise polarized environment, It seems many have found common cause for an issue that is central to our company's core mission. As we rise to meet this formidable challenge, our platform continues to make good operating progress. We recently increased our common dividend for the first time since 2021, up over 6% to 17 cents per share for the third quarter, reflecting continued growth in our operating activities. Our combined mortgage banking returns were the highest in over three years as each business unlocked operating leverage to achieve strong results. These were goals we outlined at our investor day earlier this year and we're pleased with the progress we've made towards them. We continue to spend a significant amount of time collaborating with our loan sellers, particularly as higher mortgage rates appear to be returning after a short-lived reprieve. Rates today sit nearly 70 basis points higher than their September lows, and are effectively back to levels we saw in early July. In anticipation of this pickup, we've leveraged momentum in our distribution channels to seller securitize approximately 1.5 billion of jumbo collateral in October alone, an amount equal to our distribution for the entire third quarter. These efforts have contributed to us maintaining a flat book value for our estimation since quarter end. Though we expect to see continued rate volatility through the election, With expectations for further Fed easing on the horizon, we still expect to see housing activity pick up in the coming quarters from the anemic levels we have witnessed over the past few years. With that in mind, and with the prospect of a new administration in Washington, we continue to believe our platform's value proposition to the market will only grow, particularly as more regions of the country turn to the non-agency sector for creative solutions. The industry demands positive disruption as it continues to grapple with an estimated under supply of three to four million homes. In many corners of the market, there also remains a significant knowledge gap between prospective homeowners and the non-agency housing finance solutions available to them. That's why much of our focus heading into 2025 will be on mission expanding strategies that are designed to leverage areas of high potential growth, common sense use cases for prospective homeowners, and a strong nexus between technology and consumer adoption. As you may have seen in an earlier press release today, we have added senior leadership to support and drive this focus area. As always, this work will be coupled with expanded access to private credit investors, an area that now represents a deep competitive strength. I'll now turn the call over to Dash.