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MortgagePoint ยป Your Trusted Source for Mortgage Banking and Servicing News 74 September 2023 M E M B E R S H I P S P O T L I G H T MEET THIS YEAR'S REO CONNECT CONTEST WINNER Gary Altizer, Broker Associate for Florida-based EXP Realty, won bragging rights at this year's inaugural Five Star REO Connect conference in Las Vegas. The REO Community game required him to complete a series of tasks included in the showguide, tasks designed to help attendees get the most out of their REO Connect experience. MortgagePoint recently caught up with Altizer, who shared his REO Connect experiences this year. Q: How much experience have you had with Five Star's FORCE (Federation of REO-Certified Experts)? Have you been to any other Five Star events prior to REO Connect? I've been in real estate since 2001, so that makes 22 or 23 years now almost. I did a lot of work in REO back when the market corrected the last time, back in 2007. At the time, I was really busy with Fannie Mae and Wells Fargo and the like. I've attended the Five Star Confer- ence for the last two years, and I'll be going again [this] September. But yeah, I've had some good networking opportunities with Five Star. I've met a number of agents from across the country that I kept up with after the confer- ence. Every year we go, we all cluster together and brainstorm, that kind of good stuff. Q: With REO Connect being a new event, what were you looking forward to with this event? What were you hoping to get out of it? I liked the fact that this seemed more agent-specific than the Five Star Conference, since that is [focused on mortgage.] What I was looking forward to was the brokers, and I think that's what I got out of it as well. The people I know that all go to Five Star Confer- ence together, we all had the same consensus about it. It was definitely beneficial, and I met some other new agents that had not been to any of the Five Star events before and talked to them about it, and I think they're going to be coming to the Dallas event as well. It was a good networking opportunity for me. Q: Could you tell me about the game itself How was it introduced and how did you enjoy it? Yeah, it was funny because normally with Five Star, there's five of us that became buddies over the years, going to these different events. [For REO Connect], it was only me and one of the other ones that were able to go to this event. We liked the game because we made it a com- petition against each other to see who could get everything done first, and we both did. It's funny that one of us won because I don't know how many people had participated or how serious they were about it, but we just made it a fun, friendly rivalry sort of thing. Q: What were some of the aspects of it that appealed to you other than just that good-natured competition? It was good that it made us get out of our comfort zone and go actually meet other people who weren't particularly in the same vein as what I do in my corner of real estate. I met a lot more of the people who work for FORCE, and that was a good thing as well. So, it was probably just meeting new people that I normally wouldn't necessarily cross paths with. Q: Other than winning the game, was there a part of this conference that you thought was done really well or that was your favorite aspect? Well, I'll tell you, any opportunity that we have to interface with asset managers is a nice thing, just so we can kind of pick their brains. That's the kind of thing you need to be doing if you're looking for some feedback; I would think that's what a lot of agents are doing there. Of course, we're all trying to get our foot in the door with different servicers, but just to be able to talk to people and to see their side of it and what they experience, that's a good thing. "I've had some good networking opportunities with Five Star. I've met a number of agents from across the country that I kept up with after the conference." Gary Altizer, Broker Associate, EXP Realty