Next week Austin gets the mortgage industry for five days straight. Texas Mortgage Bankers Association's Annual Convention then The Gathering back to back.

Austin has survived worse. Probably.

Back in the day, 90% of mortgage industry conferences used to be in NY, Chicago, Orlando, DC, San Diego. There were never even mortgage conferences in Austin, Nashville, Denver, etc. until like 15 years ago.

The 10 reasons Austin is one of my favorite cities to visit ...

1. The Texas State Capitol building is bigger than the US Capitol and Texans will tell you this approximately four seconds after you arrive and they are not wrong and they are not sorry.

2. Breakfast tacos are not optional in Austin. They are infrastructure.

3. I have a rule. Every city I visit I explore on foot. Austin is one of the few that actually wants to be walked.

4. The vibe of a city's drivers is as much a part of its identity as the airport. All Austin drivers have a side hustle, a podcast, or a business plan they would love four minutes to walk you through. It is inspiring (unless its a 6 AM hungover ride to the airport to go back home).

5. Austin has more live music venues per capita than any city in America and very few of them feel like tourist traps which is the hardest trick any city can pull off.

6. The UT football stadium is 100,000 seats in the middle of a college campus and if you walk past it on a quiet Tuesday morning when nobody is there it feels like stumbling onto something that should not fit where it is.

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Everyone wants to know how to find time for a side hustle. A newsletter. A content strategy. A second business.

Stop looking for more hours. Start looking at where the ones you have are going.

For most people the 30 minutes they are looking for is being quietly murdered by their email every single day. I found the killer. It was my inbox. And Superhuman was the cure.

I will not pretend I am a normal email user. I manage five addresses across four businesses. But the features that saved me time are not the ones that require five inboxes. They are the ones that work for anyone who sends and receives email for a living, which is everyone reading this.

Here is exactly where Superhuman gives me time back.

🚀 Keyboard shortcuts. These felt completely stupid for about a week. Now I cannot imagine clicking around like a civilian. Archive, reply, forward, snooze, search. All without touching the mouse. Once they become muscle memory you will not know how you lived without them. This is where most people find their first ten minutes a day.

🚀 AI that actually sounds like me. The AI sidebar reads every conversation with every person and writes suggested replies that match the tone of that specific relationship. It does not sound like a chatbot. It sounds like me, because it learned how I communicate with each person individually. This alone saves me 20 minutes a day. Probably more.

🚀 Add to calendar in four seconds. Someone emails me about a meeting. I type "add to calendar" in the AI sidebar. It reads the email, creates the event with the right details, and hands me a button to notify the attendee. I do not open a single other app. I do not copy and paste anything into a calendar field. Four seconds and it is done.

🚀 Finding old emails without losing the will to live. Ask the AI sidebar to find an email. It finds it. No more scrolling. No more giving up after four minutes and asking the person to resend it. Just ask and get the answer.

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Six big name keynotes. Twenty one breakouts. Sixteen Ohio's Own honorees. Lots of parties and meals. Three days at a gorgeous property in one of the gems of the Midwest ... Columbus, OH.

The 2026 Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association Conference is going to be one of the best state mortgage conferences this industry has ever hosted, and I am not saying that because I run the thing.

I am saying it because of the slate:

✔️ AI governance and AI in the pipeline
✔️ Credit reporting overhaul
✔️ Growing revenue & competing with the megas
✔️ Cap markets, construction, servicing, secondary, MSR
✔️ Data and analytics for originations & operations leaders
✔️ The Ohio landscape from the seats that actually shape policy and capital flow
✔️ Leadership, recruiting, and the next cycle of talent

If you are a CEO, CFO, production head, ops head, CCO, CIO, marketing lead, or top producer, there is a session built for your seat. And there are four more you will want to be in anyway.

And if you are the rising star on the team, the ops lead being groomed for SVP, the producer being built into a branch manager, the analyst ready for the next seat, this is the conference where careers get accelerated.

Employers, hear me on this one. You can send your top performer to a steakhouse. Or you can send them to three days in a room with the who's who of the mortgage industry, leading panels, holding court in the hallways, and sharing the playbooks they are actually running.

One will get you a thank you card. The other will get you a leader.

It is the best development money you are going to spend all year. And the best reward you can hand a high performer is a seat at a table they have not sat at yet.

Sunday June 14 to Tuesday June 16. Click HERE for more details.

Most days I'm yelling about the mortgage industry from behind a laptop. Last week I got to do it in person, from the Hill, on behalf of every OMBA member trying to lend in this market.

Michelle Mendez of Arch MI grabbed me on the way out for the CapitalW Collective Mini Mic to walk through the actual asks. MSR Basel weights, residential risk-weight alignment, homeownership pathway. The senators listened. Whether they act is the next question. Listen here.

Everything you need to know about this week’s Texas MBA Annual Conference - “Burn The Playbook!”

Maximize your experience at The Gathering

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Apr 26-28 - Texas MBA Annual Conference

Apr 27-30 - HousingWire’s “The Gathering” Conference

Apr 28-29 - FOMC Meeting / Fed Rate Decision (Powell's second-to-last as Chair)

MAY 2026

May 2 - Kentucky Derby (152nd running, Churchill Downs)

May 5 - MISMO Spring Conference (Louisville)

May 7 - Jobs Report (April)

May 14-17 - PGA Championship (Aronimink Golf Club)

May 16 - Preakness Stakes (Laurel Park, Md.)

May 17-20 - MBA Secondary and Capital Markets Conference (Marriott Marquis, NYC)

May 25 - Memorial Day (markets closed)

May 31 - Indy 500 (Indianapolis Motor Speedway)

JUNE 2026

Jun 3 - Jobs Report (May)

Jun 5 - Belmont Stakes (Saratoga Race Course) -- Triple Crown on the line

Jun 11 - FIFA World Cup kicks off (USA, Canada, Mexico -- 48 teams)

Jun 14-16 - Ohio MBA Annual Conference (Columbus OH)

Jun 15 - Father's Day

Jun 16-17 - FOMC Meeting (rate decision, press conference)

Jun 18-21 - US Open Golf (Shinnecock Hills)

Jun 19 - Juneteenth (federal holiday, markets closed)

Jun 22 - NBA Draft (approx.)

Jun 29 - Wimbledon begins

"Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called 'walking.'" – George W. Bush

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]