Williams described this reality as part of the “ouch” moment in mortgage lending and he said he would not want to downplay that, but he urged executives not to focus on the negatives.

Instead focus on “what kind of optics am I giving my people? How I am getting them charged up,” he asked.

Williams recounted the factors which he said were highlighting the improving housing finance opportunity, including the increasing number of affordable homes available, the pent-up demand for homes, the fact that many Americans have far better debt ratios than they did five years ago and the notion that sometime on the medium term horizon members of Generation Y will start to want to move out of their parents' basements and find their own homes.

Williams called this opportunity the “sweet spot;” the space between the old mortgage brokers who have largely been shut down by compliance requirements and the big banks. “You can be the local, progressive, not sleepy, creative and energetic mortgage lenders in your communities,” he told the executives gathered at his session at the ACUMA conference in the Cosmopolitan Hotel.