After facing building pressure to host his own podcast, Ron Butler—one of the biggest names in the mortgage industry—this week launched his inaugural episode.
Butler, a 28-year veteran of the mortgage industry, most of which he has spent running discount brokerage Butler Mortgage Inc., promises entertainment, useful mortgage information and “lots of swearing” in his new weekly podcast, Angry Mortgage Podcast.
Butler says the show has been in the works for several years, but is excited to finally get it off the ground.
“It took longer than an elephant pregnancy, which I found out is like 20 months,” he said in an interview with CMT. “I’ve been lying about it starting for like six months…so yeah, the pressure was building.”
He kicked off his inaugural episode with Natalie Butler, a real estate agent with Royal LePage, and also his daughter-in-law. Butler said listeners can expect a variety of guests in future episodes.
While Butler has no plans to reduce his presence on Twitter—since joining the platform 12 years ago he’s racked up over 41,000 tweets and replies—he sees the podcast as providing him with another avenue to share his insights into the mortgage industry.
“Twitter is the most in-depth because, you know, you’re posting daily and you’re up to date on everything,” he said. “But I think this format allows us to be a bit more entertaining.”
He promises not to be like some other podcasts that he described as “dry as dust.”
Aside from swearing and laughs, Butler said listeners can expect discussions about “real housing and mortgage issues.”
For example, “a thorough discussion about general housing policy and government policies at all levels that are contributing to wildly high house prices.”
Anyone familiar with Butler knows he’s not one to shy away from sensitive topics and who will hold back his opinions. He described himself as “overly opinionated” in his Twitter profile, and says listeners can expect straight talk in his podcast.
“I’m trying to fulfill two things. I’m not just going to regurgitate what’s appearing in the Globe and Mail or on CTV News or on somebody else’s podcast,” he said. And secondly, he says he’s not afraid to address uneasy subject matter head on.
Butler said he finds too many podcasts contain “too much slanted information, designed in a very, very calculated way to steer the consumer in a certain direction.”
Not only that, he says he won’t hesitate to “expose some of the bad things that go on in the industry.”
As for why he chose the name “Angry Mortgage Podcast,” he explained that during his first episode: “It’s because my natural state is either laughing or angry…or a long diatribe about how I’m right about something.”