WFG To Expand Economic Outlook Webinar Series

The “WFG Quarterly Economic Outlook,” a popular and increasingly influential webinar featuring Williston Financial Group Founder and Executive Chairman Patrick F. Stone and Economist and Forbes contributor Dr. Bill Conerly, will expand to a full hour for 2022.

The first 2022 webinar will be Wednesday, February 23rd at 1 pm EST / 10 am PST.

The series, which began in the first months of the Covid pandemic, as in-person meetings and industry conferences were moving online, was designed to stimulate the real-time exchange of ideas and information about current concerns, trends and potential directions for the real estate, lending and title insurance industries. Questions submitted in advance by industry stakeholders across the country were culled and organized to create the Q&A conversation, with Stone and Conerly alternating their responses and sometimes providing follow-up questions of their own.

“This has become a popular and I believe valuable national forum,” said Stone, who founded Williston Financial Group (WFG), the Portland-based parent company of WFG National Title Insurance Company, in 2010. Conerly has a Ph.D. in economics from Duke University and more than 30 years’ experience helping companies adapt to changing economic conditions.

“Bill and I bring many years of experience, both as business leaders and analysts, in various aspects of the housing industry and U.S. economy. We have had a positive response from industry, media and government representatives for our efforts to offer balanced perspectives on the challenges facing us.”

Attendance is open to all, but reservations are required, and may be made in advance by signing up here. Those wishing to submit questions for consideration must email them to [email protected] no later than 5 pm ET Monday, February 21st.

Stone’s lengthy career in real estate and related services includes C-level positions with three public companies and serving as a director on two Fortune 500 boards. His senior executive management positions include nine years as president and COO of the nation’s largest title insurance company, chairman and co-CEO of a software company and CEO of a real estate data and information company. Pat also served as vice-chairman of Metrocities Mortgage, a 2005 top-20 mortgage lender, and as chairman of The Stone Group, an Austin, Texas-based tenant-represented brokerage company. In 2013, Inman News named him one of the year’s “100 Most Influential People in Real Estate.” Stone received HousingWire’s coveted Vanguard Award for lifetime career achievement in 2019 and again in 2021, was recognized in 2019 and 2020 as a Lending Luminary by Progress in Lending, and was the recipient of October Research’s annual Leadership Award in 2020.

Conerly was formerly Senior Vice President at a major bank and held positions in economics and corporate planning at two Fortune 500 corporations. He is also an online contributor to Forbes, chairman of the board of Cascade Policy Institute, and the author of The Flexible Stance: Thriving in a Boom/Bust Economy (2016) and Businomics (2007), a book about economics for business leaders.

In the previous podcast, on October 21, 2021, Stone and Conerly answered questions about the outlook for the global economy, real estate and lending, and the title industry, as well as the pandemic’s ongoing impact. A recording of that webinar can be viewed by clicking here.

“I want to thank everybody for your questions,” Stone said in October, “because that helps us stay really attuned to what’s pertinent and what you’re worried about.”

Registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GUrhOryHQrW7Hgml4dLA8Q