Speaker kit

Kristin Messerli is a speaker and researcher on trust, money, and the next generation of buyers. She has authored the NextGen Homebuyer Report since 2020 and is the founder of FirstHome IQ.

Kristin Messerli studies how the next generation is built around money, and teaches the people who serve them how to earn trust. She has authored the annual NextGen Homebuyer Report with National MI since 2020, drawing on more than 10,000 millennials and Gen Z, with findings cited by Bankrate and the Washington Post. She is the founder and Executive Director of FirstHome IQ, a nonprofit that puts trusted professionals in front of first-time buyers, and the creator of Built Like That, a free quiz on how you're built around money. Kristin has spoken to more than 500 audiences across housing, mortgage, banking, and real estate.

Kristin Messerli studies how the next generation is built around money, and teaches the people who serve them how to earn trust. She has authored the annual NextGen Homebuyer Report in partnership with National MI since 2020, one of the longest-running datasets on how millennials and Gen Z think about money and homeownership, with more than 10,000 respondents and findings cited by Bankrate, the Washington Post, and HousingWire.

She is the founder and Executive Director of FirstHome IQ, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that closes the homeownership education gap by putting trusted professionals in front of first-time buyers, and the creator of Built Like That, a free quiz built on her 2026 study of how people are built around money. Before that she founded Cultural Outreach, a go-to-market agency for reaching young and diverse markets, which she ran from 2012 until its sale to NAMMBA in 2020.

Her work is grounded in an early career in social work with recent immigrants and unhoused youth, where she learned that trust is built long before the paperwork. She holds a Master of Public Administration and has spoken to more than 500 audiences, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors, and the American Bankers Association. She lives in Los Angeles.

Our next speaker has spent six years asking millennials and Gen Z what they actually think about money, and more than ten thousand of them have answered. She's the author of the NextGen Homebuyer Report, the founder of the nonprofit FirstHome IQ, and the creator of Built Like That, a quiz on how you're built around money. She started her career as a social worker, and she says that's still the job. Please welcome Kristin Messerli.

• The Trust DeficitWhy capable buyers stall, avoid, and disappear. Full abstracts
• Built to BuyThe money builds behind every homebuyer. Full abstracts
• Authenticity in the Age of AIBuilding human connection in a digital world. Full abstracts