“Once things were so tough for me, I worked at a cheap pizza shop to get by. I kneaded the dough.” Things are indeed tough out there. The other day I caught my cat Myrtle at the keyboard, apparently trying to show my new granddaughter Kozette how to apply for a loan to buy a tuna fishing boat. (I know, there’s a lot going on here.) Anyway, up on the screen was a website that will generate a paystub given whatever information you provide. How’d you like to be an underwriter, trying to assure that the borrower has the ability to repay, with this out there? Hence the need, obviously, for some kind of third-party verification service, right? Meanwhile, companies, large and small, continue to sell servicing rights in packages, large and small, in order to raise cash. Servicing is, pretty much, all a lender has in terms of net worth. And when their servicing is gone, well…? For a good bell weather of the general industry, yesterday we had loanDepot'
Did you know that wheat futures prices are at a 2-year low? And lumber prices continue to drop? Those numbers should help reduce inflation. During the conference in NY there was plenty of talk about external influences such as price increases on residential lending. But there are also plenty of issues within our biz that face lenders daily. For example, signing bonuses continue, albeit at a slower rate. Perhaps some of the economic bloom is off the bonus rose? Big signing bonuses come with big handcuffs. It stinks when a competitor takes your production but not your overhead, right? With the help of technology and tracking, a lender’s management can, more than ever, determine whether a given branch or LO is making money for the company, or is merely a source of concessions and extensions. Recruiters sometimes talk of the “greater fool” theory when bad LOs or branches move on to another lender. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is spon
If I had a dollar for every time someone called me a boring nerd, I'd have a mean daily income of $5.64 with a standard deviation of $1.25. Turning “boring” into “interesting” is something to be proud of. How about a hand-held miniature chainsaw or a shopping cart with a magnifying glass attached for reading labels? For loan originators, new and old, who think creativity has vanished from residential lending, maybe they should focus on the basics. This eBook has been recommended to me: “The Ultimate Borrower Communications Strategy for Mortgage Lenders.” I recently received this note from a successful loan officer. “Rob, my commissions in 2020 and 2021 were over $500k each year. In 2022 they dropped about 50 percent to about $250k. 2023 promises to be even lower, and I’ll be lucky to make $200k. Are you seeing this everywhere?” Yes, I am. But keep things in perspective. In the U.S., and certainly in the world, $200k
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“Hey Chet, since you’re the new guy here with the park U.S. Geological Survey in Hawai’i, you’re going to be the one placing the live cam on the volcano for our YouTube feed. Splendid! We’ll be behind you all the way.” (Apply to mortgage banking however you see fit.) Scooting back to lending, I am occasionally asked about high balance conforming conventional loans, and why so much of the country doesn’t care about them (to be somewhat blunt). The MBA put out a fine map showing “high-cost areas” defined by the FHFA as “areas in which 115 percent of the local median home value exceeds the baseline conforming loan limit.” The loan limits are permitted to be higher than the baseline loan limit until a ceiling of 150 percent of the baseline limit is reached. That said, remember that 20-25 percent of the nation’s home loans come from California. (Today's podcast is brought to you by SimpleNexus, an nC