The old joke, “Why don’t the Phillies have a website? Because they can’t string three W’s together!” is no longer true. The Phillies are doing just fine, and the MBA Annual is underway. Talk in the hallways includes the Community Home Lenders of America, National Association of Realtors, and Independent Community Bankers of America sending a letter calling on the administration to reduce the historically high, long-term mortgage rates relative to long-term Treasury bonds, and the supposed UMortgage financials (showing loans held for sale, typically the sign of a mortgage banker not a broker, but really, financials on Reddit?). For many IMBs, their goals by going to the MBA Annual here in Philadelphia include searching for the reason for the wide bid/ask spreads in MBS trading, the reason for the increased Agency buybacks (increased inspection rates and not taking chances on seller servicers not being around in the future, are usually mentioned as the
“My dog is really worried about the rising price of groceries, with a can of dog food now costing $3. That’s $21 in dog money.” As I travel and speak with originators, besides the regulatory environment being a concern (the latest example being the CFPB suing Freedom Mortgage yesterday), the cost to produce a loan is still a problem, and for some it is about to worsen. The last MBA’s study calculated that total loan production expenses (commissions, compensation, occupancy, equipment, and other production expenses and corporate allocations) were $11k per loan in the second quarter. Talk of another round of credit cost changes swirl, good and bad, similar to the end of last year, prompted by Fair Issac and rippling through the bureaus and CRAs. (Any questions should be addressed to your credit provider.) (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s is sponsored by NotaryCam, your partner for The Perfect Close! Ease of use, additional closing