Life is a matter of perspective, and LOs and vendors don’t need some momentous weekly or monthly numbers to garner a piece of the $1.5-$2 trillion residential mortgage market. Even bikes see possible change. Many lenders and vendors are working to “make the ordinary extraordinary.” Are drug stores and gas stations boring? Not according to Wall Drug and Buc-ee’s. What is the current mortgage rate situation for borrowers who have home loans? Below 6 percent? 92 percent of U.S. mortgaged homeowners. Below 5 percent? 82 percent. Below 4 percent? 62 percent. Below 3 percent? 24 percent. Yet about 1/3 of applications coming into lenders, per the MBA, are refinances! (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is brought to you LoanCare, successfully navigating clients and homeowners through market change for 40 years. The mortgage subservicer delivers superior customer experience through personalization and convenience via its portfolio manage
If you’re in Chicago, the newest attraction is “the rat hole.” Here in Denver, besides the cat I saw in the airport yesterday being walked on a leash, one attraction is the National Ice Core Lab, where, you guessed it, ice sample cores from all over the world are kept for research purposes at temperatures even colder than those outside. It is around this time of year when plenty of people think about vacations or moving to warmer places… Like Phuket in Thailand. In 2023 it saw 6.24 million airport arrivals, up 88 percent from 2022, and the real estate market is booming. The island has 26 beaches and a population of 420,000. Phuket is trying to move away from over-reliance on tourism by simply selling to wealthy outsiders, often Russians: 27,000 Russians have moved to Phuket in the past 12 to 18 months, fueling a development boom. Follow the money, right? Today’s podcast can be found here, and this week’s is brought to you by nCino, makers of th
Michael Parsons has joined First Home Mortgage Corporation’s new Gaithersburg office as branch manager. Parsons is a well-respected veteran of the mortgage industry with more than 30 years of experience in the Washington metropolitan area. Parsons’ career in the mortgage industry began right after he graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park. He founded his own .