My cat Myrtle is enthralled with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Okay, I made that up. She’s only interested to the extent that it impacts the supply of Icelandic Sea Trout into her bowl. AI is a hot topic these days, and in fact today’s Mortgage Collaborative’s “Rundown” at noon PT, 3PM ET, features David Karandish, the CEO of Capacity, discussing that and other trends in mortgage tech. A trend continuing to rifle through the ranks is mergers and/or acquisitions as a handful of well-known residential lending companies crisscross the country in search of small institutions that fit their business models and are ready for a change. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor in terms of staying in business: Unfortunately, yet another trend is a lack of profitability, especially among small and mid-sized lenders who have gone through their 2020/2021 savings and sold their servicing. Lastly, volume trends aren’t good either: According to Curino
I happen to be visiting Manhattan this week. Besides the news about the subway shooting, the overall “hum” of this place being unmistakable and I mention this for two specific reasons. First, the bartender trainee at the restaurant last night was from Turkey. It was her first night on the job, and she had graduated from law school in Turkey but this newly minted attorney had decided to come to the U.S. and earn money! Second, in speaking to the manager of Javelina (which I’d recommend, although the habanero queso has quite a bite), the lion’s share of its revenue comes from delivery service business, and she is thinking about shutting down the expensive actual brick & mortar restaurant and strictly doing takeout and delivery. I found both tidbits interesting from an economics perspective since a) The U.S. continues to be land of opportunity, and b) the changes brought on by the pandemic will continue to change the business landscape. Speaking of
“Rob, my capital markets gal eliminated our ability to lock overnight at yesterday’s rates. I think that she’s being unreasonable. Your thoughts?” No, she’s not. Overnight lock protection is one of the first things to go in a volatile rate environment, especially when developments in Ukraine, seven hours ahead of New York, contribute to our rate movement. Besides, who needs to lock loans at 3AM? It is tough enough to preserve pricing margins as it is. As packages of mortgage servicing rights continue to be sold by companies looking to raise cash, do you think it’s hard to make money doing mortgages these days? Try music. I was recently chatting with a musician in Nashville who told me that they earn .003 per stream on YouTube. There are varying deal structures, of course, but for someone just starting out this equates to $30 for 10,000 streams. Yikes. I hope that Bruce Willis, and his family, made some money as they’ve been selling off $