Change is constant: How ‘bout U.S. Steel, the Pittsburgh steel producer that played a key role in the nation’s industrialization, being acquired by Nippon Steel in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $14.1 billion? (Let’s not forget that GM and Ford have been dwarfed by Tesla, Mercedes, Toyota, and even Volvo.) I had my share of “hard hat” jobs growing up, so I noticed OSHA announcing a switch from traditional hard hats to safety helmets. Is that the politically correct term now? Speaking of terms, “smishing” is a term that combines “SMS” and “phishing” where hackers try to get your personal and banking information through unsolicited text messages on mobile devices by pretending to be government agencies, companies that you might have done business with, or a package delivery service. They’ll say something to get your urgent attention like a text about a free gift that you have to pay a small
“What do you call a bovine with a stutter that makes chocolate milk? Cacao.” Speaking of sweets, hats off to Byte’s booth at the conference for dishing out some amazing s’mores brownies here in Philadelphia. (They will be my breakfast on my flight out this morning.) The brownies are sweeter than the upcoming credit report cost increases (there is definitely a shift to lenders having borrowers pay for credit reports up front, not eating the cost of reports run on loans that don’t fund), the search by IMBs for HELOCs and 2nds and jumbo outlets, the talk of distant future EPO (early pay off) penalties when rates decide to drift down, and continued over-capacity and cost cutting until then. That said, there is good news for existing homeowners trying to build net worth: house prices hit another peak in September per one measure. (Today’s podcast can be found, after 8 AM ET, 5 AM PT, here: Sponsored by nCino, maker of the nCino Mortgage Suite, built
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
MeridianLink, Inc. , a leading provider of modern software platforms for financial institutions and consumer reporting agencies, has partnered with Jim Deitch, Certified Mortgage Banker , to create a.
Sorry the commentary is a little late this morning. I received an email from my IT department that I needed to change my username and password. It took me a few minutes to remember that I didn’t have an IT department. Beware of those phishing expeditions! Technology… if it weren’t for my pets or grandparents, I don’t know what I’d do for passwords. There are obviously pluses from technology, of course, and thank you to Steve Richman who told me about Canva, a marketing website that appears darned easy to use. How about the darker side of tech, even including today’s “joke” about how card shuffling machines can be influenced and hacked into. (Do you really think virtual Wonder Woman slot machines are random?) Thank you to those who passed along this story about the aftermath of a cyberattack on a Southern California data host for property listing information, Rapattoni Corporation, freezing up real estate transactions and valuation