Did you receive any SM under the tree this weekend? Call it snail mucus, or snail mucin, it’s all the same to me, which, as a kid, represented a trail to something I could direct the sun’s rays on using my magnifying glass. (Sorry, when you’re a kid on a very limited budget, this counts as amusement.) But times change and now it’s a beauty product? “Next level!” Really? SM aside, Depth’s Kerri Milam reminded me that the key difference between initials and acronyms is that we pronounce acronyms as a word and initials as a list of letters. Put another way, Fannie Mae is an acronym, as is First American Title (FAT), FHA is a set of initials. NASA or ASAP versus MD or DFW. Throw in some numbers and you have… license plates. For those curious, here is a list of vanity license plates rejected by the state of Illinois. Of course, this has nearly nothing to do with mortgages. First American Financial’s customer service woes continu
When you own your own home, you don’t have to deal with unreasonable landlords. (Warning: uncensored.) And then there are those who own their own homes that have no mortgage: almost 40 percent of Americans own their places outright, an all-time high. Do you think that you could live in 200 square feet? There are tiny homes, and then there is this place that kind of folds up! (Thank you to Arch’s Sharon K. for sending this along.) Meanwhile, among lenders there are many reports of, what is in effect, pick-a-pay, when the “referral” source is moved within the company. LO comp is still an issue, as brokers can have different comp plans but LOs can’t. Pre-approvals and pre-quals off the chart, but there is no inventory. Multiple bids are occurring in many areas and price points. In the wholesale channel, smaller companies can’t out-price the “big guys,” so instead are focusing on service and products. And here come the holidays! (Toda
The upcoming credit price changes were not discussed yesterday at the counter in Paul’s Pancake Parlor here in Missoula, but they might have been. As well as the resignation of NAR’s CEO… are there cracks in the powerful NAR empire? One thing that did come up was the commercial real estate market, reminding us that people need a place to live, not necessarily a place to work. Want to know how bad the commercial real estate market may become? Follow the money. “Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust’s investors sought to pull $2.2 billion last month, compared with $2.1 billion in September… BREIT returned about $1.3 billion to investors, or about 56 percent of what was requested, the ‘highest payout percentage’ since redemptions were restricted last year… The real estate trust is a colossus in U.S. property markets, with its reach spanning from apartments to data centers. In late 2022, BREIT curbed withdrawals after redemption
“Hey, just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.” Lenders, who paid out bucks, believe that they are right and within their rights in “clawing back” bonuses paid to employees, namely producers, when production didn’t pan out. (Let me know if you need it sent to you.) Is the bond market “right” pegging Treasury and mortgage-backed security prices and therefore mortgage rates? The traditional “flight to quality” during international conflict hasn’t materialized for a variety of reasons including currency valuations, traditionally riskier assets such as equities or bitcoin becoming increasingly accepted as safe-haven investments, and the Federal Reserve currently acting as a net seller while the U.S. government is set to issue even more bonds. And despite years of predictions of a recession, the first reading of U.S. GDP for Q3 blew every analyst estimate out of the water: The American