The other day I walked in on Myrtle who was looking at the litter cleaning robot on the screen as if to ask, “What’ll they think of next?” Businesses and arrangements are always coming and going. There’s a new in-house appraisal product, noted below. Who wants to go in with me on starting a 2nd home company with a common-sense name, nothing foreign sounding. “Let’s Split It.” (Tagline: “Your Perfect Vacation Home Awaits.”) Wouldn’t “I Gotta Guy” be a cool name for a business? And useful? Call the number, they hook you up with a plumber who shows up, or a gutter repair person who is competent, or whatever you need. New companies are out there. Ever heard of “Calque”? Me neither until Morgan C. from Highland Mortgage pointed out “The trade-in mortgage.” Freddie Mac announced its newly enhanced mortgage rate survey. Progress Residential, with over 85,000 single-family rental (SF
As the MBA’s conference in Nashville wraps up, lenders and vendors are in an interesting mindset. Optimists are saying, “There’s a lot of opportunity out there” and, “Rates will come back down and refis will give us some oomph.” The pessimists are saying, “Why do I care about multi-year Agency goals when I’ll be lucky to make it through the next two quarters. We’re just trying to cut costs fast enough, including LO comp, and outlast our competition.” Lenders everywhere are doing what they can now to make themselves more efficient, fearing rougher times ahead. Banks and credit unions are looking at cross-training skillsets: Prioritizing coverage and making sure to cross-train so people can play to their strengths. Analyzing what tasks they're doing, and the best people to do it. Workflow? Lenders are minimizing file touches, using a cheaper resource for parts of the file, and moving more duties from underwriti
Remember: April is National Procrastination Month! I could tell that my cat Myrtle was displeased the other morning. She’s very secretive about her finances, but my guess is that she’s “long” residential lender stocks and procrastinated selling them. Nearly every lender’s stock price is near all-time lows, making the sellers of these companies during the last few years look like timing geniuses. Earning notes on UWM and Rocket are below, but loanDepot shares have lost about 43.8% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's decline of -16.3%. Finance of America, which had a management shakeup in mid-March and moving President Bill Dallas to an advisory role, reported a net loss for the quarter of $64 million, but improving from a $1.33 billion loss in the previous quarter. (FOA acquired Parkside last year.) Guild Mortgage saw only $32 million Adjusted Net Income, and its stock is trading near an all-time low. Retail, wholes
Today is National Beer Day (beer humor below), which made last night Beer Day’s Eve. Here at the CMLA event the talk is not about all of the craft breweries in Denver, but instead a portion of the chatter in the hallways revolves around how lenders stack up on extensions and renegotiations. Compass/Black Knight has some stats for you. The talk also revolves around layoffs (including a new round from Better.com reported by the WSJ), and the stock prices of those companies that have “gone public” in the last few years. Whether it is Guild, UWM, Rocket, Finance of America, or loanDepot, some with distributed retail models, they are all near their all-time lows. Hopefully, no employees put all their retirement eggs in the one basket of their employer! The violent move higher in rates is a discussion topic, of course. Mortgage rates, usually based on a spread to Treasury securities, and with the talk of the Fed aggressively lightning its balance sheet (more in capital m