The mortgage industry has come a long way from March of 2020, when the Federal Reserve pledged to buy “unlimited” amounts of Treasuries and MBS to stabilize the credit markets. The Fed started to shrink its balance sheet earlier this summer, and at the start of this month ramped up to a reduction rate of $95 billion per month ($60 billion of Treasuries and $35 billion of MBS) with plans to end its purchases of MBS from early payoff proceeds next week. The Fed’s actions in March of 2020 helped stave off margin calls for many lenders, though several European countries are now providing billions of euros in margin call support to European energy companies that need at least $1.5 trillion to cover the cost of their exposure to soaring gas prices. Margin calls eat into companies’ capital, and mortgage companies need all the cash they can get in this higher interest rate environment that has shocked borrower demand and subdued sales. Time on the market for homes i
We began 2022 thinking that this might be the “Year of Non-QM.” The product certainly has its advantages for some borrowers, and lenders & investors. And then First Guaranty and Sprout vanished, and the herd of lenders was spooked, began talking about March of 2020 when some investors backed away from the market, and everyone was reminded to never have only one “take out” for a given loan or product. And then the headline yesterday: “SEC Charges Angel Oak Capital Advisors with Misleading Investors in $90 Million Fix-and-Flip Securitization.” Meanwhile, the industry is watching inflation numbers yesterday and today. One way to fight inflation is for a food supplier to put four tomatoes in a box that held five in the past. And don’t get me started on restaurant portions: higher prices and smaller portions have caught the attention of Consumer Affairs. Know that since the CPI report yesterday, Fed speakers have been quick to tem
This morning, at the beginning of the third quarter of 2022, I learned about this morsel: The most common national holiday around the world is independence from the British! That aside, this morning I decided to start the 2nd half of 2022 with a healthy, low-cal breakfast: oatmeal. So I found the Quaker Oats, and began boiling. Then I gathered up the butter, pecans, chocolate chips, milk, maple syrup, banana, shredded coconut… where was I going with this? Oh yeah, food and learning. Real estate agent relationships are vital in the mortgage industry, especially for purchase-heavy shops. In hot markets, agents tend to already have established relationships with brokers or lenders, so some LOs are using food and learning. They are offering either breakfast treats with a baker, or happy hour wine tasting with a local wine expert, to local real estate agents, financial planners, contractors, divorce attorneys, whoever, with 20-30 minutes of mingling and then a 10–15-minute pre
Yesterday in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, at the Indiana Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference, one of the non-mortgage conversations that I had was about TV. (Sometimes people talk about shows they’re “streaming.”) I don’t know what’s what: Hulu, Paramount, Paramount+, Dish, Amazon Prime, Disney, Disney Plus, Charter, Verizon, Comcast, You Tube TV, Peacock… can’t we just go back to cable? Maybe not: The number of Americans opting out of cable accelerated in the first quarter of 2022. In 2019 and 2020, a net of 1.1 million subscribers cancelled their cable or over-the-top streaming television, a figure that rose to 1.4 million in the first quarter of 2021 and has now hit 2.5 million cable cancellers in Q1 of this year. Comparing subscriptions in 2022 versus 2018, the only winners are Hulu + Live TV, up 3.1 million subscribers, and FuboTV, up 925,000 subscribers. The rest of the cable landscape? It’s bad: Comcast
As servicing rights continue to be sold, and residential lender layoffs are rampant, here’s a quick reminder that anyone displaced can post their resume for free here; employers can view all resumes for a flat $75 for several months. Today I am passing through Chicago to the Indiana MBA conference. Unfortunately Chicago has the dubious distinction of being on the List of Top 10 Metro Areas where home prices are down the most. (Toledo, Rochester, and Detroit make up the top three.) Did you know that in 2020, there were the most first-time home buyers ever in history at 2.38 million? Interestingly the average age for a first-time homebuyer is 36 years old. What kind of customer experience are lenders offering these borrowers? In turbulent times like these, employees’ eyes and ears are tuned into what their leadership says and does. Research consistently shows that a focus on the employee experience (EX) and employee engagement results in higher revenues and productivity, be