Do you know what “splooting” is? Here’s a hint: 4-legged animals do it. (Hey, I don’t make these things up.) Quite the word. Words are very interesting, and can incite a riot, help someone get through a loss, make up this Commentary, entertain. Every morning I share my Wordle results with a few friends, comparing who was able to find the 5-letter word of the day in the fewest tries. For the most part Wordle is quick, fun, and mildly entertaining, which is the exact opposite of financing a home as any borrower or loan originator will tell you. Originate? “Origin”: source, inception, root means the point at which something begins its course or existence. Origin applies to the things or persons from which something is ultimately derived and often to the causes operating before the thing itself comes into being. “ate” is a suffix meaning “state of quality of” and when added makes an adjective a verb. Originate, tolerate,
Happy Hanukkah (or Chanukah), which began yesterday. Others are looking ahead to Christmas, with some companies closed Friday the 23rd and some closed Monday the 26th. (The Federal Reserve and the stock market are closed Monday the 26th and then Monday the 2nd.) I am in Chicago where the weather could be termed as “brisk.” There’s a different term that the residents of Fairbanks, Alaska, and my Navy vet father, for that matter, would use to describe their weather, expected to have a high of -35 degrees F today! (To be blunt, which I can be since I’m not reporting to anyone, he’d probably say, “That would freeze the balls off a pool table!”) Weather like that does much more than cause goosebumps, although anyone who knows this song often has them at the 3:08 mark. Plenty of lenders are feeling trapped by current margins and volumes, which probably aren’t going to shoot up in the near future, and some have shifted a portion of their
This morning I Head East to Chicago for a handful of days. If you’ve wondered what a pilot sees when landing at O’Hare, here’s a mesmerizing video. (What is the tallest building in Chicago? The library, because it has so many stories.) From coast to coast lenders and vendors are eyeing the MBA’s volume predictions for 2023 and stay ahead by reducing overhead. In the furor over cutting costs, a cottage industry has sprung up helping lenders review their vendor arrangements. Given that product, price, and service are what vendors sell, products and service are usually, if not more, important than price, but companies like MTG Services review pricing schemes. (No, this isn’t a paid advertisement; contact James Zeldin with questions.) Today’s podcast, posted after 5:30AM PT, is sponsored by Appraisal Logistics, a full-service AMC licensed in all 50 states. AIM-Port’s robust integrations, custom automations, and granular reporting tools are d
Yesterday I spent some time in Northern California with two groups, one of which was CAMP, and while morale is good and everyone is in the holiday spirit, the business focus is on trying to reduce costs, rollout products to help what few borrowers are out there, and leverage technology as we head through December and into the winter. Christmas will be here before you know it. Have you noticed that FedEx trucks have different colors in their logos? Well, they do, and they mean something. (And don’t forget to see the arrow between the “E” and the “X” on the trucks. Afterward, try to unsee it.) The CFPB’s logo doesn’t have any such cleverness, but it published a response to questions regarding the HMDA closed-end loan coverage threshold and the 2022 NCRC et al. v. CFPB court order. (Today's podcast is here and brought to you by SimpleNexus, an nCino company and award-winning developer of mobile-first technology for the modern mortga
Lenders and vendors alike are emerging from Thanksgiving and looking ahead to which day they have off for Christmas in the U.S., the 23rd or the 26th. An informal Chrisman poll shows the 26th, but there is definitely a noticeable percentage who are taking both days off. It is good to keep things in perspective and appreciate what we have in the United States. Here in Mexico (yes, that Mexico; down here for a short visit) the daily minimum wage in pesos is $172.87 MXP (approximately $8.06 USD) for the countryside, slightly more in cities and tourist area. Yes, you read that correctly: 8 smackers. With a Gross Domestic Product of $1.4 billion, Mexico’s economy is about the same as Florida’s. Wages aside, in terms of interest rates, across the Atlantic, Ghana, which most people would be hard-pressed to identify on a map of Africa, the latest rate hike to combat inflation puts rates at a19-year high of 27 percent! Not a lot of rate and term refis there, that’s for sure