Walking around Memphis yesterday got me to thinking, “I wonder what the part of my brain that used to store people’s phone numbers is doing now.” Maybe being used to store cool ads like the one in the joke section below, or lyrics of old songs? Thank you to VanDyk Mortgage’s Steve Richman who reminded me of Mott The Hoople’s “All The way From Memphis.” In 1973, when that song was released, the Fed Funds rate hit a high of 11.22 percent. Inflation can be harsh. Are you thinking about the price of food and gas a few months ahead of summer vacation season? You’re not alone. Millions of families are wondering what vacations are going to set them back this year, and possibly reconfiguring plans to spend less. Dramatic inflation can have that affect. I bring this up because, as was widely expected given the constant attempt to keep the U.S. economy stable, and battle against runaway prices, the FOMC raised the target range for the fed f
This morning I am heading to Knoxville to visit with the local chapter of the Tennessee Mortgage Bankers Association. On my way I received an email asking, “I’m trying to place a high bal loan on a manufactured house on acreage. Any suggestions?” Nope, no suggestions. This is not an ad, but you should start with Mortgage Elements: enter the state, and then the program, and see who’s doing what. And what about information on warehouse lending, and what it is telling us about the current lending environment? The Mortgage Bankers Association has its survey. The MBA’s Chart of the Week from mid-February showed that the average usage level of first-mortgage warehouse lines (the percentage of outstanding borrowings to warehouse facility limits) fell for the sixth consecutive quarter to 38% as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. It was the lowest usage level since the inception of the survey in the second quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, at the other end of
This morning I am heading to Knoxville to visit with the local chapter of the Tennessee Mortgage Bankers Association. On my way I received an email asking, “I’m trying to place a high bal loan on a manufactured house on acreage. Any suggestions?” Nope, no suggestions. This is not an ad, but you should start with Mortgage Elements: enter the state, and then the program, and see who’s doing what. And what about information on warehouse lending, and what it is telling us about the current lending environment? The Mortgage Bankers Association has its survey. The MBA’s Chart of the Week from mid-February showed that the average usage level of first-mortgage warehouse lines (the percentage of outstanding borrowings to warehouse facility limits) fell for the sixth consecutive quarter to 38% as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. It was the lowest usage level since the inception of the survey in the second quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, at the other end of
Yes, it’s March 4th… the only day that is a command for us humans. We thought it was our ability to love that made us human, but it turns out that it is actually our ability to select each image that contains a traffic light. (Put another way, to prove to a robot that we are not a robot.) Underwriters know a thing or two about human nature, and about collateral. This morning I leave San Diego, recently in the press for “de-throning” San Francisco as the least affordable city in the United States. Do your underwriters care if the loan is on a townhome? (Think single-family dwellings with at least two floors that share a wall with another house, each individually owned.) If they do, you should know that townhome construction has surged in the last year or so. By the most recent numbers, townhomes now make up nearly 13% of all single-family starts and have notched a 38% uptick in just a single year. Why? Follow the money. Oh, and larger homes are coming your wa
Greetings from Little Rock, Arkansas (home of cheese dip, 1935)! George Thorogood’s music is alive and well here, and a happy 72nd birthday to he who wrote the lending anthem, “When I Do a Loan, I Prefer to be by Myself.” While George is busy celebrating his birthday week, apps plunged to their lowest level in two years, and the CFPB released a factsheet on the interest rate that is used for calculating prepaid interest under the price-based General QM APR calculation rule for certain ARMs and step-rate loans. Switching gears… Zoomed out? Me too. In person is so much better, although companies seem to be keeping pieces of technology from the work-from-home environment. For the past couple years, many of us have spent a portion of our workdays staring at screens featuring grids of their colleague’s faces. Teamflow offers an alternative. (Nope, this is not a paid endorsement.) The remote-work platform allows companies to create virtual offices with desk