Well, what should we start with today? How about how California and Texas ranked highest on the United States Postal Service’s annual list of states with the most dog bites against its employees? Or how ‘bout Freedom Mortgage Corporation filing a notice of data breach after learning that confidential consumer data entrusted to the company was subject to unauthorized access, the result of a cybersecurity incident at one of the company’s vendors, Mortgage Industry Advisory Corporation (“MIAC”)? Data is critical in so many things, whether it is closing a branch, not caring if an LO heads to another company, or in determining that people can save money by buying books at Amazon instead of the local book shop. Along those lines, Saturday’s Commentary, noting the CFPB’s use of its funding to determine that different companies charge different prices, received, as you can imagine, a lot of responses. Think residential lenders have too many regu
“Last week I told a joke over a Zoom meeting. It wasn’t even remotely funny.” Working remotely from home, or at least adopting a hybrid model, is something I hear about from lenders and vendors everywhere in my travels. There probably aren’t too many bankers at First Republic working from their sofas these days. Recall that First Republic, which announces earnings next Monday and continues to be mentioned by analysts despite things quieting down in the overall banking sector, received $30 billion in deposits from a group of big banks, but there was no equity. If that $30 billion is converted to equity, for example, then First Republic’s troubles are over but as it is the stock is trading at less than 20 percent of tangible book value. Those “in the know” will suggest that either a sale or a seizure is likely, probably at a discount or some set of provisions. Originating loans with 3.5% weighted average coupon in this market when you have
Goals are good. Anyone whose goals included bringing back serving alcohol on Southwest flights is happy. It is fine for the Biden Administration to highlight first-time homebuyer and affordable housing goals. But by the time those goals filter down to the state and local levels, well, things happen, like economics, red tape, builder preferences, existing housing zoning, and… felines? One wealthy town out in Northern California stopped an affordable housing development citing mountain lion habitat. Different reasons in different parts of the nation. Celebrate diversity! Old timers remember when mortgage rates varied by the different areas of the nation: Freddie Mac published average rates based on geography. Taste bud differences still exist, and, ten days ahead of Valentine’s Day, different states have different candy preferences. Certainly employers are grappling with employees having different preferences of returning to the office, working from home permanently (citing
Today, 20211202 (2nd December 2021), is a palindrome in the YYYYMMDD format. That aside, sorry the commentary is a little late this morning: I went out drinking after my yearly review with my cat Myrtle last night. It did not go well. By the way, she is the one that reviews my performance; I don’t review hers. Now I’m on some kind of quarterly evals going forward: my revenue barely covers her line-caught halibut expenses, and those expenses have been increasing. (Versus that information, of real use is SoFi’s 3-minute video by Hamaria Crockett with a few tips on how to take the guesswork out of reviews and negotiate with your employer.) Declining revenue and increasing expenses are also the norm for independent mortgage banks and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks. The
Whether or not you think that climate change is real, you can’t deny that there is a climate, and that climate-related disasters occur… to the tune of $170 billion this year per one estimate . And given that state-specific foreclosure laws impact servicing values, and therefore rate sheet pricing, servicing values that vary based on the likelihood of natural disasters in a given areas aren’t a stretch. (More disaster news below.) Something else that that we don’t regularly think about is trucking, and how trucker comp impacts productivity. Thousands of trucks are stacked up, waiting for Highways 50 and 80 to open in the Sierra Nevada mountains, impacting supply chain issues even more. Nationwide, the current “shortage” of truck drivers is reportedly around