While here in Denver I received an email. “Rob, does what’s going on in Florida impact lenders?” I had to figure out if the author was asking about Disney/DeSantis, new Florida Man news, climate change, or insurance issues. Florida has a lot of cool things: manatees, Dry Tortugas National Park, Epcot Center, and cigar rollers in Tampa who do parties. Unfortunately it now has an additional insurance fee, as Florida has imposed a 1 percent “emergency” fee to property insurance premiums due to property-insurer insolvencies. Lenders in Florida often mention the Agencies, including HUD, and loan amounts. More specifically, many people living in Florida (“locals”) couldn’t buy their own homes due to wages versus values. Many of the Florida home loans that LOs have crossing their desks are now true jumbos. Buyers don’t get much in Tampa for $700k, and eastern Florida is worse. The loan limits are out of adjustment for the locals.
My cat Myrtle never turns down a good helping of enchanting, diced, barbequed beef. (Sorry vegetarians: La Principessa is a carnivore.) I realize that Easter is still ahead of us, and summer a few months off, but who hasn’t driven by a field full of cattle in the heat and seen them standing in the shade? A shaded, comfortable steer produces more meat. No shade impacts profitability. Where am I going with this? Banks earn income by taking money from you and me, and business accounts, and lending it out to home and car buyers, people establishing businesses and so on. If people and companies are tired of earning near 0 percent on their bank deposit and putting their money in money market accounts instead, eventually banks have less money to lend out, things change. No money impacts profitability. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week it’s sponsored by Milestones. Giving homeowners an all-inclusive homeownership experience including home value and equity mo
The way bond math works, every man, woman, and child that owns a fixed-income security issued when rates were lower is now underwater on that bond or that security. As long as they continue to collect payments on that coupon, and don’t have to sell it, fine. If they are forced to sell the security at a loss and book it, that’s a different story. When people want their money out of a bank, and the bank needs to sell securities to pay off depositors, well, we’ve seen how that plays out. Along those lines, big bank problems make the headlines, but there are plenty of smaller depository bank mergers and acquisitions going on that don’t make the headlines. And the same thing is happening with vendors and mortgage bankers & brokers. Before I forget, anyone can post a resume for free here and employers can view them for several months at a nominal charge. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week is sponsored by Black Knight, Inc. As a pre
“Life was much easier when apple and blackberry were just fruits.” But perhaps not as interesting. Here’s what happens when you put a West Coast MI rep on TikTok, sending out her message through the internet and technology. Meanwhile, the California MBA spread the word that, given the end of COVID’s emergency status, the DFPI’s “Guidance Regarding Remote Work” is posted on the internet. Here in Las Vegas, the ICE Experience is in full swing, and with it, technology talk abounds, as does how the cost per loan continues to rise despite tech tools. Certainly, compliance and regulatory costs enter into that (just like permitting and inspection costs enter into the cost of a new house), and we find our very Consumer Finance Protection Bureau making the headlines again; More below. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week is sponsored by Built Technologies. Increase efficiency, streamline processes, and improve construction and
Nature is full of trivia. The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year. The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust. The climate, obviously, is part of nature. Climate, and natural disasters, impact our clients, people, insurance premiums, and the value of servicing in areas prone to hurricanes, flooding, forest fires, and earthquakes. A certain portion of those events (the number is increasing) are determined by FEMA to be natural disasters, and last year 3.4 million adults in the U.S. were at one point or another forced to evacuate their homes due to one, according to the Census Bureau. Approximately 1.4 percent of the American adult population. That’s a lot higher than historical averages, up to 800,000 on average for the years between 2008 and 2021. 12 percent were people displaced for over six months and 16 percent were adults who never returned home. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Research Institute for Housing Amer