I could tell that my cat Myrtle was miffed. Not only had the work on her “2024 Vision Board Statement” languished, but either there was no line-caught halibut in her bowl, or the laser pointer’s battery was dead. It turned out that it was neither. Instead, it was news that the CFPB was not meeting its goals. the Office of Inspector General of the Federal Reserve Board released a report assessing the CFPB’s process for conducting enforcement investigations and making two recommendations. First, noting that the CFPB has not met its stated goal to file or settle 65 percent of its enforcement actions within two years, the OIG recommended that the CFPB Office of Enforcement incorporates the timing expectations for key steps in the enforcement process into the tracking and monitoring of matters. The OIG also recommended improvements to enforcement staff training on document maintenance and retention requirements for the CFPB’s matter management system. The
Did you know that wheat futures prices are at a 2-year low? And lumber prices continue to drop? Those numbers should help reduce inflation. During the conference in NY there was plenty of talk about external influences such as price increases on residential lending. But there are also plenty of issues within our biz that face lenders daily. For example, signing bonuses continue, albeit at a slower rate. Perhaps some of the economic bloom is off the bonus rose? Big signing bonuses come with big handcuffs. It stinks when a competitor takes your production but not your overhead, right? With the help of technology and tracking, a lender’s management can, more than ever, determine whether a given branch or LO is making money for the company, or is merely a source of concessions and extensions. Recruiters sometimes talk of the “greater fool” theory when bad LOs or branches move on to another lender. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is spon
I was having dinner in Manhattan last night, with the topics including Virgin Orbit filing for bankruptcy and the continuing Homepoint rumors (any questions should be directed to your wholesale AE or the publicly-held company itself!), when the waiter came up and asked how everything was before I’d taken a bite. Does that constitute a “dishruption?” Want a visual of something as disruptive as an FHFA pricing change with no notice or lead time? Here you go. For more acronyms that begin with “F,” the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced the framework of a marketing process for the approximately $60 billion loan portfolio retained in receivership following the failure of Signature Bank, New York, New York. Dig your loose change out of the couch and buy some of the portfolio “comprised primarily of commercial real estate (CRE) loans, mostly multifamily in NYC, commercial loans, and a smaller pool of single-family residential loans
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,