When I see lover’s names carved into the wood on a tree, I don’t think it’s sweet. I just think how surprising it is how many people bring a knife on a date. Time passes, life goes by fast, first dates turn into long-term relationships, a hot summer has been forgotten, turned into a beautiful autumn, and turned into an arctic winter. Time has passed, and it is nearly Christmas Eve. Ya’ll sick of Christmas carols (again)? The Winter Solstice has occurred, meaning that the minutes of daylight will only increase for the next six months in the northern hemisphere. People are planning for 2023, as if the calendar changing from December to January will have an impact on rates, volumes, margins, or revenue. Augie Del Rio with Gallus Insights did a video interview with Tammy Richards and me about how lenders and vendors are reacting to the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. (Gallus Insights helps lenders make data-driven decisions.) And before we know it, Wi-Fi
Sometimes it’s tough to find good news out there. For independent mortgage bank (IMB) and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered bank lenders, the MBA reports that production costs exceeded $11,000 per loan in the 3rd quarter leading to a net loss of $624 on each loan they originated. (More below.) And the cost of determining a borrower’s credit will be heading significantly higher, according to word on the street. The increases are not coming from credit resellers, such as credit reporting agencies, but rumored instead to be coming from the bureaus and Fair Isaac, customers are encouraged to speak with their credit source for the exact details on tiers, actual percentage increases, and timing to put speculation to rest. Want some good news? We’re a month away from the day with the least amount of sunlight (solstice). Want a free Denny’s breakfast for a year just by wearing this $5.99 T-shirt? In a fantastic marketing feat, there are only 150 of them and they go
As the MBA’s conference in Nashville wraps up, lenders and vendors are in an interesting mindset. Optimists are saying, “There’s a lot of opportunity out there” and, “Rates will come back down and refis will give us some oomph.” The pessimists are saying, “Why do I care about multi-year Agency goals when I’ll be lucky to make it through the next two quarters. We’re just trying to cut costs fast enough, including LO comp, and outlast our competition.” Lenders everywhere are doing what they can now to make themselves more efficient, fearing rougher times ahead. Banks and credit unions are looking at cross-training skillsets: Prioritizing coverage and making sure to cross-train so people can play to their strengths. Analyzing what tasks they're doing, and the best people to do it. Workflow? Lenders are minimizing file touches, using a cheaper resource for parts of the file, and moving more duties from underwriti
If you’ve ever had to hire people, did you sort your applications into three piles: Mad, Hopeless, or Possible? For his Antarctic expeditions, Ernest Shackleton did, and thank you to Fairway Independent’s Guy Schwartz for sending along this article on recruiting. (At least click on the link to look at photos of when men were men, not like we are now when none of us even know how to change our own oil.) In the Antarctic it is springtime, the end of September and end of the 3rd quarter everywhere. In the Northern Hemisphere, places like Minneapolis are losing 3 minutes a day of sunlight. Lenders and vendors are certainly hoping that their company never sunsets…How profitable was your 3rd quarter? LOs and lenders are continuing to face hard times for the foreseeable future as we head into the autumn and winter. Be sure that your financial counterparties, such as warehouse banks, investors, and broker-dealers, are kept up to date on your P&L and plans for p
“Senility has been a smooth transition for me.” So quipped an attendee here at the Michigan Mortgage Lenders Association conference in Grand Rapids. The aging mortgage banker workforce continues to be a concern around the nation, but there are certainly lenders and vendors attempting to “bring in new blood.” The FTC’s $62 million fine of Opendoor’s advertising policies raised eyebrows. We had the news of Two Harbors Investment Corp.’s Matrix Financial Services Corporation entering into a definitive stock purchase agreement to acquire RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing Corporation from Freedom Mortgage Corporation. People are talking about the Equifax alleged miscalculating of consumer’s credit scores. (But could they have resulted in both worse and better mortgage pricing?) There is a fair amount of discussion is about the difficulty of the deals that are out there, and how various derivations of pre-qual, pre-approval, and To Be Deter