Apr. 10: LO jobs, personnel moves; broker, automation, coaching products; asset sale

“My 8-year-old daughter can already read at a 5th grade level and ignore me at a 12th grade level.” Talking about young ‘uns, who needs great grades when… The house belonging to Peter Brand, Harvard’s fencing coach, appraised at $549,300. Two years ago, however, the house was sold to a wealthy businessman (with a son in high school) for nearly $1 million. The buyer’s son later attended Harvard and joined Harvard’s fencing team, and the buyer sold the house, having never lived in it, for a $324,500 loss. Speaking of losses, analysts expect Federal Reserve dovishness and a flattening US yield curve to lead to the first decline in banks’ quarterly profits since 2016, with capital-market functions hit hardest.

Jobs & transitions

Kevin Gillespie has joined Nations Direct Mortgage as the Vice President of Corporate Credit. “Kevin has vast expertise in credit and product development, and we’re thrilled to leverage his talents as we expand our fast-growing suite of proprietary Non-QM products. He is a strong addition to our team as we relentlessly pursue our strategic initiatives to become the broker community’s lender of choice for Government, Conventional, Jumbo and Non-QM products nationwide,” states Martin Warren, Director of Lending. Established in 2007 and currently licensed in 35 states, Nations Direct Mortgage is focused solely on Wholesale partnerships. The company prides itself on employing highly skilled industry experts who are dedicated to delivering exceptional service. If you’re interested in learning more about this Orange County, CA based lender and its extensive product suite, please contact Martin Warren.

Sierra Pacific Mortgage is excited to announce that John Moore and the Moore Lending Group have joined the company to build out its retail lending platform in the state of Florida.  Mr. Moore brings over 30 years of residential home loan experience and has an impressive track record of growing and building high performance retail sales organizations. Before starting the Moore Lending Group over ten years ago, John spent many years working at regional and national levels with Home Savings of America and Washington Mutual. The Moore Lending Group currently has offices in Naples, Bonita Springs, Ft Myers, Cape Coral, Ft Lauderdale, Boca Raton and Tallahassee. John and his team plan to build out the rest of the state to become one of Florida’s premier lenders.

Thrive Mortgage & SocialSurvey have become fast friends. “Mortgage Lenders who don’t embrace Transparency, which is what the ‘T’ in Thrive stands for, are missing a key component to connecting with more clients and business partners,” stated Randell Gillespie, Thrive’s National Sales Director.  “Today’s client wants to know they can trust that their lender has their best interests at heart.” Through their partnership with SocialSurvey, ThriveMortgage has seen a massive increase in their ability to spread the word about their legendary service and value to clients across the country. James Duncan, Director of Marketing for Thrive, added “Any time you have a 5-star experience, you want to tell others about it.  You become their biggest champion.  That’s really what this platform is allowing our clients to do.”  SocialSurvey recently produced a video featuring Duncan that allowed Thrive to return the favor.  For information on joining Thrive Mortgage, visit https://join.thrivemortgage.com.

Caliber Home Loans, Inc., one of the fastest-growing mortgage companies in America and the 3^rd largest non-bank retail lender (IMF), increased its 2018 volume among millennial home buyers by 2%. Last year Caliber funded nearly 45% of its loans to buyers who were born between 1980 and 1996. In fact, for the fourth year in a row, Caliber’s retail sales increased among this audience. Caliber has a lot to be proud of this month because 22 of its Loan Consultants were just named “Top Originators” in the current issue of Scotsman Guide. Caliber is a leading national lender, licensed in 50 states. It’s currently hiring Loan Consultants in markets across the country. To learn about career opportunities at a tech-savvy lender, that gives its producers the resources needed to close with buyers – whether they’re millennials, move-up buyers, or empty nesters – can contact Jeremy.derosa@caliberhomeloans.com or visit www.joincalibernow.com.

Notarize announced the appointment of Renee Alberty as Senior Counsel. Alberty previously served in various legal roles within the Rock Holdings Family of Companies, including Quicken Loans, Amrock, and most recently as General Counsel for Nexsys Technologies.

Lender services and products

PlainsCapital Bank National Warehouse Lending, a subsidiary of Hilltop Holdings (NYSE: HTH), is looking for mortgage bankers and lenders that offer renovation products and programs. PlainsCapital Bank National Warehouse Lending currently funds multiple renovation programs and products with little to no additional requirements. Whether it is a FNMA HomeStyle, FHA 203K Full, Limited or even a USDA Rural Housing renovation loan, PlainsCapital Bank National Warehouse Lending wants to be your preferred warehouse provider for these programs and products. Please ask us about our competitive rates, utilization and deposit incentives, and other ways that we can reduce costs and time to exceed your loan funding needs in 2018. If you are interested in learning more about PlainsCapital Bank National Warehouse Lending, please contact Deric Barnett, EVP National Warehouse Lending.

Are your customers on hold with your subservicer for 20+ minutes? Are they getting answers to their questions on the first call? Why settle? You deliver great customer service when you originate the loan. Your homeowners expect the same great service when it comes to paying their mortgage. The subservicing industry is at a turning point with one subservicer who has 98% customer satisfaction. TMS is reinventing subservicing with Total Home Servicing. Check out the new stats on what subservicing should look like at TMS subservicing. Hint: It starts with 60 second or less call answer times.

Sourcepoint, formerly ISGN Solutions, is taking its brand to the next level. Its productized solutions are changing the way lenders do business. In fact, Sourcepoint’s suite of Digital and Automation solutions is helping mortgage companies boost business outcomes by driving down costs, improving quality and scalability and eliminating inefficiencies.

Sourcepoint’s automation, workflow, AI, machine learning, ICR and process engineers work with clients to identify manual, high-volume, repetitive processes that are good candidates for automation.  Recognizing that business automation occurs along a broad spectrum, they can do everything from support your IT team with outsourced development work, to building a solution for you, to completely building and operating an end-to-end solution that incorporates all the appropriate tools necessary to solve the problem.  Learn how Sourcepoint can help digitize and transform your mortgage operation with Automation here.

Trouble building trusted referral partners? Give Cindy Ertman 90 days to show you how! Sign up here for your FREE 20-minute coaching call with Mortgage Coach, Cindy Ertman, one of the industry’s Top 100 Mortgage Loan Originators in the U.S. for over a decade. She will help you learn in 90 days what has taken other LO’s years to accomplish on their own. Learn Cindy’s proven Connection to Conversion Lead Strategy System to help you convert more leads in record time. Learn more at 90DayJumpstartToMortgageSuccess.com. LIMITED TIME OFFER! Get your FREE Social Medial Marketing Guide and a $200 DISCOUNT by using discount code 90DAY200 at checkout.

Stearns Wholesale Lending is celebrating its 30th year supporting the mortgage broker. At Stearns, relationships always come first. You are never just a number. Stearns is committed to utilizing a distributed sales model supplemented by a hybrid internal sales group offering a best in class operational experience for their clients. This is facilitated by a commitment to technological innovation and a robust product line with a vision to be the lender of choice for most mortgage transactions in the market place at a competitive price. At Stearns, we know your name and you know ours. Hear more from RVP Delfino Aguilar in this video.

Vendors on the move

LoanScorecard has expanded its partnership with NewRez (formerly New Penn Financial) by launching its AUS technology, Portfolio Underwriter®. The Correspondent and Wholesale channels offer the technology specifically for their Non-QM, Non-Agency SMART series product suite, which was recently expanded. Learn more at www.newrezwholesale.com and www.newrezcorrespondent.com.

Total Expert, the creator of the first enterprise-level Marketing Operating System (MOS) built specifically for the future of financial services, announced its integration enhancement with Blend, a leading provider of digital workflows bringing simplicity and transparency to consumer lending. The enhancement allows bi-directional data exchange, empowering loan officers to foster deeper customer relationships by delivering personalized messaging throughout the loan application process and beyond.

The New York Bankers Association (NYBA) identified and endorsed Promontory Fulfillment Services LLC (PFS) as a best-in-class provider of mortgage fulfillment services and of advanced digital point-of-sale solutions. PFS enables banks to offer a full range of mortgage products including conventional, jumbo, non-agency and HELOCs without the need to build and maintain a mortgage operation. PFS underwrites loans using client-provided overlays then processes and closes the loan in the bank’s name. The PFS process and post-closing highlights ongoing compliance reviews and then delivers the loans to the client or sub-servicer. PFS also offers clients a digital point-of-sale solution, Borrower Wallet™, that allows consumers to apply, upload documents and e-sign digitally. The process empowers customers to manage their mortgage experience, with optional assistance from a loan officer.

Lender Price and Mountain West Financial announced the successful rollout of Digital Lending Platform (DLP), Lender Price’s online borrower portal. “Digital Lending Platform (DLP) is a robust borrower engagement platform that automates and streamlines the mortgage loan application process. The platform integrates with loan origination systems (LOS) to create a seamless environment between the borrower, loan officer and the lender’s operation staff, resulting in a smoother, more transparent and faster mortgage closing process.”

FormFree and LoanBeam have teamed up to automate income extraction and calculation for mortgage lenders. The partnership enables lenders to collect digital asset, income and employment data from borrowers in a single, 2-minute session for significant cost savings and faster turn times. AccountChek^® by FormFree is an automated asset verification service that enables borrowers to demonstrate their ability to repay loans by sharing financial data directly with lenders instead of mailing, faxing or emailing traditional asset account statements. AccountChek delivers asset data to lenders in a standardized report along with a ReIssueKey that enables secure and streamlined sharing with the secondary market. LoanBeam will use AccountChek source data to provide the qualified income calculations lenders need to underwrite and sell mortgages to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and third-party investors. The partnership will enable lenders to collect digital asset, income and employment data from borrowers in a quick, 3-minute session for significant cost savings and reduction in turn times 9-20 days on average.

Capital markets

Mortgage Industry Advisory Corporation (“MIAC”) is pleased to offer, as exclusive agent, an approximately $23 million pool of reperforming residential first lien whole loans, MIAC deal number 501191.The Seller prefers an all-or-none basis but will consider carves. Bids are due EOD 4/25. All loans are offered on a servicing released basis. Loan characteristics are: WAC 4.986%, 80% Non-Owner Occupied, 20% Owner Occupied, Geographic Concentration: FL, CA, MD. Average Total UPB: $2211,477 WA TLTV: 68%, WA FICO: 626, WA Months Performing: 6. BK 82%, Modified. For additional information, please contact your MIAC sales representative at 212-233-1250 or Steve Harris.

Turning to the bond market, U.S. Treasuries reclaimed their losses from Monday, including the 10-year closing at 2.50%, as the rally accelerated after the IMF lowered its global growth forecast for 2019 to 3.3% from 3.5% with expectations for growth in the U.S. being limited to 2.3% from 2.5%. The $38 billion 3-year Treasury note auction was met with weak demand, and supply and demand drive bond prices and therefore rates.

We had the usual news from overseas. Japan’s Economy Minister confirmed that trade talks with representatives from the U.S. will begin early next week, Italy lowered its 2019 GDP growth forecast, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in will meet with President Trump in Washington, Prime Minister Theresa May met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to lobby for another extension of Article 50, and The European Commission pushed back against the U.S. request for $11 billion in tariff countermeasures over aircraft subsidies, calling the amount “greatly exaggerated.”

Today’s calendar has the potential for several market moving events. We have already had the ECB’s latest decision and statement, the EU summit meeting to discuss Brexit, where an extension is looking more likely, the MBA’s mortgage applications for the week ending April 5 (-5.6%, refis -11%), and the March Consumer Price Index (+.4%, core +.1%). Just before noon, Fed Governor Quarles speaks, but the big news of the day is the 2PM ET minutes from the March 19/20 FOMC meeting along with the March budget deficit. We begin today with agency MBS prices nearly unchanged and the 10-year yielding 2.50%.

A couple of weeks after hearing a sermon on Psalms 51:2-4 and Psalms 52:3-4 (lies and deceit), a man wrote the following letter to the IRS:

I have been unable to sleep, knowing that I have cheated on my income tax. I understated my taxable income and have enclosed a check for $150.00.

Sincerely,

Taxpayer

P. S. If I still can’t sleep, I will send the rest.

Visit www.robchrisman.com for more information on our industry partners, access archived commentaries, or to subscribe to the Daily Mortgage News and Commentary. If you’re interested, visit my periodic blog at the STRATMOR Group web site. The current blog is, “MBS Liquidity: A Real Trooper.” If you have both the time and inclination, make a comment on what I have written, or on other comments so that folks can learn what’s going on out there from the other readers.

Rob

(Market data provided in partnership with MBS Live. For free job postings and to view candidate resumes visit LenderNews. Currently there are hundreds of mortgage professionals looking for operations, secondary and management roles. For up-to-date mortgage news visit Mortgage News Daily. For archived commentaries, or to subscribe, go to www.robchrisman.com. Copyright 2019 Chrisman LLC. All rights reserved. Occasional paid job listings do appear. This report or any portion hereof may not be reprinted, sold or redistributed without the written consent of Rob Chrisman.)