June 25: LO jobs, broker & HR products; Wells’ layoffs; CRA survey; upcoming events & training; jumbo news
For me this week includes San Diego and Honolulu, meeting with plenty of folks in residential lending including some great originators. Experienced loan officers know that much of their success is a number’s game: W number of cold calls result in X number of potential leads, X number of potential leads result in Y applications, and Y applications turn into Z closings and commissions. Hedging a pipeline is a numbers game as well. As a loan progresses through the pipeline, its odds of funding increase. One data cruncher looked at over 42 million applications to see if he could determine a mathematical formula, given loan purpose, rate, property type, occupancy, etc., to calculate the outcome. Worth a skim for anyone involved in analyzing processing costs or hedging.
Employment & business opportunities
A Big Win for Veterans! Chemical Bank is part of a significant breakthrough for Veterans seeking to purchase a home in Michigan! Because of the diligent efforts of the HBA of Michigan, Congressman Jack Bergman (R-Michigan) and Chemical Bank, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has cleared the way for military veterans in the State of Michigan to have full access to affordable financing on ALL types of homes they seek to purchase. Marcy Lindhout, Director of Mortgage Banking states, “This is a significant win for our Veterans, given it is estimated that some 90 percent of all single-family homes now constructed in Michigan, are built in site condo developments. Site Condos used to be a substantial hurdle for VA financing and were not eligible with the VA Home Purchasing Benefit. The VA has ultimately paved the way in Michigan for eligible Veterans to receive up to 100 percent financing on site condos!” LOs in MI/OH/IN who are seeking a lender committed to veterans, go to Chemical Bank Careers.
A proven SVP / Director level (Sales, Business Efficiency, Business Growth) individual with 13+ years of experience in the corporate locations of the nation’s largest lenders is seeking a new opportunity. Primarily in the consumer direct space, previous roles have included large-scale builds including from scratch, along with designing and executing an unlicensed to producing plug & play MLO system. Using an empirical hiring formula for unlicensed hires, to a scalable 80%+ SAFE pass rate, and through a proprietary sales training with incubation setup my team has an ability to scale organizations effectively with new ideas/proven strategies. From owning all facets (recruiting/hiring/on-boarding/training/performance) to constant innovation using technology partners and methodology outside the mortgage space, this person is looking for an opportunity to create and grow existing or new brands and be part of a proven executive team. C-level, President, or EVP references available from previous companies – please contact me with any interest.
Lender products
In wholesale news, “Quicken Loans Mortgage Services (QLMS) has enjoyed massive double-digit growth every month of 2018. Our partners love our industry-leading pricing and are growing their businesses by tapping the vast resources of America’s largest mortgage lender. Last week, QLMS turbocharged their Rock Solid pricing by removing all LTV and FICO® Score qualifications, offering a 45 bps credit on any agency loan over $200,000 and a 175 bps credit on any government loan over $125,000! Couple that with the huge mortgage insurance pricing advantage of QLMS and our partners are owning their markets with lower down payment clients. Dave Schroeder, QLMS SVP, said, ‘It’s no secret that lenders are struggling right now. It’s times like these when lenders with financial and technological strength grow while those without pull back. We’ve never been more bullish on our business and our huge market share gains this year show that our partners love the advantage we give them in the marketplace.’ For brokers obsessed with growing your business – email Dave.”
We all know that a completed “1003” is quite useless even when completed. The real pain in your operation starts and ends with a poor application and PerfectLO’s intuitive software removes this pain. PerfectLO’s smart interactive questionnaire takes a perfect loan interview and creates a document checklist based off the borrower’s answers. Borrowers love this non- intimidating approach. There is no mortgage “lingo” and it allows your borrowers to take it in their preferred language. It asks ALL the questions that you need, even the 2nd & 3rd level questions that don’t “live” on your 1003. These answers build a spot-on Doc Checklist and allows your borrowers to begin uploading instantly. Upload documents, notifications and complete customization. PerfectLO was designed by mortgage experts and has solved the biggest issue in our industry. Learn more at PerfectLO.com. Click here to Sign up for a free trial and demo.
Today, lenders are even more challenged to hire better talent, as they continue to struggle with the structuring the Transition Package. Margin compression is forcing lenders to make tough decisions and shortening the Runway with new hires is critical to their success. So, how can you get the most out of your new hires? Veteran Headhunter, Jim McGrath with LoanOfficerRecruiting.com shares his insights on structuring the deal to a new hire. His June Mortgage Recruiting Newsletter outlines three strategies that ensure your next new hire is productive from day one.
Not good news
Out of Fort Mill, South Carolina comes news that Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (not Wells Fargo Funding – the correspondent arm) is laying off 100 employees.
On Friday Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc.’s stock price dropped almost 5% on unusually high volume – it is now less than $10 per share.
CRA
Bank lenders, there are just a few days left to take the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and Low to Moderate Income (LMI) Survey STRATMOR Group is conducting. This survey gathers information on how banks are addressing CRA and LMI lending goals and responsibilities, in particular goal setting, products, corporate governance and sales force structure and compensation. Please take this survey. It takes about 10 minutes to complete and STRATMOR will aggregate the responses and share the results in an upcoming issue of its monthly Insights report.
Training and events
SocialSurvey will host its Create WOW Summit on September 5-7th in San Ramon, CA. The Summit is touted as an “unconference” where mortgage marketing teams can interact with the C-suite and tech industry thought leaders. Everyone will roll up their sleeves to Create WOW. Opportunities are now open for non-SocialSurvey clients to attend. Featured at the conference will be industry heavyweights like S.A. Ibrahim, Rick & Patty Arvielo, David Lykken, Barry Habib, Dave Savage; and marketing gurus from Blitzmetrics. Also featured: experts on Google, Zillow, Facebook, Linkedin and Glassdoor—with sessions like “The Future of Mortgage”, “Content Creation”, and “Create a WOW Reputation”. The event will also unveil SocialMonitor—a new tool to help lenders monitor their loan originator’s social media posts to ensure consistent brand messaging and compliance with policies. Register today for more WOW!
The Impacts of a Rising Interest Rate Environment is a prevalent topic for everyone in the mortgage industry. Register for the Phoenix Trading-Mortgage Services-Analytics June 26th webinar to learn about recent interest rate trends and the impact on mortgage activity, potential future impacts to origination, servicing and MSR hedging if interest rates remain elevated, an MSR market update and more.
Freddie Mac is offering a webinar on June 26th on the updated Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) and the corresponding standardized dataset – the Uniform Loan Application Dataset (ULAD). Learn about the what, why and how of the URLA and the role the ULAD plays in promoting data standards. Learn how to prepare to implement the redesigned URLA by July 1, 2019.
And Freddie Mac has a free webinar on June 27th that will review ways you can sell your servicing for cash through our Cash-Released XChange execution that enables you to sell any number of loans for cash and concurrently transfer the servicing in the same transaction.
On June 27th, MBA is offering a free webinar titled: Single Security Initiative – What Lenders Need to Know. MBA and leading industry experts will discuss how this Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae joint initiative to develop a common mortgage-backed security (MBS) will impact every mortgage lender and those that work in real estate finance. This webinar is complimentary to MBA members. Use promo code WEBINAR at check out.
Join Mountain View Financial for a webinar on critical insights for your valuation analyses and strategic decisions. Re-Performing Residential Whole Loan Valuations is scheduled for June 28th at 10:00 PDT.
Plaza Home Mortgage’s July training calendar in now available for viewing and registration. If you can’t make a webinar, register anyway and Plaza will email you the recording. For those that do attend, there will be time at the end of each webinar to ask questions of the presenters.
MGIC has posted its July webinar and training offerings.
Enhance your understanding of the current lending environment with Arch MI’s complimentary webinars on loan processing, appraisals, analyzing tax returns and more. Registration is currently open for all of its July sessions. You can also view recorded versions of webinars with Arch MI’s On Demand Videos.
Join MBA Education for an ongoing webinar series focused on Diversity and Inclusion. This series will bring together industry leaders for in-depth and actionable discussions on organizational and market outreach diversity and inclusion initiatives. Register for the first webinar in the D&I series: Top 5 Strategies to Reach the Latino Mega Market I beginning July 16th. This webinar is complimentary to MBA Members, please use the promo code WEBINAR upon checkout to receive this discount.
The California Association of Mortgage Professionals invites you and your team to participate in Summer CAMP 2018, July 30-31: Navigate for Success in a special way. Exhibitor/sponsorship registration is now open. Ensure you get the best room rate with the Coronado Island Marriott by reserving your room from here. The room block closes on July 9 and the hotel will sell out.
On Monday, July 30, MCPAOA will hold its second annual workshop in Boston. This will be the day before the AARMR conference. Industry experts including Felicia Bowers, Melissa Richards, and Tammy Butler will address compliance topics such as TRID, HMDA and other hot topics.
FHA is offering two free on-site trainings, July 18th in New York. See an overview of FHA underwriting procedures and addresses industry-related frequently asked questions. The free afternoon session will provide an overview of FHA appraisal requirements.
Jumbo news
Jumbo lending is doing fine, and many banks are happy to add the loans to their portfolios rather the go through the time and cost to securitize them. In fact, some 30-year jumbo rates continue to be lower than conventional conforming rates.
CALCAP Lending, LLC, a private money direct lender based out of southern California, recently provided financing in the amount of $7,200,000 for a fifty-one unit nonprofit affordable multifamily project in Los Angeles, California. CALCAP Lending offers financing for investment property purchases, refinances, fix and flip transactions, ground up construction and multi-family. “For mainstream mortgage bankers seeking ways to offset declining production volumes, we extend an invitation to contact us to discuss how our offer can add production and profitability to your business. Simply run your scenario by via phone (855) 372-0960 or email us at scenarios@calcapfinancial.com. We look forward to hearing from you!”
Wells Fargo Funding enhanced its Metropolitan Statistical Area Median Home Price (MSA MHP) List, available in AllRegs on May 15th. WFF added two columns, LTV > 80% Max. loan amount and Market Class, to help determine the maximum loan amount for a Non-Conforming Loan greater than 80% LTV.
Plaza has 2 new programs: Elite Jumbo Non-QM and Elite Plus Jumbo Non-QM. Click here to learn more.
AmeriHome previously announced the expansion and simplification of its Core Jumbo program, including wider guidelines for second home and investment property DTIs, soft markets, rate and term refinances of previously listed properties and the sale of subject property within 90-180 days. Some stricter, or more defined guidelines also were also implemented including new second appraisal and minimum borrower contribution guidelines. Those guideline changes were effective for Core Jumbo loans with new commitments dated on and after June 1.
PennyMac Correspondent Group posted a new announcement on Conventional and Jumbo LLPAs.
One appraisal, one Super Jumbo…contact American Lending for details.
Capital markets
Rates were amazingly non-volatile last week – a nice thing for anyone in capital markets. The 10-year closed Friday unchanged (2.90%) as the biggest economic news of note was OPEC agreeing to raise daily output by 600,000-800,000 barrels, slightly below expectations for a one-million-barrel increase. No rate-moving scheduled economic news today: the Chicago Fed National Activity (-.15), and ahead is the May New Home Sales number.
Tomorrow, action picks up slightly with the April S&P Case-Shiller 20-city Index and June Consumer Confidence. In addition to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index on Wednesday, we also receive May Durable Orders, May International Trade in Goods, May Wholesale Inventories, and May Pending Home Sales. Thursday has the third estimate of Q1 GDP, jobless claims, May Personal Income, Personal Spending, PCE Prices, June Chicago PMI, and Final June Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (prior 99.3) on Friday. We start the week with the 10-year at 2.88% and agency MBS prices a mixed bag but basically little changed versus Friday’s close.
About falling out:
This sailor fell off the crow’s nest on a sailing ship and fell through the first deck and the second deck of the ship.
The captain ran down to the sailor and asked if he was all right.
“I am all right,” said the sailor. “I have been through hardships before.”
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, “The Plight of the Small Independent Lender.” 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 over 300 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 2018 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.)
