Community Commentary

T2 Partners has a phenomenal series of charts on the housing crisis stating Why There Is More Pain To Come . The report is 69 pages almost all of them loaded with charts. I took a liberal selection below, adding plenty of comments, but please take a look

"Social media marketing is here to stay" could very well be chalked up as the understatement of the year. Social media marketing has been on the rise for the past several years. Unfortunately, many small businesses, corporations, and independent freelancers have been slow to get on board the social networking train.

The President's loan modification plan is a good faith attempt at keeping people in their homes, but there are a few economical and operational components missing. First, and foremost, no borrower wants to pay on a mortgage that is so far under water

In the past year most of us have listened to, or expressed our views, on the need for the mortgage industry to make changes. Why has so much collective interest in making something happen failed to produce any meaningful results?

I posed Jeff's question to the National Association of Mortgage Brokers and they responded with an invitation to the national membership committee. One of the key points I make is that NAMB should stop preaching that they are "saving our jobs" and start to promote the value proposition a mortgage brokerage professional offers to the consumer.

Solid real estate agent relationships are the cornerstone of any professional loan originator's business plan. While the mortgage industry has done an excellent job at consumer direct marketing, home buyers still consider the real estate agent the "gatekeeper of the transaction" and even rely on them for advice on financing. This is especially true in the first-time home buyer market.

Despite being several months into what equates to the de-construction and re-building of the mortgage industry...there seems to be a distinct lack of leadership. The "subprime meltdown" brought the US economy to the brink of all out Armageddon. Because several market participants chose to turn a collective blind eye on the convergence of the events leading up to this financial tsunami...I think we can all agree that there is no shortage of blame to go around. Like the residents of New Orleans who were victims of hurricane Katrina, we should now be asking...Where are the leaders?

It's almost impossible to pick up a newspaper or turn on the tube without hearing about rising interest rates and the negative consequences associated with their ascension. I continue to read and hear that rates above 5% will stop the housing recovery

Allow me to draw you a picture... That's a W . If the top left side of the W represents the economy in December 2007 and the bottom left side of the W represents March 2009, Where do we go from here? Does the Dow retest March lows? Maybe the S&P

How powerful would it be if, as a mortgage professional, you could tell when someone looking to refinance their home was unsatisfied with their current mortgage broker? Or if another person is questioning something about the rate they got from the broker they are currently with? Or what if you could tell when someone was interested in buying a home in your city? All of this type of information is invaluable to any mortgage professional. These are hot hot hot leads, people that need your help right now. Well these same people are putting this information right out there on the internet for anyone to see; you just have to know where to look.

As you can imagine – a lot of people ask me how I got my site to #1 on Google for a term like ‘mortgage brokers’ not to mention thousands of other high volume keyword phrases. It’s a process that anyone can achieve, but...

I use transparency as a weapon against the banks. I walk into a bank branch and snap a picture of their mortgage rates, on the lobby sign. I e-mail that picture with a copy of the wholesale rate sheets (from the same bank), and SHOW THE CUSTOMER HOW MUCH "SECRET PROFIT" THE BANK IS MAKING ON ITS MORTGAGES. I explain how yield spread premium can lower the portion of the mortgage brokerage fee they pay me. Sometimes, I lock the loan with the same bank and laugh along with the customer.

A combination of better and simpler disclosures from lenders, combined with the assurance of complete and accurate information from borrowers, would go a long way toward repairing the damage to the lending industry inflicted by the mortgage crisis. That said, I'd have more confidence that workable changes could be imposed if I heard an intelligent and rational discussion from our elected leaders, rather than the empty rhetoric and finger-pointing to which Americans are currently subjected.

Most search engines provide two different unpaid areas where your business can appear: local business listings and web page results. Having a search engine optimization strategy that gets your business exposure in both of these areas will help you maximize your internet marketing efforts. Here are the top five no-nonsense ways to get you there:

The question is one of trust. For nine months our trade group has been lobbying Congress and the GSE's to use such a work force but the question is always asked; how can we trust you guys, the mortgage industry that sold all these bad mortgage products and the modification industry that is just out there to scam the trouble homeowner?