Do we really have nine more months until the actual election? While you’re answering questions, does someone in your office speak Spanish? Tagalog? Mandarin? Canine? The minority homeownership rate rose to 48.6% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2019, up slightly from the fourth quarter of 2018, according to new data from the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancies and Homeownership survey. This year over year gain is higher than the gain in the overall U.S. homeownership rate (up 0.3 percentage points to 65.1%) and marks the highest minority homeownership rate since 2011. (White homeownership stands at nearly 74 percent.) San Francisco has its share of minorities, lots of homeless people, a permit process that is one of the most onerous in the nation, and a mayor who is pushing a measure that would reduce the permitting process from an average wait of four years to six months. Mayor London Breed's stated goal is to “build more housing and build more housing, faster” and she has issued a petition that could lead to a November ballot measure that would force the city's Planning Department to speed things up. Oh, good luck finding land.

Lender Products and Services

Lenders Compliance Group has started its Semi-Annual Opportunity for Monthly Mortgage Compliance. The opportunity provides a discount to its already low monthly flat fee for compliance support. For the flat monthly fee, you receive on-going compliance support via a dedicated team of Subject Matter Experts and Directors. Included also are unlimited compliance questions, most policies, and free secure storage of compliance documents. The opportunity timeframe runs until March 31st. Jonathan Foxx, LCG’s Chairman, just published a personal statement about LCG’s mission, while announcing the first of this year’s semi-annual discount offer to get on board with their Monthly Mortgage Compliance. If interested, jump to the announcement post on the website of Lenders Compliance Group and request more information.

Maxwell CEO John Paasonen just posted a great piece on its blog titled, “Will A Machine Replace You? The Future of the Loan Officer in the Digital Age.” The aptly named piece dives into the evolution and impact future technology will have on the industry we know today. I won’t spoil the outcome, but a great read for all lending professionals. Click here to start reading!

With Blend, explore how to prepare for ideal home equity conditions with a best-in-class consumer experience and the functionality your banking team craves. Enable rapid results in a dynamic market with Blend. Download the infographic to learn more.

Join us for our final VA Mortgage Marketing training session on 2/21 and learn to market new VA mortgage opportunities in 2020! The recently implemented Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019 has provided new mortgage benefits for jumbo borrowers, active duty Purple Heart recipients and more. As a leading VA lender, Freedom Mortgage Wholesale’s No Down Payment VA Jumbo program enables eligible jumbo borrowers to exceed published FHFA county loan limits without a down payment requirement! No jumbo overlays or loan limits! 

Caliber Home Loans, Inc.’s non-agency suite of products can help you turn more no’s into yes’s by recognizing that not every borrower’s story fits into agency guidelines. And now producing these loans is easier than ever before with Caliber Smart Start! This powerful, web-based tool validates loan parameters against Caliber Portfolio Lending guidelines, finds Caliber Wholesale products for unique borrowers, and delivers faster processing with more accurate discovers. All in just a few clicks! Smart Start empowers you to move ahead on documentation and processing quicker and with no guesswork. Level-up your non-agency production today! Visit www.BrokerSmartStart.com to start.

Imagine a world where loan fallout is nonexistent. Right now, it can be a thorn in the side of brokers, leading to their biggest expense. QLMS is working toward that reality for brokers with industry-leading prices, products, process and technology. One of the many tools it is inserting into brokers’ utility belt is the Fresh Start program. Once exclusively for Pinnacle Partners, QLMS is extending Fresh Start to everyone in its Partner Network for free through the end of February. Fresh Start consultants are helping brokers qualify more borrowers, and increasing scores to deliver better pricing. On average, a successful Fresh Start client improves their credit score by leaps and bounds! It’s exclusive programs like this that led to QLMS brokers shattering records in 2019. Expect nothing less in 2020 as QLMS doubles down on infrastructure and innovation. Click here to learn and earn.

You and your borrowers deserve industry-leading technology, backed by the best people. How do you get it? At MBA Servicing Solutions 2020, make sure you stop by the Discovery Stage at 1pm on February 24 to catch TMS’s live demo of SIME, servicing technology made easy. Or email them at subservicing@themoneysource.com to schedule a private demo today. 

Vendors

Secure Insight and Wire Secure are collaborating on a first-to-market wire fraud prevention tool that will go beyond closing agent escrow account validation and incorporate all parties to the closing, including the realtor, borrower, and seller.  The technology platform, built using sophisticated multi-step identity verification with former Google engineers, will also feature a true transaction-based insurance product covering lender’s risk from wire fraud by any party at the closing of each transaction for up to $1 Million. The companies expect to launch the solution utilizing Secure Insight’s 70,000 strong agent database sometime in 2d Quarter 2020.

Insellerate is partnering with brokers and has brought its new Engagement Platform to the wholesale lending channel enabling wholesale lenders to automate communications like loan status alerts, drip and nurture campaigns thru text and email to their broker partners and to their broker partners real estate agents and borrowers. This platform allows lenders to reduce customers service overhead and provide more value to their broker partners, resulting in more loans. To find out more request a demo here.

Black Knight, Inc. (NYSE:BKI) and Quicken Loans announced the companies have broadened their relationship as “Quicken Loans extended its contract for Black Knight’s MSP servicing system and is adding multiple Black Knight solutions. Additionally, Black Knight purchased the source code for Quicken Loans’ ‘Cyclops’ mortgage servicing customer relationship management (CRM) software. The Cyclops software provides a number of tools Quicken Loans uses to meet the needs of today’s mortgage consumers. This software suite will serve as the foundation for a highly advanced customer service solution that Black Knight will be offering to clients of its industry-leading MSP servicing system.”

Roostify announced an expanded relationship with Optimal Blue, the leading provider of secondary marketing automation to the mortgage industry, enabling Roostify to “further automate the digital lending experience for its clients by embedding Optimal Blue’s comprehensive pricing capabilities directly into their platform…. the enhanced integration enables its digital lending platform to deliver Optimal Blue’s robust, accurate pricing options directly to loan officers and borrowers, without ever leaving the Roostify environment.”

Recall that Notarize partnered with Ellie Mae on an integration with Encompass empowering lenders to access Notarize’s digital closing platform so every borrower can close online, from hybrid to full remote online closings.

LoanScorecard and Deephaven Mortgage have added the Smart Conditions feature to Deephaven’s IDENTI-FI Scenario Calculator to “deliver customized, loan-specific conditions instantly, based on findings from Deephaven’s IDENTI-FI AUS engine. Originators use the IDENTI-FI Scenario Calculator to view product and program eligibility scenarios, price loans and obtain detailed AUS findings from directly within the scenario calculator. Now the Smart Conditions feature will also pull loan-specific details, such as bank names for asset verification and liability repayments and dollar amounts for closing costs and reserves, and auto-populate them into the conditions that the originator sees.

Capital Markets

Think about this. The yield on 10-year Greek debt fell 5 basis points Wednesday to hit a record low of 0.982%, leaving Greece able to borrow more cheaply than the U.S. Traders say the rally could strengthen if credit rating agencies increase Greece's rating, which would let the European Central Bank buy Greek bonds.

Economic data over the last week remained positive in spite of increasing concerns about the coronavirus and the ongoing uncertainty around the 737 Max production. Nonfarm payrolls increased 225,000 in January versus market expectations for a 165,000 gain. Unemployment was at a very low 3.6 percent and wages were up 3.1 percent over the previous twelve months. New claims for unemployment fell to 202,000 for the week ending January 25. The ISM Manufacturing Index returned to positive territory for the first time in five months with a reading of 50.9. The ISM Non-manufacturing index rose from 54.9 to 55.1 as the service sector of the economy continues to expand. As expected, the trade gap widened in December following months of uncertainty surrounding international trade. However, the trade gap declined on a year-over-year basis as the petroleum deficit shrank to its lowest level on record as the US has become the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas. The positive economic data and continued low inflation leave the Fed with no pressure to adjust monetary policy in the near term unless something major happens.

It was another lackluster day in the markets yesterday, but without other substantive news, rumors about the coronavirus spreading, or not, influencing the “risk on, risk off” trades, and nudging the U.S. 10-year’s yield higher to 1.63 percent. Chinese officials hinted at stimulus measures to lessen the impact that the coronavirus is having on demand, which overshadowed South Korea's fifth consecutive month of rising unemployment and another tepid industrial production report from the eurozone.

In the U.S., the day's $27 billion 10-year U.S. Treasury note auction was met with solid demand. Fed Chair Powell returned to Capitol Hill for the second and final day of his semiannual testimony before congress, notably stating that The Fed will be forced to use large-scale asset purchases “aggressively” in a downturn. He admitted that the Fed would “never” say it had accomplished the goal of making sure anyone who wants to work and can work will have a job. Is that a surprise? It is a victory for activists who have tried to ensure the maximum-employment component of the dual mandate doesn’t draw "short straw" to the price-stability part.

Today’s economic calendar began with January CPI (+.1%, core +.2% - inflation is not an issue) and initial jobless claims for the week ending February 8 (+2k to 205k). Later this morning, Treasury will announce the auction sizes for next week’s 30-year TIPS bond, and then auction $19 billion new 30-year bonds. In the afternoon, the Desk will release a new two-week FedTrade schedule in addition to the MBS reinvestment estimate covering the mid-February to mid-March period and expected to total $2 billion based on prepayments in the Fed’s portfolio in excess of the $20 billion tapering cap. There are two Fed speakers on the schedule, Dallas’ Kaplan and New York’s Williams although the Senate Banking Committee will hold a nomination hearing on Judy Shelton and Dr. Christopher Waller to the Fed Board. We begin today with Agency MBS prices better by .125 and the 10-year yielding 1.61 percent as the coronavirus shuts down events and travel around the world.

Employment

“There are many tech solutions in the mortgage industry, but there is only one Mortgage Coach and we are growing. We have an opening for a National Account Director (NAD). The NAD opening is for the western part of the country and requires C-Suite level enterprise sales skills. If you, or anyone you know, might be interested, contact Dawn Sherbeyn.”

“I joined a branch at Pacific Residential in Massachusetts because I found it the most competitive option for Loan Officers and Branch Managers", says John Phillips, licensed Loan Officer and National Business for Pacific Residential Mortgage (PacRes). “I found they perform at a high level, with aggressive underwriting and the strongest and most positive culture I encountered, and the best marketing and operational support for my referral partners and customers, period.” What made Pacific Residential standout from all the other lenders you interviewed? “My bottom line was to understand processing and underwriting philosophy, and whether they could close loans fast and with common sense. I have been shocked on how good their operations are: By far the best mortgage platform I’ve seen across the United States”. PacRes is expanding in markets across the U.S. If you are interested in learning why loan officers and Branch Managers are joining “ThePac”, contact John Phillips, National Business Development (413.221.2977).

Thrive Mortgage believes in making an immeasurable and permanent impact on organizations that exist to serve. “We are truly blessed as a company, but the biggest part of our mission is not just earning revenue. Mortgage lending is our ‘What’, investing in people is our ‘Why’,” stated Roy Jones, CEO of Thrive. At the company’s annual Summit held earlier this week management unveiled a new initiative with Thrive Forward. “Through this initiative, we are partnering with charitable organizations in more ways than just monetary donations,” added Randell Gillespie, National Sales Director. “We’re donating the time, skills, and expertise of our teams to further enable them to serve those who benefit from their mission.” The company announced that this year will be dedicated to supporting Defenders Of Freedom, an organization committed to supporting our Military Veterans in very unique ways.  For more information about partnership opportunities, please send questions to info@thrivemortgage.com.