Today celebrates Mexico’s victory over France in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. It was a relatively minor battle (and the French reclaimed Puebla a year later) but a symbolic one because a small Mexican army defeated a larger occupying force. By 1867, Mexican troops had driven France from the country. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day (September 16) which commemorates the Grito de Dolores, a priest’s ringing of a church bell in the town of Dolores in 1810 that triggered Mexico’s War of Independence from Spain. Mexico is just one of twenty Hispanic countries, and lenders know that the rise in overall Hispanic home ownership in recent years played out in first-time home buyer numbers and many have “diversity” departments that encompass many lending facets including minority homeownership. Hispanic homeownership in the U.S. climbed significantly in 2020: There are now 8.8 million Hispanic homeowners in the country, according to a report released by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. That's 725,000 more than in 2019. Viva la Raza! (For a real fiesta, check out the audio version of today’s commentary, available here. It is sponsored by Origence and features an interview with Susan Harstock, Senior Director of Strategic Alliances discussing the importance of a modern integrations strategy when delivering a better mortgage experience.)

Broker and Lender Services and Products

How’s your TPO business? Have you ever surprised a broker when canceling or suspending a loan with incomplete actions? Do your brokers know the specific underwriting conditions not cleared for each loan? Are your brokers properly engaged and the origination facilitated through approvals and closing? So many questions and challenges!! Interested how Connector by Velma® can help you run your TPO business without all the surprises and inefficiencies? More info here.

Non-QM loans are back at JMAC Lending. JMAC is now offering DSCR loans for your experienced and first-time investors. Up to a $500 credit for appraisal on closed loans until July 30. Our Venice DSCR allows unlimited properties, no income qualification, no tax returns, no job, gift funds for down payment, tons of credit flexibility, appraisal transfers and the minimum DSCR value is .750! It’s an investor’s dream with fixed, ARM, and Interest-Only options. Easy qualifying and fast closing. Purchase loans are our priority. Contact sales@jmaclending.com with questions. Register today for our Venice DSCR Investor Non-QM webinar on Tuesday, May 18, at 10AM PT. Click here to register.

Do you know how many leads your loan officers will get next week? What about the following week? John Kresevic, the president of JFQ Lending, does. He even said, "we've been able to transform and scale this thing out very easily because I know what's certain every week. Monday around 12 o'clock Pacific the phones are going to start ringing and will ring for the rest of the week." That's because he trusts Monster Lead Group to predictably drive high-quality leads. Talk to the team at Monster if you're looking to generate more leads or learn how they can help.

If your subservicing situation is less than ideal, there is a Top 10 subservicer that is worth learning more about. Because TMS was an originator first, it has acquired knowledge about servicing and best practices that is unrivaled in the industry. TMS has spent most of the last decade perfecting the servicing experience, and in that time have accomplished some notable achievements. In fact, TMS Subservicing routinely averages 90% first call resolution and under 5% abandonment rate. It’s what helps give TMS a 98% customer satisfaction rate. With a mantra to help Grow Happiness, it is obvious that customer service is at the heart of everything TMS does. Read more in DS News.

Looking for more control and efficiency in your appraisal orders? It might be time to introduce automations to your process. Automating your appraisal workflows helps reduce human error, speeds up the experience for your borrowers, and provides more confidence in your output. Join Reggora for a live webinar on Tuesday, May 25 at 1pm ET entitled Efficient Appraisal Ordering: Leveraging Automation for Increased Control. You’ll learn what you can automate, the benefits of customization, and how easy it is to automate with Reggora. Hope to see you there!

HOA liens in super lien states can eliminate a first mortgage, creating significant risk for servicers and investors. The percentage of delinquent loans in super lien states has already risen, and it’s reasonable to anticipate those properties are behind on HOA dues as well.  The current environment of forbearance plans, and foreclosure moratoriums demand even more vigilance. Because of varying state rules, and with approximately a third of community associations self-managed, it’s very difficult to collect this information and identify at-risk loans. Proactively monitoring your portfolio for HOA delinquencies and liens is critical to minimizing losses. Download a complimentary eBook “Managing HOA Risk in Super Lien States” to learn how you can protect your portfolio. 

Initial Public Offering (IPO) News

Lenders aren’t the only companies cashing out their existing owners and raising money. Sure, loanDepot, United Wholesale, Rocket, Guild, Homepoint, and others have made headlines in the last several months by allowing the public to buy stock in their companies and providing a nice return to their owners. (Most of the stocks have not done much, price-wise, since IPOs relative to much of the stock market.) But there is news from a few other corporations.

North Carolina-based mortgage insurance company Genworth Mortgage Insurance fine-tuned its initial public offering plans on Tuesday, outlining a potential $496 million debut guided by three law firms and an effort to rebrand as Enact Holdings. All of the shares are being offered by the selling stockholder, Genworth Holdings, Inc. (GHI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Genworth Financial, Inc., and net proceeds from the offering will go to GHI. In connection with the commencement of the initial public offering, GMHI has announced that it will rebrand, changing its name to Enact Holdings, Inc. (Enact).

LoanSnap raised $30 million for its consumer-centric mortgage platform. True Ventures led LoanSnap’s $30 million Series B round, with participation from venture firms including Baseline Ventures, The Virgin Group and Mantis VC, among others, and individuals including former NFL quarterback Joe Montana, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. This fresh influx, which raises the startup’s funding to a total $64 million, will go towards expanding its services in other areas.

Capital Markets

Some days in the bond market are exciting, other days are snoozers. Yesterday fell into the latter category, although traders reported heavy flows. Treasury Secretary Yellen hit the headlines, saying that higher rates may be needed “to make sure that our economy doesn’t overheat,” while Dallas Fed President Kaplan said that he expects inflation in the U.S. around 2.25 percent by the end of this year. Yesterday we learned that, besides the U.S. trade deficit widening (although both exports and imports increased, a sign of increased demand for businesses and consumers alike), factory orders for manufactured goods increased 1.1 percent month-over-month in March, more than expected after the blip in February was largely a function of extreme winter weather.

Per the MBA mortgage applications decreased 0.9 percent from one week earlier for the week ending April 30. During the reporting period in which treasury yields rose, 30-year mortgage rates were mixed with Bankrate rising 4 bps to 3.11 percent while Mortgage News Daily unchanged at 3.12 percent. We’ve also seen ADP employment for April (+742k, less than expected but the rebound has still pulled ADP up) and the Treasury out with its Quarterly Refunding announcement. Later this morning brings the final April reading for Markit Services PMI and ISM nonmanufacturing PMI. Three Fed presidents are currently scheduled: Chicago’s Evans, Boston’s Rosengren, and Cleveland’s Mester. Today’s MBS purchase schedule sees the Desk conducting two operations targeting up to $5.5 billion 30-year 2 percent and 2.5 percent. We begin Cinco de Mayo with Agency MBS prices down/worse a few 32nds and the 10-year yielding 1.60 after closing yesterday at 1.59 percent.

Employment

Evergreen Home Loans™ is searching for someone bursting with creativity, ingenuity, and imagination for their Innovative Products Manager position! This position will spearhead the development of unique mortgage products along with financial technology to offer cutting-edge mortgage lending options. The manager will also be responsible for creating and managing comprehensive project plans for new mortgage products, direction and implementation of web design, discovery and integration of new financial technology solutions and the successful rollout of new projects. Evergreen is an experienced mortgage lender providing premier mortgage services and creative approaches to lending combined with state-of-the-art financial technology. If you want to change the world one relationship at a time and make a difference with your talent and skills, check out the job description and application here. Or learn more about working at Evergreen on its Careers page.

Congratulations to four women from Mann Mortgage who were just named a 2021 Top Women Originator by Scotsman Guide. Congratulations to Julie Lapham, Angelina Rice, Deborah Criddle, and Carolyn Cole. “We’re thrilled to see these women get recognized as being among the best loan officers in the industry,” said Jason Mann, CEO of Mann Mortgage. “They’re each crushing it and work tirelessly to help borrowers get a home loan at a great rate. We couldn’t be prouder to have them on our team.” Are you ready to become a Top Originator and work for the only mortgage company named a Best Place to Work by Outside magazine? Join the Mann Mortgage team! Send a confidential inquiry to iChief Strategy Officer Cassidy O’Sullivan to learn about loan officer opportunities.

In this day of texting, posting, tweeting, etc., is emailing still an effective marketing tool? Loan Officers at Supreme Lending would say yes! Supreme offers its originators access to four client relationship manager systems through which hundreds of thousands of emails are deployed to business partners and customers each month. A dedicated, in-house CRM Specialist assists Loan Officers with setting up and executing these customized campaigns, a process delivering big results. In March, the loan volume of Supreme’s 500+ CRM subscribers (about half of the lender’s total number of originators) accounted for more than two-thirds of the company’s total loan volume that month. CRM support is just one of the numerous marketing solutions at Supreme, all personalized to the Loan Officer and their local area to meet their needs and goals. If you want the power, but not the burden, of marketing your brand, contact Director of Recruiting Ryan Baxter or follow Supreme Lending on LinkedIn.

Last week saw a major announcement regarding the $54M investment by Veritex into Thrive Mortgage. In a world of mortgage industry M&As, IPO’s, and consolidations, this event stood out as refreshing anomaly. “From our inception twenty years ago, we always wanted to have the best possible product line we could offer,” stated Thrive CEO, Roy Jones, on a company-wide video call. “We were not going to do this unless we received everything we wanted with no organizational changes to our ownership, management, or our employees.” Randell Gillespie, National Sales Director, added, “This is a dream opportunity for our front line… We always want to deliver the best types of niche products our top producers are asking for in today’s competitive market.”  In the coming months, Thrive Mortgage will be adding many additional portfolio products to an already extensive product catalog.  For more information, please reach out to us at Info@ThriveMortgage.com.

Non-QM loans are back at JMAC Lending. JMAC is now offering DSCR loans for experienced and first-time investors. The Venice DSCR allows unlimited properties, no income qualification, no tax returns, no job, gift funds for down payment, tons of credit flexibility, appraisal transfers and the minimum DSCR value is .750! It’s an investor’s dream with fixed, ARM, and Interest-Only options. JMAC Lending is actively hiring top producing Sr. AEs to join our industry-leading wholesale lending group in AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, NV, NM, MI, MN, NC, TX, and UT. We’re growing at a record rate. Contact Jessica or visit JMAC Careers.