It was one week ago that the “benchmark” 10-year yield hit 1.17 percent. Now we’re back up to 1.32, the same yield that we saw for much of early and mid-July. End of the world? Of course not. Something to be aware of? Yes. Something else to be aware of is the latest report on climate change. Whether you believe in manmade climate change or not, plenty of people do, including investors in mortgages. World climate aside, a Nature Communications report found that in nearly every major U.S. city, people of color are more likely to live in census tracts with a more intense heat island effect. One nonprofit research group published Tree Equity scores for 150,000 neighborhoods in 486 urban areas in the U.S., which showed that nationwide, wealthier areas have 65% more tree coverage than lower-income neighborhoods overall. One way to weather the extreme heat is to stay inside and crank the air conditioning, but that can be difficult for low-income communities who are more likely to already be struggling with electricity bills. Poor households spent four times as much on utilities as well-off households. Perhaps someone can change that. (Today’s podcast is available here, and this week’s is sponsored by Richey May and today’s features Part One of an interview with Olivia Nicholson, who leads the Data Analytics practice at Richey May, speaking on data automation and where the mortgage industry is and can improve.)
Products and Services
“Team USA just walked away with 39 Olympic gold medals, beating out China by just one gold medal to lead the count. Every athlete had to give their 100%, because there’s no room for deadweight at the Olympics. Is there room for deadweight in your company? At DocProbe, we handle your whole Trailing Docs department, from retrieval to auditing & correcting to shipping directly to your investors. With over 80,000 loans from more than 125 lenders passing through our facility monthly, our people, our process, and our technology exists so you can focus on your strengths by offloading the grunt work. DocProbe is your external Trailing Docs partner, leaving you with more resources available even as your volume fluctuates. Handling Trailing Docs in-house is a blight on your efficiency. Go for gold by letting us handle it, while you focus on winning. Drop the deadweight (and the headache): contact Nick today and visit us to learn more.”
It’s salmon spawning season and millions of fish are attempting to return to the riverbeds where they were born. As few as 2 in 4,000 make it, a testament to how challenging it is to swim against the current. But American Pacific Mortgage did just that during the 2020 refi boom, improving borrower retention by 45.93% when most lenders saw retention fall to a record low of just 18%. That is the equivalent of APM adding 2,549 loans, $637,238,736 in volume and $15,930,968 in profit. How? By adding Sales Boomerang’s borrower intelligence and retention platform to their tech toolbox. “Because of our partnership with Sales Boomerang, we saw nearly 60% growth in sales over the course of the year,” said APM’s Michael Guidotti. But that’s not all! Download this free case study to learn more about the benefits APM gained with Sales Boomerang.
“PlainsCapital Bank National Warehouse Lending, a subsidiary of Hilltop Holdings (NYSE: HTH), understands that with historically low rates, you want confidence in knowing your increased production volume can be funded with your current warehouse provider. We understand the need for additional funding capacity in high volume months and provide our customers with rapid temporary line increase and $5MM bulges at large month ends! We are committed to building strong relationships with our customers and providing the service you need most. If you are interested in learning more about PlainsCapital Bank National Warehouse Lending please contact Deric Barnett.”
Thinking about your technology roadmap? How perfectly would an end-to-end holistic platform that connects all parts of your business fit in? RM Automate, Richey May's Intelligent Automation Solution powered by the world-class Zoral Automation Platform, enables digital transformation across all areas of your business so your team can spend time focusing on more important value-adding tasks to drive your business rather than mundane tasks due to technology roadmap limitations. Contact us to see a demo of RM Automate and how it can enhance your productivity, while fitting in seamlessly with your technology stack.
How can lenders increase profitability in the remainder of 2021? By driving business-changing efficiency. If you’re wondering how to thrive amid changing borrower activity and a challenging market, now is the time to take a step back and assess your processes. Don’t know where to begin? Maxwell’s latest ebook “The Essential Guide to Lending Efficiency” provides an easy-to-follow template for investigating the four major business areas most likely to hold untapped potential for profitability. Lenders: You CAN unlock true, sustainable efficiency that future-proofs your business. Click here to download Maxwell’s free ebook “The Essential Guide to Lending Efficiency.”
Events and Training in August into Mid-September
The largest home buying demographic (millennials) rely on phones for business and pleasure, unlocking their mobile devices 63 times a day and averaging 211 daily minutes accessing apps/internet (vs. 31 minutes of desktop internet usage). But they’re not the only ones. Baby Boomers average 30 unlocks per day, Gen-X 49, and Gen-Z 79. The takeaway: more widespread smartphone use is giving lenders new opportunities to reshape the mortgage experiences with mobile technology. Join SimpleNexus Co-Founder Ben Miller, Dave Savage CEO of Mortgage Coach, and David Lykken Founder of Transformational Mortgage Solutions on August 12 @ 1 pm CT for a free webinar on why mobile tech is crucial to the success of a lender’s digital mortgage strategy. Register here (even if you can’t make it, you’ll receive on-demand access).
Join National Mortgage Professional Magazine for “The Changing Face of the Borrower” on Thursday, August 12, at 2 pm ET / 11 am PT. The US population is becoming more diverse and it’s more important than ever for mortgage and real estate professionals to adjust the way they do business to accommodate all types of borrowers. It is critical to be informed on changes and trends within the borrower landscape and challenges minority borrowers face today in obtaining affordable housing financing. Christy Soukhamneut, SVP, Chief of Staff, Director of Mortgage Strategic Initiatives at Flagstar Bank will moderate as Nadja Vital, Affordable Lending Manager in the Single-Family Client and Community Engagement Division of Freddie Mac discusses the trends within the changing demographics and, how to adjust your business plan to accommodate more borrowers. Learn how to engage diverse borrower segments and help millennial populations to overcome misconceptions and common challenges to affordable housing. Review mortgage solutions and resources that will serve as valuable assets and position you as a trusted advisor. Register for “The Changing Face of the Borrower!” webinar here.
Today we have a “Non-QM for Self-Employed Borrowers” webinar at 10AM PT. Learn about easy-to-close lending solutions to $2.5M, including qualifying with both full docs and 12 & 24-months Bank Statements, 1099, Asset Depletion and WVOE qualifications with credit events seasoned for 1 year. Participants will be entered into a drawing for a chance to with a $100 Amazon Gift Card.
Register for the August 10th MBAC free webinar, with Angie Moss, Elite Level Coach from Southwestern Consulting to learn: How to hire an ACE, how to create a quick start for new LOs, and how to foster independence by increasing mortgage acumen.
FHA is providing a free webinar training: Appraisal, Policy, Principals and Practices on August 10th from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Eastern). FHA advance registration is required no later than August 9, 2021.
On August 11, FAMP Central Florida Chapter will hold its Monthly Meeting with an Appraisal Roundtable.
Join Mortgage Banking Magazine for “Leverage AI-Powered Document Automation & Key Servicing Tasks: Practical Yet Transformative Approaches Organizations Can Adopt” on Tuesday, August 17 at 1PM ET.
The Great River MBA Conference is August 17th through the 19th in Memphis, TN.
Brian Coester, Vince Parlove from United Wholesale, and Andy Pawlak from leadpops are doing a webinar, "Lead Generation - Growing your Independent Mortgage Business" on August 19th at 2PM ET for BeaMortgageBroker.com. The team will cover everything an Independent Mortgage Banker needs to know on how to use lead sources to effectively to grow their business in the purchase arena. With volume starting to drop this has a lot of people's attention and we will cover both the strategies and tactics we've seen get real results. I thought your audience might have an interest in this and just wanted to share. Register now!
If you’re near New Mexico, the NMMLA'S 1st LIVE Luncheon 2021 is Tuesday, August 20th at Tanoan Country Club.
8/20, in Las Vegas, NV, begins Originator Connect.
And from 8/24-8/26, in Laguna Beach, CA, the California MBA offers up the Western Secondary.
The Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals has the 2021 State Convention and Trade Show at Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek from September 1-4. For the FAMP speaker lineup and agenda, click here.
Attend ACUMA’s Annual Conference. The Sept. 12-15 event takes place at the Gaylord National Resort near Washington, D.C. “We’ve lined up lots of top industry speakers sharing the latest on important topics. August 16 marks the deadline for reserving your room at the special conference rate. The conference, LIVE WIRE 25!, marks ACUMA’s 25th year of serving mortgage-lending credit unions.”
The Indiana Mortgage Bankers Association State Convention is September 13th and 14th at the Renaissance Indianapolis North Hotel in Carmel, IN.
The Mortgage Collaborative (TMC) is getting its national family of 240+ lender member companies back together at the fabulous Terranea Resort just outside Los Angeles, CA on September 19-21 for the TMC Reunited Summer Conference. The interactive lender-driven agenda and schedule of events can be found here. Contact TMC President & COO Rich Swerbinsky with questions.
Capital Markets
The bond market, and therefore Agency mortgage rates, began the week on a quiet note, and it may behoove you to not expect much in the way of movement until we get some inflation data with the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index. In the meantime, we saw that U.S. job openings rose in June to a record high of over 10 million as businesses continue to struggle with hiring. We also had some significant “Fedspeak” on tapering off its buying of fixed-income securities. Atlanta Fed President Bostic said the central bank should move to taper its asset purchases with another strong month or two of employment gains, and proceed with that scaling-back process faster than in past episodes. Boston Fed President Rosengren called for a start to dial back economic stimulus as soon as “this fall.” The comments are a “trial balloon” of sorts to prepare investors for a sooner and more drawn-out tapering, rather than a delayed and sharper tapering that would mean the Fed is acknowledging it is behind the curve.
Today’s economic calendar was already underway ahead of the open, with the NFIB small business optimism for July (from 102.0 down to 99.7, ugh). The MBA’s latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey for the week ending August 1 revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 7 bps to 3.40 percent of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week. (Per the MBA’s estimate, 1.7 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.) We’ve also had Q2 productivity (+.23 percent) and unit labor costs (+1.0 percent); ahead are Redbook same store sales and the first leg of this week’s Quarterly Refunding from Treasury. The day’s lone Fed speaker is Chicago’s Evans. We begin the day with Agency MBS prices roughly unchanged as is the 10-year (yielding 1.32 percent) from Monday night.
Employment, Business Opportunity, and New Hires
Direct to Consumer Opportunity! Is your company looking to expand into Direct-to-Consumer lending or in need of portfolio retention? Do you have a unique product that you would like to target via a direct-to-consumer approach? A CEO with over twenty years of experience running a mortgage banking operation exclusively in the DTC space is looking to scale production by partnering with an entity that shares similar enthusiasm towards the DTC space. Presently, the company is operating as a licensed lender. The team's core competency is building and scaling call center sales and operations teams. The team is also tech-savvy and supports innovations in the digital and online mortgage process, along with an Omni-channel approach to marketing and lead generation. Past accolades include #1 rated lender on LendingTree and Encompass Hall of Fame: LendingTree advisory board member. Please contact Chrisman LLC’s Anjelica Nixt to forward your note of interest.
Mountain West Financial, Inc, a privately held independent mortgage banker is looking for an experienced capital markets executive to join its senior management team. With a primary focus on secondary marketing, the role also includes oversight of post-closing and servicing. The company is poised for growth and is looking for someone who will contribute to the strategic direction of the firm. Contact Michael Delehanty to discuss this great opportunity.
Towne is hiring Account Executives. If you're looking for an extremely competitive compensation and benefits package, along with a one-of-a-kind business support Team look no further. We have the stability of nearly 40 years in business as a multi-channel, national mortgage lender so you can rely on our experience to help you generate more business. You will have access to full Agency and Renovation product sets, be offered single account territories in large markets, and be able to provide clients solutions based on their unique needs, all in house! Currently, Towne has wide-open markets: WA/OR, VA/MD/DC, OH/IN, TX, FL, TN/AL/KY, LA/MS/AR, NC/SC/GA, Illinois and Connecticut. To apply today visit Towne Careers or contact Mark Zierott directly.
First Continental Mortgage (FCM), an innovative, independent mortgage lender, is seeking a highly qualified Producing Branch Manager in Houston, Texas, to oversee production one of the largest privately held home builders in the country. For over 29 years, FCM and our affiliate companies, have helped families realize the American dream of owning a home! We specialize in partnering with builders as well as retail production. FCM funded over $1.8 Billion in purchase loans last year through our exclusive home-builder relationships. The Producing Branch Manager will direct day to day operations, work closely with senior management to achieve company goals and metrics, manage the LO production, and maintain a successful relationship with the builder partner. Relocation package available. For a full description, please visit FCM Careers. Submit your resume to Stuart Williams, President.
“Why should Account Executives want to work at Finance of America TPO? When you work with FAM TPO we ensure that you are Surrounded by Success. That means having access to an extensive product line to suit your broker’s needs, even for the most unconventional borrowers. FAM TPO offers not only a full menu of agency and government products, but also diverse offerings including our FLEX suite of Non-QM products, Jumbo, Fix & Flip loans, and more! We surround you with a customer-service based culture that provides your brokers with access to added benefits such as automated marketing loyalty programs and around the clock Broker Portal assistance through our help desk. FAM is actively looking to add seasoned Account Executives in various markets across the country. To learn more about joining our growing sales team, reach out to Finance of America TPO today!”
Spruce announced the appointment of three senior-level hires. Brittany Murphy, Head of Data Science, will oversee the company’s dynamic risk optimization models and underwriting algorithms, further driving Spruce’s automated offerings. Debra Hochman, Head of Title Solutions, Hochman will lead a cross-functional business team to deliver even more seamless title solutions nationwide. And Susan King, Enterprise Account Executive, will lead Spruce’s expansion activities in the Western U.S.
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