t was bound to happen: My cat Myrtle and I came to blows. She wanted to spend her trust fund money, earned on the catwalk in her prime, to pay various periodicals and ranking services around the nation to say that she won the “2020 Cat of the Year Mentioned in a Daily Commentary.” Apparently, she had seen the various rankings that companies and MLOs pay for to promote themselves, and also how much it takes to buy some of them. Some rankings, of course, are the result of actual votes with no outgo from the marketing budget. I’m so old, I remember when “fame” and success was a by-product of talent. And yes, lenders and their MLOs tend to be very competitive, whether it is product, price, or service. Mr./Ms. Mortgage loan officer, how much does your company pay this Canadian company to list your rates? Some companies announce market share goals. Wouldn’t it be better to announce lofty customer satisfaction goals, and let the market share follow? Or for lenders to be very efficient, and gain market share that way? Speaking of which, today’s audio version of the commentary is available here and is sponsored by Candor Technology. Lenders using Candor produce a high-quality loan that requires only one underwriter touch on 70 percent of loans. Imagine the ROI by reducing fallout, improving hedge, slashing cycle time, and banishing repurchases. Today’s includes an interview with Matt Allen of NASB on whole loan trading and the scratch and dent marketplace.


Services and Products for Brokers and Lenders

Last month, Fannie Mae gave mortgage servicers the go-ahead to use third-party vendors to verify employment and income for borrower mortgage assistance applications. With over 2% of Fannie and Freddie loans in forbearance, servicers will need a leg up on what lies ahead. FormFree’s AccountChek 3n1 eliminates the lengthy paper chase by electronically collating direct-source borrower asset, income, and employment data in a single, easy-to-read report. What’s more, by partnering with 35 of the nation’s top payroll providers, 3n1’s VOIE network covers more than 100 million working Americans. Contact Gregg Palmer to learn how 3n1 can connect you with secure, accurate direct-source data, instantly.

Your automation dreams can be your reality when you use Richey May's RM Automate, powered by the world-class Zoral Automation Platform. This holistic automation platform becomes an extension of your team and empowers you to continue down the automation journey on your own. Together with Zoral, we develop, create, and automate, and then we'll train and support your existing team so that you can take your business to the next level. Schedule a demo today to learn more about how Zoral's global expertise in financial services + Richey May's mortgage banking expertise can help you leverage the power of intelligent automation. 

Sometimes the industry standard is substandard. LERETA’s tax and flood services go beyond what is considered “industry standard” to get it done right, every time. Whether it is setting up meticulously accurate tax lines or using our ParcelPro technology to identify “ghost parcels”, we take the necessary steps and care that other tax service providers don’t. Our streamlined implementation process onboards portfolios quickly and our experienced associates leverage our advanced technology to identify potential issues before they become problems. Isn’t it time to work with a tax service designed to support diverse business rules and at the same time solve for vendor diversification? Experience the LERETA difference today, contact Jess Johnson for more details.”


MLO and Broker-Specific Tools

MortgageEducation.com delivers NMLS education and compliance course along with the DashEMS, the most robust racking Portal anywhere to help your Compliance team maintain their sanity at no charge as a client. Track compliance Certifications (ready for audit), PE/CE completions, and gain the ability to assign courses to your staff! Here’s more: if an MLO or staff member leaves and did not use their course, your organization retains that credit, thus saving money on wasted and unused courses. Contact Dave Olchek about streamlining your compliance while saving money, time and energy. (Also ask how to reduce hours of redundant training!) And read our testimonials!”

MLOs, get time back in your day by leveraging Marketing Automation using Done For You Content with High Open Rates. Unify can help with that! Thousands of Unify’s clients use the Unify Business Growth Platform™ marketing automation feature to build profitable relationships with prospects, clients, and realtor partners. You will save tons of time using hundreds of email templates in the marketing library to automatically send emails that get opened. Unify recently introduced the PreQualified Prospects feature that provides a special “Get Prequalified Now” button for emails. Once one of your contacts clicks the button and submits their information on a short form, Experian will instantly score their information and update the LO’s Unify account with the contact’s prequalification results. Unify also automatically sends an email to the contact to begin the conversation. Rise above your competitors: Unify is the best prospecting tool you can use. 

It can be a challenge for mortgage lenders to manage all aspects of their social media activity, especially if they rely on manual processes. Black Knight offers a complete social media solution specifically designed to help mortgage originators improve efficiency and productivity, while also mitigating risk. Eric Townsend, vice president of marketing at Strong Home Mortgage, stated the following about his team’s experience: “In only six weeks, we’ve seen tremendous results using Black Knight’s social media platform. We now have a strong 20% of our Google My Business traffic arriving via organic search, a huge win for our digital marketing efforts!” Additionally, Black Knight offers a free social media marketing app to help NMLS-licensed originators grow their pipelines by engaging potential borrowers across multiple networks. Take a step toward growing your social media presence by exploring Black Knight’s solutions and downloading the marketing app on iTunes and Google Play today.

Are you a retail mortgage loan officer or banker? Life is better as an independent mortgage broker. The team at BeAMortgageBroker.com is prepared to support you when you’re ready to make your career move from retail to wholesale lending, whether you’re ready to open your own business as an independent mortgage broker or join a brokerage as a loan officer. Our expert team will guide you through state licensing, compliance, technology, loan origination vendors, lending partners, marketing, recruitment and more. We’re here for you every step of the way to provide security and support. Get started today at BeAMortgageBroker.com.

REMINDER! In celebration of the recent National Mortgage Brokers Day on Sunday, July 18th, 2021, Orion Lending is giving Brokers $500 Off Underwriting Fees on all loans uploaded through Saturday, July 24, 2021! While many have cashed in on this epic Brokers Day special, there are only 4 days left to take advantage of the discounted UW Fee! Keep in mind, new Brokers can get Express Approved by clicking here and start submitting loans by the end of the day! Additionally, Orion Lending offers a 15 BPS New Broker Price Special* on all products! Orion has a loan program to fit your qualified borrowers’ needs. With a broad range of new products and more on the horizon plus our 24-Hour SLA’s on select Purchases, now is the time to hyper speed your business with Orion! You’re Not Just Another Broker. We’re Not Just Another Lender.

Salesforce customers can now tap into Total Expert to enable marketing and customer engagement on behalf of loan officers with the newly announced integration, Total Expert for Salesforce. The powerful integration allows lenders utilizing Salesforce for CRM to orchestrate a lifelong customer journey hyper-personalized for financial consumers. “Modern financial institutions using Salesforce are often still missing out on a personalized and humanized customer journey that hits the mark for financial consumers. Because Total Expert is purpose-built for marketing and customer engagement for financial services, this integration fills the gap for lenders, giving them what they need to authentically connect with customers,” said Joe Welu, founder and CEO of Total Expert. Learn more about Total Expert for Salesforce.

The most-quoted line from Top Gun? “I feel the need, the need for speed,” of course. Just like Maverick and Iceman, lenders are always trying to maximize their speed to lead and investing in the right tech can make all the difference. With the combination of Sales Boomerang and Capacity, mortgage companies can eliminate non-revenue generating tasks so loan officers can respond to leads quickly and create an elevated borrower experience. Join Katherine Campbell from Assurance Financial, Alex Kutsishin from Sales Boomerang and David Karandish from Capacity on July 21 at 1 pm ET to learn how investing in the right tech can turbocharge your results. Have the need for speed? Reserve your spot in Sales Boomerang’s Top Gun School today.


Capital Markets

BondXN came out with its “Live BWIC Calendar” which allows one to view daily MBS specified pool origination activity in real time which “maximizes street participation on BWICs to ensure best execution. By using the aggregated calendar to drive decisions for when to publish BWICs, originators can maximize street participation by avoiding times when dealers may be swamped with responding to other lists. BondXN clients have seen dealer bidding on their lists go up by 65% and BWIC processing times cut by half.” (Contact Dave Gottfried with questions.)

If a client wants to know why mortgage rates have come down, you can tell them that there is lots of demand for U.S. securities, increased thinking that COVID is not going away and will continue to temper our behavior, and therefore world economies are not bouncing back as expected. (This sentiment has also crept in the equity markets.)

Yet recent strong U.S. economic data from last week suggests second quarter GDP growth will be strong when it is released later this month. Additionally, persistent inflation will be a focus at the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting towards the end of the month as the group is expected to discuss the winding down of asset purchases. Retail sales surprised markets by increasing in June rather than declining as they did in May. Year-over-year nominal car sales were up 18 percent from June 2020.

As one expects, strong demand and limited supply lead to higher prices, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.9 percent in June and 5.4 percent over the previous twelve months. Producer prices have surged 7.3 percent over the last year indicating that not all price increases have been passed on to the consumer. While inflation has been above the Fed’s target of 2 percent since March the FOMC is not expected to raise interest rates before the end of the year. Many officials still expect inflation to moderate over the medium term and continue to remain patient that their forecasts will pan out.

Turning to daily trading, the bond market began the week with a firmly cautious tone, with Treasury yields rallying in “risk off” mode due to growing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus and its implications on reopening trends. Stocks, which don’t always trade in the opposite direction to bonds, sold off. In terms of economic data, the NAHB Housing Market Index fell slightly in July when it was expected to rise versus June. Investors are looking forward to both housing starts and existing home sales as telling barometers of the recovery. We won't have any Fed speak as we are in the blackout period ahead of next week's FOMC meeting.

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 26 bps to 3.50 percent of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week as of July 11. According to MBA’s estimate, 1.75 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.

Today’s economic calendar is already underway with June housing starts & building permits (+6.3 and -5.1 percent, respectively) and the Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing indices in July (-11.9 to 44.8). Later this morning brings Redbook same store sales for the week ending July 17 and a couple MBS purchase operations by the Desk targeting up to $4.5 billion of conventionals. We begin the day with Agency MBS prices up/better by .125 and the 10-year yielding 1.16 after closing yesterday at 1.18 percent. Who forecast this?

 

Employment and Business Opportunities

BrightPath Mortgage is seeking to acquire mortgage brokers. Don’t be the last one standing in this go-around of musical chairs. Unlike others who may be scrambling, we have long standing experience with such acquisitions. That results in giving you the autonomy you need without the industry headaches. Often, we leave your brand in place and such acquisition is invisible to your clients. Great way to spread the risk. If you have any interest, contact Joe Poindexter (404-357-5212).

ClearEdge Lending continues to thrive in 2021! We recently hired Aron Thielen as VP of Sales to lead the company in the Central region anchored by Texas and the Midwest. ClearEdge is actively seeking talented Account Executives to join our team in this new wide-open territory. As an end-investor since 2015, ClearEdge Lending has an extensive and innovative portfolio of Non-QM products with a diverse team of experts equipped with a custom easy-to-use portal and pricing engine designed for brokers and banker customers. We provide training, mentorship, and a large database with hundreds of loan officer leads to help you grow volumes from day one. With in-house credit and pricing exceptions made in minutes, you can close loans quickly and have direct access to underwriters and an assigned Account Manager. Come build your career with one of the fastest growing Non-QM lenders.  For more information contact Aron Thielen or visit us.”

Progress has been a passion for the Correspondent Team at Citibank N.A. in 2021. Buoyed by a successful Jumbo rollout we are looking to add several key positions as we execute on our next round of growth initiatives. We are hiring the following remote positions: Pre-Purchase Review SpecialistComponent Reviewer,  Senior Loan SpecialistUnderwriterSenior Underwriter and a Correspondent Operations Manager. Our people have been the primary drivers of our success; and at Citi, we value colleagues that demonstrate high professional standards, a strong sense of integrity and generosity, intellectual curiosity, and rigor. If you are driven, customer centric and enjoy being part of a dynamic and collaborative team then Citi Correspondent Lending would be a great place to call home.