Thanks to today's podcast sponsor, SimpleNexus, the homeownership platform that unites the people, systems, and stages of the mortgage process into one seamless, end-to-end solution that spans engagement, origination, closing, and business intelligence. To learn more about SimpleNexus, an nCino company, visit simplenexus.com.
Thanks to today's podcast sponsor, SimpleNexus, the homeownership platform that unites the people, systems, and stages of the mortgage process into one seamless, end-to-end solution that spans engagement, origination, closing, and business intelligence. To learn more about SimpleNexus, an nCino company, visit simplenexus.com.
Gosh… here we are at a whole five-day workweek. You party-going, conference late-nighters (yes, you know who you are, gearing up for the next conference) will find this amusing: someone was clever enough to film bats upside down moving to the goth beat! Some companies are taking a hard look at the “return on investment” in sending people to conferences, rather than “letting their fingers do the walking” and saving the thousands spent on conferences for pricing and products. But a good one coming up is the MBA’s IMB in San Diego in a couple weeks, and one of the topics will be merger and acquisitions with both lenders and vendors. There was a lot of M&A activity last year, including several deals done or initiated in December. I am told by my friends at STRATMOR (Garth & David) that 2023 is lining up for even more. In fact, I know that they were actually WORKING during the last week of the year on some deals and both will be in San Diego at the IMB Conference if you want to connect with them to learn more about what’s going on related to M&A. (Today’s podcast is sponsored by SimpleNexus, an nCino company and award-winning developer of mobile-first technology for the modern mortgage lender. Today’s has an interview with MIAC’s Steve Harris on the functions of a broker dealer in the secondary mortgage market.)
Employment
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Start off the New Year with a review of your Warehouse Lending Provider. Coastal States Bank will be at the Independent Mortgage Bankers conference in San Diego, Jan 23-26. CSB provides tailored solutions to maximize the funding needs of Delegated and Non-Delegated Lenders. If you would like to schedule a meeting to discuss your business needs, email Tim Haug, Director Mortgage Banker Finance. CSB continues to expand its talented sales team. If you are a seasoned warehouse lending professional looking to join a growing Bank, please send a resume to Tim Haug.
American Business Media today named Steven Winokur as its new Chief Marketing Officer after long and successful experiences leading marketing and sales initiatives across the nation. Congratulations!
Tired of this mortgage stuff? Ready to “relish” the role of a lifetime? Oscar Mayer is currently recruiting the next class of drivers for its iconic Wienermobile. The year-long “Hot Dogger” gig is available where each driver selected will visit over 20 states in the hot-dog-shaped vehicle, travel more than 200,000 miles, serve as an Oscar Mayer spokesperson at over 200 events per year, and document their journeys on social media. There are a total of 12 Wienermobile driver positions available for 2023. Here’s the online job description; apply for the position online any time before January 31.
Lender and broker software & services
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Remember the movie Groundhog’s Day starring Bill Murray who relives the same day over and over? Some folks who manage mortgage Quality Control may find that it’s funny but “reliving the same day” hits a little too close to home. For all those stuck on the hamster wheel of mortgage QC, Indecomm developed AuditGenius Next Generation to come to the rescue of Groundhog Day! AuditGenius frees up your QC team from monotonous and repetitive loan audits by automatically and accurately (!) creating your pre-fund checklist while auto-populating the checklist answers for you! It also generates a wide range of pre-built and custom reports, which means less time spent with tedious reports in excel. Break free from Groundhog Day and stop reliving the same QC process over and over! Reach out to Linda Bomar and learn how AuditGenius is disrupting traditional mortgage Quality Control and giving you back your time and a little sanity too…
Want to recession-proof your business? Of course, you do. Josh Pitts, founder and Chief Enthusiasm Officer of Shred Media, is bringing all his energy to this month’s Flagstar FLEX, an information-packed webinar January 12 from 2-3 PM ET. Josh will share proven methods for building a successful personal brand that changes people’s lives, and tell you why you should do it NOW. The webinar is free, and you can register here. Join Flagstar to start 2023 in a great place. Josh’s optimism is contagious.
Boost Underwriters to 8+ files a day with Workflow for Encompass®, by Mace Innovations. Nobody enjoys reducing or adding staff in response to market ups and downs. Increase loan volume by up to 400 percent with your existing staff. Improve your business scalability with Workflow… No more layoffs! Unlike loan volume or staff, reduce the things you want to. Reduce the cost to close a loan. Reduce turn times. Reduce human error. Reduce the number of touches per loan. Reduce the need for training. Mace Innovations is proud to announce the latest version of Workflow, a revolutionary new way to streamline processes in Encompass®. Current Workflow clients are seeing an increase in productivity by up to 400 percent in every part of the loan process such as origination, disclosing, processing, underwriting, and closing. Find out how you can improve your workflow with our Workflow.
Momentifi is offering a "buy now pay later” plan on its personally branded Spanish-language homebuyer education tools. This gives lenders the ability to roll something out now before the new FHFA rules trigger on March 1 re: collecting data on borrower language preferences. “The new rules go into effect precisely when the industry is undergoing its worst profitability crunch since the financial crisis,” said Gibran Nicholas, CEO of Momentifi. “This unfortunate timing creates an unfair competitive advantage because smaller lenders can ill-afford to roll out new Spanish-language initiatives like their larger counterparts who have much larger budgets. We’ve already seen a few industry giants roll out personally branded Spanish-language content for their LO’s. Our buy now pay later plan allows smaller lenders to catch up in one smart move, without tying up Q1 budget or any internal resources.” The buy-now-pay-later plan is available for retail and wholesale lenders with 10+ originators. To learn more, email Gibran Nicholas directly.
TPO products and pricing
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“ACC Mortgage is only getting better. Since the market turned sour for most wholesale lenders, ACC has taken the opportunity to expand and improve. ACC now has an Orange County office to support our West Coast team and we added a team of local inside Account Executives to our Rockville, MD office. All the while, improving the efficiencies of our workflow process to achieve the highest closing ratio. This is what 24 year of experience delivers. If your company is struggling with Non-QM or you are looking to make a switch, call us 877-349-050 or e-mail us.”
Start off the New Year by giving your pipeline a big boost with LoanStream’s Specials through January 31st, 2023 including Price Improvements of up to 35 BPS on FHA loans and up to 50 BPS Price on Non-QM. Restrictions apply, contact your Account Executive to learn more or visit here. Plus, expand the customers you serve with loan programs that help you close more loans in the new year by joining our webinar! Join the Launch into 2023 with Non-QM and DPA Programs Webinar on January 17th. Space is limited so get registered today.
“The Correspondent Channel at PenFed Credit Union: PenFed is committed to its Non-Delegated Correspondent Channel. We continue to expand our suite of products, now offering Conventional Conforming in addition to Jumbo, Super Jumbo and VA. PenFed also offers sponsorships for VA and DU. Let the experienced PenFed underwriting team support your business operation and give you more capacity to serve your borrowers and originate more loans. PenFed proudly serves all 50 states and purchases loans up to $3MM. As the nation’s second largest federal credit union operating since 1935, PenFed partners win more deals while lending with ease and confidence. Reach out to our dedicated Sales Team or email to learn more about opportunities to partner with PenFed.”
Events, training, and webinars this week
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Tomorrow, the 10th, on Mortgage Pros 411 join Robbie Chrisman, Audrey Boissonou, and Kevin Casey discussing youth in lending. Every Tuesday at 11AM PT: register here.
Join Fairway Wholesale Lending for a New Webinar, “Using Social Media to Increase Leads,” Tuesday, January 10 at 1 pm CST. Learn how you can leverage social media to increase leads. From understanding your audience to content strategies, our VP of Digital Strategy, Ben Smidt, will show you how to use Instagram insights, build LinkedIn relationships, and explain why Facebook is still an opportunity.
Class Valuation’s live webinar, 48-Hour Purchase Appraisals - Home Appraisals: Radically Fast, is on Wednesday, January 11 at 2:00pm EST. Tune in to speaker Scot Rose, Chief Innovation Officer at Class Valuation and Justin Alexander, Director of Collateral Strategy & Innovation at Fannie Mae.
Common Sense, brought to you by The Commonwealth Group, is a webinar series discussing relevant topics in the Mortgage Industry. Fine tune your skills with industry leading mortgage professional, West Beibers, CMB. Register for the next webinar in the series, Wednesday, Jan 11th, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST, A New Perspective on Refinancing. Interested in learning more about private mortgage insurance? Register for the webinar on Wednesday, January 25, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST.
Whether you’re considering a transition to mandatory or you’re already hedging, you won’t want to miss this highly informative and directional webinar. Back by Popular Demand, Optimal Blue’s Hedging 101 Webinar on Wednesday, January 11th @ 1pm ET. Join industry experts to discover how to manage your loan pipeline, mitigate risk, and optimize profitability, essential skills in today's competitive mortgage landscape.
There’s the Mortgage Influencers Podcast every Wednesday at 1:30 pm. Register here or watch on the Facebook group Mortgage Influencers.
Register for CRMLA’s January 12th Lunch and Learn-State of the Market, hear from Tiffany Johannes, President-Elec, Canopy Realtor® Association about the current real estate market in the Metrolina area.
Josh Pitts, founder and Chief Enthusiasm Officer of Shred Media, is bringing all his energy to this month’s Flagstar FLEX, an information-packed webinar January 12 from 2-3 PM ET. The webinar is free, and you can register here.
On January 12th at 2 pm ET, join Sales Boomerang and Mortgage Coach’s Alex Kutsishin and Dave Savage and Insellerate’s Josh Friend as they share the key elements of a 10/10 borrower experience and how you can implement them in 2023. Give your customers an experience they’ll love. Register now to learn more.
Meet the MBA of St. Louis 2023 Board at the January 12, 11:30 - 1:30 pm Luncheon at Syberg's. Hear presenter Charles ("Chuck") S. Gascon, senior economist in the Research division at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, discuss the future of the 2023 economy. Cost for MBA Members is $40.00, Non-MBA Members - $65.00.
There’s the upcoming MISMO Winter Summit, January 9 - 12, in Delray Beach, FL and learn what's hot in mortgage standards. Network and collaborate with your industry colleagues while learning the latest updates on mortgage industry standards.
GRCForte’s live webinar, Credit Risk Management: Principles and Practices, Tools and Techniques, is on Thursday, January 12 at 12:00 pm PST. Speaker Dev Strischek, principal of Devon Risk Advisory Group, will discuss elements and types of credit culture, framework for implementing desired credit culture, credit discipline tools to diagnose, maintain, and improve credit culture, managing transaction, intrinsic, and concentration credit risk, and credit policy and credit administration best practices.
This Friday at 3PM ET is the next edition, sponsored by Maxwell, of The Mortgage Collaborative’s Rundown with Rich Swerbinsky, and me. We’ll will be covering current events in the mortgage market for 30 minutes starting at noon PT in “The Rundown with Rich and Rob”!
In Denver, register for the CoAMP Real Estate Luncheon on January 13th from 12:30-2:30 at Comedy Works South. Elliot Eisenberg, PhD will present 2023 Housing Update. Attendance cost is $69 for members and $99 for non-members.
Capital markets: more inflation data this week
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Inflation will be in the spotlight this week with the CPI report for December due out on January 12. The headline consumer price index reading for December is expected to cool to +6.7 from +7.1 percent in November and be up 0.1 percent on a month-over-month comparison. Core CPI is forecast to be up 5.6 percent and up 0.2 percent month-over-month. Bank of America expects both core goods and energy prices to have declined again in December, but food inflation and core services inflation to have remained stickier. The focus from market watchers will be if the CPI update alters the consensus view that the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates by 50 points in February and another 25 points in March before going on hold at a terminal rate of 5.0 to 5.25 percent.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard noted in a presentation to business leaders that interest rates are moving closer to a "sufficiently restrictive" level, although they are not there yet. Meanwhile, Kansas City Fed President Esther George said that she believes the federal funds rate will be above 5 percent into 2024, and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic noted that "there is still much work to do."
We closed last week learning the U.S. economy added 223k jobs in December which was above market expectations for 200k. Unemployment fell to 3.47 percent, matching its lowest level on record since 1969. Over the course of 2022, more than 4.5 million jobs were added and while the monthly pace of growth has slowed, it remains well above the long-term average. In November, there were 10.5 million job openings or roughly 1.75 openings per job seeker. It will take more than just this report to convince the FOMC that supply and demand in the labor market are in healthy balance.
While the jobs data continues to show robust growth, the ISM data for manufacturing and services shows a contracting economy. Both surveys reported slowing inflation as well as improving supplier deliveries. Also from last week, the latest minutes from the FOMC showed no committee members expect a cut to the fed funds rate in 2023, however the markets are weighing those statements against expectations of recession and are pricing in cuts in the latter half of the year. Mortgage rates are off their highs from late 2022 and are expected to trend down over the course of 2023.
This second full week of the year contains several key market-moving events, including the $90 billion mini-Refunding to be held tomorrow to Thursday as well as CPI and several Fed speakers including Chair Powell. Besides CPI, other economic releases of interest include consumer credit, small business optimism, wholesale inventories, import prices, and the first look at Michigan sentiment for January. Today’s economic calendar gets under way later this morning with the December Employment Trends Index. The only other data point is November consumer credit in the afternoon. We begin the week with Agency MBS prices worse about .125 from Friday afternoon and the 10-year yielding 3.59 after closing last week at 3.56 percent.
The older Baby Boomers were all home schooled! Who knew? See below, in parents’ own words! (Part 1 of 5.)
1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
"If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning."
2. My mother taught me RELIGION.
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."
3. My father taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
"If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"
4. My mother taught me ESP.
"Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"
Visit www.robchrisman.com for more information on our industry partners, access archived commentaries, or to subscribe to the Daily Mortgage News and Commentary. If you're interested, visit my periodic blog at the STRATMOR Group web site. “The Secondary Market’s Focus” is the current blog. The Commentary’s podcast is live and at any place you obtain your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify).
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