Veterans Day: LO job, JV partners, lenders wanted; HELOC, affordable housing, refi analysis tools; primer on why extensions cost money
My newsfeed says that a sea lion escaped from the Atlanta Aquarium. Apparently, they have to re-seal the tank. Today, I head to Atlanta, GA not to look for seals but for the Mortgage Bankers Association of Georgia’s get-together tomorrow. Today is also Veteran’s Day, a great reason to touch base with anyone you’ve given a VA loan to and send them a link to all of the military discounts today. Veterans and service members may also be eligible for any of the 2,444 U.S. homebuyer assistance programs tracked by Down Payment Resource. (There are 49 programs offering up to $117,000 in funds specifically for Veterans, active-duty service members, and their families, of which 15 programs are grants and 15 programs are forgivable.) Meanwhile, the industry continues to ruminate on NerdWallet paying $1 million in cash, and $3.5 million in performance-based employee earnouts, to enter the mortgage broker world with acquisition of Next Door Lending. Next Door is a broker shop in four states, with no servicing book. Of interest to some is that Jonathon Haddad, chairman and CEO of the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME), is one of the owners of Next Door. (Today’s podcast is taking a break for Veteran’s Day but ordinarily can be found here. This week’s is sponsored by Floify. Floify is an easy-to-configure point-of-sale platform that allows each branch or loan officer to customize its look and feel to meet the needs of their lending team, homebuyers, and market.)
Employment, JVs, teams wanted, and another loss for the industry
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“In a market where many lenders are pulling back, NOVA® Home Loans continues to grow. With over 40 years of experience, NOVA® has a reputation for financial strength, resilience, and adaptability in all market conditions. Our company was founded by Loan Officers, for Loan Officers, and we remain dedicated to supporting their success. We consistently invest more resources into the support and development of our Loan Officers than our peers, creating an environment that fosters long-term growth and stability. As a result, our Loan Officers not only produce more loans each month but also stay with us longer than those at other companies. If you're a Loan Officer or Branch Manager seeking a company that prioritizes your success and gives you the tools to thrive, we’d love to talk. To learn more about the NOVA® advantage and how we can help you close more loans, please contact Sean Casey.”
loanDepot, the joint venture partner of choice for builders, announced another new partnership recently, this time with Smith Douglas Homes, the nation’s 36th largest homebuilder. Greg Bennett, chief executive officer of Smith Douglas Homes shared, “Our partnership with loanDepot allows us to focus on what we do best while leveraging loanDepot’s mortgage lending expertise to provide a smooth and seamless home loan process.” A number of top home builders rely on loanDepot to power their mortgage operations, among them Meritage Homes (#5), LGI Homes (#15) and Brookfield Residential (#50). “Ultimately, our goal is to help our partners sell more homes by managing the complex lending process, delivering a best-in-class borrower experience, and ensuring compliance, all with the flexibility to scale up or down through multiple market cycles,” said loanDepot EVP of National Joint Ventures Dan Peña. If you’d like to hear more about how a joint venture with loanDepot can drive success for your business, reach out to Dan directly.
A Chicago-based community bank is looking to connect with an independent broker or retail mortgage team in the Illinois area. This is a unique chance to join at the ground level as the bank expands its national platform, backed by licenses in all 50 states. Joining forces means access to the Federal Home Loan Banks’ MPF program with excellent pricing (no LLPAs) for Fannie, Freddie, and Ginnie products, aggressive portfolio products, and a career path with unlimited income potential. If you're interested in confidentially exploring this opportunity, contact Tracy Marks for a confidential discussion.
In Knoxville, TN, in 1989, Chrissi Rhea joined up with Chuck Tonkin to found MIG (Mortgage Investors Group). Unfortunately, her family, friends, and the industry lost Chrissi last week, reportedly due to complications from COVID. She had many accolades, including being on the MBA's Board of Directors and was the immediate past Chair of MBA's Residential Board of Governors (RESBOG). More importantly, she was a mentor and friend to many in the industry, including me, who did some consulting and speaking at MIG events. She will be missed.
(As a reminder, anyone searching for employment can post their resume at no charge at www.lendernews.com, and potential employers can view all resumes for several months for only $75.)
Lender and broker software, services, and products
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Uplist's RECAPTURE™ product is a game-changer for loan officers. RECAPTURE™ transforms the refinance analysis process, cutting the time from 30 minutes to just 30 seconds. Unlike other industry “rate alerts”, Uplist’s RECAPTURE™ accurately automates the entire refinance analysis process. By continuously monitoring clients’ mortgage data in connection with the loan officer’s live rates, RECAPTURE™ automatically analyzes multiple options, calculates break-even periods, notifies loan officers of opportunities, and builds the borrower presentation. Trusted by top lenders, this real-time intelligence enables instant, proactive engagement, allowing loan officers to send personalized refinance offers with just a few clicks. With its simple interface, RECAPTURE™ streamlines time-consuming, complex tasks, making it the ultimate refinance strategy for mortgage professionals. If you’re still seeking a comprehensive refinance solution, schedule a demo today! Or email hello@getuplist.com.
Using the right solutions to help automate and streamline workflows can help lenders save time and lower origination costs. Attend tomorrow’s HousingWire Demo Day, kicking off at 11 a.m. CT, to get a first-hand look at two of ICE’s industry-leading solutions. Check out a demo of the Encompass® LOS workflow engine which delivers seamless automation for your entire business to help you reach unparalleled ROI and productivity. See how ICE’s consumer-facing digital valuation solution, Validate, leverages computer-vision technology, a condition-adjusted AVM, up-to-date property data and borrower-supplied photos to determine property value, available equity, and home condition in near real time.
Data from a new survey reveals that nearly 40% of sidelined home buyers haven’t connected with a lender. Many Americans have been excluded from home buying for years due to high interest rates, low housing inventory, and economic volatility. As rate cuts materialize and inventory recovers, these sidelined home buyers will begin to take action. Maxwell surveyed 1,000 would-be buyers to dig into their plans as they look to enter the market over the next year. The data gives insight into this segment: Many say they’ll look to buy when rates hit 5.5%, and nearly 80% say they’re “somewhat” or “very” prepared to purchase once rates fall. Nearly 40% haven’t yet connected with a lender. Want to gain more exclusive insight into a group of home buyers who will drive loan activity in 2025? Click here to get your free copy of Maxwell’s Sidelined Home Buyer Report.
Wholesale and correspondent product offerings
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“Mr. Cooper has been busy: an AMAZING 3Q earnings report, MBA Annual, and the successful acquisition of Flagstar! We’re energized and ready to close out 2024 as one of our most successful years ever. Joining forces with Flagstar affords us expanded opportunities via Non-Delegated and Wholesale offerings. The merger of these two companies further strengthens our impressive portfolio and menu of options. Mr. Cooper is pleased to also announce our latest program offering with Freddie Mac’s BorrowSmart® program, which supports our affordable lending focus. Coming soon, we’re expanding our Co-issue program to include Freddie Macs’s Operational Bifurcation option. We’re excited about the coming year and the strong solutions and capabilities we’re able to offer. Please reach out to your Mr. Cooper B2B Sales team to learn how these options can work for you! Mr. Cooper is the nation’s largest servicer with a portfolio $1.2T+ and a premier B2B investor (Correspondent & Co-issue).
REMN has become one of the nations’ leading wholesale lenders in the Digital HELOC space. REMN’s EQUITY ACCESS Digital HELOC combines state-of-the-art technology with a customer-centric support team, enabling more deals to close for brokers due to providing more options. Features include being available in 50 states, allowing co-borrowers, options for alternative valuation/AVM, condos eligible, and MLO portal + link to personalized PreQual App page. Additionally, REMN’s NON-QM offering includes: DSCR, Bank Statement, Asset Qualifier, 1099 Only, Full Doc, P&L Statement Only, and Foreign National. REMN has also become highly competitive with FHA pricing and is focused on Affordable Mortgage Solutions offered by FNMA. Additionally, REMN is offering a few upcoming webinars for brokers. On November 13 there is the free REMN DIGITAL HELOC WEBINAR: “Close in as fast as 1 Day! ” presented by retail industry veteran, Ron Vaimberg. Click Here to register. (7 Days average time to close from offer acceptance.) And on November 20 there is the “FNMA WEBINAR: Unlock Affordable Mortgage Solutions.” Affordable Mortgage Topics include the HomeReady® Mortgage, Standard Manufactured Housing, Shared Equity Mortgages. Click here to register.
Primer on why extensions cost money
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For MLOs who locked their borrowers at the lows, or before the election results, I continue to be asked about why extending a rate lock, if even for a few days for something beyond the control of the borrower, costs money. The cost to extend a best-efforts lock reflects the cost incurred by Secondary Marketing to move the corresponding hedge to reflect the new closing date. It’s an easier concept to understand if you acknowledge the inequity of hedging a mortgage pipeline: best efforts locks, which may or may not close, are given for FREE to Loan Officers, then hedged with mandatory security instruments. When a lock extension is granted, the hedge needs to reflect the change in delivery dates.
For example, when a loan comes in with a 45-day lock, your hedge model will pull from your LOS the estimated closing date, to best execute that loan for delivery into the secondary markets. In the process it determines what month security needs to be sold to off-set the 45+ days of interest rate exposure that loan will incur. If that 45-day lock was taken out September 1st, with an October 15th estimated funding, a November security would probably be sold as the hedge instrument; a ‘only 7 days’ extension might just mean that loan now best executes into a December commitment, meaning you now must buy-back your November coverage, and sell a December security to match the new closing date. This ‘roll,’ from a front month security, to a back month has a transactional cost. Much of the fee charged to extend a loan with your secondary group reflects this cost.”
Capital markets: bond markets are closed
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Last week was all about the re-election of President Donald Trump and the Fed cutting its benchmark rate by 25-basis points, both of which sent stocks rallying, and Treasury yields spiking, with the 10-year reaching 4.47 percent at one point. Those risk events seem to have woken up the bond “vigilantes,” aka, those concerned over rising debt and inflation.
Following two volatile weeks for the markets, this holiday-shortened week still sees key data as well as the resumption of Fed speakers including Fed Chair Powell. Key data consists of CPI on Wednesday, PPI on Thursday, retail sales, import prices, industrial production / capacity utilization, and inventories on Friday. Fed Chair Powell is scheduled to speak on the economic outlook on Thursday, and every day except Friday sees multiple Fed speakers scheduled. Regarding MBS, and besides Class A 48-hours tomorrow, Class B is on Thursday with Class C next out on Friday. Although equity markets are trading, bond markets are closed today. (Friday the 2-year closed yielding 4.25 and the 10-year was at 4.30.)
Our Veterans Day falls on what used to be called Armistice Day. On that day in 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the major fighting of World War I ended. But how did George Lawrence Price, of the British Empire, fit in?
In 1918, Price was a private serving with Company A of the 28th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Belgium. Along with all the other exhausted soldiers, Price had heard that their leaders had negotiated for the guns in Europe to fall silent once and for all on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The soldiers hardly dared to hope the peace would really come to pass.
As the moment of the armistice approached, a few soldiers continued to skirmish, and Price’s company set out to take control of the small town of Havre. As they crossed a canal to their target, a German gunner hidden in a row of houses tried to stop them. Once safely across, just ten minutes before the armistice, the Canadian patrol began to look for the German soldier who had harassed them. They found no one but civilians in the first two homes they searched. And then, as they stepped back into the street, a single shot hit Price in the chest. He fell into the arms of his comrade, who pulled him back into the house they had just left. As Price died, German soldiers cleared their guns in a last burst of machine-gun fire that greeted the armistice.
Price’s life ended just two minutes before the Great War was over.
Even at the time, Price’s death seemed to symbolize the pointless slaughter of WWI. When an irony of history put Price in the same cemetery as the first Allied soldier to die in the conflict, disgusted observers commented that the war had apparently been fought over a half mile of land. In the years after the war ended, much was made of George Price, the last soldier of the British Empire to die in the Great War.
But what about the unknown story of the German sniper who killed him? What made that man take that one last life, two minutes before the war ended? Was it rage? Fear? Had the war numbed him into a machine that simply did its job? Or was it a final, deadly act of revenge against a world that had changed beyond his reckoning?
And what did the knowledge that he had stolen another man’s future—legally, but surely immorally—do to the man who pulled that trigger? He went back to civilian life and blended into postwar society, although the publicity given to Price’s death meant that he must have known he was the one who had taken that last, famous life in the international conflagration. The shooter never acknowledged what he had done, or why.
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 current STRATMOR blog is titled, “Help Borrowers Tap Into $36 trillion Available in Home Equity.” The Commentary’s podcast is live and at any place you obtain your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify).
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(Market data provided in partnership with MBS Live. For free job postings and to view candidate resumes visit LenderNews. This newsletter is for sophisticated mortgage professionals only. There are no paid endorsements by me. For up-to-date mortgage news visit Mortgage News Daily. For archived commentaries, or to subscribe, go to www.robchrisman.com. Copyright 2024 Chrisman LLC. All rights reserved. Occasional paid job & product listings do appear. This report or any portion hereof may not be reprinted, sold, or redistributed without the written consent of Rob Chrisman. The views and opinions in this newsletter are mine alone unless otherwise specifically stated herein.)