Loan Think

The need for sensible subprime residential lending (hard money, call it what you may) has never been greater, but I would venture that less than $1 billion of these loans were originated last year, and maybe that's a generous estimate. I know of a few mortgage executives who have tried in vain to raise private equity money but with no luck.

I just read the latest National Association of Realtors report saying that in 2011, 37% of all homebuyers were first timers. That's down from 2010 but it's still one-third of the home buying market.

If your Loss Mitigation and REO Departments interact with listing agents in the traditional fashion, then you are enabling fraud.

This morning The New York Times reported that our nation's banks are "back to lending to risky borrowers. As banks look to make up for fee income barred by new regulations, they've gone back to offering loans and credit cards to borrowers with bad credit."

Just over 2,300 years ago, a wise father hired the greatest scholar of his age to tutor his young son in the ways of the world. Aristotle spent the next few years instructing the young man in literature, architecture, music, politics and the art of warfare. Armed with this knowledge, the student, barely in his 20s, set out to conquer the world. It took him just 11 years.

In 1848, the discovery of gold in California proved to be one of the most significant events in U.S. history. The dream of striking it rich and reaping the benefits of copious finds held a strong allure for many adventurous risk takers. Today, investors armed with reams of data and metrics, and that same adventurous spirit, are looking at the foreclosure to rental property market with that same gleam in their eyes.

For those of you who have doubts about pointing your marketing efforts towards online and the social media, here are a few tidbits of data, courtesy of Experian Marketing Services' 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report.

This week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released correspondence clarifying (or rather correcting) the Federal Reserve Board's interpretation of the LO comp rules. In previous conference calls, various Federal Reserve employees stated that the LO comp rules prohibited profit of loans from having direct impact whatsoever on an LO's compensation.

Oftentimes, mortgage business owners have a confused picture of what marketing really is. They see it as some kind of gamble. Sometimes it pays off; other times it is a waste of money. But that just isn't the case. You can use marketing to consistently grow your mortgage income - and it has nothing to do with luck.

A federal court has frozen assets at five California companies that are being investigated for trying to scam U.S. homeowners facing foreclosure. The Federal Trade Commission says it has opened an investigation into companies, which charged its customers up to $10,000 for legal advice and forensic audits.