Loan Think

PennyMac released 4Q earnings this morning and the big news wasn't its profit - which was decent - but the fact that it bought almost $1 billion of mortgages from other lenders via the correspondent channel.

Although this past Sunday was nominally about a football game (and yes, the parade could be seen from my office), from a marketer's standpoint, it is also their Super Bowl.

The classic 1895 science fiction novel The Time Machine by H.G. Wells allowed travel to the past and future. According to the most recent Case-Shiller study, home prices have now 'traveled' back to 2003 levels. This represents a 3.7% drop in overall prices since November 2011.

Yes, thousands of consumers have been wronged by residential servicers that cut corners on their foreclosure paperwork and decided to 'robo' away their workload. But does a consumer who was in arrears deserve to get his house back? It's a question the general media has yet to ask and at the same time it's a difficult question.

Execution is the key to your success. Without the systematic rigorous process of tenaciously following through, while ensuring accountability, your business and personal life will be less rewarding than it could be.

Ask anyone in the mortgage lending business today—the industry is all about managing risk. Why then, has the mortgage business been the culprit for one of the worst risk failures in our country’s history? Where did the system break down?

Richard Cordray made his first appearance on Capitol Hill this past week in front of the Senate Banking Committee.

Sometimes opening an appraisal report can feel like being on a bad 70s game show. Door #1 opens to reveal your prize and it's a car, not a coffee cup. Everything's great for two seconds. Then you learn that the car may have a problem that could render it worthless. Then again, it may not. What do you do? Cut your losses and choose Door #2, or invest more time and bank on Door #1?

The White House's restructuring of the U.S. auto industry appears to have worked - for now. If you saw yesterday's Super Bowl you witnessed an awe inspiring commercial from Chrysler featuring everyone's favorite 'punk' killer Harry Callahan, a.k.a. Walt Kowalski, a.k.a. Clint Eastwood.

Origination News is now collecting data for its annual survey of top loan producers, the results of which are scheduled to appear in the April issue.