Loan Think

Companies have increasingly become reliant on bonuses to provide a portion of compensation to employees. Unfortunately, the use (or misuse) of a "bonus" often creates problems for employers.

Fannie Mae's latest housing forecast is in, and it predicts a stagnant mortgage market for the next two years, at about $1 trillion in originations for each of 2012 and 2013. Not what industry officials want to hear, especially after five rocky years starting in 2007.

Most persons responsible for a selling function can usually quote some technique they've heard which will increase their closing ratio. More discouraging, to a coach and trainer like myself, is when a sales coach and/or trainer present these techniques.

The value at risk metric employed by every major banking institution offered the appearance of safety until taxpayer bailouts were the only option to save the financial system. Today, regulators are examining historical factors to determine what defines a "safe" mortgage in order to calculate capital adequacy and risk retention requirements.

A while back I read a story about people who have won the lottery twice and three times. Some play the same numbers. Some invested tens of thousands of dollars. One couple won twice in one day. Could you imagine? Imagine winning just once, then having your numbers called the second time, only to have them put back because the person reading the numbers decided the prize should go to someone who had never won before.

If there is one thing that has been lacking over the years for many mortgage originators, it is customer loyalty. And it is a two-way street—both sides have tended to treat the transaction as a one-off deal.

President Obama Tuesday night made a few specific references to the mortgage industry in his State of the Union speech, but never did he once use the phrase "loan broker" or try to paint these third-part salesmen as the evildoers of the housing crisis (as he has in the past.)

Vacant property registration ordinances were created to help protect vacant and abandoned homes from neglect and prevent them from becoming nuisances. Local municipalities use them to collect current and accurate contact information about the lien holder of record, allowing officials to issue prompt notification when a code violation occurs.

Citigroup recently told its mortgage correspondents that going forward it will only buy "low risk" loans. What's a low risk loan, you ask? Answer: any mortgage that has an almost zero chance of going south.

It makes your head swim doesn't it? In 2011 alone, the mortgage industry averaged 22 mortgage rule changes per month according to www.MortgageCurrentcy.com - and that was just for loan originators. It seems like every day, there's a new social media platform. Phone apps. Everyone and his brother and sister are talking about new ways to use them in your mortgage practice.