Loan Think

If you want your clients to remember you long after the closing is over, consider sending them a closing booklet within 45 days.

The nation's remaining loan brokers continue to grumble about how they're being treated by certain wholesalers. One loan officer wrote to me, saying she applied to Wells Fargo to become a 'new broker' for the firm and was basically told that unless she could deliver a minimum of 10 loans a month that she didn't stand a chance. "So if they are really wanting to do business with brokers it appears they want all of the business going to them or nothing at all." Meanwhile, Freddie Mac released its fourth quarter results Wednesday morning. It lost a ton of dough -- which was not unexpected -- but apparently its accountants have been making some boo-boos when it comes to calculating loss severity on its holdings...

For the next few weeks, Broker Universe will feature some of our favorite Sue Haviland columns from the past year.I was recently speaking with an experienced reverse mortgage originator who has a bit more time on her hands than she would like right now. She asked what she could do to keep her activity level up, set her apart, and above all, not spend a lot of cash doing it.

AND NOW FOR THE TOP FIVE MORTGAGE FRAUD STATES AND I BET YOU CAN GUESS FOUR OF THE FIVE

Suddenly, it's deals, deals, deals everywhere in nonperforming land. Of course, it's not like sellers are actively sending out press releases on what they're auctioning but activity has definitely picked up over the past month, we're told by bidders -- and maybe that's a sign that housing has really bottomed. However, most of what is being offered involves pools of $100 million or less -- usually much smaller than that. There are no 'mega' sales out there though sources say GMAC is trying to unload some of its massive holdings of NPLs in privately negotiated transactions. Meanwhile, the new Case-Shiller home price indices came out today and the message boils down to this: home prices are firming up but are way off their highs of a few years ago. Here's a sobering fact: homes today cost the same as they did in the second quarter of 2003. Ouch. That's a lot of hot air (equity, that is) disappearing into the ether...

A survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp. has confirmed what many people have a sense of anecdotally - that two groups, young consumers and highly educated consumers, state online information sources are their primary influence for their buying decisions when compared with the rest of the population.

In Monday's National Mortgage News (the print version) we have a story concerning "counterparty risk" and servicing sales. Since the story posted, one advisor told me, "There is no question that the only way you can sell servicing with a GSE guaranty is if the GSE agrees to waive the reps and warrants. Why would you buy a pool knowing that if the originator is either already gone or may fail in the future, that the servicer is now responsible for the buybacks?" Also, in my weekend column, I mentioned Phoenix Capital. A handful of readers wrote to tell me that the Denver-based advisory firm is alive and well and doing deals. One West Coast mortgage executive noted: "We just used Phoenix to broker some servicing rights for us"...

Social media is a fundamentally transformative and rapidly evolving business tool for sales, marketing, communication, business development and the dissemination of information to today's consumers. What many business-to-business executives question is how social media applies to their business. They say: Maybe it’s right for companies that sell directly to consumers, but I don't see how it would apply to business-to-business transactions. How is Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube or a blog going to benefit my company?

Stop the presses! Interest rates are going through the roof! All the economic pundits were atwitter (and probably on Twitter) this morning after the Federal Reserve hiked its discount rate to 75 basis points from 50 bps. Keep in mind that this isn't a hike in the overnight 'Fed Funds Rate' which is still a hair above zero. However, the yield on the 10-year did rise above 3.8% early Friday and mortgage bankers can probably guess what that could signal. Then again, who knows these days? But if rates do, in fact, edge up that means mortgage servicing rights (in theory) will increase in value. Then again, value is relative when the overall delinquency rate is in the 10% range. Meanwhile, the lead story in The Washington Post this morning says a commercial real estate 'crisis' could smack the nation's capital. Do tell? A few weeks back the Post reported that the commercial RE market in Washington was improving. This time around it quoted stats from CoStar Group of Bethesda, which says the market is going south fast. Hey, isn't CoStar the firm that practically stole MBA's D.C. headquarters recently -- paying just 40% of its original value? It is. Funny, that wasn't mentioned in the Post story. Just a bunch of negative numbers on the market. Of course, all this negativity could create more buying (stealing) opportunities for CoStar. Where's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when you need them?

We have all heard this statement: If I just knew then what I know now...blah, blah, blah.