Loan Think

Over the next few weeks, this article will be dedicated to educating all that are ready for a substantial change in their life. For disclosure, nothing written below is easy.

THIS JUST IN: An industry veteran with a long track record in mortgage banking is entering the warehouse lending arena with his new bank. The full story will be in the Monday edition of National Mortgage News. Don't subscribe? Call: 800-221-1809...

Did the Federal Reserve this morning put another nail in the coffin of mortgage brokers as well as loan officers who live off of yield spread premiums? The Fed has issued – in an attempt to kill YSPs -- a proposed rule that would only allow mortgage origination companies to compensate LOs and third-party professionals based on the principal amount of the loan. National Mortgage News’ Brian Collins was at the Fed this morning and the full story will be on our website shortly (http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/) with more analysis to come in our weekly. Meanwhile, as I write this the stock market is up 100-plus points and has cracked 9,000. Does this mean the worm has turned and that the U.S. economy is back? Does this mean all those empty houses in Vegas – and all those empty condos in Miami – will start flying off the shelves? Or is all this a “false positive”? And what will happen when the federal first time home buyer tax credit expires and rates start moving up? Stay tuned...

For the last two days I have been meeting with my Platinum Group here in Baltimore. These are two full days of profit producing ideas and discoveries. Much like Napoleon Hill spells out in his book, "Think and Grow Rich." Everyone shares ideas that are working. Everyone helps each other with their challenges.

File this under ‘Mortgage Lazarus’: Even though it confirmed to National Mortgage News last week that it was in the process of closing its doors, software provider MortgageDashboard has posted a notice on the sign-in page of its website, saying it has found private equity backers and is up and running again. Later today NMN will publish the full story (by our technology editor Tony Garritano) on its website. Meanwhile, in Senate testimony today Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said the return of the private label (read jumbo) securitization market will be a slow process. As most readers know, the private label market has been dead for so long that I can’t even remember the funeral. Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) complained a bit that consumers in his state who have the wherewithal to buy high priced homes don’t have a whole lot of financing options. Mr. Martinez was a HUD secretary during the George W. Bush administration...

Have you found that the reverse mortgage business in your area has become more competitive? Or is it maybe that the senior borrower is more hesitant about making a decision? Whatever your perception of your local market, I am hearing these concerns raised more and more in our coaching calls. What can you do to change this perception and get yourself back on track?

MERS has held the first trimester meeting of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization since taking over as the managing entity of the standards body. Us journalists are not allowed in these top-secret meetings, even though we’d like to participate, hint, hint. So, we have to rely on the comments from those that are allowed in. And in my conversations with attendees, they all agreed that this first meeting was a success.

It’s earnings season for the nation’s publicly traded depositories and it appears that Sandler O’Neill is slapping “sell” signs on a handful of of the banks it covers including: M&T Bank Corporation, Home Bancshares, Zions Bancorp, and BB&T Corp. Three of the four -- Home Bancshares being the exception -- rank among the nation’s top 60 residential lenders, according to the Quarterly Data Report. Meanwhile, not all mid-sized depository-based lenders are suffering. Hudson City Bancorp of Paramus, N.J. – which funds loans through both its branches and correspondent mortgage bankers – saw its 2Q earnings increase by 16% to $128 million. Company president Ronald Hermance noted that residential loan charge-offs are increasing at the thrift but said losses have been modest since Hudson City keeps its LTV ratios low...

The $64,000 question in the sales industry always has been what makes a good sales person. Is it nature or is it nurture? And what traits can company managers look for in finding their next top performer?

In last week’s blog, I talked about how Google was taking aim at Microsoft by announcing that it was developing its own computer operating system Google Chrome OS. Google claims that the Chrome OS will be entirely focused on the Web. Microsoft responded by surprising Google and the industry with the announcement that Office 2010 will include, among many new features, an online web version of Office 2010 apps that will be free.