Loan Think

With the advent of webinars, it's a fair question to ask: will the ease and convenience of webinars ever replace remote conferences with their unpleasant tendencies towards uncomfortable plane rides and uncertain hotel service?After all my years on the road as a business traveler (I'm approaching 400,000 frequent flyer miles!) this is not an academic question to me. The idea of leaving the suitcases in storage and substituting a telephone and an Internet screen has certainly gotten some consideration as this new technology has gotten better. (How many of you have started an Internet presentation, couldn't access the url, and asked to have the slides e-mailed to you so you can follow along? But that's happening less and less.)The short answer is this: webinars will not replace live conferences. But they absolutely have their place.Humans are social beings. It will always be easier to do business in person than remotely (that's why salesmen always want to come in to see you). It's also helpful to get out of the office once in a while and into the real world, to see old friends or put a face to a name. We're wired that way, and that isn't going to change.Plus, a full-scale conference isn't just about the sessions. I've often heard it said "the real meeting is out in the hall." Essential business networking takes place in the exhibit hall, most prominently, but also in restaurants and cocktail parties and golf excursions scheduled around the conference. These aren't replicable at a webinar.And, traveling has its charms. Pleasant cities (San Francisco, Palm Springs, Miami and Atlanta come to mind), tourist opportunities, comfortable hotels, great dining, all these things can be wonderful on a trip. (Of course, the actual traveling itself can be tiring and nerve-wracking.) I've had the opportunity to travel and see all 50 of these United States, mostly on the mortgage beat, and I wouldn't trade that for a headset and a PowerPoint on a monitor.That being said, the webinar has its good points as well. It needs to be really focused to one topic, and to be long enough to be comprehensive but not too long to make the eyes glaze over. And it has to have great speakers. At a remote show where you might go to ten sessions, one or two duds isn't a catastrophe. But for a webinar, everybody's got to really have game!I've participated in dozens of live events put on by our affiliate SourceMedia Conferences over the years, but last month, we put on our first editorial webinar. (I've participated in a bunch as an attendee.) The topic was a hot one: the first month's experience of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct.My colleage Brad Finkelstein, managing editor of Origination News, moderated, and I listened in. Our speakers were Alan Hummel, senior vice president and chief appraiser, Forsythe Appraisals, Tony Pistilli, chief retail appraiser for US Bank, and Brian Coester, CEO of Coester Appraisals.The webinar went off very well. The speakers were knowledgeable and articulate, there was no "dead air" time, which can be deadly, and the attendees deluged Brad with questions for the panelists. You always worry there won't be any audience participation at an event-this one had to be called on account of darkness as we ran out of time to get to all the questions.So, I still see the value of the traditional two or three day mortgage meeting in an interesting locale. But I look forward also to doing more interesting, focused, lively webinars on the hot topics in mortgage lending.

Here's the definition of the word "conundrum": A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma. As I work on the paperback updates for "Chain of Blame, How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis," I've been pondering what to tell the reader in regard to solving/preventing another financial calamity the likes of which our nation is still working through. We indeed have a financial system with so many giants (AIG, Lehman, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Bank of America) that if one of these go under it can cause damaging ripples in the fabric of our economy. These institutions are "too big too fail," or TBTF. So, then, is it better to have thousands upon thousands of smaller financial institutions, each with specified and distinct product lines to serve our nation's consumers and B2B customers? During his grilling on Capitol Hill this past week Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was asked about TBTF and whether our nation might better be served by having thousands upon thousands of small banks - just like we had in the old days (pre-1990). His response: "I don't think we can go back to a world of having [many] smaller banks." But we, as a nation, can't live with TBTF either. Right? A conundrum it is. Feel free to respond to this column on the message section at the end...

File this under “too big too fail and too big to worry about pesky foreclosure moratoriums”: According to a report in The Orange County Register, Bank of America, Citigroup and EMC Mortgage Corp. are among seven servicing firms that have received permanent exemptions to California’s 90-day foreclosure moratorium, which began last week. (EMC is owned by JPMorgan Chase which inherited the subprime/specialty servicer when it bought most of Bear Stearns last year.) The newspaper says more than 20 other lenders and loan servicers, including Wells Fargo, have received temporary exemptions which could become permanent...

Ready to get started? Grab a pen and paper and for goodness sake turn off your phones so you can read and digest this. It's that important!

Marketing is the key to growing and sustaining a strong origination business. Too often, loan officers get so caught up in the daily grind of their pipeline that they forget to stay focused on this essential piece of their business.This is what usually causes the "feast and famine" cycles that are so frustrating in our industry. But it's possible to be fun and creative with attention-grabbing ideas that will bring you more business. Getting your marketing done while managing your loans can be tricky, but if you look at marketing as an actual appointment that needs to be met, you will find yourself making the time to get those tasks done. Marketing is important, but not necessarily urgent, so the urgent often takes priority over your marketing. If you are busy working on loans in your pipeline, it may take working an extra few hours that week. Consider going into the office two hours early one day a week to get caught up so you can spend quality time away from the office marketing. Your referral partners need to see you, hear from you and be reminded that you work on referrals. It won't matter how good you are or how low your rates are; if you don't stay on the minds of your referral partners, there is a pretty good chance they will forget about you. Do not just pop into their office without a reason. Take something with you of value that will reinforce who you are and what you do for a living. This can be information on a new program that can help their clients or a thank you gift for a recent referral. I love unique marketing... things that make the recipient take notice and remember who you are. They don't have to be expensive or take a lot of time. Your marketing just needs to get done on a consistent schedule. The possibilities are endless. Here are just a few creative ideas:

When the mortgage industry started taking a nose dive in 2008 many companies started slashing costs. One of the first areas hit was marketing (the function responsible for generating leads and building brand awareness) and sales (the function responsible for generating repeat business and new sales). What many companies now understand is that in a tough market, sales and marketing are even more important to corporate sustainability. Without new sales coming in the door a tough situation has become even worse.

Colonial Savings F.A. of Texas says that thanks to low interest rates and the $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers loan production is booming at its shop. Well, sort of. The company published a press release saying that during the first five months of the year residential fundings spiked 83% to 7,217 units. The comparison is to the same period in 2008 and includes loans funded by two of its units: Colonial National Mortgage and CU Members Mortgage. However, in terms of dollars, loan production actually fell in the 2009 period by 24%: $1.29 billion versus $1.67 billion which means the company is originating lower balance loans. One big question for all lenders is this: what will happen to the market when the $8,000 tax credit expires in December. Will Congress and the White House extend it? Lobbyists start your engines...

HUD/FHA REMINDER ABOUT NATIONWIDE LENDING FOR DIRECT ENDORSEMENT LENDERS (FULL EAGLE) AND LOAN CORRESPONDENTS (MINI-EAGLE)

Remember how the government was going to allow lenders to “monetize” the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit? Apparently it’s still a go but according to the law firm of K&L Gates LLP, reworked guidance from the Federal Housing Administration puts “significant limitations on the ability of an eligible borrower” to use the tax credit for downpayment costs and offers no guidance to FHA approved lenders on how to structure the process of monetizing the tax credit. Also, the law firm says FHA places “considerable responsibility” on the part of lenders to ensure that borrowers actually qualify for the tax credit and that the closing costs are reasonable...

One of the negatives about the explosion of the use of the social media (as well as the traditional media) is that your message may get caught up in the clutter of all the other messages being disseminated. As a result you might not get seen as the expert on your topic.