Loan Think

HUD/FHA AUDITS FOR CHANGES OF OWNERSHIP OF MORTGAGEE WITHOUT NOTIFYING HUD OF THE CHANGE

As we enter 2009 the familiar debate begins. Will this be the year that e-mortgages gain significant traction? Is 2009 going to be the year of the e-mortgage? The majority of discussions around e-mortgages have traditionally focused on paperless mortgages, SMART Docs vs. PDF’s, e-signing, electronic closing rooms, e-vaults, e-recordings, e-registry, e-notarization and legal enforceability. But isn’t all of this really a mute point if the process does not start out electronically?

Companies wanting to make the most of their public relations budgets have an alternative to traditional public relations agencies.

Solutions. That is what your market is looking for. Referral partners, including agents, builders, investors and your borrowers are looking for someone to help them solve problems.

A survey conducted at the start of December found, according to its sponsors, that an overwhelming number of Americans are unable to answer some of the most basic questions about borrowing, interest rates, terminology, and even basic math. More troubling is that many Americans admit to making poor decisions with their own personal finances.

The Society for Advancement of Consulting has developed some best and worst practices in current economic conditions, based on the observations of its global membership and the tens of thousands of clients they serve.

Capitalism is a wild and wacky game. And it's not for those with weak guts, which brings me to the case of IndyMac whose long awaited sale was announced by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Friday afternoon. The new "owners" of IndyMac are essentially a bunch of hedge funds that are well known for some of their contrarian bets in financial services. First and foremost among those private hedge funds is Paulson & Co., led by hedge fund guru John Paulson, who made a killing (a $15 billion killing) by shorting the ABX Index back in 2007 and early 2008. The ABX gauges the value of subprime bonds and we all know what happened there, don't we? For some reason the FDIC didn't mention Mr. Paulson's $15 billion winning bet against the B&C market in its press release. The FDIC's original investment banker on the sale of IndyMac was Lehman Brothers, which went bust a few months after getting the assignment. The advisor to the consortium? That would be Merrill Lynch & Co., which helped cause the subprime crisis by financing dozens of subprime lenders, buying their loans and packaging them into securities (CDOs) for sale to institutional investors in the U.S. and overseas. (Lehman did that too.) Like I said, capitalism is a wild and wacky game. But who knows any more, really? If John Paulson is putting his reputation (and a little bit of his money) on the line, maybe this actually signals a "bottom" in the mortgage and credit crisis. For the full story on the sale of IndyMac visit: http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/...

Surely it’s a relief to most that 2008 is done. But what will 2009 bring? For one, there’s going to be a new administration in town that has promised sweeping change, literally. That same administration recognizes that re-election depends on if it can make good on those promises. So, there are uncertainties for sure, but I’m hopeful. I think the industry can and will come back even stronger. How? Here’s how:

Over that last 10-15 years the mortgage industry has seen a number of technological innovations, DOS to Windows based LOS systems, Window’s to web-based LOS’s, AUS systems, rules based workflow, online origination, imaging, and decisioning technology, to name a few. The majority of these innovations have been primarily loan centric. Loan centric systems focus on the specific loan or transaction. But what about the customer?

Planning expert Erica Olsen said, "Conducting business in today's world almost always involves some type of risk, but never more so than today. The recent world market upheavals have left most of us unsettled and uncertain about the future. In your planning, risk is best defined as how you perceive the likelihood of suffering a loss, and the perception of the impact of a particular risk varies from person to person. Assessing risks in advance allows you to determine the most cost-effective strategies to handle each type of risk. This is another exercise that doesn't require hiring a professional facilitator, and it is a great opportunity to include your team since they may have different perspectives.