(Good one for lenders.)
A photographer was invited to dinner with
friends and took along a few pictures to show the lady of the house.
She looked at the photos and commented,
"These are great! You must have a good camera."
He didn't make any comment and looked a bit
upset, but as he was leaving to go home he said, "That was a really
delicious meal! You must have some very good pots."
Tomorrow we'll take a deep look at potential future Dodd-Frank
changes, but for something more concrete the Census Bureau told us that U.S. home ownership last
quarter stood at nearly 64%. This is a slight rebound from its 52-year low
in the second quarter; the homeownership rate for 2016 was the lowest since
records began in 1965. Every residential lending vet will tell you that not
everyone should, or deserve to, own their own house based on credit and other
considerations. How hard does the government want to push it? (The other
one percent of what I know comes from Wikipedia, and in this case how the home ownership in other countries stacks up.)
Paul Muolo with IMF reported that, "Len Israel, who
was hired by Flagstar Bancorp as president of mortgage banking roughly
18 months ago, has left the company, according to industry officials close to
the matter...One of the tasks that Israel was reportedly given was to grow the
depository's retail division. In the fourth quarter, Flagstar funded $590
million in retail mortgages, a slight decline from 3Q16 but almost double what
it did in the fourth quarter of 2015. In 4Q16, Flagstar originated $8.56
billion in residential loans, ranking 12th nationwide, per Inside Mortgage
Finance. Third-party lending accounts for most of its production."
Other lenders are reveling in their 2016 numbers. For
example, Salt Lake City's Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc. spread the word
that it funded nearly $6.3 billion in residential home loans, launched 40 new
branch locations nationwide and added more than 800 new
employees. "Additionally, 145 PRMI branch offices set new monthly or
annual production records. Most importantly, an extraordinary 9 out of 10
customers would recommend PRMI to a friend or family member." Congrats!
Here's some good news, unless you work for the SEC. The
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dropped the last two remaining civil
fraud charges in a long-running federal case against Larry Goldstone and
Clarence Simmons, former executives of Santa Fe-based Thornburg Mortgage.
This has been going on for nearly eight years since the firm went bankrupt in
2009. Remember that last June a U.S. District Court jury in Albuquerque found
in favor of the two Santa Fe residents on five fraud counts and failed to reach
a verdict on five other charges, including the central claim that the men had
filed a false financial statement inflating the company's income. And the SEC dropped
three of those charges in Septemberand a retrial for two final charges was set
to begin later this month - one claim that Goldstone and Simmons had
misrepresented information to auditors, and an additional claim against
Goldstone that he had made a false statement to investors.
Goldstone, the firm's former CEO, and Simmons, the former
chief financial officer, were accused by the SEC in March 2012, along with
chief accounting officer Jane Starrett, of trying to hide the company's
deteriorating financial condition, including an allegation that they schemed to
overstate the company's income by more than $420 million in 2007. The SEC began
investigating the case in 2008.
Trainings and Events - always good to learn new things!
In no particular order...
Need to rapidly grow your purchase
business? Check out this special live event this Thursday, 2/9, at 1PM ET
titled "How to Rapidly Build a Purchase Origination
Business". Ron Vaimberg, President and Executive Director
of nmpU, will be presenting via livestream video. One low
price and you or your entire office can attend this national live broadcast.
(This is NOT a Webinar). In just 90 minutes, Ron will show you exactly how
to win purchase business using no cost / low cost strategies in today's
competitive market. Only 200 seats will be sold for this
program. Please visit nmpULive.com for complete details and to capture one
of the few remaining spots. Save $100 with discount code "Chrisman".
MGIC offers a FREE skill-based training for
both Operations and Sales. For example, today Monday, February 6th, and again on Tuesday,
February 28th, MGIC is offering a Special Event: 2 hours of
training for Processors and Loan Officers with less than 3 years of experience
or for someone looking to buff and polish their expertise.
The NYMBA 2017 Convention "Great by
Choice" will be held April 3-5 at the Desmond Hotel in Albany. There
is a great line-up of speakers already scheduled including Rodrigo López,
Chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Maria Zywiciel with over twenty
years of financial services experience holding senior sales and management
positions always aimed at serving the U.S. Latino market. Matt Tully, vice
president of government and industry relations at Essent and yours truly, a
senior associate of the STRATMOR Group. The agenda, registration information and other details are now
available.
On February 9th, Join Buckley Sandler for a complimentary webinar. Learn about "W-2 Fraud -
A Privacy Risk for Employees and an Often Uninsured Risk for
Companies."
This month Arch MI offers "the right blend of
industry education for your career. Its professional webinars on processing,
appraisals, underwriting self-employed borrowers, and other essential mortgage
lending topics help grow your career and expand your opportunities. Attend on your desktop computer or preferred mobile device.
Audio streams through your device, no telephone connection required."
Franklin American Mortgage has published its February Wholesale "Monthly Customer Training
Calendar". This month's calendar offers a variety of training
opportunities such as "Loan Processing", "Shut the Door on
Fraud", "How to Review an Appraisal", "Not your Ordinary
Assets" and "Selling to Millennials"".
The Capital Markets: driven in part by investor moves
The big news last week was CitiMortgage entering a
sub-servicing agreement for a pool of Citi-owned loans and certain mortgage
servicing rights, while also signing a definitive agreement to sell the
mortgage servicing rights on the rest of the portfolio. Thus, CitiMortgage will
be effectively exiting mortgage servicing by the end of 2018. Sub-servicing
will be leveraged for all new originations beginning in 2018. This
decision will enable Citi to simplify operations, and allow a deeper focus in
developing and broadening relationships in key strategic markets. Citi will
continue to be committed to the Correspondent Channel and its approved lenders.
Greystone, a real estate lending, investment and
advisory company, announced it has provided a $5,221,000 Fannie Mae DUS Green
Mortgage Loan to refinance The Duddington in Washington, D.C. The Duddington is
a three-story, 34-unit residential market-rate rental building that was built
in 1910. The owners purchased the property in April 2014 and invested over $1.5
million in environmentally friendly capital improvements such as rooftop solar
panels, new roof, double-pane windows and replacement of the gas-fired boiler
heating system with in-unit individual HVAC systems. Because of the retrofits,
the building received the Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR
Certification in December 2016. The Duddington loan is a non-recourse,
10-year fixed rate loan with a 30-year amortization that received the Fannie
Mae Green Building Certification Pricing Break.
Fannie Mae's new investor reporting policy is now
in effect. Servicers must report loan activity according to the new investor
reporting policy requirements for borrower activity occurring on or after
February 1 (see the Release
Notes for details). Now through March 31, the post-delivery Servicing
Transfer Moratorium is in effect for all post-delivery transactions
that result in a change to the Fannie Mae seller/servicer number. Live webinars
run through February - register today and take advantage of helpful resources
on the Changes to Investor Reporting page.
FHA published Mortgagee Letter 2017-03, FHA Loan Review System -
Implementation and Process Changes. This Mortgagee Letter announces FHA's
intention to implement its new Loan Review System, which will provide an
electronic platform for FHA loan-level file reviews and other quality control
functions for Title II Single Family mortgages. The system implementation date
will be confirmed in a subsequent Mortgagee Letter.
In terms of interest rates, yes, last week we had some
minor moves, including some caused by Friday's employment data. But overall the
yield on the 10-year, if you want to use that as a bell weather, didn't vary
much from the 2.40-2.50% yield range last week. On Friday things wrapped up
with it yielding 2.49%, on the high side, and the 5-year note and agency MBS
sold off a couple ticks (32nds).
The data continues to show a solid U.S. economy, the Fed
continues to buy $1-2 billion a day of MBS, and the Fed presidents continue to
talk about future increases. Total transparency, right!? The Fed's eventual
tapering of their MBS holdings will transform the mortgage market into one that
is dominated by private investors. The devil's in the details...
This week, post-Super Bowl, has its share of scheduled
news. Will any of it change analyst's minds that the Fed will raise short-term
rates two or three times this year? Probably not. We have zip today of consequence.
Tomorrow we'll have some Trade Balance numbers, JOLTS Job Opening stats, and
Consumer Credit.
Wednesday we'll have the usual MBA read on last week's
applications, and then on Thursday is Initial Jobless Claims. Friday are some
Import Price figures along with the University of Michigan reports. We start
the week with rates better: the 10-year is yielding 2.43% and 30-year agency
MBS prices are better by about .250 versus Friday night.
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