Many company's doc drawers and
funders are coming back to work after Veteran's Day and realizing that there
are only 18 funding days in November. (Eleven left including today.)
Something tells me some are going to be working on the day after Thanksgiving -
which is pretty harsh given it is a Friday - to pull out another day and make
it 19.
For originators exploring options, "We hear a great deal
about the challenges facing both borrowers and lenders over availability and
ease of obtaining financing. With yesterday's observance of Veteran's Day,
it is a great reminder that we shouldn't lose sight of the VA Home Loan
Program. In some ways, it is a throw-back to the days of common-sense
underwriting. In a number of markets, no down financing is available
to over $1 million. iServe Residential Lending
is one lender who continues to impress, and has taken it upon themselves to
spread the word throughout the lending and real estate community - and directly
to our veterans and service members. Taking advantage of its national
presence, earlier this year iServe introduced its National VA Tour which
provides free VA Home Loan Seminars in every community that it serves.
JPMorgan said it will cut 3,000 jobs this year in its
mortgage and credit card divisions and 4,000 in other divisions as it seeks to
eliminate 7,000 positions. I am already receiving plenty of LinkedIn requests.
By the way, I created a system where you can post your resume for free at www.LenderNews.com.
The site is getting a lot of lender traffic and was setup for mortgage
professionals to find employers and for employers to post open positions.
"I continue to hear about pricing and comp plans that are
on, shall we say, the 'aggressive side' of regulation interpretation. Does
certain loan pricing comply with Reg. Z but potentially run afoul of Fair
Lending statutes? Apparently so as put forth in this article from Ballard
Spahr.
What does Michael Bloomberg think of the set of Dodd Frank laws?
He doesn't pull any punches.
Hey, we're coming up on the
holidays, but that won't stop the events and training:
Ellie Mae is providing a Complimentary Webinar on
November 19th regarding RESPA-TILA: The Closing Disclosure - Part 1. Register
now as space is limited click here.
MBA's Accounting and Financial Management Conference is also offering
Online Virtual Sessions. For more information, click here.
If you are interested in registering for MBA's
Independent Mortgage Bankers Conference scheduled for December 3rd-5th in
Coronado, click here. Should be a
great time!
MBA's National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Expo in Dallas
will be held in February 2015. For details, click here.
Texas Mortgage Bankers Association (TMBA)
is hosting two concurrent events; separate registration is required for the two
events. The Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending will be having
their 2nd annual Mortgage Industry Day on November 19th at 2:00 pm. This
meeting is complimentary but seating is limited. For information, click here. TMBA will also
be hosting its annual Warehouse Conclave also on November 19th from 2:00-5:00
pm with guest speaker, Brian Webster with the CFPB and many others. For session
information, click here.
Texas Mortgage Bankers Association (TMBA)
Annual Mortgage Servicing Forum brings together hundreds of real estate finance
professionals in the servicing industry. If interested in registration for the
December 1st and 2nd event, click here.
United Wholesale Mortgage is conducting a webinar on
November 12th discussing strategies to increase broker business. Attendees can also submit questions after the webinar
that will be promptly answered by a UWM account executive. Interested parties
can sign up for the webinar by clicking here.
Turning to the markets,
suddenly there is a lot going on in the secondary markets. And we
all know that demand for product helps drive rates, which in turn helps
borrowers. A Bloomberg article by Jody Shenn goes into detail on Redwood
Trust and jumbo mortgages. "After joining FHLB, REIT can now use
lender's advances to retain mortgages, 'an alternative to selling or
securitizing jumbo loans that we also plan to utilize,' President Brett
Nicholas said on Redwood's earnings call." Redwood began financing $236
million of jumbo loans with the Chicago Federal Home Loan Bank in the third
quarter. In fact Redwood's jumbo loan acquisitions nearly doubled over the 2nd
quarter to $1.8 billion and its pipeline ended at $1.3 billion. Many lenders
are seeing the most profits from selling whole loans (rather than spending the
money to securitize products) given the strong bank demand although most say
that the securitization market is in good shape as well. Redwood sold $456
million of securities from its portfolio to free up capital. But many see
continued problems with jumbo securities. The market is suffering from
illiquidity and nobody likes an illiquid market which in turn creates a wide
bid-ask spread (no surprise there) and volatility.
Sellers issued $2.28 billion of
private-label residential securitizations in seven deals in the past two
months. The mini-surge signals the possibility of a healthier market next year.
Redwood Trust last week sold its third deal of the year that included non-QM
collateral, which made up 1.5% of the pool. Those loans increased the
expected loss on the most senior ranked bonds by 90 basis points, to 5.7%.
On the non-QM supply side of
things, banks, large and small, are rolling along with portfolio products.
(Remember Wells dedicating 600 underwriters to the effort earlier this year?)
In the independent mortgage banker arena, California's RPM Mortgage
spread the word that it passed the $10 million mark in nonqualified mortgages,
and purportedly has a large contract to sell such loans to a large asset
manager who is committed to buy $2.5 billion of RPM's loans. As this commentary
has mentioned several times, QM or non-QM investors want yield, and RPM's
mortgages are in the mid 4s to high 5s.
Silvergate Bank is buying loans
from JMAC, private-equity firm Lone Star Funds has committed $1 billion to
purchase nonqualified mortgages from Caliber Home Loans, and
so on. Bond manager Western Asset Management Co. planned up to eight
commitments with lenders across the country, its chief operating officer told
Bloomberg News in June. Warehouse lenders are skittish. Many lenders continue
to be hesitant to offer the product due to legal risk: the fear of a flood of
lawsuits in the event of default, with borrowers trying to escape their debt by
citing violations of the new CFPB rules. Proponents remind us that anyone can
sue anyone else at any time.
The bond markets are open again
here in the United States today. Looking back to Monday, it was a quiet start
to the week. There wasn't much buying, or selling, of agency MBS happening. Is
production slowing down? This morning the MBA told us that apps last week were
down about 1% with refinancing apps about 2% but purchase apps increasing about
1%.
For excitement today we will
have...a $24 billion 10-yr note auction. Yippee. The 10-year had a 2.36% close
on Monday and in the early going today we're at 2.34% and agency MBS prices
are better by a smidge.
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