(Thanks to Larry C. for this oldie but
goodie.)
The 50-year-old son takes his 85-year-old
dad to Las Vegas to celebrate the father's birthday.
The son arranges for a gorgeous lady to go
to the old man's room.
She knocks and he opens.
She is dressed in a coat and nothing
else.
She cries out, "I am here to offer you
super sex!"
The old man replies, "I better have
the soup, the sex might kill me!"
Who can you trust? Digital Journal reports new malware targets
Google Chrome users with a pop up that indicates a new font needs to be
installed for websites to load properly. Those who click on it download the
malware. We can't even trust the game Monopoly to be...immune from change.
Monopoly, apparently thinking that "this will really liven things up &
bolster sales," has swapped out three of its game pieces (thimble, boot,
wheelbarrow) for three new ones: a rubber duck, a T. rex and a penguin. But
really, how often do you need to buy a new Monopoly game?
Free webinars!
This year is off to an interesting start. And with the
activity going on in Washington, higher interest rates and low listing inventor
loan officers are asking ... Will 2017 be a good year for lending? and What
initiatives should I take to ensure growth in my business? Join Dave Savage,
CEO of Mortgage Coach, and Market Expert Dan Rawitch this Wednesday March 22, at
10am pacific to hear their perspective on interest rates and market opportunity
for Spring home buying season. Dan and Dave will offer ideas on the best way to
deliver market updates to Realtors to increase referrals and close more loans. Sign up here.
Video marketing has fundamentally changed the way top
lenders are deepening relationships with prospects and clients while
differentiating themselves from their competitors. Join Total Expert and BombBomb for a free webinar on Tuesday,
March 21 at 2pm ET called "Capitalize on Video Marketing." We will
cover how lenders are using video marketing to improve lead conversion, build relationships
and increase referrals. Participants of this free, 60-minute webinar will walk
away with the knowledge of how to lay the groundwork for an enterprise-level
video marketing strategy and tactical examples to add video into their
day-to-day communications. Seats are limited for this live webinar, so register today.
There are only 2 days left to register!2017 is the year of
mortgage tech integration. Is your LO team ready? Join me on Thursday,
March 23rd at 1-2pm ET for my webinar The Future of Mortgage Technology. Loan officers are
placing increasing demands on the technologies they rely on to grow their
businesses. At the same time, they are experiencing "tool fatigue" as
inboxes fill with pitches for products that promise end-to-end nirvana. But
most LO's will tell you they don't need new tools, they just want the great
platforms they already use to talk to each other. Moderated by tech industry
veteran and Floify CMO, Holly Hamann, I'll share insights on how the
fusion of mortgage tech will impact LO's, which processes will be affected
first, and what new skill sets you'll need on your teams. Register here!
We all know that the best prospective borrowers to work
with are ones that were referred to you from past clients. National Mortgage
Professional Magazine is presenting a webinar entitled Driving
Referrals to Your Relationship Business on Thursday, March 23 at 2:00
p.m. EDT / 11 a.m. PDT. In this complimentary webinar, Dan Hodges, Founder and
Chief Strategist of Reach 150 will show you how to make yourself more
"refer-able" to your sphere, how to drive a higher volume of
referrals from your sphere and the best tips to CLOSE the referrals that
you get. Click here to sign up for this complimentary webinar.
Zillow chatter
Yesterday the commentary mentioned receiving a note from
one industry vet regarding Zillow, the CFPB, CIDs (Civil Investigative Demand),
and a UDAAP charge for providing "substantial assistance" in allowing
real estate agents/loan officers to knowingly violate RESPA. The opinion
note continued:
"To the best of my understanding Zillow breaks down
the % of value lender receives compared to agents by using a five-step
calculation approach and assigns a weighting mechanism to it. So, if
Zillow says a 50/50 allocation their internal calculations for the Lender's
appearance on their Premier Agent website is the fair market value they have
internal worksheets which might show that more than 10% of the overall
calculation can be assigned to this metric. So, if one LO is paying $100
dollars for the website advertising on a 50/50 split, the internal Zillow
numbers say that ALL of the LO's combined shouldn't pay more than
$10. Zillow's co-marketing worksheet is something every lender across the
US needs to ask for and analyze to ensure the mathematical calculations for
fair market valuation.
"It is rumored that the Zillow Long Form program
(designed for Lenders) is not a target by the CFPB. My compliance person
thinks that if the CFPB does go after this type of advertising it could create
some significant market disruptions for lending, so I do not see the CFPB
coming down on this particular product. Zillow, however, is a licensed
real estate brokerage so keep that in mind too. The industry should keep
in mind the differences between the two programs (Long Form and the Premier
Lender/Premier Agent), and do their own research.
"Zillow isn't the only one with issues though as
Commissions Inc., Boomtown, Realtor.com, and others are also problematic and the
regulators know it. Realtor.com, for example, only receives money from one
party (typically the Lender) in a co-lead share arrangement and then sends the
leads to the realtor directly and the realtor is responsible for sending those
leads to the LO. As the industry saw in the Prospect case this is out of
compliance in the CFPB's eyes from a RESPA perspective as those parties would
both need to get leads separately and independently of each other which is why
many lenders have pulled out of Realtor.com advertising over the last month. Regulators,
including the CFPB, are concerned with real estate lead sharing/advertising
portals in the market place in general, and we can all bet that state mortgage
regulators have been communicating with each other as well as the CFPB."
(More notes on the subject this Saturday.)
Capital Markets
"Rob, has anything changed regarding the basic
rating agency model, where the well-known agencies (Moody's, S&P, Fitch)
are paid by the issuer to rate their MBS, and if the issuer doesn't like the
rating moves on to another rating agency?" No, it hasn't changed. Don't
forget the Moody's settlement - $864 million essentially for not following their own
published ratings standards. What has been changing is the loss provisions
& credit enhancements. Issuers now are holding back less than they were a
couple years ago, with the percentages returning to levels closer to where they
were ten years ago, to get deals done. Most agree that credit enhancement
levels are still higher than they were pre-crisis, but we're still just a
trickle of PL MBS issuance with so many other barriers still in the way.
Issuers and investors are looking to the Rating Agencies
to develop and maintain credit standards across all assets sectors that can be
relied upon. A tremendous amount of progress has been made developing those
standards and confidence has been restored as a result. As security issuance
volume increases, however, there is a growing concern that the Rating Agencies
will resort back their post financial crisis ways by focusing on their revenue
models and not on their credit models. The return of the Private Label Security
market is critical for the non-agency mortgage market to deliver attractive
mortgage products and rates to borrowers and provide continuous liquidity
outlets for originators, the Rating Agencies play a vital role with this
effort.
Turning to rates, yes, everyone (and their brother) thinks
rates are heading higher this year. But even if short term rates head higher,
we could still see long term rates not move as much, leading to a flatter
yield curve. The "flat yield curve" is a yield curve in which
there is little difference between short-term and long-term rates for bonds of
the same credit quality. This type of yield curve is often seen during
transitions between normal and inverted curves. For us novices, an easy way
to think of it is if the Fed raises rates and 30-year mortgage rates don't
budge.
When inflation is less of a concern, causing the spread
(difference) between short term rates (less than a year maturity) and long term
rates (10 years and beyond) to narrow. A flattening can also occur in
anticipation of slower economic growth. And sometimes, the curve flattens when
short-term rates rise on the expectation that the Federal Reserve will raise
interest rates - and that is what is happening now.
And financial markets rarely march steadily in one
direction anyway. Yesterday, for example, on a very light-volume day, U.S.
Treasury and agency MBS prices traded higher, helped by declines in oil (less
inflation) and equity markets helped to support buying of fixed-income assets.
Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said that three Fed rate hikes in 2017 are
"entirely possible" although the final number could be higher or
lower depending on the economic outlook. Is this news to anyone? For numbers
the 10-year improved .250 in price and ended yielding 2.47%; 5-year Treasuries
and MBS prices improved about .125.
For news today, there is little of consequence although we
will see the Q4 current account and the Philadelphia Fed Nonmanufacturing
Index. And let's not forget the usual bevvy of Fed speakers. We commence
Tuesday with rates slightly higher: the 10-year is yielding 2.49% and agency
MBS prices are worse about .125 (depending on coupon) versus last night.
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