Paul P., writes, “Hope is a good companion but a poor guide.” But the nation is hoping that the share of loans in forbearance continues to decline. And it is. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 7 basis points from 2.96% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 2.89% as of September 26. According to MBA’s estimate, 1.4 million homeowners are in forbearance plans. A decrease has been expected for quite some time. Many borrowers reached the 18-month mark and are seeing their forbearance plans end. For those borrowers who have exited in August and September, the majority either enter deferral plans or obtain modifications. For not so good news, TPO margin compression continues. Margins have indeed compressed versus 2020, but those were astronomical levels benefiting lenders, and compared to historical averages the margins are not terrible, at least in the retail channel. But those zany wholesalers are another matter! Today’s audio version of the commentary is available here and this week’s is sponsored by Arch MI, offering credit risk enhancement products, expert risk management and financial solutions to help lenders and investors reduce their exposure to mortgage risk. Today is Part One of a thought leadership interview with John Sayre, VP of Client Success for Curinos, on trends lenders are dealing with as we enter the fourth quarter and look ahead to 2022.

Lender and Broker Products and Services

Tonight at 10 pm sharp, Stockholm time, students at the Lappis housing community will start screaming as a way to relieve stress, as they do every Tuesday. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all get together and yell until we were hoarse simply because the mortgage market wasn’t performing like we wanted it to? Don’t lose your voice. Instead, read Sales Boomerang’s Q3 Mortgage Market Opportunities Report to identify areas of opportunity your business should be focusing on. Then contact Sales Boomerang to learn more about how you could present those opportunities to your borrowers in Q4.

MLO exam fails like this cost $1,000s / month of downtime. What gets them passed? Is it smarts, or hard work?  We did the analysis and yep, it’s hard work. Our dashboard shows who is doing the work, down to number of sample attempts and scores. It helps to have the best-in-industry exam-prep, but it’s the data that allows clients to save $1000s. Contact Dave Olchek or request a demo: www.MortgageEducation.com  Hear what your colleagues have to say.

Are you headed to MBA Annual? Looking for a long-term strategy on reducing costs and scaling your business? Stop by booth 405 to connect with our team to discuss how we are helping clients scale and reducing costs by combining Automation with BPO solutions. Many of you know Sutherland as a business process outsourcing partner, but 60% of our engagements are focused on Customer Engagement Management. With over 260 partners worldwide, Sutherland has built a Digital eco-system that can streamline your organization and automate your customer happiness. If you would like to schedule a meeting, contact Neil Armstrong. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Black Knight is committed to delivering detailed, real-time MSR valuation information, and recently announced the integration of its MSR Platform with broker assumption sets from MorVest Capital, a well-respected MSR broker advisory. MorVest specializes in a variety of MSR functions, including trading and analytics, finance, strategic advisory and servicing retention, with an emphasis on personalized collaboration with clients to develop customized servicing retention strategies. Through this integration, Black Knight clients have access to additional market-informed MSR valuation assumption sets for use in a variety of solutions and services. In today’s market, with so many businesses’ financial results driven by MSR values and related business strategies, it’s critical to have a consistent cadence of valuation data to inform strategic retain/release decisioning and maintain transparency between period-end reporting. Learn more about Black Knight’s MSR Platform, and how its integration with trusted advisors like MorVest Capital can give your business a competitive edge.

Set yourself up for success during your busiest times! The last thing you want to worry about is the lack of efficiency between your platforms and data entry errors when you and your team don’t have the time. Richey May's RM Automate services, leveraging the world-class Zoral Automation Platform, give you full control to easily make real-time changes to your platform so you can maximize your efficiency and not worry about it during your busiest times.  From POS to underwriting, to loan delivery and trailing docs, our solution allows you to reimagine the entire loan origination process to fit your business and create efficiencies throughout the entire loan manufacturing process. Contact us to see a demo and to learn how you can drive enhanced efficiency throughout your operations.

Mortgage loan processing doesn’t have to be scary! With an all-in-one digital dashboard and a team of passionate processors ready and waiting for your loans, wemlo℠ makes loan processing more transparent, more efficient, and, dare we say it, fang-tastic! Book a demo today to see how wemlo is helping loan originators and brokers across the country close loans more effectively and squash their goals. NMLS ID 1853218.

XINNIX is hosting a must-attend event for anyone who sells or manages people who sell. Reserve your seat for “What It Takes to Be Successful in Selling” happening live on Wednesday, October 13 at 12 PM ET, presented by XINNIX EVP and seasoned sales veteran, Michael “Go-To” Norton. In this webinar, Norton will share his unique perspectives and the lessons he has learned from sales legends like Zig Ziglar, Tom Ziglar and Tom Hopkins that, together, paint a picture of what a day in the life of a successful salesperson should look like. As an added bonus, all registrants will receive a complimentary digital copy of Michael’s book, The “Ifications” of Selling, in which he has captured these learnings and so much more. Leaders, make sure to invite your entire team to attend!

During COVID, historically high loan volumes drove the industry toward digital lending. That was good as the new technologies lenders employed helped them meet changing borrower expectations and deal with rising origination costs. But as a result, lenders were thrown into the deep end of the API pool, a very crowded lending ecosystem where data was flying rapidly between systems in a haphazard manner. Lenders leveraging Fiserv’s LoanComplete solution with advanced APIs have access to a life-of-loan solution that automates mortgage loan processing and servicing tasks with modules like Intelligent Content Recognition, advanced Comparalytics, Loan Tracker and more. It takes more than a connection to the new mortgage ecosystem to succeed today. It takes a partner like Fiserv. Find out what everyone's talking about by downloading Fiserv’s new white paper, “Achieving Success in the New Mortgage Ecosystem” today. And then email DLOmortgagesales@fiserv.com to schedule a meeting at the MBA Annual in San Diego.

Mergers and Corporate Structure

How do you own your company? Many large law firms have moved to a two-tiered partnership model, with equity and non-equity partners. Equity partners are considered to have ownership stakes in the firm, and share in the profits (and losses) of the firm. Partnerships. Most law firms function on the partnership model. A few partners provide the startup capital for the firm, hire associates, and take home the profit. Lawyers generate income for the firm. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler cautioned a small business-focused committee that mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies are costly ways of going public that may not benefit young businesses and their investors.

In the mortgage world, companies like Better and United Wholesale are well known for their SPAC use.

UniversalCIS, “a market-leading, technology-enabled provider of credit data and related origination solutions in the mortgage industry,” and Credit Plus, “a leading provider of mortgage verifications and business credit reports,” today announced the merger of their companies. The new company will serve over 6,500 clients in North America (2,500 lenders from Credit Plus and 4,000 clients from UniversalCIS). UniversalCIS is becoming good at this, having acquired Universal Credit, CIS Credit, Avantus, DataFacts and SharperLending as well as an investment from Lovell Minnick Partners earlier this year.

“The combined business will have over 750 employees and will maintain all of its current operations centers in 12 states. UniversalCIS and Credit Plus will initially retain their brands and gradually combine their operations with plans to rebrand the new company in the future. The business will be headquartered in Philadelphia and led by the combined executive teams of UniversalCIS and Credit Plus, who will all maintain leadership roles going forward. UniversalCIS Chairman Perry Steiner will become Chairman and CEO of the business, Jerry Haftmann will become Vice Chairman and Credit Plus’ CEO Greg Holmes will become Chief Revenue Officer… Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.”

Events, In-person and Online

The Modern Mortgage SUMMIT is tomorrow, Wednesday, 10/6. This one-day virtual event features over twenty top producing loan officers: Learn the scripts and best practices of America’s most valuable and effective loan officers. Yes, learn virtually with America's best modern mortgage advisors.

This Friday, October 8, MBA President and CEO Bob Broeksmit is co-hosting The Mortgage Collaborative’s Rundown with Rich Swerbinsky, the COO of The Mortgage Collaborative, and me as we discuss current events in the mortgage market for 45 minutes on Friday at 3PM ET in “The Rundown with Rich and Rob.”

The PRMG University TPO October training calendar is up. Webinar options include MGIC - Fundamentals of the Mortgage Process Part I on Monday, October 25th, Radian - Liquid Assets on Monday, October 11th, Essent - Mortgage Fraud Schemes and Red Flags on Friday, October 8th, and Ruby Jumbo on Tuesday, October 19th. View the complete PRMG training schedule.

loanDepot’s October 2021 training schedule includes mello® Broker Portal Training, mello® Digital Verifications, and Renovation Training. View loanDepot October training calendar and register for one or several classes.

Arch MI’s Monthly Webinar Course Offerings are available for registration. October’s featured webinar is Analyzing Appraisals for Single-Family Residences: Identifying the Key Areas of the Uniform Residential Appraisal Report.

This October, Enact (formerly Genworth Mortgage Insurance) will host sessions on enhancing customer service through communication with topics covering best practices for a smoother customer experience and avoiding common underwriting errors. Contact your Enact Sales rep to sign up for the courses that interest you. Additionally, you can browse and access Enact’s course catalog of on-demand webinars.

Celebrating Mortgage Pros Throughout Greater LA, California Mortgage Expo: San Francisco / Oakland. Don't Miss the Bay Area Show, Live & In Person, coming up on Tuesday, October 12 at the Hilton Oakland Airport. Register now for free when you use code OCNFREE. Includes Free optional NMLS Class.

Anyone who sells or manages people who sell will benefit by joining XINNIX on Wednesday, October 13 at 12 PM ET for the opportunity to learn from seasoned sales veteran Michael “Go-To” Norton, EVP of XINNIX about the lessons he has learned from sales legends like Zig Ziglar, Tom Ziglar and Tom Hopkins. Register for XINNIX’s ENERGY™ Webinar: What It Takes To Be Successful In Selling.

MMLA’s Virtual Annual “Hot Topics” Compliance Webinar on October 13 and 14 will address Advertising under TILA and RESPA. Meeting Log-in will be sent day before the event.

Todd Duncan’s Sales Mastery three-day event, October 13–15 is fully virtual and 100% free for all attendees. This is Todd’s favorite event of the year because it’s all about giving you the mindset, strategies, and easy-to-follow steps to help you make more money in a very short amount of time.

Strengthen Your Portfolio with USDA's Free, Live, Virtual Appraisal and Property Training on Thursday, October 14th. Discussion topics include Appraisal requirements and common errors,

property and site requirements, frequently asked questions, and Forum for Q&A.

In San Diego, on October 16th is a full day event (the mPowering You Summit) you can join the conversation and be part the mPower movement.

Of course, from October 17-20 is the MBA’s annual Convention and Expo in San Diego! 3,000 have registered.

Due to high demand, USDA is providing an additional live, virtual October 19 training of its Strengthen Your Portfolio with USDA's Appraisal and Property Training.

Capital Markets

There are three forces driving mortgage rates these days, and rates in general: uncertainty about the effects of the pandemic drives money to the safety of fixed income securities moving rates lower, inflation fear backed by data moves rates higher, and an infrastructure bill that will cause more Treasury borrowing and higher Treasury yields.

But there isn’t a whole lot to report about what drove moves in the bond market, and thus interest rates, yesterday. I’ll likely repeat myself for the rest of the week, as it should be said that investors are awaiting Friday’s payrolls report, which is expected to show the U.S. economy added over 400k jobs in September (August was a big miss).

There was only one domestic economic release of note on the day, August Factory orders for manufactured goods, which increased 1.2 percent month-over-month as the pace of order growth, particularly durable goods, improved noticeably. It is reflective of an improved growth outlook following poor sentiment over the majority of summer caused by the Delta variant. In Washington, where the podcast is being recorded for the first couple days of this week, the U.S. House of Representatives delayed its vote on a $1 trillion spending plan until a concurrent vote on a larger reconciliation package, which will reportedly be reduced to a maximum of $2.3 trillion from $3.5 trillion, happens.

The August trade deficit led off today’s calendar ($73.3 billion deficit). Later this morning brings Redbook same store sales for the week ending October 2, non-manufacturing PMIs for September (Markit and ISM), and two Fed speakers (Richmond’s Barkin and Vice Chair of Supervision Quarles). The Desk of the NY Fed will purchase up to $4.8 billion of conventionals across 30-year 2 percent and 2.5 percent and 15-year 1.5 percent and 2 percent. We begin the day with Agency MBS prices worse/down a few ticks and the 10-year yielding 1.50 after closing yesterday at 1.48 percent.

Employment and Transitions

Thrive Mortgage is expanding its legendary Process Automation Team by adding an experienced Senior Software & Intelligent Automation Architect. Thrive Mortgage is well-known as a mortgage lender who doesn’t think like one.  Since its inception 20 years ago, Thrive has fostered an environment of innovation and change in the mortgage industry. “For years, our Process Automation Team has been on the cutting edge of creating world-class lending experiences for our clients,” stated Selene Kellam, COO of Thrive. “We have led the way in turn times, Remote Online Notary eClosings, unique program offerings… it all stems from thinking of unique solutions to age-old problems. We invite any professionals looking to make their final career move to connect with us at Info@ThriveMortgage.com or visit us here to learn more about available growth opportunities.” Together we Thrive!

Engage. Learn. Discuss. That’s what Meet Motto events are all about, and we wanted to personally invite you to our next virtual get-together on Oct. 21, 2021, at 12 pm MDT / 2pm EDT. You’ll have the opportunity to connect with current Motto Mortgage broker owners, discuss the benefits of franchise ownership, gain exclusive insight into why Motto Mortgage owners purchased their franchise, and get all of your questions answered along the way. If you’re interested in mortgage brokerage franchise ownership, this is one event you don’t want to miss. There’s no pressure. There’s no catch. We just want to provide you with the information you need to be confident in the next steps of your career, especially if that includes owning a mortgage brokerage. If you want to learn more about joining the Motto Mortgage network, click here to register. Hope to see you there!

We see sign on bonuses that aim to attract employees, but beneath the surface, are you just another assembly line worker, hired to simply push paper? What do you really mean to your organization and to your clients? What about a job worth having, a company that you are proud to work for, or working relationships that are enriching? Dean Harrington, founder of Shamrock Home Loans, touches upon this in his impressive weekly video-cast on leadership called the Morning Huddle, where he speaks about sports, business and culture. We attract top loan officer talent and the largest production teams. Be a part of something different. Even if you are happy where you are, you should know who we are. A 33-year-old, award winning lender, expanding across The United States. You deserve more… Aim for something greater by contacting jointherock@shamrockhomeloans.com.

Chris Maloney has become a member of the BOK Financial team as a mortgage strategist, with time spent at Bloomberg News, Neuberger Berman, and Lehman Brothers.

Cherry Creek Mortgage announced that Phil Tidwell has been promoted to VP of Marketing Operations from his prior role as Director of Marketing Operations.