The focus is on the holidays but there is plenty of 2019 wedding planning occurring. Despite that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, adults are increasingly delaying saying, “I Do” as the median age at first marriage continues to climb by approximately 2% compared to 2003. And in 2018, there were 8.5 million unmarried opposite-sex couples living together. Remember decades ago when that was a cause of concern for processors and underwriters?

Lender Products and Services

Live Well Financial (NMLS #1177) is excited to announce that industry veteran Dan Mahoney has joined the company as an Account Executive with its wholesale division. Dan brings more than 20 years’ experience to Live Well which offers Conventional, FHA, VA, and reverse mortgage loan products to its partners in the Wholesale Division. Live Well prides itself on being an industry leader with best in class service, competitive pricing, and a common-sense underwriting approach whose focus is on creating strong partnerships with closed loan sellers, principal agents and wholesale brokers. “Our ability to offer both forward and reverse mortgages in all of our channels distinguishes us from other providers. If you are a broker, a correspondent lender, or a non-delegated correspondent, please reach out to Dan to learn how Live Well is committed to be your wholesale partner for both reverse and forward mortgages.”

Maxwell, the award-winning digital mortgage point-of-sale designed for small- to mid-size lenders, has officially released its new D1C Approved Verification Suite. The Maxwell Verification Suite delivers a streamlined borrower experience to verify assets, income, employment and tax transcripts, all provided by Day 1 Certainty™ approved verification suppliers for Fannie Mae Desktop Underwriter®. Maxwell’s CTO Rutul Dave gave me the inside scoop on how they design software at Maxwell: "We believe great integrations take on the difficult work of making the experience delightful. That means not just exchanging data, but introducing logic, juggling all the stakeholders, and simplifying the complex. So, for example, when a borrower goes through our 4506-T flow, it's a seamless experience. In just a few clicks, the data is verified and a high level of integrity is maintained. That's just how great software should work." If you’re interested in point-of-sale solutions, I urge you to reach out explore Maxwell’s offering.

ARIVE has had over 13,000 independent loan originators pre-register for its new digital mortgage broker ecosystem designed to connect consumer, mortgage broker, and wholesale lenders in one end-to-end platform. ARIVE is betting big on growth in the wholesale space for independent originators, and lenders are responding. Wholesale market leaders United Wholesale Mortgage (#1), Caliber Home Loans (#2), Stearns Lending (#3), Flagstar Bank (#7) and Home Point Financial (#8) have all signed on. Combined, these lenders make up nearly half of wholesale market share, positioning ARIVE and independent originators for success.

Lendsnap is the Digital Mortgage front end of choice for non-QM, wholesale, and delegated lending. “Our Connected lending partners close more loans faster by importing up to 24 months of original bank and investment statement PDFs. When your busy customers don’t have to manually download or update statements constantly, you can get them clear to close in days instead of weeks. Our simple yet powerful system makes every member of your loan production team more productive. All this functionality is built in to our SOC2-audited platform with no hidden fees or setup charges. Lendsnap replaces many services you pay for separately today and was built to fit your current workflow. Request a free consultation today to go Digital with Lendsnap. Lendsnap. Get Connected™.

This recent webinar from TMS talks about an area I often see overlooked when it comes to subservicing. Don’t miss out on listening to it! During the webinar, Ali Vafai, TMS president, and Barbara Yolles, TMS chief strategy officer, unpack the importance of maintaining real-time relationships with your customers. Your customers are your greatest asset, and yet, you hand them over to a sub-par subservicer with antiquated technology. It’s time to demand more from your subservicer! Download a full recording of the webinar here to learn how happy customers equal future growth and the role technology plays in it.

Nations Direct Mortgage, an industry leading purchase lender based in Orange County, CA, has introduced a new suite of purchase-oriented products designed to help its Broker Partners qualify more borrowers. This enhanced product line includes an aggressively priced Premier Conventional product as well as a suite of proprietary Non-QM and Jumbo products that will add to their extensive Non-Agency product offering. With excellent pricing, several doc type options and cutting-edge guidelines, these SUPERPURCHASE POWER products are designed to help Brokers increase their book of business. Established in 2007, Nations Direct Mortgage is solely focused on Wholesale partnerships. The company prides itself on having a best-in-class AE comp plan and employing industry experts dedicated to delivering exceptional service. If you’re interested in learning more, please contact Martin Warren, Director of Lending.

Mortgage Possible launched nationally and named Jeff Onofrio as the Managing Director of Renovation, Construction and National Production. Onofrio took his previous company from being non-existent in renovation loans to being ranked #6 in the nation at the highest point based upon the FHA 203k endorsement schedule. He created a platform that allowed all originators, regardless of experience level, to be able to originate FHA 203k, Fannie Homestyle and Construction to Perm loans. In his new role at Mortgage Possible, Onofrio will be creating an entirely new strategy to build up to the #1 renovation and construction lender in the country. As part of the strategy, Mortgage Possible will have new proprietary products rolling out in the coming weeks. “I am thrilled for the opportunity to lead Mortgage Possible and am confident that our leadership team will succeed in making us the leading renovation and construction lender in the U.S,” said Onofrio.

Not everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas! At NAMB National this weekend, Home Point Financial announced a new product offering to be available in early 2019,

Home Point Edge. The new product line will provide a variety of Non-Agency solutions for brokers, correspondents and their clients, giving them alternative ways for homebuyers to qualify for a home mortgage. As Phil Shoemaker, Chief Production Officer said, “It’s going to be a game-changer.” Look for more details and product news coming soon.

Rates

The U.S. 10-year continued its downward trend to close last week, clocking out -2bps to 2.85% as the stock market continued to flounder, trade concerns continued to fester, and expectations for an overly aggressive Federal Reserve in 2019 continued to fall by the wayside. A curve steepening was seen in response to the November employment report and a contention from St. Louis Fed President Bullard that the Fed could consider delaying a rate hike at the December FOMC meeting due to the narrowed yield curve. Fed Chair Powell noted that the U.S. economy is strong overall but didn’t make any comments on monetary policy in his remarks to close the week. Fed Governor Lael Brainard said near-term rate hikes are appropriate.

On the trade front, trade adviser Peter Navarro stated the president will raise the tariff rate to 25% on $200 billion tariff tranche if trade matters aren't resolved in 90-day window. Internationally, UK Prime Minister May is weighing options on the Brexit vote, but as of now the vote is still scheduled to take place in Parliament on Dec. 11 And OPEC and OPEC+ producers (and Russia importantly) agreed to cut daily production by 1.2 million barrels per day. Iran is exempted from the production cut agreement. Finally, November nonfarm payroll growth was a little light of expectations on Friday, and the wage acceleration the Federal Reserve has been bracing for was missing, but this likely won’t keep the Federal Reserve from raising the target range for the fed funds rate at its December FOMC meeting.

This week includes releases on wholesale and retail inflation (Tuesday & Wednesday), import prices (Thursday) and retail sales, industrial production/capacity utilization, business inventories and the Markit PMI flashes, all on Friday. Central bank decisions are due from the ECB, SNB, and Norges Bank, all on Thursday. (Ours is next week.) Also of note and potentially market moving will be Tuesday's House of Commons Vote in the UK on the Brexit withdrawal treaty which has already seen significant opposition. There is also an EU summit on Thursday and Friday in Brussels.

Today's calendar is light, starting at 10AM ET with the Employment Trends Index for November and October job openings from JOLTS. We begin today with the 10-year yielding 2.86% and Agency MBS prices roughly unchanged from Friday.

Jobs, Promotions, and Personnel Moves

“Momentum in business. It starts with taking that bold first step. Putting one foot in front of the other. And before you know it, you’re running. At Motto Mortgage, we’ve run faster than most. Franchise Grade® reviewed sales information in 2,500 Franchise Disclosure Documents (issued during a 12-month period ending August 30, 2018) and showed we’re among the top 1 percent of fastest-growing emerging franchises in 2018. Why? Because our mortgage-in-a-box concept just makes sense. From franchise set up to licensing to marketing support (and everything in-between) you get all the tools you need to hit the ground running. Our strength isn’t just in this unique mortgage brokerage model but in our numbers too. In under two years, we’ve sold 100 franchises which means our momentum is real. Contact our team at mottomortgage.com/franchises (866.668.8649) to learn why joining our network is the first step in running toward your dream.”

Want to start a WHOLESALE channel or make your existing wholesale much more profitable? Do it on the fly for a fraction of the cost of fancy, heavy, “legacy” platforms with ReadyPrice. The ReadyPrice RETAIL & WHOLESALE enterprise-strength LOS with an embedded multi-investor PPE and proprietary “error trapping” tech is the answer for any sized lender (or brokers wanting to become bankers). The ReadyPrice all-in-one RETAIL AND WHOLESALE platforms are fully configured out of the box, are up to 80% less expensive than heavy, “mature” competitors, come complete with D1C, deep Fannie DU, EarlyCheck, etc. integrations and can be stood-up in a couple of weeks. Or, you can easily and inexpensively customize / configure her to easily fund thousands of loans per month from thousands of MLOs or brokers, for example. The ReadyPrice LOS/PPE has funded over 300k units for $70 billion and is leading the way forward for today’s mortgage bankers as we utilize essential mortgage tech. Call management at (408) 357–0931 or email hello@readyprice.com to receive a free demo today.

Christmas is just two weeks away, and Hanukkah ends tonight.  What’s on your wish list? A more supportive and better executing team?  Perhaps a direct line to decision makers? Then you should consider aligning yourself with Nations Lending. “Our company was just named to the prestigious Weatherhead 100 Centurions List, a very short list of one of the top growing companies based on revenue. Nations Lending, is an Ohio-based, full-service national lender licensed in 47 states. We are growing our retail footprint rapidly from coast-to-coast, by adding top producers like you. Our proven strategy strips away all the headaches you’ll find with the big brokers and banks. Don’t go to work one more day and lose money – join our winning team! If interested, contact Division Retail Store Sales Manager, Jordan Gerard (337 501-0155) or Division Retail Branch Sales Manager, Derek DeGuits (732-580-5038).  For more information and opportunity on how to join our growing organization, please visit the company's website.”

Due to its rapid growth, SocialSurvey is looking for Regional VPs of Business Development to open its Southwest, Midwest, and Southeast regions. Candidates must have proven success selling tech or services into the mortgage vertical. SocialSurvey, known for its mortgage reviews platform, now offers social media compliance monitoring as a part of their integrated platform. YTD, they have created over 600,000 verified mortgage transaction reviews and shared those reviews more than 4 million times on social sites. Their system has also helped generate thousands more Zillow, GoogleMyBusiness, BBB, and Credit Karma reviews to help clients boost their online reputation. SocialSurvey acts as an enterprise feedback tool that drives employee engagement and behavior. Representing SocialSurvey is a great opportunity for somebody with the right experience and contacts. Are you ready for something different? Send confidential resume and contact info to Gaby Mota for immediate consideration.

Congrats to Laureen Barnes whom Redwood Credit Union has promoted to manager of mortgage lending, to implement and lead RCU’s residential mortgage lending channels with a focus on providing excellent service and sound lending.