The way bond math works, every man, woman, and child that owns a fixed-income security issued when rates were lower is now underwater on that bond or that security. As long as they continue to collect payments on that coupon, and don’t have to sell it, fine. If they are forced to sell the security at a loss and book it, that’s a different story. When people want their money out of a bank, and the bank needs to sell securities to pay off depositors, well, we’ve seen how that plays out. Along those lines, big bank problems make the headlines, but there are plenty of smaller depository bank mergers and acquisitions going on that don’t make the headlines. And the same thing is happening with vendors and mortgage bankers & brokers. Before I forget, anyone can post a resume for free here and employers can view them for several months at a nominal charge. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week is sponsored by Black Knight, Inc. As a premier provider of innovative, high-performance software, data and analytics for mortgage and home equity lending and servicing, Black Knight, Inc. is transforming the mortgage industry through its best in class solutions. Listen to an interview with Argyle’s Matt Gomes on alternative credit data and how it is enabling new and creative lending practices.)

Lender and Broker Services, Products, and Software

Memphis may be regarded as the birthplace of rock and roll, but Graceland isn’t the only stop to pencil into your schedule during MBA Great River. Plan to attend the 7-in-7 Keynote Session on Wednesday, April 5, at 1:30 p.m., where Optimal Blue’s secondary marketing expert Colleen Flynn will cover the CompassEdge hedging and loan trading platform. This revolutionary solution combines Optimal Blue’s unmatched pipeline risk management tools and analytics with dynamic loan sale and MSR valuation functionality. And later in the afternoon, be sure to catch Flynn again in a breakout panel session titled, “Capital Markets in 2023: The Only Consistent Variable is Change.” Both sessions will provide invaluable insight to support the success of your business. We hope to see you in Memphis!

Build your business by serving our Active-Duty Military and Veterans for VA Loans and beyond. Become a Certified Military Home Specialist today! This 2-Hour self-paced - Basic Training course provides loan officers, realtors, and housing professionals with a clear understanding of how to work with military borrowers, understand the 70+ different pay categories, the complexity of the military and veterans' housing and budgeting needs, and delivers the tools and knowledge necessary to provide an accurate and competitive service to military borrowers in a timely manner. Established credibility and extended visibility in the military community with the knowledge you will gain in this course. By improving your skill set of working with military clients, you can rest assured that they will enjoy a more professional and positive mortgage financing experience. They are our heroes, be their hero as their conduit to obtain financing for their home. Sign up here to become a Certified Military Home Specialist! Get your team involved to create a seamless process. Please contact us to discuss team and corporate discount options.

ICE Virtual Experience 2023 opens April 10: Here’s your complimentary all-access pass. Whether you missed joining your industry colleagues in Las Vegas earlier this month, or you just want to relive the excitement, ICE Virtual Experience 2023 is bringing the best content from the conference to you. For a limited time only, ICE Mortgage Technology® is giving its customers complimentary access to replays of this year’s general sessions, popular breakout sessions, and much more. Access will only be available between April 10-28, 2023. Register now.

What’s in a name? Top 10 Subservicer TMS is transitioning its subservicing operations to our FDIC insured bank depository institution: Servbank. The leading experience you have come to expect from TMS is coming together with the surety you deserve from a bank. As a mortgage subservicer and a bank, Servbank will be able to offer new liquidity and income opportunities for lenders looking to shore up their balance sheets. The transition will also bring lenders unprecedented levels of security. TMS’s existing culture of compliance is now buttressed by the strict compliance standards required of a depository institution. Curious to learn more? Read the full blog here.

Are you tired of having to adjust head count every time the market changes? The Mortgage Automation Suite, brought to you by Richey May and Zoral, can help. With scalable automated solutions that improve accuracy while reducing repurchases and costs, your business will be well-equipped for any market cycle. Leveraging this powerful automation will allow your team to close loans more easily, helping to retain your best staff. Plus, it adds the extra layer of stability needed during difficult times; something we could all use a bit more of these days! Find out how the Mortgage Automation Suite from Richey May & Zoral can help you today. Email us.

“Stewart is More Than Title. Our suite of Home Equity solutions will improve your transaction process and your borrower experience. Our HomeAcuity™ offering includes: data for portfolio review, monitoring and customer acquisition; credit, capacity, verification and fraud protection solutions; point of sale borrower experience; a suite of home equity valuation products, with the ability to automatically match product to risk; property reports, master service policy and ALTA title insurance options; and flexible signing & closing options, including mobile in-person, remote online notarization, in-branch and hybrid eClosings. Contact your Stewart Lender Services Representative or visit Stewart HomeAcuity for more information. Interested in meeting at CBA live or learning more? Email us.”

Are your LOs ready for the Spring buying season? Give them the toolkit to close 20% more loans. As Spring buying season approaches and mortgage applications increase, do the loan officers in your organization have the tools to deliver fast, exceptional results? Maxwell Point of Sale technology provides those tools, helping LOs to close 20% more loans and shave 13 days off their time-to-close. Unique features that will fuel LO success includes a flexible mobile app, streamlined LO landing pages, open communication with real estate agents and a robust pricing comparison tool. Couple these tools with a borrower experience that attracts, retains, and delights borrowers like never before, and your loan officers will be ready for a successful season. Hop into the Spring buying season with happy LOs and satisfied borrowers. Schedule a demo with our team to learn how Maxwell Point of Sale can work for your organization.

Do your customers think you’re credible? Building meaningful rapport with your customers creates a relationship that is timeless, enduring everything from pandemics to bank failures. Building this relationship demands a modern approach to client engagement, one built through education, technical prowess, and data accuracy. Today’s successful lenders have the wherewithal to use data to successfully target and retain new customers. How do you deliver value to entice new customers? Cole Information has the answer. Stop reaching out to prospects blindly: No one wins with this approach. When you touch a potential customer, do it with accurate, comprehensive information that is both actionable and readily integrates into your auto-dialer or CRM. Do it with a current and complete dataset that includes income, vehicle ownership, credit indication, and so much more. This is how you build relevant client relationships! Find the prospecting data you’re missing at Cole Information!

The average human attention span is 8.25 seconds - some research suggests that Gen Z's span is closer to 2 seconds. So when your prospects are browsing your site and moving from one LO's "Apply Now" page to your mortgage calculators landing page, then over to a blog about Conventional vs. FHA, and ultimately back to an "Apply Now" page… it's likely not the same loan officer's application link they started with. So then you've got Brenda at the Florida branch sending an all-company email asking if anyone received an application for Janet Smith. The headache! Your online loan application should solve for this scenario and provide your borrowers with a simple, fool-proof, and highly engaging experience. Ensure your applications make it into the right hands as quickly as possible with LiteSpeed by LenderLogix, a true point-of-sale for Encompass® users that know their borrower experience could use some work.

Bank News

Is it business as usual for residential lenders out there? Warehouse lenders continue to lend, mortgage banks continue to lend, and life goes on? It seems that everyone is hoping that this round of bank headlines is over with, and the moves made by the government have squelched it from spreading. People have to put their money somewhere, and other banks have seen large inflows of deposits.

Market participants are hoping that the game of whack-a-mole in the latest banking crisis will end well, but there are deeper considerations at play in terms of the health of the overall economy. While moves by the government may limit wider contagion among financial institutions, tightening standards among lenders, greater scrutiny and raising capital ratios all have the potential to slow economic activity. Combined with higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve, it can all but guarantee a coming recession, but what other options does the central bank have as it looks to vanquish inflation?

Industry vet Brian Benjamin writes, “I read your opening with great interest and have a quick point of view. You mentioned regulators and the S&L crisis. From my time traveling to DC, I noticed, most regulators last only a few years (oddly except HUD). I think there are only two people at CFPB from its early days, that I ever met back in 2011-2012. This regulatory employment cycle may be the course of breaking into the Legal markets, how the Federal pension system works or something completely different. So, you ask why the regulators do not recall the S&L crisis and what was learned, well most were not born or were in 1st grade. They only read about it in books, and it really didn’t sound that bad, yeh it was bad but not really… So they think. If they are 30 years old now, they were in HS during the 2008 debacle, what do you remember about the economy in your HS years. Hmm, that was Jimmy Carter, and Iran, and dad was stressed amount the mortgage payment.”

Capital Markets

Although most believe that the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee will raise rates by .25 percent this week, the Federal Reserve's case for pausing its interest-rate hike has gained traction among analysts after a coordinated move by six central banks to boost liquidity in US dollar swap arrangements. The shift follows UBS' acquisition of Credit Suisse and the collapse of three U.S. banks, which led to increased concerns over financial contagion.

But there is still fundamental economic data. Last week’s economic data depicted an economy with easing, but still very high, inflation and emerging soft spots. The Consumer Price Index increased 0.4 percent in February which was in line with market expectations. On a yearly basis, consumer prices rose 6.0 percent over the last twelve months. The primary driver of the increase continues to be the shelter component which accounted for nearly 70 percent of the increase. Shelter lags behind the other items that make up the report in terms of timing which means the recent decreases in rents and home prices have not fully made their way into this data.

Up the supply food chain, producer prices unexpectedly eased by 0.1 percent in February and January’s 0.7 percent increase was revised down to +0.3 percent. Over the last twelve months, PPI increased 4.6 percent, well off the annual high set in March 2022 of 11.7 percent. Retail sales also fell in February, declining 0.4 percent, as sales of motor vehicles and parts fell significantly. The fed funds futures market still expects the FOMC to announce a 25 basis points rate hike on Wednesday.

Today’s calendar is much busier than yesterday’s, which saw rates rise as markets continued to digest Credit Suisse and various other bank news. Today we have Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing for March, Redbook same store sales, existing home sales for February, and a Treasury auction of $12 billion reopened 20-year bonds. We begin the day with the 2-year at 4.13, Agency MBS prices worse .250, and the 10-year yielding 3.56 after closing yesterday at 3.48 percent based on optimism that the bad bank news is behind us and that the Fed can re-focus on fighting inflation.

Transitions

Guild Mortgage, only in business since 1960, announced the pending retirement of CEO Mary Ann McGarry, effective June 30, 2023, following a career of almost 40 years. We wish Mary Ann better staying power at her next job. Terry Schmidt, the current president of Guild, will succeed McGarry as CEO, effective July 1, 2023. Another newbie in residential lending, Schmidt was McGarry’s first hire at Guild in 1985 and the two have worked side by side for nearly four decades. In addition, David Neylan, who joined Guild in 2007 and now serves as executive vice president and chief operating officer, will replace Schmidt as president and continue as Guild’s COO.

MISMO®, the real estate finance industry's standards organization, named 25-year mortgage vet David Coleman as its new president. He’s been an IT executive, management consultant, and senior business leader, and will join MISMO on April 3.