The big news in the Chrisman household is my cat Myrtle being offered a big signing bonus by the family next door. Apparently, word of her mousing prowess has spread. Myrtle’s tight-lipped on the details, but I assume it involves line-caught halibut and wild salmon tidbits. When I brought it up, she glared at me as if to say, “Hey, it’s a free market.” At 10, Myrtle’s no spring chicken, and I told her that she’d better think long and hard about it since there seem to be fewer mice around to catch. (Stay tuned!) Lenders are seeing fewer loans to originate, and thus fewer loans for the secondary markets so every opportunity to pick up a few pennies or set up a new product is scrutinized. Besides spending their time setting pricing and margins, capital markets staff are usually looking for new investors (there are plenty on Mortgage Elements; just select the state and then the program) and there’s a new jumbo loan identifier for The Rule Tool if you need to compare non-conforming guidelines between investors on jumbos. (Today’s podcast is available here and this week’s podcast is sponsored by AIM-Port, an appraisal management platform built to reduce costs and elevate the borrower experience for lenders managing appraisal operations. Go to aim-port.com for more information or click here to reach out to a team member today!)

Lender and Broker Products, Services, and Software

Keeping with its reputation for developing innovative home lending technology, SimpleNexus, an nCino Company, made waves at Digital Mortgage where its plug-and-play business intelligence solution Nexus Vision took second place in the show’s Innovation Challenge. SimpleNexus is giving lenders another opportunity to see its award-winning homeownership platform in play during today’s TMC in Chi-town Lightning Showcase. Can’t attend the in-person demo? Request a personalized SimpleNexus demo online or connect with the SimpleNexus team next month at their MBA Annual kickoff event in partnership with DocMagic and Notarize.

“TheRuleTool by Take3Tech introduces our revolutionary engine that will inform you within seconds of JUMBO INVESTORS “outliers”. What is an outlier? Say you locked a Jumbo loan best efforts with your selected investor. The LTV is 80 percent and you find out 10 days before close that they require 3 trade lines for above 70 percent LTV. Now you’re left re-pricing the loan to market and footing the bill. This could have been avoided with TheRuleTool, available 24/7/365, on your laptop or mobile device! Save yourself and your team from making costly errors, by requesting additional information or connecting with us at TMC in Chi-Town. What is Take3Tech? Take3Tech develops more efficient technology for mortgage bankers, by mortgage bankers. Looking for a POS or CRM? Ask about LoanMAPS with built-in AI Augie, your virtual assistant, and processor. Augie empowers mortgage professionals to increase sales while decreasing their cost to produce. Learn how!”

The key to reducing costs in 2023 is transforming your borrower experience and back-office operations. Maxwell offers innovative technology that centralizes your processes, promotes team productivity, and helps you close more loans with less work. Lenders using Maxwell Point of Sale slash their time-to-close by 13+ days and save an average of 21 BPS in costs per loan. Loan officers using Maxwell POS close 15% more loans per month, helping top lenders attract and retain the industry’s best talent. Beyond front-end improvements, Maxwell Processor Edge, a first-of-its-kind processing workflow technology, transforms the loan fulfillment process, accelerating document review, reducing errors, and boosting processor capacity. Set up a call with our team to learn how you can increase your lending profitability and combat margin compression with Maxwell technology.

“According to Black Knight, lock volumes continue to decline, hitting their lowest August levels for four years. Unpredictable market factors create the need for a scalable staffing model. The most qualified talent is critical to success, but the process of sourcing, vetting, and recruiting skilled talent can be costly. Whether you require specialized expertise for unique operational or IT projects, temporary staffing, or permanent placement for critical management functions, Consolidated Analytics Talent and Workforce Solutions help you remain agile and scalable. CA’s expert recruiters work with originators, servicers, and in the capital markets space to fill critical roles, manage projects or augment internal teams. Our mortgage and ­financial services consultant network includes subject matter experts (SMEs) with more than 15 years of experience in business strategy, systems and technology, operations, regulatory compliance, and process excellence. Contact us to see how we can help your operations.”

“Now that open houses are back on the table, have you figured out your flyer situation? Velma has you covered with Velma Express! Purpose built flyers made with the marketing and compliance departments in mind! Customizable template library, easy to use software, and a robust approval process with potential integration into your pricing engine, Velma Express is the flyer solution you need! Watch our short explainer video here.”

I don't know… doesn't it seem like a good time to lower your costs? Here's an idea: turn your fixed staff overhead into variable costs by outsourcing your processing, underwriting, and closing functions to the fulfillment team at Computershare Loan Services (CLS). Computershare is ready to help you with your entire pipeline from conventional, non-QM, and FHA loans to multiple product types, including HELOCs. CLS can fulfill one part of the originations process or all of it! It saves clients an average of 30% on back-office operational expenses, so why wait? Contact the team at Computershare Loan Services to learn how it can help your business thrive.

“The Correspondent Channel at Citibank N.A. has been turning up the volume in 2022, and there’s no better place than the Music City for Mortgage Bankers to find out what all that noise is about! Citi Correspondent Lending is committed to helping our sellers navigate this dynamic market and would be thrilled to meet during the 2022 Annual MBA Conference. Over the past 18 months, Citi has substantially grown the Correspondent seller base, rolled out a prime Jumbo product, enhanced our Non-Delegated platform, partnered with pricing engines to drive CRA incentives point of sale and provided innovative capital market solutions aimed at helping sellers realize higher returns while mitigating hedge risk. Please reach out to your Citi Account Executive or the National Client Services Team to make an appointment to hear how we might be able to help your business thrive in 2023.”

Are you searching for affordable lending options for your borrowers? Click n’ Close, formerly known as Mid America Mortgage, has strengthened its alliance with a non-profit to expand its SmartBuy suite of down payment assistance (DPA) offerings. In addition to a 2nd lien 5-year forgivable option, SmartBuy has added several repayable options to use with an FHA 1st lien mortgage. With the increase in mortgage rates, SmartBuy is the optimal solution for the borrower to put the least amount down and get a lower fixed rate. These 2nd lien funds can be used to meet down payment requirements, reduce closing costs or permanently buy down the interest rate on the 1st lien. This program is available nationwide with no income restrictions. Look for more innovations in the coming months, including a temporary buydown option. For correspondent sellers, contact Julas Hollie. For wholesale transactions, contact Christopher Hartman.

STRATMOR on the Customer Experience

We all say we want “customers for life,” but what does this mean to your loan officers who are more concerned about winning that next purchase deal than the long play of a customer who might move or refinance in five to seven years? In the new Customer Experience Tip, Senior Advisor Sue Woodard explains how, with a shared vision and by creating awareness and accountability across the organization, lenders can create a world-class experience for the customer. She suggests three steps lenders can take now to drive home a customer experience vision. Don’t miss, “Customer Experience on the Front Lines: Turning Vision into Action,” the September Customer Experience Tip.

Mortgage Merger

American Mortgage Service Company is joining Thrive Mortgage with an expected transition in Q4, 2022. AMSC, a Cincinnati, OH-based Independent Mortgage Bank with 35 locations in 14 states, will soon be joining Thrive Mortgage after a letter of intent was recently signed to bring together the two storied companies. Roy Jones, co-founder of Thrive Mortgage with his wife Barbara, was excited about the opportunity and stated, “With nearly 50 years of serving their communities, and the word ‘Service’ being fundamental to both their name and brand identity, you know they exemplify the exceptional client experience that ensures continued success to grow within our industry.” “Thanks to Thrive’s Chief Operations Officer Selene Kellam, the key architect and designer of Thrive’s industry-leading operations workflow, and Chief Financial Officer Michael Jones, a recognized industry leader of product innovation and Secondary Markets expertise, Thrive Mortgage has been able to pioneer new initiatives and conquer industry challenges to achieve growth, efficiency, and success most other mortgage companies have not.” Combined, the two IMBs helped more than 18,000 families in 2021. Together, Thrive will have more than 400 licensed loan originators in 40 states and 100 branch offices. (For more information on available growth opportunities for individuals, teams, or organizations, contact Tay Toliver.)

Capital Markets: Fed News Still Rules

The primary market mover over the last week was the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) increase to the fed funds rate by 0.75 to 3.25 percent and its forecast that the rate would likely be 1 percent higher than previously projected by year’s end. Additionally, the FOMC’s projection of a 4.4 percent unemployment rate by Q3 of 2023 could signal the committee expects a recession next year.

Fed Chairman Powell’s comments following the meeting made clear that he does not expect the economy to experience the hoped-for soft landing. The housing market continues to cool as mortgage rates rise and existing home sales were down 0.4 percent in August to an annualized rate of 4.8 million which is near levels seen during the height of the pandemic. The trade deficit narrowed 11.1 percent in August thanks in part to U.S. energy exports and few consumer goods imports. In a positive data surprise, both manufacturers and service providers reported increases in new orders in the latest composite PMI.

In execution news, Fannie’s trading desk spread the word that starting on Thursday, September 29th, a 30 Year Fixed Rate – Second Home specified product option will be available for committing in Pricing & Execution - Whole Loan®. Lenders may use the new specified product option for committing eligible 30-year fixed rate loans or continue to use standard fixed rate specified product option or continue to use other eligible loan balance specified product options. Read the Committing Grid Fact Sheet or view the Browse Prices Export File Specification document.

This week marks both the end of September and the end of the third quarter on Friday with the week’s economic calendar including the month-end auctions and several higher tiered releases including August PCE and Michigan sentiment on Friday with Fed surveys, housing-related data, durable goods orders, final Q2 GDP, and Chicago PMI prior. Following last week’s FOMC events, Fedspeak picks up with several Fed presidents speaking on the outlook and monetary policy.

Today’s calendar kicked off with the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for August (flat: 0.00) and will be followed by Dallas Fed Texas manufacturing for September. Treasury will auction $43 billion 2-year notes and Fedspeak includes remarks from Boston Fed President Collins, Atlanta Fed President Bostic, and Cleveland Fed President Mester. We begin the week with Agency MBS prices worse .250-.375 and the 10-year yielding 3.78 after closing last week at 3.70 percent.

Employment

radius financial group inc. is looking for a dynamic business development leader to continue its successful track record of identifying and adding talented production personnel to its unique platform. Based on Norwell, MA, we are a full-service retail mortgage banker founded in 1999 that is customer obsessed and hyper focused on supporting our production teams with the latest technology and dedicated support teams. The Business Development position will be responsible for developing and executing a candidate sourcing plan that will focus on proven purchase producing Loan Officers and teams in our existing markets, as well as new markets for our company. Interested candidates should send their resume to Carla Herrera for consideration.

In FHA job news, want to be an senior underwriter and earn up to $136k a year? There are openings in multiple locations to serve as an expert-level resource, research required underwriting procedures, analyze the risk inherent in the issuance of mortgage insurance, perform both the desk review of the property appraisal and, in certain circumstances, authorizes the issuance of the conditional commitment for home mortgage insurance. Or you could be a Director in the Processing and Underwriting Division taking in $159k: Direct supervisory staff, resolve issues and problems which hinder the effective operation of the Center or of the quality of program. Responsible for overseeing the preparation and administration of all contracting functions within the Center.