If I am not borrowing money, the impact of higher rates isn’t a big direct hit to my lifestyle or spending. But if I had a credit card from Kohl’s, paying 30 percent would sure dissuade me from buying something and putting it on “layaway.” Lowe’s? 28.99 percent. Nordstrom’s is over 31 percent! With credit card debt moving about $1 trillion for the first time ever, something has to slow down, right? Today I head to Las Vegas, forecast 103 degrees, and I have already been fielding emails about lenders are selling servicing, busy further cutting costs, or making sure they collect money that is due them (like appraisal fees, as noted in this STRATMOR piece). Some companies are looking to acquire or be acquired. Mergers and acquisitions don’t only happen with lenders. For example, yesterday, in the compliance consulting biz, Firstline Compliance announced that Mark Wilson, Managing Partner, and Dustin Pfluger, Partner and Mortgage Banking Pra
Sorry the commentary is a little late this morning. I received an email from my IT department that I needed to change my username and password. It took me a few minutes to remember that I didn’t have an IT department. Beware of those phishing expeditions! Technology… if it weren’t for my pets or grandparents, I don’t know what I’d do for passwords. There are obviously pluses from technology, of course, and thank you to Steve Richman who told me about Canva, a marketing website that appears darned easy to use. How about the darker side of tech, even including today’s “joke” about how card shuffling machines can be influenced and hacked into. (Do you really think virtual Wonder Woman slot machines are random?) Thank you to those who passed along this story about the aftermath of a cyberattack on a Southern California data host for property listing information, Rapattoni Corporation, freezing up real estate transactions and valuation
“Once things were so tough for me, I worked at a cheap pizza shop to get by. I kneaded the dough.” Things are indeed tough out there. The other day I caught my cat Myrtle at the keyboard, apparently trying to show my new granddaughter Kozette how to apply for a loan to buy a tuna fishing boat. (I know, there’s a lot going on here.) Anyway, up on the screen was a website that will generate a paystub given whatever information you provide. How’d you like to be an underwriter, trying to assure that the borrower has the ability to repay, with this out there? Hence the need, obviously, for some kind of third-party verification service, right? Meanwhile, companies, large and small, continue to sell servicing rights in packages, large and small, in order to raise cash. Servicing is, pretty much, all a lender has in terms of net worth. And when their servicing is gone, well…? For a good bell weather of the general industry, yesterday we had loanDepot'
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“Yesterday I completed a chore I’ve been putting off for four months. It took me 20 minutes. I will learn nothing from this.” That sums up a lot of my tasks. But that was then, and today I head to Austin, the capital of Texas and where they just voted to approve a wide-ranging property tax reduction bill. Which is good, as Texas residents will need the money for air conditioning in the 106-degree heat forecast for today. What if you’re the owner of an office building with few tenants, absorbing that AC cost yourself? Say what you will about slow times in residential lending, commercial lenders are very anxious. Rumor has it there is 1 billion (with a “b”) square feet of empty space. That’s 4.44 million 15x15 square foot offices. Word has it that landlords are very concerned about when the leases are due in commercial real estate around the nation, and world, as some percentage of people have shifted from office to WFH (working from home)