Loan Vision News Today

There seems to be a bit of a baby boom going on out there. Prospective home buyers who need a place for a growing family quickly find out that residential lending isn’t without its share of tears. Next time you’re dealing with an upset borrower or loan officer, here’s something you can try. “We are committed to solving the rental crisis in Australia. By providing high quality prefabricated homes, available for immediate hire or purchase, we fight the rental crisis one...

When I was a kid, whenever I would walk by a pay phone or newspaper vending machine, I’d check the coin change slot. Or periodically check under my Dad’s La-Z-Boy… every penny or dollar counted! (Nowadays, I still get excited when I find a forgotten quarter in my own pants or backpack.) Plenty of folks at last week’s Great River Conference were trying to do the modern equivalent of that by learning about the current vendor offerings of technology, or meeting with thei...

“A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.” April 15th is in a week, the traditional date when taxes are due. Time flies. Do you realize that we have seven more months until the election? Seven more months of headlines and gaffes, posturing, missteps, and election trivia (like no Republican has been elected to the White House by a majority of Americans since 1988). I’m glad residential lending continues to motor along, albeit at a very moderate pace. P...

There’s an old LO joke, telling their client, “When you’re buying a house, be sure to do it with a significant other, and make sure that one of you has good credit. That’s why it’s called ‘significant’ other: sign-if-i-can’t.” Everyone in our biz knows that owning property is a great way to build wealth, although between elevated inflation, stubborn mortgage rates, and general economic uncertainty (one can argue that the future is al...

In my travels I’ve eaten some unusual foods, although maybe not this unusual, but here in Boise the talk is about how unusual it is that applications and locks have suddenly shot up in the last several business days. It is nice to hear and see the hustle and perseverance from originators pay off some. Taking a look at the big picture, per the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 40 percent of all homeowners own their homes free and clear, or 33.4 million mortgage-free, single-family homes and condo...

Sometimes there is no shortcut when you want to make a lot of money. Speaking of making money, and creating wealth for clients, owning real estate continues to be a good investment. The National Association of Realtors tells us that more than 85 percent of metro markets registered home price increases in the fourth quarter of 2023. Its latest quarterly report reports that fifteen percent of the 221 tracked metro areas experienced double-digit price gains over the same period, up from 11 percent ...

When this commentary gig gets old, I think I’ll take up… throwing needles? But so far so good, putting this out six days a week. Yesterday I glanced at the calendar, and we’re 10 percent of the way through 2024 already! Still raining here in Northern California, and the flooding has caused a lot of concern in the mortgage industry, especially among companies servicing loans on any houses that are damaged, as well as owners of MBS with loans in them on any potentially damaged...

I could tell that my cat Myrtle was miffed. Not only had the work on her “2024 Vision Board Statement” languished, but either there was no line-caught halibut in her bowl, or the laser pointer’s battery was dead. It turned out that it was neither. Instead, it was news that the CFPB was not meeting its goals. the Office of Inspector General of the Federal Reserve Board released a report assessing the CFPB’s process for conducting enforcement investigations and making t...

I’m so tired of the mainstream press talking about the 2024 election, 10 months out. Given that the median age of U.S. citizens is about 38 years, one would think we could find someone under the age of 75 to be president, regardless of party affiliation. On the other end of the age spectrum, at age 34, Gabriel Attal became France’s youngest prime minister. France’s inflation rate is running at 3.7 percent, which I mention because inflation and the actions of central banks ar...

Here’s what happened when a company relied on forecasts and rate predictions during late 2022 for its business in 2023. You’d have a come-apart! Speaking of losing one’s cool, how do you think IMBs feel about this Bloomberg story about how mortgage fees at banks are less than at non-banks? In STRATMOR Group’s December Insights Report, STRATMOR provides key takeaways that will help lenders think outside the box, evaluate new strategies, take risks and survive the downt...