As the nation ruminates on the court ruling on the mandatory mask mandate, remember, “You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.” It is a safe bet that the Federal Reserve will raise short term rates more than twice before summer. This month’s STRATMOR blog is titled, “A Primer on the Federal Reserve and Mortgage Rates.” Here in Atlanta, in the MBA-STRATMOR Peer Group Roundtable meetings, much of the conversation revolves around interest rates, as one can imagine. The Federal Reserve is going to have a hard time bringing down inflation without triggering a recession, according to Goldman Sachs Group who believes that there is about a 35 percent chance the U.S. will fall into a recession over the next two years. Another topic is the population migrating due to tax reasons. Property taxes aren’t good, but fall into the “interesting” category as some states’ taxes have been rising while
“Rob, my capital markets gal eliminated our ability to lock overnight at yesterday’s rates. I think that she’s being unreasonable. Your thoughts?” No, she’s not. Overnight lock protection is one of the first things to go in a volatile rate environment, especially when developments in Ukraine, seven hours ahead of New York, contribute to our rate movement. Besides, who needs to lock loans at 3AM? It is tough enough to preserve pricing margins as it is. As packages of mortgage servicing rights continue to be sold by companies looking to raise cash, do you think it’s hard to make money doing mortgages these days? Try music. I was recently chatting with a musician in Nashville who told me that they earn .003 per stream on YouTube. There are varying deal structures, of course, but for someone just starting out this equates to $30 for 10,000 streams. Yikes. I hope that Bruce Willis, and his family, made some money as they’ve been selling off $