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Have you ever heard the term “scuddle”? It’s an English term from the 1500’s meaning “to wash dishes,” something many of us did plenty of over Christmas. I bring this up because on this date in 1886 Josephine Garis Cochrane patented the world’s first dishwasher! Where would we be without women in schools or the workplace or being educated… Or thinking? (Let’s ask the Taliban in Afghanistan: hopefully you’re following this nightmare.) The United States is nowhere near that, but we have a gender pay gap that has remained relat...

Tired of playing Rummikub with the fam? (Why are those red 11’s always in short supply?) Let’s divert your attention and ease back into residential mortgages with a news story from the Census Bureau. Sorry California: for the first time since 1957 Florida is the fastest growing state. Sure, in “God’s waiting room” there are hurricanes, and the place is as flat as a pancake, but a 0 percent state income rate versus California’s 12 percent may have something to do with it. And then we have those winter temperatures to help one forget about the palmetto b...

Robert K. writes, “My Mom always said, ‘Work until your bank account looks like a phone number. Well, I did it! ‘Available balance: $911.’” Speaking of numbers, thank you to those who wrote to me correcting the GDP of Mexico here as being $1.4 trillion and not $1.4 billion. Numbers certainly tell the story with vendors and lenders. Owners of vendors and third-party providers are looking at middle layers of management, cutting back, certainly cutting salaries, or ridding themselves of unproductive salespeople. Lenders continue to cut staff (Wells Fargo being t...

Our industry continues to be battered. Starwood Capital-backed Reverse Mortgage Funding and its parent company Reverse Mortgage Investment Trust have filed for bankruptcy. Inlanta Mortgage told the state of Wisconsin it plans to wind down its business. Switching gears, to celebrate the first day of December, spend 5 minutes taking one of my favorite quizzes, focused on figuring out where you’re from based on the words you use for certain common things. (What do you call the little bug that rolls up into a ball when you touch it? Sneakers versus tennis shoes? Y’all versus you guys...

In the secondary markets, lenders are trying to wring out every penny from loan sales. For example, in today’s podcast (available here) is an interview with Senior Director of MCT’s Investor Services team, Jennifer Kennelly, on MCT’s Bid Auction Manager (BAM) Marketplace, the nation’s first open mortgage loan exchange. In the primary markets, it’s rough, and I received this note from a senior executive. “In our branches, this is worse than the meltdown. In 2008-2010 we may have had problems finding lenders to loan money, but there were some, and we sti...