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As the Western Secondary winds up, and weary capital markets staff & vendors head home from Orange County, perhaps humming “California Gurls,” working conditions and changes in the work environment are still a topic. For example, Goldman Sachs is making a concerted effort for its workforce to return to the office five days a week. I’ve concluded that I need a non-technical, high-paying, remote job that can be done with minimal effort. It turns out that there’s a term for it: “Lazy-girl job.” AEs and vendor sales staff have gradually returned to calling on offices and occasionally bringing those pink boxes filled with treats. While we wrap up with this state, pink boxes started appearing in Southern California courtesy of Cambodian refugee (and successful So-Cal donut shop owner) Ted Ngoy. Many other Cambodian and South Asian immigrants became donut shop owners after coming to the United States in the mid-1970s to escape the Khmer Ro ....
Phantom Planet sang, California here we come, right back where we started from.” Many here at the Western Secondary have spent their entire career in California, which makes sense given that, over the decades, 20-25 percent of the nation’s home loans come from here. Overheard in the hallway yesterday: “I’ve been in this business so long, I remember when the big sleeping area in the house was called a ‘master bedroom’ and not a ‘primary sanctuary.’ That aside, there are more serious topics about staying afloat, and further staffing and overhead reductions are coming. Rember that from 2021 to 2023 the number of units (not the volume) is down 2/3. How about your staff? Loans have gotten harder to do: interest rates are higher, short contract times, affordability, quality standards, borrower’s variable income, LOs not doing their homework in submitting files, borrowers having multiple jobs or quitting before the loan funds. The ....
For those attending the Western Secondary, remember, it never rains in Southern California. Except for now. Here’s one person who won’t be seeing So Cal any time soon, and dare I say, every honest person in our biz is happy when this happens. Daniela Rendon, 31, was a Miami real estate broker but was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for stealing $381,000 in COVID relief funds, wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft. Rendon probably won’t care too much about what the Federal Reserve does while she’s working in the laundry room or serving up oatmeal, but the Fed will probably restate, through Chairperson Powell speaking at the end of the week, its intent to keep interest rates high for an extended period to make sure inflation does not flare up again. In other legal and compliance news, Freedom Mortgage’s RESPA Consent Order with the CFPB is getting some attention from Mortgage Musings author and attorney Brian Levy. (Today’ ....
“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' ....
Mark Weber sends, “Can I take my 2.5 percent loan to another property? Remember the portable loan idea? When will we see real estate agents advertising, ‘This home for sale has an assumable FHA/VA loan!’?” Ask any LO (loan originator, or officer, depending on what you want the “O” to stand for) and they can tell you stories about lenders either fumbling the servicing handoff or a myriad of borrower woes. There is a good reason that it has become a lightning rod for CFPB examinations. J.D. Power released its U.S. Mortgage Servicer Satisfaction Study, which measures customer satisfaction with the mortgage servicing experience in six factors (in order of importance): level of trust, makes it easy to do business with, keeps me informed and educated, people, resolving problems or questions, and digital channels. “The latest results show an ugly situation for the industry. Overall satisfaction is down… there’s been an increased r ....