Jul. 9, 2012: Lots of mortgage jobs; one comment period ends today - it's a CFPB world - including non-banks! Blackstone as a landlord
Rob Chrisman
Welcome
back to work! I'll skip the story that the press seems excited
about (a Massachusetts man paying his mortgage off in
pennies), and the news that Ally Bank is exiting warehouse
lending*, and instead focus on a little 60 second non-mortgage
sensory warm up... ImportMedia/fun/8787/colortest.swf
(* "Ally Bank has announced that it will exit the warehouse
lending business over the coming months as it has become
a less strategic part of the Bank's activities in recent
months. Ally Bank will honor its contractual obligations
during this process and will provide clients with
opportunities for a reasonable time to find alternative
funding sources. We expect that the wind-down process will be
completed by the end of the year. Ally Bank made this decision
after careful consideration of all the available options and
determined that this was the best course of action and in line
with adjustments it has made in other areas of its mortgage
operations.")
Well-known
mortgage industry vendor LoanSifter continues to expand,
and is looking for Client Services leaders. LoanSifter
specializes in product eligibility and pricing engines for
financial institutions. Team leaders will be involved with
teams that support the management of Banker clients, along
with other client groups. The ideal candidates should have
secondary/capital markets experience, operations experience
(understands loan process beginning to end, familiar with
LOSs, PPEs), be savvy in technology, and has had exposure to
different business models (retail, wholesale, and consumer
direct). The individual should be a highly effective manager
while working in a remote/virtual office environment. For
more information on its product lines, visit https://www.loansifter.com/index.aspx.
If you know someone who might be interested, they should send
a resume to Bruce Backer at bruce@loansifter.com.
Prime
Lending
is currently looking to build out its Mountain West Region
and is searching for seasoned Branch Managers, Loan
Originators, and Teams
in Denver/Front Range, Salt Lake City, Portland, and Seattle.
PrimeLending is a direct lender and a division of Plains
Capital Bank which can originate in all 50 states, and was
ranked #20 in 1st quarter originations by National
Mortgage News: http://www2.primelending.com/. If
interested,
please contact Casey Berger at cberger@primelending.com.
Remember
Impac Mortgage? Well, the former Top 15 lender is
quickly re-emerging as a strong player in retail, wholesale
and correspondent lending. Impac’s focus on the retail side is
on purchase money transactions and it is working with real
estate agents across several western states providing
education and sales tools to help real estate agents grow
their business. Impac has attracted strong loan officers
and branches from other firms to come on board.
“Production in Q1 2012 has grown over 500% compared to the
same time period in 2011.” Anyone interested in learning more
about joining Impac Mortgage should go to www.impacmortgage.com
and click on “Careers”.
Haven't
you heard? It’s downright un-American to not refinance! And
any lender that actually requires things like an application,
an appraisal, a credit report, having the loan underwritten,
and so on, and then having to service that loan under the
threat of buybacks and the borrower blaming the lender when
they stop making their payments is standing in the way of the
American Dream! Do I sound a little jaded? So be it... but
here is the president's refi plan, straight from the
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/refi.
But there are plenty of critics. The members of the CFPB have
some pretty hefty salaries, public records. (Hey, I just know
what I read in the newspapers.) In 2011 we have Rajeev V. Date
at $243,075, Peter Carroll (Assistant Director) at $198,993,
Peggy Twohig (Assistant Director, Office of Non-bank
Supervision) at $225,640, Jennifer Howard (CFPB Spokesperson)
at $145,399, and so on. Apparently they, along with other
Federal employees, are listed at www.datauniverse.com.
Click on “Public Payrolls,” “Federal Employees,”, “Federal
Reserve System,” and “Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.”
In
the meantime, non-bank lenders are seeking exemption from CFPB
oversight: http://bankcreditnews.com/news/non-bank-lenders-seek-exemption-from-cfpb-oversight/4603/.
Good luck with that one. Reports indicate that the CFPB is
working on financial compliance audits of some of the nation’s
largest non-bank mortgage lenders and hopes to complete at
least one of these audits in the next few weeks. The report
said that, “Sources familiar with the matter said that four
nonbanks—all based in California and all privately held—are
going through the audit process now.” California, large, and
non-bank…that narrows it down somewhat, and names like
Provident, Stearns Lending, PennyMac, Prospect, Pinnacle, and
RPM all jump to mind as possibilities.
Several
CEO’s have told me that, given the plethora of regulatory
groups that audit them, examinations have become very
expensive. And even if the CFPB does not charge the firms
(yet), tying up resources, hiring attorneys and consultants,
and the entire process is very expensive. And, of course, this
cost is passed on to the borrowers – make no mistake.
A
broker from Nevada wrote me, “I wonder if Mr. Romney will try
to overturn Frank/Dodd and get rid of CFPB, and help try to
overturn any of the “micromanaging the little guy at the
bottom of the pole” stuff that has stifled the mortgage
business. We all know that subprime has its place – since the
beginning of time certain people benefit from that type of
lending. Does the government understand that not everyone has
perfect credit? What about Beneficial, Household Finance,
Aames Home Loans went to Accredited six years ago…those
lenders should be allowed to return. We just don't need where
the major aggregators push vanilla product to every single
person that is breathing. Sure, rates are great, but I
want the ability to provide exceptional service to my
clients and make a decent living doing it. The CPFB
should be an oversight entity and not a turn over every rock
and find something wrong with anything and legislate it out of
existence. The borrower will be the loser in the long run.”
And
while we're talking about added expenses flowing through to
borrowers and consumers, one vet wrote to me, "From where I
sit (mortgage broker) it is a crime that lenders don't
accept transferred appraisals. Borrowers are paying for
more than one HVCC appraisal when one of a variety of reasons
motivates the broker to change lenders. For example, a client
who owns a duplex paid $550 for an appraisal. The appraisal
came in lower than expected (what a surprise), and that
particular lender that was giving him the best rate, doesn't
go over 105%. So we need to go elsewhere, AND pay for another
appraisal. That is a true injustice to the consumer."
How
do you sell 2,500 houses pronto? The FHFA announced its
REO Pilot Program developments, whereby the winning
bidders in its real estate owned (REO) pilot program are
expected to close on the initial transactions in the third
quarter of 2012. The FHFA launched its REO pilot program in
February, and 2,500 single-family foreclosed properties held
by Fannie Mae. According to FHFA, investors qualified for the
bidding process after a rigorous evaluation, considering
factors such as their financial strength, asset management
experience, property management expertise, and experience in
the geographic area of the available properties: http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/24041/REOInitiative7312.pdf.
And
in discussing snatching up blocks of properties, the Blackstone
Group must be included. It is the biggest buyer of U.S.
commercial real estate since prices bottomed, and reports show
that it has spent more than $250 million this year buying
foreclosed single-family houses with the intention of renting
them out. The goal is to acquire enough assets to potentially
take public as a real estate investment trust, or sell to
another company or even to tenants. For more on this visit: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/blackstone-makes-foray-into-houses-for-rent-mortgages.html.
On
to the markets! Although Friday was pretty slow in the
markets, we still saw some movement with the poor employment
data. Jobs and housing, housing and jobs…that’s what it will
take for our economy to pick up - and jobs ain’t doing so
good. Oil, gold, and stocks all dropped as their demand is
expected to wane if things are slow around the world.
The
jobs number was a disappointment. Those scraping for good news
pointed to the Average Hourly Earnings increase, along with
the rise in weekly hours worked. Perhaps these will lead to
continued consumer spending, but really, much of what hiring
there was came from temporary and leisure workers, not the
long term "quality" labor for continuing contribution. These
employment data reflects the weakening economic momentum seen
in other data and adds to the perception that, like prior two
years, the recovery has entered a mid-year soft patch. It
seems more clear that the encouraging reports in jobs of
earlier in the year were driven by the mild winter; the Q1
monthly gains of 226K has given way to Q2 growth of 75K.
It
was more of the same, and gave the mortgage market some time
to cogitate on the prepayment speeds that were announced. This
is, of course, very interesting to investors – who wants to
pay a 5 point premium for something that is going to pay off
next month? Prepayment speeds did increase, although much of
it had been anticipated by analysts. As we’d expect, the
largest increases came in the “HARPable” sectors, but even
these were less than expected leading many to say that the residential
lending industry has capacity issues – no surprise
there!
News-wise,
we don’t have much scheduled until we see the Trade Balance
figures Wednesday. Thursday has some Import/Export data, along
with the usual Initial Jobless Claims, and then Friday is the
Producer Price Index and Michigan Consumer Sentiment. On
Friday our 10-yr closed at a yield of 1.54%; this morning we’re
opening around 1.53% with MBS prices nearly unchanged.
IT'S
SO HOT in Indiana (Part 2 of 3)
.....the temperature drops below 90 F and you feel a little
chilly.
.....you discover that in July it only takes two fingers to
steer your car.
.....you discover that you can get sunburned through your car
window.
.....you actually burn your hand opening the car door.
.....you break into a sweat the instant you step outside at
7:30 A.M.
.....your biggest motorcycle wreck fear is, "What if I get
knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to
death"?
If
you're interested, visit my twice-a-month blog at the STRATMOR
Group web site located at www.stratmorgroup.com.
The current blog discusses the issue of the Freddie Mac &
Bank of America buybacks, and its potential impact on the
industry. If you have both the time and inclination, make a
comment on what I have written, or on other comments so that
folks can learn what's going on out there from the other
readers.
