How was your weekend? For me, it was jammed packed… after finishing up a long week, the team and I took in a few libations at a local watering hole in celebration of Josh Teti’s birthday (Happy Birthday Josh… sorry I didn’t send you a Facebook message… are people still over the top with that?). Then bright and early Saturday morning I jumped into the car and headed down to Charlottesville, VA (5 hours from the Burgh) for a graduation party (Go Cavaliers!). After spending the evening celebrating and visiting with family I jumped back in the car and headed back to Pittsburgh. It was a quick turn around time, but it was well worth it.
I wasn’t the only one with a busy weekend… on Sunday the MBA’s Secondary Conference kicked off with a Q&A session. The panel was made up of executives from Flagstar, Stearns Lending, Chase Home Mortgage and SWBC Mortgage… I’m assuming my invitation to speak was lost in the mail (I digress)?! In all honesty, the only reason I made that joke is because everything the executives discussed… we’ve been discussing in our blog. Heavy statements were thrown out there regarding the current mortgage environment. Statements like:
“It’s a brutally competitive market right now… typically the way this ends up is a shakeout, and the sooner the better.”
“A lot of companies have seen significant growth, but they have not built their business on a sustainable model. They have the best rates, the best compensation — this model will squeeze itself out quick.”
“People are doing that just hoping there will be a bounce back that will get us all out of it and it will be back to business as usual.”
The panel also discussed topics on affordable housing, big data, private capital and fintech companies in the mortgage industry. Our friends at HousingWire will be covering the conference all week and you can check out their coverage by click here.
I think what’s important about all these executives speaking the same language is that we’re not in this fight alone. Everyone… and I mean everyone is feeling the pressure of the markets constraints and we’re all just waiting for something to give. What that something is… nobody really knows. It’s tough to predict what event or happening will lead to a slight/moderate (that’s all everyone is looking for) pop in loan originations. All we can do is keep the ship buttoned up, reduce overhead and make every loan count. Pull-through is super important right now (not that it ever loses its importance). Not just because we’re primarily working on purchases… but because the only way to bank revenue is to fund a loan. I’ll keep my ear to the ground this week and continue to keep you posted on the goings on in and around the conference. My guess though is that it’ll be pretty docile.
Lastly, and most certainly not least… the Royal Wedding took place this weekend. Prince Harry married Rachel from Suits in what appeared to be the biggest event of 2018. I noticed that some people woke up at 5 AM EST to begin watching the celebration. I’m probably missing something… but I don’t understand why this is such an important wedding? Other than it being another event for E News to cover I’m not quite sure the significance. Isn’t the divorce rate like 56% now? Maybe when they get divorced Prince Harry will have to refi Meghan off their home… could you imagine that scenario?
“Matt… I think I have one for you. Rate and Term refi. Bwr’s are getting divorced. Bwr has no income but has a ton of assets. Do you have a no FICO product? Property has 52 units, 5 businesses including a post office operating out of it and the last time the property was appraised it came in with a value a little under $5B. I need a Jumbo; VA product and we’re looking at possibly reducing him down from a 30 to a 15 year. I’ll reduce my comp down to .01% if it’ll get the deal done. Let me know how we look!”
Talk to you soon!
MJ
Photo by Lea Fabienne on Unsplash
The opinions expressed in this post are the sole view of the writer and do not reflect the opinion of Princeton Mortgage Corporation.