04-04-2022 Weekly Updates With Alice, Allen, Matt, Les, And Rob

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The first half of the Lykken on Lending program will feature our Weekly Updates….to read more info about our regulars and weekly updates go to our website!

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Weekly Updates With Alice, Allen, Matt, Les, And Rob

Welcome, everybody. Monday, April 4th. We’re past April 1st. I hope you survived that successfully on Friday with all the jokes that were going on. Several tried to be pulled on me but didn’t work at a great time. It’s good to have you with us. This show is created by mortgage professionals. It is for mortgage professionals and we’re so grateful to have you.

Our commitment is to bring you timely information that you can use anytime and anywhere. We are hearing some great places people are tuning to us from. We’re so grateful to have our expanding audience. Several people said we’re the number one show when it comes to the industry we cover. I’d like to think so. We’re grateful to have you here.

We’re going to call it a jack attack. We have as our special guest, Jack Konyk. He is the Executive Director of Government Affairs at Weiner Brodsky Kider. We’re going to be discussing changes in DC. The new administration has made the leadership of the various Federal agencies that impact mortgage lending. What effects that will have as we look forward to the year and what’s going on?

I sat and listened to Jack Konyk and Bryant Montgomery do a presentation in Phoenix. I so fairly enjoyed it. I said, “I’ve got to get both of these guys on the show.” We finally caught up with Bryant working on getting him on. Jack is here with us. I can’t wait to share some of the insights that he shared with us. Folks, we are in different times than we’ve ever seen ourselves. You got to stay tuned for the Hot Topic because we’re going to cover a lot of that.

Also, joining me is my co-host, Jack Nunnery, hence the Jack Attack. Mr. Nunnery, it’s always fun to have you on the show. It’s good to have you joining in. Let’s go on and say, we’re proud to be a part of Industry Syndicate. They do a great job of promoting a number of podcasts out there. We’re part of them and we’re grateful that they promote us. Check out all the podcasts at IndustrySyndicate.com.

Our sponsors. The Mortgage Bankers Association of America, as well as Finastra, Mortgagebot Solution has robust features such as user-defined groups for processors, underwriters, and closers. Those are some great stuff. Go listen to the interview we did back on March 7th with Chris Zingo. He’s the Managing Director and President of the Americas, everything from North America to South America and everything in between.

Also, the two co-ops. Lenders One and The Mortgage Collaborative. Both of these are sponsors. We talked about the Lenders One Conference we had in Phoenix. Jack is here as a result of his presentation. The Mortgage Collaborative, which I was at two weeks following in Miami. That was another one of the conferences. Both of these two conferences they’ve organized present how different these two organizations are, yet they serve the basic need.

Let’s get lenders and vendors together in a smaller and more intimate setting, and talk about your businesses in a way that you cannot anticipate or get from being a part of the National MBA. Now, you should belong to the National MBA. That’s number one. Don’t put off being a member of the co-ops without being a member of the MBA. Let’s make that certain. If you’re a member of the MBA, then join one or I recommend both of these co-ops. You’ll get something out of it.

Total Expert is an outstanding leading FinTech software company that delivers purpose-built CRM and customer engagement for the modern financial institution. When they talk about purpose-built, you’ve got to go back and listen to the interview I did with Joe Welu on March 14th. I met Joe at the Mortgage Collaborative conference in Miami. They’ve got a vision. These guys are unstoppable. You’ve got to check them out. If you have another CRM that’s probably serving you well, you’ve got to check out what Total Expert is doing.

Also, Knowledge Coop. Go listen to the special episode with Ken Perry. We caught up and talk about his new Knowledge Coop that serves the mortgage industry and others. I am excited to have as sponsors Mobility MMI and Modex. Both of these companies help you with finding top recruits in the various markets that you serve.

As well as Snapdocs, get their tools in the support. They do a great job to implement eMortgage technology effectively. With Snapdocs, the eMortgage Quick Start program is something you got to check out. Go and listen to the interview we did on March 28th with Briana Ings. That’s a great interview. I enjoyed that a lot. I love her energy. Smart Lady.

Also, SuccessKit. Find a way to communicate with your audience. Use the words of someone else. I love that proverb. Let another mouth praise you. Not that of your own. That’s what SuccessKit does. Great job. Get ahold of Julian Lumpkin. Go listen to the interview. Learn more about this product by going to the interview we did with him on January 10th.

Lender ToolKit, Brett Brumley and Brent Emler. These two guys are so much fun, but the product that they offer and what they’re doing at Lender Toolkit is so innovative. They’re right there with FormFree. What Brent Emler is doing as far as setting up how we communicate. You got to check out these companies. They’re amazing. We’re so excited to have these sponsors with us.

DW Consulting, Debbie Wemyss. I love Debbie. She helps you do and create a really good LinkedIn profile, so you got your best foot forward at all times. A special thank you goes out to Rob, Les, Alice, Allen, Matt, and Jack. Let’s get over to start off with the MBA Mortgage Minute with Rob VanRaaphorst and see what he has for us. Rob?

Hi, I’m Rob VanRaaphorst. Welcome to the Mortgage Minute and the latest news from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The Biden administration released its FY 2023 budget proposal. The administration requested $71.9 billion for HUD. This was a 9% increase from FY 2022. Notable line items included $35 billion over 7 years for a new housing supply fund, $100 million for a down payment assistance initiative, $15 million in subsidies to support a $3.4 billion pilot program related to loans with equity, accelerating features, and funding to further support technology and system upgrades.

Weekly Updates: Last week, the Biden administration release its FY 2023 budget proposal. It included $35 billion over 7 years for a new housing supply fund, $100 million for a down payment assistance initiative, and more.

The President’s budget proposal is simply a blueprint of the administration’s priorities provided to Congress as it begins its budget and appropriations process. Finally, be sure to check out MBA’s National Advocacy Conference, April 26th through the 27th in Washington DC. To register, go to MBA.org/Conferences. That’s it for this episode. Thanks for joining me.

Good job, Rob. I always love the Rob VanRaaphorst report from the MBA. There’s so much going on. Be sure to join the MBA if you’re not a member. Also, you do not have to be a member to have your voice heard on the Hill. Thanks to the MBA, it’s creating something called the Mortgage Action Alliance app. They created an app. We call it MAA, Mortgage Action Alliance, but they do a great job of getting our voices heard.

We’re not the biggest industry out there compared to the real association. They have such a large voice out there in the marketplace and on the Hill. The MBA works hard to sync up with all the other trade groups related to housing, but sometimes we have different interests. I would encourage you to make sure you have your voice heard on the Hill, as in Washington DC, as in Capitol Hill, by getting and using the Mortgage Action Alliance app. They do a great job. Check it out. Let’s get into what Les Parker has with the TM Spotlight and this episode’s macro view of the market.

Zelensky and EU leaders think the US wants to drag out the war. Are Biden sanctions designed to heat oil so he can cool it with green money and policies? Maybe. Since it’s not working, oil is down 15% in one week. Joe gives oil a bad name. These views are my own. Avoid getting slapped by a good or bad actor at TMSpotlight.com.

Oil is down 15% in one week because of Biden's sanctions. Joe gives oil a bad name. Click To Tweet

Good job. If you want to sign up for the TM Spotlight newsletter, the paid version, be sure to put in the word power. Anyway, we have with us the very exciting and dynamic personality of Matt Graham, founder and CEO of MBS Live with his market update. Good to have you here along with all of your wisdom that we find on MBSLive.net. Matt, it’s good to have you.

Good to be here, Dave. I’ll try to bring some wisdom to the show too, and I’ll leave it all on MBS Live.

No problem. You got a lot of wisdom up there.

Target rich environment.

We talked about the treasury. We hit the high, and then we saw the futures trading at 2.555, and then it opened up at 2.535. It was the highest. I went on a podcast with one of the guys. I’ve appeared on Fox Business Channel with them. I was on their podcast. I’m going to try to get him and his partner in on our show. He interviewed me, “Where are interest rates going?” I said, “Is it possible? It could be.” Now, we saw the high water market and interest rates for the year with the 10-year treasury, so it’s interesting. I thought that was encouraging just the possibility. You think, “What about all the fed rate hikes?” Matt, what do you got for us? Run through your overview of the markets, and then let’s get back to that. Are we at the high?

It could affect it. Sure thing. That sounds like a good plan. Real quick, last week was definitely a great week in many respects. It was the best week for bonds since early March and arguably, the best organic week of 2022. What do I mean by organic? That’s a term that I like to use and some other people probably use it too, to describe the movement that occurs for reasons that aren’t artificial.

Last week was the best week for bonds since early March and it was arguably the best organic week of 2022. Click To Tweet

If we’re thinking about an artificial reason, it would be like the war in Ukraine breaking out, and that creating a big flight to safety, a safe haven bid for the bond market. Although some of last week’s rally is attributable to that sort of stuff, it wasn’t anywhere near on the same scale as it was in late February and early March. Those were the only other weeks of 2022 that were comparable to last week.

It was the first big green candlestick on a candlestick chart that we’ve had in 2022, other than the one that coincided with the outbreak of the war. That is good. The cost for that was that yields had to rise to 2.55 in terms of 10. That is always going to create more relative buying demand. As we’ve talked about the past several weeks, the higher yields move, the faster they get there. The more that we are creating, momentum builds up in the other direction, an oversold condition that could give way to buying momentum or even value-buying, if you will.

It does come with a cost, but to see it happen and to see it play out is a good thing. The first four days of the week were the best four days of the week. Friday, things pulled back a little bit. Before we get to Friday, we’ll talk about a few things that happened earlier in the week. Same thing. Something that is a topic of conversation at mortgage and real estate cocktail parties is home prices are still climbing year over year. Both Case-Shiller and FHSA were out with their monthly update. Most people know this, but if you don’t, it’s a good talking point to have in your toolkit.

Those reports have a fair amount of lag. That’s for the month of January when rates were first starting to rise, plus those transactions are closing in January, meaning they were locked or in processed well before the rate spike. That’s one of the reasons that when we do actually see rate spikes affect home prices, it takes anywhere from 4 to 7 months from the first big rate spike to the point that it shows up in the economic data.

It should also be noted that we don’t always see rate spikes correspond to drops in price appreciation. It should also be noted that we’re not saying that it makes prices go lower. We’re saying, it slows the pace of price appreciation. That’s very much in line with pretty much everybody’s forecast for the rest of the year. Nobody expects homes to be able to continue to appreciate at 18% to 20% forever.

Obviously, that’s not going to be sustainable. It’s already been sustainable longer than a lot of people expected. The baseline forecast is still for that to come down. We’re definitely going to be able to point to higher rates as a culprit for that, but it’s probably something that would be happening on its own. Anyway, fairly soon, just because there are only so many 20% year-over-year gains, you can have a month in and month out before people are out of money to buy houses.

Those are the talking points on home price appreciation. Give it some time. We’ll see the curve start to flatten a little bit there. Weakness on Friday, bonds lost some ground. It was also NFP Friday, the big jobs report. Was it the jobs report that heard bonds? No, not at all. In fact, bonds don’t care about the jobs report very much these days.

The jobs report Friday is always going to be an important trading day because whether or not the market is focused on the actual labor market implications, it always serves as the cool place to be to initiate new trading ideas or to capitalize on extra liquidity and volatility on NFP Friday. It happened to be the first trading day of a new month. That created some interesting dynamics.

That new month dynamic probably accounts for more of the weakness than any trading ideas that were surrounding the jobs report or capitalizing on that jobs report volatility. Specifically, the narrative in general is something like this. We have month-end trading coming into the end of March, also quarter-end trading, and investors needing to hold a certain mix of bonds based on the first quarter of 2022.

Weekly Updates: Month-end trading is coming into the end of March and investors need to hold a certain mix of bonds based on the entire first quarter which created an extra bond-buying demand.

That created extra bond-buying demand relative to what we otherwise might be seeing if traders were simply trading based on what they thought the future direction of rates would be. That could explain some of the positivity through the course of the week. On Friday, they would no longer be beholden to those requirements to have those bonds on their books and thus, sellers would be a bit more in control.

Very notably, most of the weakness on Friday was in place before the jobs report. By the end of the day, yields had actually fallen below those opening levels. The jobs report, not only had no impact on rates by the end of the day, but if you were going to say it had an impact, the day ended up being positive relative to opening levels.

It was actually a decent day, one that served to confirm the recent sideways range or at least begin to confirm it. This week, we have rates opening up fairly flat and so, hope is still alive for that 2.55 ceiling for a broader bond market consolidation. I think the average analyst or trader is not necessarily betting on that, but they’re entertaining it as an outside chance.

It’s the first real possibility we’ve had so far in 2022. What else do we have coming up this week? Fed and more Fed. Wednesday afternoon, FOMC minutes. These are the minutes from the meeting that occurred three weeks ago. A more detailed account of that meeting, that’ll be Wednesday at 2:00 PM. Market participants will of course be curious to see what the discussion is like as it concerns balance sheet normalization.

This is how the Fed will let bond-buying efforts roll off the balance sheet by capping reinvestment amounts for both treasuries and MBS. Special interest to our industry is the MBS-specific nature of what the Fed is probably talking about. We know they’re talking about returning to a treasury-only portfolio. I’m curious to see how they’re going to go about that.

It’s going to be hard for them to sell MBS in this environment, but it will be very easy for them to cap reinvestment and let MBS roll off naturally. They may end up just going with a very aggressive roll-off strategy. The bond market is already planning on seeing something like that fairly soon. It’s going to be hard to surprise MBS too much.

Spreads have widened out quite a bit. They could widen out a bit more. They probably will by the time normalization is done. If they’ve widened the 50 to 60 basis points so far, we’re personally at MBS live thinking maybe another 20 to 30 over the course of this year as normalization begins as sort of a baseline. There’s some variability in there.

ISM Non-Manufacturing on Tuesday is the only other semi-interesting piece of calendar data this week. There aren’t any other major economic reports. Still, Ukraine-related trading can go on and that’s a double-edged sword. This also goes back to last week. What I saw at the beginning of last week was a series of headlines regarding what we now have confirmed, which is Russia pulling out of most of Western and northern Ukraine, and going back to the separatist territories and fighting the war there.

At first, those headlines were taken as some sign of an impending ceasefire. When that was happening, we were seeing oil prices move lower fairly precipitously. We were also interestingly seeing bond yields move lower. The reason that’s interesting is because you would think de-escalation in the war would be bad for bonds because it would promote light to quality in stock.

Here’s the super interesting thing, David. It’s that if we break out 10-year yields in terms of their nominal yield and their inflation-free component, then we get the inflation-only component. Otherwise known as market-based inflation expectations or tips. Break-evens for the 10-year treasury inflation protective securities. We actually see those inflation-free yields did not rally. They didn’t move lower in line with the rest of the bond market. If anything, they were slightly higher on the week.

If you break out 10-year yields in terms of their nominal yield and inflation-free component, you would get the inflation-only component. Click To Tweet

Nominal yields move lower because inflation expectations move lower. Now, they’re still higher than any other time before March 7th, but they’re much lower than they were on March 25th, so before the start of last week. That is what accounts for that treasury rally. It was all inflation-related. All of the inflation components and inflation-free yields actually were slightly higher, indicating that a lot of the fear that was being priced into the market surrounding the Ukraine situation has been priced out.

Now, we’re just waiting to see if this indeed can be a ceiling around 2.55, but that’s going to depend on what happens in Ukraine and what happens with incoming inflation data in the US. What the Fed has to say about all of it on Wednesday afternoon, which is of course a look back three weeks ago, but it’ll be new information for the markets anyway.

We’re looking for any indication, and that’s what the markets do. That’s why people need to have a service like yours, Matt, to stay on top of all of it. It’s so dynamic when someone says something that seems to be indicating something of a direction that’s anticipated in the markets. It can move so quickly and we’ve seen the adjustments quickly.

Let’s talk a little bit about the treasury. You touched on it. When we’ve seen all the announcements out there, Feds have been raised. They are consistently going all up to control inflation even though it’s government-induced inflation, as far as I’m concerned. Look at this new spending bill that was just talked about and goes like, “Are you serious?” Matt, what are the conditions in which we would see interest rates possibly be at the max?

I’ll push back just a little bit on the political angle and bring some balance to it from my own point of view, which is that I do think that there is a fiscal as to inflation that we’ve seen domestically. I think most of that has to do with the cash payments that occurred with the COVID relief. The new spending bill, obviously, anytime we’re putting more money into the economy and financing more in terms of treasury debt, there is going to be some impact on inflation.

With inflation being as global as it is right now, nobody is putting a percentage on it. I don’t think anybody could, but I think a large portion of it has to do with supply chain shocks. The fact that we had a just-in-time economy, we have for quite some time. When you put as big of disruption into that as we did in 2020, we’re still catching up with that.

Of course, if we have material or labor shortages, which we know we do, then that’s only going to add to that. Things may have been on a path to leveling off better in terms of inflation before the Ukraine thing, and then energy prices and food prices around the world. It’s not as big of an issue for the US but it’s a massive issue for Africa and the Middle East.

They send shockwaves both in terms of actual price inflation and also price inflation fears that cause markets to adjust their forward-looking expectations for what things might cost. It threw a big wrench in the works. That is one of the things that could help answer this question of whether we’ve seen a ceiling is the extent to which those inflation expectations can come under control. That’ll have something to do with foreign central bank policies and the Fed by the Fed’s own admission. That’s a little bit of an ironic thing to think about right now. They have previously said, “We can’t do much to control inflation because it’s this supply-driven thing. By the way, we still got to be aggressively hiking rates so we can control inflation.”

As I said, I think last week or the week before, they can’t sit on their hands and do nothing. They have to adjust policy in such a way. It looks like they’re fighting this. How much will that help in the short term? I don’t know. I think it’s still an issue of the supply chain stuff having to work itself out. You could get a little bit of a bump here and there from fiscal stuff. We’ve certainly seen that in the past, not just for spending but also for the tax bill. There was a concern about a decrease in revenue that also was inflationary. We’d have to issue more treasury debt to pay for stuff.

There are two different ways to approach that from the government’s standpoint. I don’t want to give either side of the aisle too much credit for being able to do too much about the inflation that we’re currently seeing. I’m with you. It’s better to spend less than to spend more, but the big bogeyman as far as the global market is concerned is the supply chain.

As far as yields at 2.5, give or take, inflation and the Fed. Those would be the big two. Once the market is definitely priced in a vast majority of what they think the Fed is going to do. Every big move higher is another great chance for things to level off. We might need a few more, but we might not. We have a little bit of a chance to might not need a few more, but if we do see a little bit more, then it takes us one step closer. Maybe at 2.75. Either way, one would hope we’re getting pretty close and I think we’re probably getting reasonably close at this point.

I agree with you 100%. We could go on and on about this. Matt, thanks so much. I appreciate you. You did a good job and your service is amazing. I should make sure to say if you want to sign up for MBSLive.net, be sure to use the LOL and the sign-up code. It’ll give you an extended trial period without a credit card. Good job, Matt. I appreciate you so much. Have a great rest of your day.

You, too.

You bet. Let’s go over to Alice Alvey. Alice Alvey is CMB Vice President of Education and Training at our favorite Union Home Mortgage. The one and only Union Home Mortgage. Here’s the legislative update. Alice, it’s so good to have you here.

Thanks, Dave. I have some good news at the end of my report. I’m going to save it for the end. I’m going to start with I know everybody was super excited when they saw that A Guide To HMDA Reporting: Getting It Right! is now available. I know that there were a lot of people waiting for this to be published. As well as the HMDA data is out there. A lot of great stuff within the HMDA data for sales.

That’s usually a great dissect to dump into your databases and try and figure out what homeowners you’re going to go after. Just a heads up, I always laugh when that comes out. I’m like, “Just the compliance officers are excited about getting that one.” They’re the only ones going, “Yeah.” By the way, for all of you out there who don’t have to do anything with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act annual reporting, the next time you see the person at your company who has to do that, just thank them so that you don’t have to do it.

The other thing I want to point out is Neighborhood Watch numbers. Watch those closely. One of the indicators that we’ve been talking about is, if your forbearance rate is 50% or less of what is sitting out there in your neighborhood watch delinquencies, you should be careful because most lenders out there, most of their delinquencies that are causing their compare ratios to be a little higher is due to the loans that are in forbearance.

If your forbearance rate is 50% or less of what's sitting out there in your neighborhood watch delinquencies, you should be careful. Click To Tweet

If you’re below that 50% mark, then you’re out of the norm for what HUD is expecting. If you’ve got that in combination with a high compare ratio, you will possibly be on HUD’s radar. Just a heads up there that that’s a component now to put with it. The other thing is just a heads up with CFPB and getting that second appraisal.

There are some issues in the market it seems as if we’re all dealing with inflationary home prices. Even in refinances, consumers are wanting to get a second appraisal. In a purchase, it’s a different world. Many times you can go out and get some better data. Just a heads up for your appraiser independence and that you’re following those policies closely.

Remember that to get that second appraisal, you need to have a solid bonafide pre or post-funding appraisal review and QC process and solid underwriting guidelines around it. You’ve got to stick to the requirements that the agency set up. It can’t just be, “It came in low, the borrower wants more cash out,” or whatever your circumstance. Especially on your refis, be super careful. Just a heads up on that one. It’s a new thing that CFPB has on their radar.

Last but not least, my good news. It’s just about time to get HUD’s first quarter report on the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. Maybe we will finally have enough history under our belt that we will get reduced FHA premiums. I can’t guarantee it because HUD can always mess with the numbers with the lower volumes and all the shifts in the market, but they’ve got a lot of cash.

There are some folks out there right now who are thinking, “Cross your fingers. Maybe once we get this quarter’s data, we can see a change in FHA annual and or upfront premiums.” It’ll be interesting to see how any change they make would compare to agency LLPAs, but we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe that’s the little bump in the market we all would like to see to get some more FHA loans in the door. That’s my report for today, Dave.

Good job, Alice Alvey. Very good. If you want to listen to all of Alice’s segments, so many people want to go back because she does give a lot of information quickly. Go to the website, LykkenOnLending.com, and look under the podcast. You’ll see a drop-down menu and you can see all of Alice’s segments. Just hers.

Alice, thanks so much for being here. Be sure to greet your husband, Andy. He’s such an awesome guy and sorry to hear he got caught in the Florida weather situation. That was so bad, but safe travels to him as he journeys home. I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you both. Let’s go over to Allen Pollack who’s here with a tech update.

I got a whole bunch of fun stuff. I always bring up something funny. Here’s a tweet that somebody did about technology. They said, “99 little bugs in the code. Take one down, patch it around, 117 little bugs in the code.” We all know how software goes. If you are talking to your software vendors and you need to add a little humor to a conversation, that’s not going to be so great. You may want to pass it around and add a couple of bugs to the code.

Alice, great market update. David, I’m trying to buy a home. Not only is the number of people bidding on homes absolutely crazy. There is a flurry of homes in the last two weeks that came on the market. With interest rates going up, your payment, depending on the cost or the price of the home does go up, I’d say, $500 or more. That does make a big difference.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the people that have listed higher than they should are artificially making it look like our industry, real estate, has a price reduction or values are dropping. They’re not. It’s just that people are asking for too much. Realtors are letting them do it or they’re being waived completely and they’re coming down because more properties are finally hitting the market.

It’s not enough to change where everything is at. Technology plays a big role, but I don’t think it’s playing enough. I think we’re still a little bit of the Wild West if you want my honest opinion. Demand is creating the world. It’s pretty tough out there for folks like me trying to buy a property. Let’s move on. DocuSign is now offering a fully digital mortgage experience with rooms for mortgage notaries. It’s cool.

Weekly Updates: DocuSign is now offering a fully digital mortgage experience with rooms for mortgage notaries.

A friend of mine started a notary business recently. He did his first one. He was like, “You should see how many pages I had to print out and all this fun stuff.” They started this business and they were saying, “It’s just crazy. I had to print out so many documents, and then the title agent was mad at me because I tried to print too many copies, so I had it for everyone prepared.”

My friend’s name is Mike. I said, “Mike, you got to start looking to go digital.” That was many years ago. I don’t know how much longer that will last. If you have someone that is a notary or someone that wants to become a digital notary, DocuSign has a program now that you want to check it out. They’re doing digital rooms, which is smart.

Let’s move on. Mortgage Cooper and Sagent, we all know who they are. They produced a cloud-native mortgage servicing platform. Get how they structured the deal. This is the coolest part. I know some lenders or some of you folks who are not even listening on the podcast have done this before. Mr. Cooper has completed an agreement with Sagent. It’s previously announced and they had mentioned this in the past.

Under the terms of this agreement to create this cloud-native platform, Sagent has purchased the intellectual property rights from Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper has received an equity stake in Sagent in this platform and appointed two directors to Sagent’s support. Not only do they get to probably use the technology. They get to see the technology grow and expand and make it out to the general market, which brings more innovation and ideas from everybody else. They also get to become a part of this.

It’s interesting. Other deals in our industry happen this way. The Mortgage Technology Conference, which is happening is exactly where deals get drawn up. If you’re going to be out there, I’ll be there as well. Please reach out. I would love to meet with you. That is in Las Vegas. April 11th, it starts. David, another quick item, Staircase. It’s a new technology and they’re giving lenders more third-party services. Think about this. You can integrate with Zapier. Zapier integrates you with many other systems. In the mortgage industry, sometimes you have to waterfall different services and vendors.

You, as a lender, can integrate the Staircase. After you’ve completed that, they have what they call click-to-deploy technology that led to you as the lender accessing a wide number of third-party services, and you can waterfall them. Actually, it’s so funny. I had this exact conversation with Jack many years ago about risk mitigation having multiple vendors. When Jack and I were talking, they weren’t set up in a waterfall process, but Staircase does that.

They’re saying that they also reduce the contract time and the negotiation of cost of these vendors. They’ve got this entire platform. The result is an average reduction of 20 minutes of loan processing with each vendor. It’s a reduction of 4 to 6 days in application to closing time. David, let me end on this question, which we’ll talk about next episode.

I’m going to come back right before Digital Mortgage next week with a bunch of info we should talk about. What is a digital mortgage? What is it? It’s up to the digital mortgage conference, by the way. It’s MBA tech. I don’t know why I said that but what is a digital mortgage? You and I have talked about this so many times. We’ve had people on this platform on our show talk about it. What is it? Has it changed? Is it still the same thing? What are we even focused on anymore?

Has that whole concept moved? We always think of digital mortgages as eMortgage technology. Snapdocs is again a leader, one of our sponsors. Others out there are doing it. That’s interesting. Has the definition moved or have we started presuming we have a good definition? That would be good. Tease it up. Have a good one. Come back next episode for you.

Absolutely. Just like we redefined what a digital mortgage is, I’m redefining what I said in the last episode that I talk about, which is a bunch of different things that I’m saying we need to be focusing on. I think they’re right aligned with what digital mortgage is. Next episode, don’t miss it. We’re going to talk about it.

I can’t wait. Very good. It’s like a politician. If what you said isn’t popular, just change it and reframe it, “What I meant was,” and then go 180 degrees. You won’t do that though. You’re consistent all the time. Thank you so much, Allen, very much. We got to wrap up the first half of the show. Before we do, let’s get over to my co-host. Jack, anything you want to comment on? We got to move on quickly. Real quick, any thoughts on the first half of the show?

Just a quick comment, David. May should be an interesting month for those of us who are bed watchers. I expect May is when Jerome Powell is going to start putting some color around his balance sheet management strategy. That’s a potential market mover on the near-term horizon. That’s my only comment. Thanks.

Good stuff. Always bring a few extra comments. That gives us nothing to have our eyes focused on. Good job. That ends this weekly mortgage update. Bryant Montgomery will be here next. We’re going to catch up with him on a pre-recorded basis. Bryant and I will catch up. I’ll try to get Jack Nunnery to join me in that interview. We’ll try to make it as dynamic as possible. It’ll be fun. Be sure to come back.

Bryant Montgomery is with us next. I want to say a special thank you to our sponsors. Finastra, Lenders One, Mobility MMI, Modex, The MBA, Knowledge Coop, Mortgage Collaborative, Snapdocs, SuccessKit, Lender ToolKit, Total Expert, FormFree. We’re so grateful, most of all for you, tuning in and sharing this show with others.

I was at a Black Knight function at the conference and I was talking to Mike Brown and he says, “You know what, Dave? I think that’s required listening here at Black Knight. A lot of people are required to listen to your podcast because of the amount of information.” Mike, thanks for that shout-out and we give you a shout-out back. Folks have a great rest of your week. We look forward to having you back next episode with our regular show and with our special guest, Bryant Montgomery. Have a great week, everybody. Bye.

04-04-2022 Weekly Updates With Alice, Allen, Matt, Les, And Rob

Weekly Updates With Alice, Allen, Matt, Les, And Rob

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