08-01-2022 Weekly Mortgage Updates With Adam, Les, Matt, Alice, Allen, Jack, And David PART 1

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The Lykken on Lending program will feature our Weekly Mortgage Updates with Adam DeSanctis and his MBA Mortgage Minute, and then Les Parker’s TMSpotlight, a macroeconomic perspective on the economy with a music parody. That leads to Matt Graham of MBS Live providing you a rate and market update, followed by Alice Alvey of Union Home providing a regulatory and legislative update. Then we wrap up the first half of the program with Allen Pollack giving us a Tech Report of the latest technology impacting our industry. All the while Jack Nunnery, who has a 38-year career in mortgage banking, and David will be expounding on each of the regular segments.

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Weekly Mortgage Updates With Adam, Les, Matt, Alice, Allen, Jack, And David

I’m glad to have you with us. This show is created by four mortgage professionals. We’re grateful to have you as our reader. Our commitment is to bring you timely information that you can read anytime and anywhere. We are doing much to improve the show. There is so much development going on here and we’re excited to tell you about it.

A lot of feedback came in. We’re going to be doing a lot more inner activity as we go talk back and forth with those that are dialed in. We’re hoping for more interactivity. Let’s say a special thank you to our sponsors. FormFree does a great job by the count check. It can be used to satisfy Freddie Mac’s re-verification of employment requirements. A lot of good things going on with ForumFree. Go listen to the interview we did with Christy Moss on June 20, 2022.

We work closely with Lender Toolkit. They’ve got some wonderful technology and tools that are very affordable. Technology’s getting expensive out there, but these tools at Lender Toolkit are some of the best out there. We did an interview on July 11, 2022, with Brent Emler and Michael Whitbeck of Blueprint, talking about underwriting. There are some pretty cool things that are going on there.

Check out Snapdocs as well. They have an eVault solution that makes it simple to get started with eNotes. It’s easy to transact across partners and in doing you’ll become a default for your closings and preferred approach for all of your partners. You’d be moving forward on that. It’s hard to believe how long it’s taken for eNotes and the whole eMortgage to get to that level.

If you’re looking for a CRM solution, you’ve got to talk to the folks of Total Expert. They are the leading FinTech software company when it comes to purpose-driven CRM and customer engagement for the modern financial institutions. It is cool. That’s a technology that’s involved for recruiting. You’ve got to check out TotalExpert.com and see what they have. Call us or go to our sponsored page and we’ll help you with that.

Also, SimpleNexus. What they’re doing at SimpleNexus helps you reduce the cost. More people are moving away from other providers and say, “We’ve got to cut our costs.” SimpleNexus provides more of a robust service than others out there, but at a reduced cost. You’ve got to check out what’s going on. You can listen to the interview we did on June 27, 2022, with Shane Westra and find out great information there, but you need to get ahold of your SimpleNexus rep.

I want to say special thank you to other sponsors, Mortgage Bankers Association of America, get registered for the annual conference. You need to do it. Lenders One and Mortgage Collaborative. These two co-ops do a great job at helping lenders get together in a smaller, more intimate setting, interact and find out about the best practices of each of the lenders out there. We also recommend you use SuccessKit as a great job of having your story and testimonials be told. Ken Perry with Knowledge Coop does a great job of creating an LMS or Learning Management system, but also it’s much more.

You got to check out their latest new technology. You can do much through this platform as well as Mobility MMI. We use them along with Modex for recruiting, finding the right talent and helping find people who are the best fit for the organizations we consult. I encourage you to check out both of these companies. They’re competitors, but they’re great compliments to each other. Also, Mortgage Advisory Tools and DW Consulting, both these companies do an excellent job of helping you get in front of the right people. Finally, a special thank you to Adam, Les, Matt, Alice, Allen, and Jack for their contributions to the show. Let’s get over and talk with Adam DeSanctis of MBA and get the MBA update.

Welcome to the Mortgage Minute, the latest news from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The full House of Representatives passed HR3962, The Secure Notarization Act, a bill to establish Federal minimum standards for the use of Remote Online Notarization or RON. MBA fully supported this legislation and issued a Mortgage Action Alliance called to action as well as a press statement from MBA president and CEO Bob Broeksmit after it had passed.

Mortgage Updates: The House of Representatives passed HR 3962, the SECURE Notarization Act, a bill to establish federal minimum standards for the use of remote online notarization or RON. MBA fully supported this legislation and issued a Mortgage Action Alliance called to action earlier in the week.

The Secured Notarization Act has now cleared the relevant committees and full house with broad bipartisan support signaling to the senate that there is considerable interest to clear the bill and the upper chamber. MBA will continue to advocate for the senate to advance this legislation as a standalone measure or to be included as part of a larger vehicle before the end of the 117th Congress.

I appreciate the MBA and all that they do for our industry. Get signed up for their annual conference. That conference is selling out fast. A lot of people are going to be there. This could be an important conference to see who is surviving, coming and thriving, and then what talent is out there. There’s a great opportunity for you to upgrade the talent of your company. Be at that MBA conference. Many people will be there, as well with our show. Thank you, Adam. Great job. Also, sign up for the Mortgage Action Alliance app. Now, we’ve got Les Parker with his TMSpotlight here in a macro view of the market. Let’s get on with that. Les, what do you got?

The US GDP slips negatively for two consecutive quarters while the Eurozone’s GDP surprisingly rose. Meanwhile, China declared its support for feeding its property companies negative cashflows adding to anticipated Chinese banking woes. The treasury auctions found robust foreign appetite resulting in happy bond bulls. The future holds more confusing news, so expect more wild moves. Additionally, the fast deterioration in housing suggests that mortgage rates continue to fall faster than the ten-year yield. Janet Yellen is going to hold our hands, tell us no lies and make great happy claims. See what moves when Fed shakes TmSpotlight.com.

Les Parker and Gary team up to produce a good segment that is informative and entertaining. Excellent job. I love it. Let’s get over to Matt Graham, who is the Founder and CEO of MBS Live, for the market update up there in the Portland area. Staying cool and calm. I love these markets. Good job.

I’m delighted that Les mentioned the faster drop in mortgage rates because that was one of the most interesting things that happened. He mentioned the Fed, which was the big calendar item. No surprise from the rate hike itself that was widely expected. What was interesting is there’s now a debate surrounding whether or not this Fed announcement was dovish AKA bond friendly for lack of a more simple term. That had to do with a few things. Powell is saying we may start to slow the pace of tightening now and we’re not going to be as explicit on telling you what we think rates will do. Interesting comment considering the next meeting has the dot blot in which every Fed member explicitly forecasts where they think the Fed funds rate’s going to be.

What Powell’s referring to is they’re not going to come out with a bunch of comments leading up to that will present a unified sense of where the board is leaning in terms of the rate increase in September. What Powell did say, “The way I think that you can balance this dovish versus hawkish debate is to say that they’re data dependent.” A phrase they’ve used before and in advance of this meeting saying this is probably what’s going to happen. He also confirmed this was the not-so-bond-friendly confirmation that something we talked about, which is that the Fed does not care if we go into a recession.

It doesn’t care if there’s economic weakness if that economic weakness in that recession is a result of the Fed doing what it needs to do to fight inflation. Powell reiterated that and reminded us it’s not a binary choice. We’re not choosing between fighting inflation or the economy. We are only fighting inflation no matter what happens to the economy. We’ll try to do the soft landing thing.

At the end of the day, fighting inflation is better for the economy in the long run than anything else. Bonds generally didn’t seem to care too much about the Fed announcement at the time. The curve reacted a bit more than the ten-year on an outright basis, but it was perfectly palatable. There was no mention of MBS PAL did say that the normalization process, which is the thing where they are decreasing the size of their balance sheet, is going fine. No need to adjust it. That is due for a bump.

MBS is rolling off the balance sheet. Believe you said it would take at least another two years before that process had come to fruition. The biggest and most interesting thing is economic data. GDP and Chicago PMI helped bonds rally. MBS prices have been compressed between coupons it has not been a very big jump in terms of upfront cost to get down to the next lower rate. Also, you have these lower coupons surging in value compared to the upper coupons as investors are aggressively seeking what the secondary market would refer to as “prepay protection.” Not quite the same thing as a prepayment penalty but a similar notion. Investors don’t want to be caught with mortgages that are going to pay off very quickly with a little mini refi boom.

Investors don't want to be caught with mortgages that will pay off very quickly with a mini refi boom. So they move down to lower coupons with a little bit more inherent protection against that. Share on X

They move down to lower coupons which have a little bit more inherent protection against that. That has led to a rapid repricing of normal. In the mortgage market with more than a few lenders, maybe even a majority of lenders under 5% are already back in the force. It is something that a lot of people didn’t think would happen. 4.625% on a conforming 30 is a sweet spot due to MBS coupon limitations and it is out there. That’s something to be aware of. If you are a loan officer who thinks rates are still in the mid-5%, they’re not. Maybe they are for you, but for many lenders, they are not. Those quotes are going to be out there, 4.5% or 4.625% zone and with varying levels of comp.

Some people are saying this with no additional point and that’s a new reality for a lot of people. In the bigger picture, we need to see how the data comes to see how the Fed reacts. At the very least, the rates in mid-June can be confirmed to be the top or this cycle, barring some unforeseen shock, especially in inflation data. At this point, the economic data has been weak enough. It would suggest that we’re probably not going to see that kind of shock, but maybe that’s what it called unforeseen.

Is ISM looking at that?

The three big economic reports you have are ISM manufacturing, non-manufacturing and jobs. Manufacturing’s already out. It came in a little bit hotter than expected but a little bit lower than the previous reading. That’s confirming this gradual downtrend since early to mid-2021. The more significant development, there may be the prices paid component which fell to 60.0. Historically, medium to medium-high, but significantly lower than the forecast, which was 75.0 and even lower versus the previous reading of 78.5. That is indicating a sea change in inflationary pressures in the manufacturing sector. It’s welcome news for the Fed and company.

We didn’t think the rates were going to go up as high as they went. We didn’t think they were going to fall as quickly down to these levels. What’s your take on all this Mr. Nunnery?

There have been times when I’ve been bearish on Jerome Powell. I’m starting to get the feeling that drums got both hands on the wheel and we may see a soft landing before this is all over. We’ve talked a lot about the recession. Are we in one? Are we not in one? It’s hard to peg a recession when you’ve got such strong job numbers and employment in the country. I’ve read articles about the cash reserve of consumers and that’s a different factor than what we typically see entering a recession.

These jobs numbers are going to be important. In my mind, it says the economy does have a lot of positive things going on about it and if this job number shows any weakening, which I don’t think Matt, it’s forecast to do that, I think it’s forecast to come in unchanged. Any sign of weakening in the employment sector, we’ll work in favor of bringing rates down. What’s your thought there, Matt?

The question being if the jobs report comes in roughly as expected, that it’s good for rates.

Even if it comes in a little weaker than expected.

I don’t think that a strong labor market is particularly threatening. Conversely, I don’t think a weak labor market adds to the sense that the Fed is going to slow down more than they already are leaving the door open. A weak employment report is 1) It would be, “There’s the casualty of our policy. If it continues to happen, then they may look a little bit more closely to maybe justify inflation slowing down.”

If you ask the Fed what they’re thinking, “We probably don’t have to do too much more at all and we could let this play out.” At times like this, if you’re a central bank, you can’t be seen not doing all you can to fight inflation until it’s in check, then they have to walk the walk. Weak economic data has been the key thing that has created the promise of lower inflation. In that sense, if the jobs number was significantly weaker, it could easily add to what we’re seeing. Some people are expecting it to be weaker because of the reports that have been surprisingly downbeat. Notably, it is forecast to come in at $250 versus $372 previously. $250 is historically fantastic but still less than it was,

There are a lot of us out here that are waiting for inflation to turn the tide and I know it takes time, right? Back-to-back, 75 basis point rate hikes. You don’t get a rate hike and then three days later, you see the implications or the impact of that rate hike. It takes time for these 150 basis points to kinda run through the economy. I would think that if we were to see inflation start moving in the other direction, that’s only going to be helpful to all of us that want to see rates start to decline.

Mortgage Updates: If we were to see inflation start moving in the other direction, that’s only going to be helpful to all of us that want to see rates start to decline.

Some of what we’ve seen far is anticipatorily leaning on other reports that aren’t CPI and PCE or stuff like the ISM data out, for example, is showing that turn and it’s a great question as to how much of the strength in bonds is anticipating more to come or reflecting what we’ve already seen. It’s probably some of both, and as always we’ll have to wait and see the proportion.

You got to sign up for this service that Matt offers. MBS live is probably one of the most amazing pieces of technology if you are dealing as a loan officer trying to help consumers find the right rate and timing and know what’s going on. It’s such a powerful tool. It’s running business and risk management. It’s up to date, up to the nanosecond. Good job, Matt. Check out Matt’s service by going to MBSLive.net then use LOL in the sign-up code and you get the extended trial period with no credit card required. You’re going to want to use a credit card, get it in there because you want to sign up for the service. Matt, thank you much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I appreciate you being here. Alice Alvey, imagine that is taking some PTO-paid time off. Way to go, Alice. She and her husband are dear friends and we’re grateful for them. Andy and Alice, I wish you guys a great vacation. I hope you’re off having a great time. Knowing Andy, he’s out fishing somewhere and Alice is joining him right there because she is such a faithful, loving, “Do what my husband wants to do,” kind of spouse. I hope you’re enjoying your great vacation. Allen Polack is here with a tech update. Allen, it’s good to have you join in on the show. I appreciate you.

It is good to be here, as always, and great content far. I’m still in the process of buying a home. The drop in rates is very exciting for folks like me and still historically low. I remember my very first house, it was near 7% to 8%. It is still fantastic as far as what’s out there, but for new people who’ve never had a loan and there’s much confusion out there, all the technology and websites. I think borrower education is probably the most important thing. as a financial institution or a lender, if you provide that information on your website, a way to learn more or pull the rip cord, click to talk to somebody. That is huge. If you create a great customer experience, you can look for a referral and repeat business.

Let’s talk about low-tech, the taco maker. Funny enough, I wasn’t looking for it, but I found the coffee machine maker. Here’s how it works. They show a video of two girls talking and they go up to a coffee vending machine. She puts her Apple phone payment into the machine. She can’t see the side of the booth, but the booth opens and you can see a gentleman sitting in there wearing an apron with many pockets and he gets a cup. He then takes coffee off a pot that was brewing on the side of him. He pours it into the cup. He sniffs it to make sure it smells good. He goes in one of his pockets. He pulls out one of those little things of creamer, opens it up, pours it in, takes a straw and spins it himself.

He takes a little sip to make sure it tastes good. He pours a little sugar into it. He opens the window and puts the cup there. The girl takes the cup. She’s talking to her friend and then she walks away. What do we call that in technology? We call it our MVP. Do people want a coffee machine and do they want hot coffee on demand? As we consider spending our money as lenders or as technology vendors, you have to consider an MVP, which is a Minimal Viable Product, absolutely critical to validate the market. Many of us, including myself, many times, you build it and think that it will come, as many books have told us in the past, but no, you build it and they do not come. In fact, there are many solutions in our industry that are built before their time.

We did not listen to our clients, customers, the market advice, and we didn’t do the right intelligence to understand what are people buying. With that, let’s move on. You mentioned eNotes and eMortgages’ fantastic content. There’s much progression and movement there, but I’m going to be honest with you, Fannie Mae doesn’t talk about that as a top 2022 business priority. Let’s talk about what those are. A friend of mine, Carrie, if you’re out there, thank you very much, posted an article and I usually find these on my own, but for some reason, at this one time, I didn’t find it, the Fannie Mae article. It’s called Lender Cite Cost-Cutting As Top 2022 Business Priority. There’s a bunch of information. I’m going to save you some of the nitty-gritty details, but I do want to mention 1 or 2 items.

What they say is that, “In 2021, the mortgage industry experienced significant growth as originators reach a record high.” Think about that giant climb up the mountain. In ‘22, the number of new challenges emerged, including significant home price appreciation, rapidly rising interest rates and persistent inflation with a slowdown in global economic growth. Those are the things that you hear on the news every day. We all know that, but cost-cutting is becoming a top priority since what year? 2017.

Here’s the reason why. Talent management has gradually climbed since 2017, but 2022 has become the second most important priority, making sure we have the right people. This is Fannie Mae’s quoted sentence, “Moreover, the importance of consumer-facing technology has ticked downward over the past three years after peaking in 2019. In 2022 it’s dropped out of the top three.” That’s huge. We’re no longer focused on what are the right tools and how we present things to borrowers. The environment has changed.

We're no longer focused on the right tools and how we present things to borrowers. The environment has changed. Everyone's focused on cost-cutting and talent management. Share on X

Here’s what everyone’s focused on. They’re focused on cost-cutting and talent management. The biggest one is business process streamlining. That is huge. Fannie Mae says specifically in preparing for the shift towards a more focused market, lenders most commonly cited improving the origination process and customer experience as their top strategy. When you think about that, what does it mean? It means, “How can we leverage the technology we already have to improve the top talent that we have and how do we help the top talent that we have to be excellent with assistance, robotic process and all the things that are going to make them be top producers?” I don’t mean on the origination side. I’m talking about processing, underwriting, closing and sending out disclosures and validating income, running integrations automatically.

What is the right mixture of technology? It’s time to stop building, especially on the lender side. I know some of your reader thinking, “You got these big budgets and you’re going to continue to build.” Yes, build and connect with the right tools and the right integration processes. It could deserve its own podcast. Thinking about what to build these days and how to even manage all the vendors because now there’s a lot of cross-pollination between acquisitions people have made. Also, some people have pivoted. Some people thought they were doing one thing and they decided to change because their customers asked them to do something different. I thought it was very interesting. Fannie Mae said that 42% said that improving mortgage origination processes and customer experience is top of mind right now.

We got to be looking for efficiencies. One of the things that you did when we worked together when you were at your former employer and you invited me to come in, we spent much time on process management. I know this is one of your favorite topics that Allen touched on. Your thoughts and why do you think it is finally catching hold?

We’re talking about survival. $10,657 cost to throughput alone is not sustainable. It was the second quarter performance data out of the MBA. If you look at the data over the last few years, it becomes apparent that when the mortgage market expands in terms of originations, the cost to originate goes down. When the market contracts, the cost to originate goes up. What does that tell me? It tells me that a lot of the costs currently in the throughput models are fixed costs. You and I have talked numerous times about how you verbalized as many fixed costs as possible. That’s what Allen was saying. We’re now in survival mode. $10,637 is not a sustainable cost to originate numbers.

You see companies moving away from enhancing the experience of the consumer. Why? If you’re not around, then it doesn’t matter whether or not you have a great consumer experience or a good consumer experience. You’re out of business. What Allen was saying is he was hitting it right on the head that in this type of market with these types of costs associated with throughput, we have to look to process streamlining and technology that allows us to get more out of fewer-performance. Now we’re talking about automating processes, the robotics component of it. It all comes back to you having to make it to the other side to enjoy the benefits of a rallying interest rate market because if you don’t, you’re on the sideline.

For anyone that is considering what to do with staff and technology, if you think about not only, “How do we survive?” Nobody wants to let people go. Maybe you can create ways that certain individuals work better in certain places, like creating a process that creates a disclosure desk. The technology gets you there. You no longer need people to do that. Where I’m going is to imagine putting brand-new trains on the track. You shut the subway down in New York City and you don’t train anyone how to use the new trains.

All of a sudden, people start coming and they want to go on the trains and no one knows how to drive them. That’s what’s going to happen. Eventually, you’re going to say, “These trains, put them back in the yard. We got to bring the old trains back.” We have to make sure that not only is it survival, like Jack was saying, but we start modifying, training and understanding how to use new technology to help drive forward. Otherwise, we’re going to have to rehire all the same people that we displaced and moved on with.

It’s more than just technology. Certainly, there’s an area where we can save money with technology. Thinking of SimpleNexus. Several people contacted me this and say, “We checked it out as a result of being a sponsor on your show. We are impressed. You’ve been talking about how you can save money.” In the particular case, it’s 50% technology savings on a transactional basis. That’s one thing you do. I go to the point, how a variable can you make your technology expense? What are the chances of us doing more to a variable model?

Some of the vendors are offering business rules and workflow processes in their technology. There are a couple of vendors that do nothing but workflow process management and they’re doing a great job at that. I know at least two of them and there are definitely a few more. You also have folks that know how to configure their loan origination system. These platforms, as much as you hear a lot of the chatter of what’s good, what’s bad and who’s expensive and not, they’re all fantastic pieces of technology. I work for one of them.

They all comparatively have options and configurations to get the work completed that you need. They may not all be perfect and there’s a lot of improvement where that’s occurring. If you think about taking baby steps, your loan origination system should help you take those initial baby steps at least to get to the point where you can understand what you need. You need to look and talk with your vendors to figure out what they have and what they can support.

You work for a LOS. Are you guys more of a fixed cost or a variable model? What are you hearing out there, generally speaking, as far as the trend, as far as how to set up a cost structure? If you’re going to get away from a fixed cost, then I’m going to assume it’s going to be more expensive on a per-transaction basis. It’s one or the other, is it not?

It is. We’ve all heard the term, “Debt by 1,000 cuts.” A lot of lenders have always been charged at the cost of a funded or closed loan. It’s become to the point where it costs you much to originate a loan, you can only pay much on a funded loan, but then the technology vendors look at it as, “There’s a bunch of transactions. If I charged you for all of the transactions in everything you did upfront, then it’s going to cost you even more.” There has to be some gray area in the middle that’s good for negotiating that term.

When you look at the real cost, those technologies and the different things, the tools that are used can be costly. As an example, one thing that we do at open close is in our point of sale, based on the validity of data, the conditionality of writing a rule and saying, “If this FICO score from a soft credit poll is lessened or equal to this, then don’t run automated services to validate assets because those things can be expensive.” That’s one way.

The other thing is on the LOS side, there are certain LOS systems that require you to hire outside consultant agencies or to have multiple employees that can help manage your system, then there are other ones that don’t require you to do that. You want to figure out where you sit in that component because your variable cost isn’t the cost to fund the loan. It’s your cost to manage and maintain the technology. There’s that hidden piece in the middle with all the vendors that are used to using the technology, to maintain it and with the vendor charges you. It’s not a simple answer. It is where I’m going. There are a lot of variables to it, but there is probably a sweet spot in the middle that most people should fine-tune themselves to get into.

Mortgage Updates: Certain OS systems require you to hire outside consultant agencies or have multiple employees that can help manage your system. Then there are others that don’t require you to do that. You want to figure out where you sit in that component because your variable cost isn’t just the cost to fund the loan. It’s your cost to manage and maintain the technology.

We got to get to more of a variable cost. Jack, you hit the nail on the head on that one. You’ve always been an advocate of it. That’s why I run my business. All my businesses are run on a variable cost model. Make me a little bit more when it’s going strong, but I also like the downside when things slow down a bit. I don’t have that fixed cost in there. Jack, I let you have the glass word on this important discussion.

I want to go back and touch on something that Allen mentioned because it is a very good point that he made. When you look at workflow, let’s break it back down. First of all, business rule engines are not created equal. You see some that are very robust and some that are pretty lightweight, then there are rules engines that embrace the automation component of this business. The point that Allen made that I want to hit is what is the cost of configuring and maintaining your business rules engine? I have seen some very complicated rule sets around the configuration of your LOS and the configuration inside of the business rules engine. If it’s something that is analogous to flying a space shuttle, there are going to be a lot of costs associated with keeping your software and your business rules relevant.

What do we know about the mortgage business? We know that it changes. It’s a dynamic environment. What was good two weeks ago, whether or not it’s regulatory or house resolutions, change. You’re going to be constantly in your LOS, changing configurations. Are your people working with a rules engine that is relatively straightforward that doesn’t take someone who has a PhD in Oracle to be able to do that? Is it going to cost you a lot of money to be able to ingest and change configurations to stay current with whatever dynamic changes are taking place in the marketplace? That’s a very important consideration that you have to take into account when you’re assessing technology in the marketplace as you get ready to make moves. Thank you, Allen, for bringing up something that I think is very relevant in any technology decision.

Allen, you always bring up some great content in this segment. I appreciate it very much. Allen, here’s one question. What are the chances of getting out of my current fixed contract and getting into a variable contract with my LOS? I am choking at this cost because my volume is down. A lot of these companies have put in minimums. To get this price, you have considered to have the minimum number of transactions and they’ve fallen well below what they anticipate to be the minimum. Therefore, they’re in this place where they’re hurting.

Thanks for the question. Without knowing more information, I’ll give you a very quick high-level opinion and that would be to look at where you are in your contract and is it time for a renegotiation. You have a sound business. You know where you want to be and what’s possible where you are. There may be a way to renegotiate to extend the lifetime of your contract, especially if you like your vendor and the ability to figure out what those new details are and how you can make that more of a variable base cost. There probably will still be a minimum. If you can’t modify that, then maybe look at the cost of the different vendors. Maybe you have too many vendors. Maybe you don’t have enough. There are probably some other things to look at. It’s not a simple strategy or calculation, but I would look at those areas first.

Look at where you are in your contract and whether it’s time for a renegotiation. If you have a sound business, you know where you want to be and what's possible where you are. Share on X

All the way through, but it’s 42% say they improve the mortgage origination process. In this survey that Allen talked about, I’ll be 25% say partner with the builder or real estate agents. That is interesting. Why would you not spend more time partnering with builders? It’s interesting. Where’d you get this survey?

It’s from Fannie Mae or Doug Duncan.

Doug does a great job of that, but that’s amazing the results. I could go on and on about that. Allen, thank you much for being here as you bring us an update. Folks, that wraps up the update on the market. We’re collecting many ideas about hot topics we have. Jack and I were talking a little bit ago about the importance of service. We have started doing a series of interviews with Mark Helm, who works with us, probably one of the foremost authorities on loan servicing in the nation.

There are some exciting episodes that are going to be coming up on that topic, as well as many others. If you have ideas and you’d like to hear from us, please get ahold of us. We’d love to hear from you. We will get your suggested hot topic discussed. If you also have a guest that you recommend that you think would do a great job on that. It’s great to have you with us.

A special thank you to our sponsors, Finastra, FormFree, Lender Toolkit, Snapdocs, Total Expert, SimpleNexus and then also Lenders One, Mortgage Collaborative, SuccessKit, Knowledge Coop, Mobility MMI, Modex, Mortgage Advisory Tools, as well as DW Consulting, MBA, all of them. I’m so grateful to have you as sponsors. I’m grateful to have you as readers. I look forward to having you back here.

About Adam DeSanctis

Vice President of Communications at Mortgage Bankers Association

About Les Parker

Making individual lives better drives me. By transforming consumer lending across the globe through transparency, quality, and connectivity investors invest with confidence, which ultimately gives individuals the confidence to borrow safely and understandably. RegTech clarifies FinTech.

About Alice Alvey

The front line is where the action is and where training efforts can be measured. I am excited to be working with a great team of partners at Union Home Mortgage to develop their training program across sales and operations. The industry is moving rapidly to embrace new technology that constantly changes the way we operate. This in turn changes what, when, why and how we must learn the new ways of business. Education methods and content must change just as fast to keep the team ahead of the curve, efficient and deliver world class service.