Analysis: Employment numbers came in right in line this morning, followed by home sales numbers that are so anemic they’d be confined to bed in any other market.  The stock market euphorically rose to over 9000 on this news.  Whatever.  Who can analyze this stuff?

But I know how to control it.  This has been tested so many times now that it’s as good as proved.  We know here at the office that when we lock a loan, we reverse the market (this only works when the market is tanking).  In the last two weeks we’ve done it several times.  The market starts to fall, so we call up one of our loans and lock it.  The second we do, the rally begins.  Happens 100% of the time.

Why didn’t we do something about the terrible crash of Black Wednesday two months ago?  Funny you should ask.  We TRIED.  Lenders stopped accepting locks, so we couldn’t get one down.  We sent in the request, and it was eventually honored – at the open of the market the next day, which sparked the largest up day for bonds in several years.  I’m telling you, it’s a curse having this much responsibility.

But I promise you I will use it with discretion and wisdom.  I also promise that your personal loan will not be the one we sacrifice on the altar of the gods of mortgage rates.  We’ll get someone else.

Cj

P.S. Thought I’d again thank all of you for following me, and let you know that it matters a great deal to me.  Today I picked up a gig writing for the Scotsman Guide, somewhat because of RateWatch.  You are all very important to me, and you do get service that’s not available to just anyone.  Thank you again, and welcome to our new signups.  Hope you like it here.

While I didn’t find quite as many deals this week as I would have liked to, a few of these deals are some of the best that I have seen all summer.  Homes are selling and buyers are walking into unbelievable deals.  Call me or email me back if you want to know the value of your home in this market or if you would like to see the weekly # of homes that are selling in your county, city, and area. Thanks!

TOP 10 DEALS OF THE WEEK!!!

1. Draper- 2027 sq ft- $137,500- needs some but minimal work

2. Cottonwood Heights- 4,322 sq ft- $274,900- Bank Owned

3. Lehi- 3,866 sq ft- $234,800- bank owned

4. Herriman- 2,468 sq ft- $201,000- bank owned (One of my clients is already offering on this one, sorry)

5. Draper- 6,516 sq ft, 1/2 acre – $459,000- Trying to avoid foreclosure, needs an offer quick

6. Provo- Triplex on Center St., rents for over $1700/mo. – $234,000

7. West Valley- 2707 sq ft- $105,000- Bank owned, needs some work

8. Draper- 3,050 sq ft- $219,900- built in 2006, priced well below any comps (Not a bank sale)

– Please pass this along to anyone you know that might be interested in buying or selling a home in the next 30 days.  I would love to show them any of these or any other homes that they may be looking for.

Jimmy Rex

Realtor/Keller Williams Realty

cell: 801-979-4506

fax: 801-405-6737

Analysis: What’s to analyze?  It’s a holiday week.  There are about 6 bond traders working, and all of them are taking off around noon.  There’s no volume to speak of, and the volatility that usually accompanies light volume is being muted because all the economic data are conflicting with themselves.  Yes, folks, “data” is a plural.  No, really.  Look it up.

Cj

P.S. Unless something truly wondrous occurs in the next couple days, you’ll next hear from me on Monday. Tomorrow is my birthday, Thursday is my son Crispin’s 13th birthday, and Saturday is some other birthday that I can’t remember.  Has to do with barbecues, I think.   But as always, if you have questions, I’ll be here.

Analysis: Oil spiked a couple weeks ago because it looked like the recession was bottoming out. Whoops. Demand continues to be bad. Oil is now falling. GDP numbers today showed the economy shrinking by 5.5%, and unemployment numbers were bad again, and now earnings are bad as well, so what we learn from this is that we still have a long way to go. This argues for a flat rate environment.

In fact, we’d be trending strongly downward except that every time the government holds a press conference it talks about changing the face of the financial landscape to such a degree that lenders and banks are forced to hedge their bets. Think of it this way: you’re in Vegas. You want to play a little blackjack. You go to the table and the dealer deals you some cards. Then when you look at them, he takes one back. Apparently you can’t look at both of them. This hand, the dealer says, 23 will be the winning score. Next hand it’s back to 21, except you can’t win if you have clubs. How much would you bet on a game like that?

But that’s precisely what’s happening with the US government. Between President Obama, Ben Bernanke, Secretary Geithner, FHA, FHFA, OFHEO, HUD, and a partridge in a pear tree, every single day (and sometimes twice) the rules for lending, how much you can lend, to whom, under what conditions, are changing. If you were a bank, how much would you bet on a game like that?

If it weren’t so catastrophic to so many people, it would be actually kind of fun, like trying to do a puzzle using a funhouse mirror. At least I can say my job isn’t dull.

Cj

Chris Jones
City 1st Mortgage Services, Utah’s Mortgage Lender of Choice (and nearly everywhere else)
801-310-3407

But nobody that matters listens to us, so they just went ahead and passed them, or imposed them, depending on which regulatory body we’re talking about.

Today comes the news that mortgage fraud is up.  I am shocked.  Shocked!

More regulations are not going to stop fraud.  There already was not one single case of fraud committed by accident.  What the new regs do is make it harder for honest loan officers to make a living, which actually, and counter to intentions, makes fraud MORE likely as LOs scramble to keep their families from going hungry.  Additionally, I could once say that only a really bad LO could accidentally do a loan out of compliance (usually unintentional paperwork errors); now I can definitively state that ANY loan officer can do a loan out of compliance without meaning to in the slightest.  The rulebook is so thick and the paperwork so increasingly complicated that missing a form or having forms dated a day too late or, Heavens, talking to an appraiser is grounds for handcuffs.

Sigh.

I was asked today at the UMLA’s Spring Conference if the regulatory morass was going to get better.  The answer is no.  And that’s bad news for everyone, especially anyone that wants to get a loan.

Come to think of it, the subject of fraud deserves a long, detailed post.  Another time, maybe.

One of the things I love about it is the ability to monitor the conversation about my company, and respond quickly when someone has a problem.  Okay, not MY company, because frankly, nobody on Twitter is talking about us.  But my industry, yes.  There is a LOT of complaining going on about mortgage people, companies, brokers, all of that.

I didn’t really have any idea.  Most of the time when people come to me they’re not complaining.  Afraid, yes.  Worried that things are bad and not going to get better.  But they don’t come into my office and say “you never explain anything, your service sucks, and the entire mortgage process makes me feel faintly nauseous.”

This is, however, how they feel.  And I didn’t know it.

I had a short back-and-forth with @mototom (Tom Parker), in which he said, in part, “Same old — daily auto-dialer calls with pre-recorded voicemail messages. Crap follow-up once you’re working with them.”  And this was worse: “But it may be impossible to humanize it. No matter what, doesn’t it still come down to numbers plugged into a machine?”

Oh.  My.

Now I admit in this space all the time that I am not perfect.  I am far from as disciplined as I would like to be, and that lack of discipline shows up most often in communication, where I don’t do as well as I should at keeping my clients apprised of what is going on.  But I hope – I pray – that my clients don’t feel that they’re not human to us.

I guess I had better ask.

No, Tom, you are not a couple numbers plugged into a machine.  You should not be treated that way.  You should never feel that way at all, ever, at any point in the process.  That you do feel that way is a terrible indictment of mortgage brokers and loan officers, and on behalf of the entire industry, let me offer you a sincere apology, and my personal commitment to do things better in the future.

So that even if we never work together, your willingness to speak out will have helped someone.