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There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Dirty Laundry (page 4 of 9)

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September 9, 2009

Free Mortgages? Nope – but a free book about mortgages!

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

From now through October 31, 2009, I’m offering a copy of  Straight Talk About Mortgages – the Book available for free!

Why?  Because I want to.   That’s reason enough for me, how about you?

Click here to download your copy:

Straight Talk About Mortgages The Book

I’d like to ask two favors in return for a free copy:

  1. Once you’ve had a chance to read it, let me know what you think of it.   Just send me an e-mail at tvanderwell@straighttalkaboutmortgages.com.
  2. Take a minute, think of someone you know who might be thinking about buying or refinancing their house and send a copy of the book on to them.

Thanks, enjoy!

Tom Vanderwell

September 6, 2009

My NAR tax-credit video: “Tell the National Association of Bloodsucking Vampires to go to hell. It’s where they belong.”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Want to know what Realtors can do to help resurrect the American economy? They can get the hell out of the way, that’s what.

Here’s my entry in the Al Lorenz/Don Reedy NAR tax-credit video contest.

Think you can do better? Please do. And tell everyone you know in the media to latch onto this with every tooth they have left in their dainty little lapdog jaws.

This used to be a free country. Whether or not it ever is again depends on what each one of us does now…

September 4, 2009

Jobs Report – did I call it wrong?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

Okay, so far this morning, the market has reacted in a very volatile but not significantly changed manner to the jobs report.   Essentially the jobs report came in pretty much where the market expected.  

So, did I call it wrong by recommending a shorter term lock and a long term float guideline yesterday?   I don’t think so for a couple of reasons:

  1. We’ve passed the major economic hurdle for the next few weeks without any news that is going to significantly lower rates.   Between that and the fact that the new Reg Z rules essentially require locking in your rate at least 1 1/2 weeks before closing, it makes sense, if you are closing soon, to grab a rate and be done with it.
  2. One of the “big guys” at PIMCO was on CNBC this morning talking about how this is a “sugar high” rally that is based on inventory and cost control and stimulus funding (isn’t that what stimulus is supposed to do?) but that it won’t last.    When reality hits, the stock market will adjust and the adjustment won’t be pretty.    That has two potential options:  1) It would force money into the bond market driving down rates, or 2) It could cause money to jump to cash (remember last fall?) and everything would be really ugly.   So I expect there is still some lower rate potential in the next 60 to 90 days.

Have a good weekend!

Thanks!

Tom Vanderwell

September 1, 2009

Urf! We’re back up, kinda-sorta, but we lost a week’s worth of data

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Maybe a dozen posts are gone from BloodhoundBlog, along with around 400 comments, 300 of them about forced versus open registration. We lost a couple dozen engenu pages as well, along with the photos that make them up.

I treated this as a simple hardware swap, but it turns out that our incremental back-ups were failing all week. I was insufficiently paranoid, alas.

Contributors, if you have copies of your posts, you can re-enter them. If not, they’re gone.

Everyone: You have my apologies.

 
Further notice: We lost BloodhoundBlog.net, and I mean all of it. None of the backups of the database will restore, so it is gone for good. I’ve not been delighted with it, overall, for the past few months, so I think I’m not going to start over. If you had serious content there, I’m sorry but it’s gone. If you had an older Scenius scene running there (I had several), rebuild it at Scenius.net. Very sorry…

August 13, 2009

The Fed Translated – and why it isn’t good for interest rates…..

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

My apologies for taking almost 24 hours after the Fed to get this up.   As I’ve done in the past, I want to go through what the Fed said yesterday and give some insights into what I think it means for the housing and mortgage markets.   You can find the entire FOMC statement at Federal Reserve.gov.    As usual, my comments will be inserted inside the statement and will be in bold and italics.   Here goes:

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June suggests that economic activity is leveling out. I think it’s important to notice that they didn’t say things are improving, just leveling out.   The Fed never uses any words without a reason. Conditions in financial markets have improved further in recent weeks. Household spending has continued to show signs of stabilizing but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit.  I think that what they mean by household spending is stabilizing is that people have slashed and burned their budgets down to the minimum and aren’t cutting back further.   However, if you look at the Retail Sales Report this morning, it raises a question of whether household spending is stabilizing. Businesses are still cutting back on fixed investment and staffing that’s a nice way of saying jobs are still being lost but are making progress in bringing inventory stocks into better alignment with sales. inventory in better alignment with sales – what that really means is that the jobs that “make things” are still being eliminated. Although economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time a time – that’s a nice way of saying we’re in for a long slow climb back, the Committee continues to anticipate “continues to anticipate” is that sort of like, “Please, please please, I really really want it?” that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, fiscal and monetary stimulus, and market forces will contribute to a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth in a context of price stability.  They have had this sentence in there for a Read more

August 12, 2009

Am I being Paranoid about what the NAR is calling the “Recovery?”

by

Realtor, Media Mogul

Author website

Our helpful friends at the NAR have apparently sent out press releases about the increase in home sales in the second quarter being a sign of a “recovery.”

I saw this on MSN today (yes, I look at MSN):

WASHINGTON – U.S. home sales grew in the second quarter in 39 states, another sign that the ailing housing market is finally coming to life.

Total quarterly sales rose 3.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.76 million, from 4.58 million in the first quarter, but were still about 3 percent below a year ago, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. – MSN Home sales grew in second quarter in 39 states

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a recovery.  I would love to see a recovery.  Did I mention that really strong sales would be great?  The issue for me is that sales that are still 3% below a year ago doesn”t look like a recovery to me.

Yes, sales are higher than the first quarter of 2009.  However, around here, second quarter sales are always higher than first quarter sales.  I would wager that third quarter sales will be above second quarter sales, as always, too.  But that doesn’t mean they will be above the third quarter of last year.

Help me here, what am I missing?  With help like this from the NAR, it’s no wonder folks don’t trust Realtors.

August 4, 2009

Should Realtors “Interview” Lenders?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

I got what I thought was a very interesting and thoughtful e-mail last week from Jessica Horton, a Realtor down in Georgia, who I’ve gotten to know.   She and I have chatted a bit both online and over the phone about the markets, the dynamics of today’s lending rules and the ins and outs of structuring deals.   Oh, and we are both authors on the Bloodhound Blog.

I’ve taken Jessica’s e-mail and my response and turned them into a post.    I’ve eliminated a few minor conversational tidbits but I’ve left the majority of our e-mail conversation intact.

Why am I reposting this?

For three main reasons:

  1. I’ve been in the mortgage business for 21 years now and I have never seen as challenging of an environment as we have now.   Yeah, we’ve had ups and downs and economic slow times, but a combination of falling property values, rising unemployment and tightening underwriting guidelines have made this the most challenging market I’ve ever been in.
  2. The days of assuming that any lender can get a loan done and that anyone can get a mortgage are over and they aren’t coming back any time soon.
  3. I found it very refreshing that a Realtor is taking a good hard look at who they want to recommend to their clients and not looking at it only from the standpoint of “who’s going to buy me lunch.”

I found it very refreshing that Jessica was talking to a number (I don’t know how many) lenders and was attempting to understand better how they work and what their processes and procedures are for making sure that things go smoothly.    With the HVCC and the new MDIA and the pending changes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the rate a lender offers will always be important, but their ability to get things done is more important than it has ever been.

Take a few minutes and read through the exchange.   Jessica’s questions are in “normal” print and my answers are in bold and italics.

Tom

Jessica,

See below.   Thanks for giving me this opportunity.

Tom Vanderwell

From: Jessica Wynn Horton [mailto:jessicahorton30292@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 1:58 PM
To: Tom Vanderwell at Straight Read more

July 29, 2009

Is ActiveRain Selling Loan Officers An Exclusive Opportunity, Or Just Selling Their Real Estate Agents Out?

by

Las Vegas Mortgage Blogger

Author website

active_rain_making_money_off_the_backs_of_loan_officers_by_using_agents_as_a_carrot

I’ve received a few emails and calls from my loan officers this week about some new exclusive opportunity that Activerain.com is pitching to the mortgage industry.

Apparently, Active Rain is cold calling mortgage professionals who have an AR blogging history and offering them an “extremely rare opportunity” to pay $299 / month for the privilege of being able to re-sell upgraded AR products to real estate agents.

The following email is an example of what the new Active Rain business model appears to be:

xxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to speak with me.  As I said, this is an extremely rare opportunity.

WISCONSIN

Currently 848 Real Estate Agents

Currently 123 Loan Officers

You will have a full training course with ActiveRain to learn the knowledge on how to dominate the first page of Google.  With this knowledge you will train agents to do the same.  You will keep in contact with these agents as their trusted advisor who has directly taught them on how to fully market themselves successfully.  There will be loyalty here.  You will have full access to every single new and old agent in the whole state of Wisconsin.  You will be highlighted all over ActiveRain for this.

$299/month is your investment.

After 15 upgrades you will receive $700.

For every rainmaker upgrade thereafter, you receive $25.

The relationships and possibilities are endless.

Please let me know as soon as possible as time is of the essence.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Member Services
ActiveRain.com
xxxxxxxxxxxx

I’ve obviously blanked out the names to protect the people involved in this specific conversation, but I’ve already been given permission by my loan officers to talk about this on Bloodhoundblog.

________

Let me get a few disclaimers out of the way before I dive in to this Active Rain thing.

I’m a loan officer with several blogging platforms – some are free, and some cost money to participate.

My main objective with 99% of the group blogs that I build is to help my contributors expand their reach online with a little help from a few friends who share the same goals.

I understand the importance of having a well capitalized web project so that the development crew can stay on the Read more

July 16, 2009

For those of you following the lurid drama of our lives…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We bought our house out of hock today. All it took was a tiny little pawn ticket and a great big check. Our small feat of redemption was actually paid for by June’s receipts, but I got myself into this mess by surfing the payables, and I got myself out the same way. We retired the outstanding debt eleven days early, and it’s been a while since we’ve been that early on anything.

That notwithstanding, we are very far from being out of debt. But June was great, July is good, and August and September promise to be two of our best months ever. If the fourth quarter lives up to its promise, 2009 could end up being our best year so far. By this time next year, we could owe nothing but the mortgage — which is good, because our credit will take a while to recover from these past three years.

There is none of this that is anybody’s business, actually — except that people choose to affect to make my business their own because of who I am and how I behave. That’s fine, even if it sometimes seems to me to be simultaneously voyeuristic and masturbatory. I have a job that pays pretty well when it pays anything at all. When we got slow three years ago, we made a very big bet on internet marketing, which we were already pretty good at back then. By now we kill, and we’re getting better by leaps and bounds every single day. If you think our financial troubles prove our marketing ideas wrong — you just keep thinking that way. By the time you understand what it is we’re doing, we will have leapt into a completely different orbit.

Meanwhile: For all the good-hearted folks who wished us well in all of this: Thank you. I’d rather not have done this in public, but I couldn’t have picked a nicer bunch of people to do it with.

Now switch off this insipid soap opera and go do something productive with your life!

June 27, 2009

The “cap and trade” bill is full of outrageous proscriptions on private property rights — so the NAR is campaigning against honest appraisals instead of fighting the growth of the nanny state

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

If you had your blast email spam from NAR President Charles McMillan, you know what’s important to the Grand Poobahs: Appraisers are all of a sudden just too dang honest, and that’s bad for business. Meanwhile, the so-called “cap and trade” bill that narrowly passed in the House of Representatives last night is full of nightmare provisions impinging on the rights of private property owners to do what they want with their land and structures. Where was the NAR? Elsewhere, of course. Where else?

From JammieWearingFool:

Beyond what it will do to our economy, at the end of the debate House GOP Leader John Boehner took to the floor and started reading from the 300 page amendment that the Democrats drafted and dropped on the legislatures at 3 AM, there was literally hundred of items to impose federal control over your life. Here are some highlights.

Want to replace a window? Not so fast. First you must pay for an appraisal of your house to measure its energy efficiency and receive calculations of both before and after the proposed change. Hey, it may be a great excuse for those guys trying to avoid putting in that big bay style window that the missus has been bugging you about.

Are you having a new house built? Back up, Skippy. This bill includes language that tells you exactly where you can put your electrical outlets.

Did you know that for one sort of appraisal service related to determining energy efficiency there is only one company you can use? Yup, it is right in there along with the name of the company. How is it that this one company managed to land the only contract to service 300 million Americans? Who is this company?

I wish I could answer those questions, but all of those provisions and more, Rep. Boehner went on for almost an hour citing them and still didn’t get through the whole 300 pages, is not available. You see because of when the Democrats dropped this amendment at 3 AM the text of it is not available. So much for that transparency. The total bill runs on Read more

June 26, 2009

Vultures to the Rescue – HOORAY!!!

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

Here's the email - I added the red boxes

What the hell is a Forensic Loan Audit you ask?

According to the SPAM email (above – I drew the boxes for emphasis) that landed in my inbox last night, a company called National Loan Auditors provides a service that:

1)  Markets to loan originators with the purpose of providing loan file audits that

“expose federal, state, county and statute violations, along with any unethical predatory lending practices.”

2)  So mortgage professionals can

“leverage [their] company or firms ability to assist [their] past and present customers, helping them negotiate better mortgage rates and terms with their existing lender…”

3)  Oh, and by the way the mortgage professional can also

“earn up to $1,700 on each case file”

Um, so what you’re saying is that I can market to my past clients, identify errors, omissions and fraudulent activity that occurred when I originated their loan AND pocket $1,700 in the process?  Seriously.  Am I reading this incorrectly?

Our company used to provide loan file audits to our clients too.  [If we could have made money doing it, we still would be.]  The purpose of our audits was to help identify these same types of errors and omissions.  The difference was in our motivation:  our clients used our feedback to improve their compliance scores on future originations.  From experience, I can tell you that even the cleanest and most ethical shops had compliance errors in their files – most of which were innocent, victimless mistakes.  For example, in the State of Georgia, an originator is considered to have taken a Loan Application when collecting any financial information from the borrower – and of course a Good Faith Estimate is required to be sent within 72 hours of the loan application.  This is a common mistake originators make (both banker and broker by the way) – one of many easy to make errors.  There are 20 other similar examples I could point out here but let me get back to the point…

Now you have these vultures performing similar audits with the malicious intent of leveraging even the most benign of errors into strong-arming banks into loan modifications.

Does this type of value proposition help illuminate why the large Read more

June 18, 2009

Data Discrimination, A Class Action Lawsuit in the Making

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

Anyone a member of the Texas Bar Association looking for Pro Bono work?  I think you may be able to rassle up a class action lawsuit in big “D”, little “a”, double “L” a, s (Dallas folks 😉 )

Texas is one of five states that do not require disclosure of sale prices, however, I believe the local MLS board in Dallas may be violating their fiduciary responsibility to their buyers and sellers.  I strongly suggest you read the following article.

Actual home sale prices are not being entered into the MLS.

Does this not blatantly fly in the face of transparency.  Moreover, how can the local board stand for this?  Without accurate data shared at least to local members, the guidance and counsel for properly pricing a property places sellers, but more clearly buyers, in a very bad position.  The article suggests that lower priced properties which have sold may be intentional left out in order to provide a perception that property values are higher.

Not only is this a direct violation of an agent’s fiduciary responsibility to his/her client, it is borderline fraud.

Real estate is local, consult a local REALTOR and find out how much your home is worth – or NOT.

Is it any reason why data aggregators are winning?

June 10, 2009

Green or Beige?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

This afternoon, the Federal Reserve released their Beige Book.  What’s a Beige Book?  It’s their report based on observations and comments from people inside the business world on the state of the economy.    I’m going to walk through some “highlights” and “lowlights” of what’s happening.   My comments are in bold and italics……

“Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks indicate that economic conditions remained weak or deteriorated further during the period from mid-April through May.”

No surprise there, at least not for me.  So, if conditions remain weak or deteriorated, then where are the gree shoots of recovery that people are talking about?

“However, five of the Districts noted that the downward trend is showing signs of moderating.”

So, let’s think about that.   5 out of 12, that’s 41% show that the pace of downward trend is slowing down.  Is that a good thing?   Well, let’s look at a couple of other numbers.   According to this, 100% of the districts show that they are slowing down.  59% of them are slowing down at the same or faster paces than they were previously.

“Manufacturing declined or remained weak in most Districts.”  

Given the shutdowns in the auto industry and the related industries, this certainly isn’t a surprise.    What’s going to be interesting is what that shows as Chrysler (and hopefully GM) get back to work after their “furloughs.”

“Nonfinancial Services – Districts reporting on nonfinancial services indicated that for the most part activity continued to decline………In contrast, San Francisco reported a substantial pickup in real estate services such as title insurance due to an increase in home refinancing.

Ooohhh, that illustrates the trouble that we’re in.  One of the biggest “improvements” in the non-financial services is the title insurance industry because of mortgage refinancing.   Guess what’s not going to last very long due to rising rates…..

Consumer Spending and Tourism
Consumer spending remained soft as households focused on purchasing less expensive necessities……   Several Districts reported that discounters have seen their sales increase, while purchases of luxury goods continued to weaken. Respondents from Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Dallas expect soft consumer sales to Read more

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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