As we set out on the eve of the 2018 Holiday Season, I like to bring in the holiday spirit by listening to Adam Sandler’s classic, The Thanksgiving Song. Adam reminds us that Thanksgiving is for all of us and that there is plenty of turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes to go around. If you’re already thinking… get to the point Matt! Hang in there with me… it’s only the first paragraph. My favorite part in Sandler’s song is when he sings “Turkey for me, turkey for you!” howev

I’ve been going back and forth this morning on what I want to blog about. On one hand I want to talk about the market… as we speak the 10-yr is at 3.081% and we’re preparing for a decent lock day. We’re also on the heels of what appeared to be a HUGE conference in Las Vegas last week as the new broker advocacy outfit, AIME, hosted their first event. We sent our young gun Peter Gallagher out there to cover the event and all he said when he came back was “the broker community i

Back on March 8th of this year, HousingWire first reported that Amazon (yes, THAT Amazon) was looking to hire an individual to lead their newly-formed mortgage division. Previously, it was assumed that the online shopping giant would start with offering checking programs, and then possibly move into debt-based products after establishing themselves. But it seems they’re priming themselves to take the leap as we speak. Yesterday at the MBA annual convention, representatives fo

No matter what industry you find yourself working in, whether it be medical, technology, or housing… it’s almost a guarantee there’s some sort of professional conference that you can involve yourself in. There’s the Agents of Change Summit in San Diego, the famous SXSW tech conference in Austin, and our friends at HousingWire will be hosting their engage.marketing conference September 13th & 14th. As mentioned before, we here at Princeton Mortgage Wholesale will be attending

I mean great timing by Zuckerberg. The demand for housing is up and Mark is capitalizing! (I wish I could call him Marky Mark… but there is only one man whose earned that nickname) Enter Rental Beast, an addition to the Facebook marketplace that is using data to profit from not only Millennials but their parents too! I’m not sure why I just took a shot at Facebook, but it feels like the right thing to do these days (Ugh, I’m such a millennial… rolling eyes emoji). I guess I’m

It’s no secret that our industry has compressed as a result of the refi market drying up. We’re in a full-blown purchase market and there are no ifs… ands… or buts about it. Realtor relationships are gold, every borrower is price sensitive, timing and service are CRUCIAL and for Loan Officers and Brokers alike… your comp is being affected… whether you’re a broker and you’ve been reducing comp (going to borrower paid comp or just straight up lowered your lender paid) OR if you

Last week I had the opportunity to visit our corporate office in Pennington, NJ. I felt the pressures of doing business on the road but more importantly I felt the support of a team who is committed to one common goal. You may have read that knowledge and awareness will define greatness, if not… you’re welcome. But don’t thank me, thank Dan Gilbert and the team over at Quicken Loans. That’s right, Quicken scaled culture all the way to becoming the nation’s largest retail lend

As you’ve probably noticed in the past few weeks our blog posting has become a bit irregular. You can blame it on a variety of different things… we’re growing as a company and as a result we had to allocate our resources to focus on production, thus eliminating the availability of myself and the team to come up with original content, but that’s an excuse. You could also blame the industry for “lack of content” …if you check the mortgage news outlets you’ll see the same song i

Last Thursday, Ginnie Mae announced their new stipulations for lenders originating VA refinances. Under the new guides, all refi’s insured by VA must meet 2 new requirements… the new app date is 210 days after the first monthly payment on the original mortgage and the new app date is after six full monthly payments have been made on the original transaction. These changes took place after Ginnie Mae took arms and began investigating lenders that were churning VA refi’s and mi

How was your weekend? For me, it was jammed packed… after finishing up a long week, the team and I took in a few libations at a local watering hole in celebration of Josh Teti’s birthday (Happy Birthday Josh… sorry I didn’t send you a Facebook message… are people still over the top with that?). Then bright and early Saturday morning I jumped into the car and headed down to Charlottesville, VA (5 hours from the Burgh) for a graduation party (Go Cavaliers!). After spending the

Predatory lending, a term usually reserved for counties around Chicago, is popping up in New York of all places. New York has one of the highest costs of living in the country paired with high demand for property that makes the real estate market very competitive. Some homeowners may not be able to afford large down payments or the inflated real estate prices so may look to rent-to-own or lease-to-own contracts to make their dream of home ownership real. The New York Depar

So, it’s April… and there is still snow in the weekly forecast… sweet. It looks like we need to remain patient for the official close out of winter and it’ll be that same patience that is tested again as we enter a competitive spring buying season. Here is a stat for everyone to chew on… the average mortgage payment based on median-priced homes could increase as much as 15% this year. We’ve already seen mortgage payments increase by 5% in the first quarter and with the way th

Earlier this week I went on a rant about the subprime (Non-QM) craze and how the MBA conference really opened my eyes to what was going on in that space. While I was at the conference I was speaking with another director at our company about all the Non-QM advertising that we had been seeing. Seemingly overcome with frustration about the product… he says to me “…yea Matt I see the signs, but who is ACTUALLY closing these loans and who is buying them”? I didn’t know how to res

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has announced that their implementation of new “Uniform Mortgage-Backed Securities” will officially begin on June 3, 2019. This “single security” is a joint initiative by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to create a common securitization platform backed by fixed-rate 10-to-30-year mortgages. Mel Watt, Director of the FHFA, stated years ago that this plan is to “recognize that the primary role of Fannie and Freddie is to no longer stop the b

For much of us in the north east, the first day of Spring is ruined by depressing winter weather warnings. When will it start to feel like Spring outside? When will the Black Stallion (my 2011 fully-loaded but never dependable Dodge Avenger) get a break from the salt? When it comes to the weather, I’m a world-class complainer. But even I know that it WILL get warm again, sooner or later. The same can be said about the common debate of Millennial participation in the housing

Tax reform (for some) has made owning a home more expensive, refinances are down 34% from last year, it’s a purchase market, but we’re in a housing shortage and of course… rates are at their highest level in years despite dropping a smidge last week. Wow… so what your saying is it’s a tough time to be in the mortgage industry? I think for some the answer is most certainly… yes. Margins are thin and to counter that, lenders are compressing (what a nice way to say downsizing) c

Have you ever watched American Greed on CNBC? How about the newer show on Netflix called Dirty Money? If you’re not aware of the general premise, they document real life individuals who get caught in the act of various schemes, strategies, and tactics that defraud and cheat other individuals, companies, and industries. These schemes come in all shapes and sizes ranging from a couple million bucks to affecting an entire billion-dollar industry (check out the Volkswagen episode

As we worry about rising interest rates causing a draining period in our industry, let’s not forget the many people that are literally draining out their basements. Many parts of the country are under water and it looks like there is only more rain to come. There appears to be some sun light peeking through these dark clouds, however. Last week, the FHA announced that they are expanding mortgage relief for disaster victims. Efforts are being made to expedite relief to homeow

It’s Tuesday, February 20th, 2018 and it’s going to hit 72 degrees with tons of sunshine in Pittsburgh today. I should probably stop writing and working for that matter, grab my sticks and hit the links, but unfortunately our industry doesn’t allow for those niceties… especially with how competitive our industry is this year. Over the weekend I saw a few industry giants posting messages on LinkedIn explaining the difficult market landscape we’re all trying to navigate. This i

Yesterday, I mentioned that there might be more of an appetite for refinances in 2018, but when will we see Millennials flex their buying power and invest in new homes? I’m not sure it’s going to be any time soon… as a new report from HousingWire states that nearly 40% of students with college loans could default by 2023. Wow… that’s a staggering number and maybe the CFPB should do a hard pivot away from the mortgage industry and start considering how our country lends money