A loan officer's guide to finding business this spring

Business has been slow, a far cry from previous years, Alex Naumovych, loan officer at Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corporation says. But curiosity among buyers is starting to increase."More inventory has entered the market and buyers want to see what they can afford despite the elevated interest rates," he said. Undeterred by the slow origination activity, Naumovych has a few tricks up his sleeve on how he plans to capture business this spring.The LO's game plan includes making inroads with accountants, divorce attorneys and attending Eastern-European festivals. Interestingly, what Naumovych is not concentrating on is building more relationships with real estate agents.?

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Consumer home buying interest highest since May

While more consumers are making moves toward purchasing a home, with one measure of that at the highest level since last May, the number is still well below one year ago, Redfin said.Its Homebuyer Demand Index, a seasonally adjusted measurement of requests to tour homes, make an offer and/or talk to a Redfin agent about a home search, was at 130.0 for the week of March 26, up by 6% from the prior seven day period. However on a year-over-year basis, this was off 24%.One Redfin agent is seeing interest primarily coming from two groups: entry-level owner-occupants and investors."First-time buyers are interested in looking at homes because prices have come down, though they're still concerned about high mortgage rates," said the California-based agent, Ali Mafi, in a press release.

UMortgage loan officers accused of violating noncompete

Two loan officers at UMortgage are being sued by Maryland-based NFM Lending, their former employer, for allegedly violating a noncompete agreement signed in 2022.Per the lawsuit, Justin Bolden and Stephen Levitt were not to contend with the lender for one year and to not solicit employees or customers from NFM. Both LOs voluntarily transitioned to UMortgage earlier this year, with Levitt allegedly poaching Bolden to join the Philadelphia-based origination shop, along with two other employees. Their contracts with NFM were still enforceable at the time of departure, the lawsuit stated. NFM accuses the two employees, who both worked at the lender's office located in Kettering, Ohio, of utilizing its confidential, proprietary, and trade secret information in violation of that noncompete clause, the lawsuit filed in the District Court of Maryland Northern Division said.

FHFA watchdog finds lapses in conservatorship record-keeping

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's watchdog asked the regulator to improve its record keeping for decisions made as the government-sponsored enterprises' conservator after finding shortcomings in a sample of 40 files."We found three decisions in our sample for which FHFA could not provide documentation supporting the required FHFA director approval or required analysis supporting the decision," its inspector general's office said in a report issued Wednesday. The issue stems from staff turnover, an issue the IG previously linked to oversight shortcomings in government-sponsored enterprise compensation.?

Big Purple Dot integrates ChatGPT into CRM

After gaining worldwide buzz in late 2022, ChatGPT, created by Microsoft-backed firm OpenAI, is finding its way into the mortgage industry.Most recently, Big Purple Dot, a real estate marketing platform, moved to integrate ChatGPT into its customer relationship management ecosystem. The Irvine, California- based company is one of the first technology firms in the mortgage space to do so. Incorporating the trendy artificial intelligence chatbot will allow for real estate professionals to interact with their leads in a more "natural" and "intuitive way…saving time, improving lead conversion, and increasing sales productivity," the company said. Among its many capabilities, the AI chatbot can eloquently and instantaneously answer queries and write extensive creative literature, whether it be poetry, press releases or LinkedIn posts.

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