Thursday, November 30, 2006

Spent most of the day yesterday and half the day so far today, putting the finishing touches on our December 1st Newsletter - it's our 37th monthly issue ya know! Over the last several months I have been authoring fewer of the articles and have been adding important news items, to give it a more well-rounded feel. This edition, our lead article was written by an old friend, and he did a bang-up job, I expect good feed back from it and I trust he'll get some inquiries back to his company as well, I hope he does. Tomorrow's gonna be a very busy day for me, as on newsletter day, I normally get buried in calls and inbound e-mails, as we come to the attention of our readers once again.

I'm quite pleased at our "read-rate" (RR) - that's the number of times people open the newsletter's e-mail and read it vs. ignore or delete it. I am always surprised to see how long some people wait before they readt it - many read it during the 2nd and third week of the month! So I guess it sits in their inbox. From what I've been able to determine, all along it's 'RR' percentage is pretty respectable. The distribution software we utilize is dynamite, and I encourage all of you to do a regular newsletter to your clients, the back end data info is wonderful - especially with the firm we use.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Now the five day week-end is over and it's time to get back to work, gotta work hard & fast now, since not too many more shopping days left before all the good Christmas stuff is all gone (if we missed the sales on black Friday).

Our final 'Conversation with Secret!' Master Seminar of the year is in just 10 days, week after this Saturday. These year-end events I have found to be real trickey, sometimes very well attended, and other times not so ... since I personally enjoy an intimate gathering (and past attendees have told me the same thing), if we only get a small handful vs a full room filled, that's fine with me ... everybody gets more attention and we have a much friendlier conversation! We've had from one to fifty-nive in the past, so ya never know.

For those of you who haven't attended in the past, our Master Seminar is pretty neat, I provide breakfast and lunch, and we all sit around and chat about the industry, getting the feel for opinions of each other vs. me putting on a lecture, or some podium speaker standing up there pitching his 100% Fluff motivational speech. I do my best to provide solid Meat and answer every question myself as well.

If you would like more info on this, you can learn more Here - hope to meet YOU Satuurday December 9th here in San Pedro, CA.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Now that the National Holiday is over, I hope you all had a nice day. My children are all grown up, so they're off in the wind on holidays, here and there with their new (and extended) families; I miss the big dinners at home when they were all still young and living with us, so I had a quiet meal.

Anyhow, I had planned on working on our December 1st newsletter much of the day today, but after a few Bailey's and getting the Christmas tree lights up on our main website and here (couldn't get them quite right here), not much time to devote to working much. Gonna go plop down and watch some TV this afternoon.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Two and a Half Day Work Week!

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! I'll be spending much of my time this week, working on our December 1st Newsletter and a new mortgage lesson, along with wishing my Oakland Raiders would improve. It's rather sad how poorly Randy Moss has been playing (given the vast amount of talent he has), I think maybe he needs 'more money' to care anymore (hahahaha).

Saw 007 yesterday, it was great! Loved it. Several eating events this week with friends and family members, like many of you, I'm sure ... so again, let' all be Thankful for the bounty we have.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

One of my friends is an AE for ResMAE (previously with BNC), he dropped by this afternoon and we happened to talk about our Certified Mortgage Professional (CMP) program and designation. He asked me WHY should somebody select our's vs. one offered by the National Association. I explained when we started it's development month before last - my goal was to offer something that had "meat" and not "fluff" - like the association's looks like to me. With theirs, it looks like they take your word for it (that you know your stuff), ours is set up significantly different.

With our CMP program the candidate must pass a timed/written examination to receive the designation. We designed our test specifically around the training lesson which comes with our program. That way when someone passes, we're sure they know the materials, as the lesson contains the necessary learning they must have to be a 'professional.'

When we launched our program I was, and am still quite happy with the depth and breadth of knowledge a candidate has at it's completion, so that's how they're different!

The holiday is nearing, coming just next week. Today; I sent my three grown children and their families Thanksgiving cards. I'm looking forward to Turkey dinner, I have a lot to be thankful for!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The last 2 weeks we've been running our 3rd Annual Halloween educational and training CD Mortgage Lessons Sale (BUY TWO GET ONE FREE); it closes at the end of the day today. What always surprises me about this event, is the combination of lessons some people select; frequently they don't seem to me to relate to the level of the individual's experience. Like a newbie LO getting the 'Emerging Mortgage Broker to Mortgage Banker' one.

The weekend joint Birthday party for my two oldest Grandkids (I've got 5), came off wonderfully. About 20 adults and 30 kids, they all had a great time ... unlike my Oakland Raiders this past weekend.

Friday, November 10, 2006


As we celebrate Veteran's Day, my mind goes back to the day when I received my own Honorable Discharge from the United Stated Army in 1965, and how happy I was to be back home. We were in the midst of war then, with 390,000 wounded, 50,000 deaths and 10,000 soldiers who lost a limb, it was an ugly war.

Tomorrow afternoon is a joint Birthday party & sleep-over for my oldest Grand-son (12 years old) and my oldest Grand-daughter (13 years old); I expect to eat too much bar-be-que and probably a slice or two of birthday cake - gonna be a good time for all!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Mortgage Broker/LO '900' HOTLINE may get the ax!

Two years ago I developed our 'quick' training concept for Secret! University. Considering nearly all LO's and newer Mortgage Broker are a part of the cell phone generation, it seemed a natural to me to offer up instant training answers (via their cell phones or through the telephone systems of their employers) where they could get the answer to virtually any question they had at the moment, and where all answers were guaranteed to be correct, or your money back. Given the simple fact that each answer could easily be worth several hundreds of dollars in income for them, the small cost of a '900' call should have not been a barrier to them utilizing this service, especially since the training of LO's and most of the newer Mortgage Brokers has been awful - I expected a much larger response to this service. Today after 27 months, I'm almost ready to throw in the towel on this concept, the home-run idea I thought I had has actually performed poorly as compared to the lofty results I expected. You can see how this all works buy visiting THIS webpage of our website.

The sort of questions I've gotten have been pretty much all over the map, a range and varierty that shows how much this service is really necessary ... these are several of the recent ones: How do I find more customers, I need to know how to do equipment leases for my self employed borrowers, where can I learn how to do LP, how can I co-broker a loan legally, is a net branch right for me since I'm a corporation, ... but if I hire 3 or four LO's my own production will suffer ... so should I, how do I go from Broker to Banker and should I, who can help me understand appraisals, what's the smartest way to fire somebody, is Realtor business really this hard, is my boss being ethical when he does ..., is net branching smart, I'm a 15 year mortgage banker - how do I become a servicer, what should I look for when I interview a processor, what LOS software do you recommend, where do I go to learn how to read a preliminary title report, what are good products to cross sell my customers, what makes a loan a good loan, I'm moving my office going from 400 sq ft to 1200 - what's a good layout, is this or that ... a RESPA violation, I understand about the APR trigger terms ... I was wondering what specific disclaimer has to be in the advertising? Ex: "Certain restrictions apply" etc., and whether or not I have to have "Equal Housing Lender/Opportunity" in all ads? Can I offer a coupon for "200 dollars off closing costs" in a flyer, how much typically does a steel man-hole cover weigh?

On the other hand, our E-Mail Answers program - HERE - which I expected to be used much less by potential students, has been an unexpected success, my guess is that it has a fixed cost (vs. the length of a phone call), the replies ar eprinted out, and can deal with more complex questions. I'll want to come up with something to replace the '900' HOTLINE, before I cut it, but my mind is looking now.

Oh yea, and speaking of my Oakland Raiders - in their Monday night football game they made me cry again.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Brokers & The Consumer Credit Protection Act



I've received quite a bit of positive feeed-back on this article which ran in our November 1st newsletter, figured I would also post it here ... hope you find this informative:

This landmark Federal legislation, the Consumer Credit Protection Act, is the cornerstone law in the credit industry designed to enhance economic stabilization and the competition among the various financial institutions and other firms engaged in the extension of consumer credit would be strengthened by the informed use of credit. The informed use of credit results from an awareness of the cost thereof by consumers. It is the purpose of this Act to assure a meaningful disclosure of credit terms so that the consumer will be able to compare more readily the various credit terms available to him and avoid the uninformed use of credit … more commonly referred to as The Truth in Lending Act.

This law not only regulates much of what is lawful in our consumer residential real estate mortgage lending industry, but other types of credit that's extended to the consumer. It's purpose can be summarized as follows: ‘The TILA requires full disclosure statements that outline all credit terms in simple easy-to-read language.' The Statement of Disclosure (some call it the "RegZ" others the "TIL") is the significant cornerstone of the Act.

As we all know, there's a number of service providers who supply certain services and materials to the process of building and producing an individual residential real property mortgage loan transaction. The Flood Certification people have the duty to provide the Flood Cert, the Appraiser brings the real property appraisal to the party, the credit reporting agency's duty is to provide the credit report, the title people bring the preliminary title report, and at closing issue the policy of title insurance, etc. the mortgage broker provides the RESPA required GFE and brings the borrower and his/her assembled paperwork, the wholesaler brings the money and (to answer a question I get 3 or fours times a month via our E-Mail Answers Program) as the "creditor" (as specifically defined by this Act) delivers the Statement of Disclosure (RegZ – TIL) to the borrowers.

Many service providers have an obligation to fulfill, so the consumers loan transaction will close smoothly and lawfully. One of them is not responsible to supply material or a service that's the obligation of one of the other parties.

A mortgage broker is not a ‘creditor' within the definitions set forth in 15 U.S. C. §1602(f) and 12 C.F.R. §226.2(A)(17). When a ‘creditor' (wholesaler) demands another service provider (mortgage broker) deliver the RegZ – TIL – they're creating an agency relationship as between the two of them, a situation the mortgage broker surely should avoid, as should the wholesaler. It's potentially bad for both of them.


My Raiders play tonight, hopefully they'll keep gong! Grand-Son's football game had a scheduling problem with the referees - so it was called off Saturday.

Friday, November 03, 2006

A very large part of the problem in our business these last few years, is that it is similar to the landscaping business. If you own a lawn mower, you can print business cards and immediately be in the landscaping business.

Last several years, Big Commissions have become available to industry entry level personnel (loan officers), which has attracted every Tom, Dick & Harry commissioned sales types. Their major focus is on the amount of their own commissions, and as such they have no financial institution backgrounds and training (like it was for several decades which I lived through in the biz). According to a recently released (reliable) nationwide survey, the average income in California was $127,000 in 2005 with virtually no financial or industry training at all. Therefore with the focus on their interests and not as much on those of their customers, unethical behavior has become common place. Unfortunately, it’s a short walk from unethical actions to full-blown fraud - a condition the industry is over-run with these days. I'm deeply frustrated as I speak with them about the Integrity and level of Ethics needed for their new professional careers, plus all that there is they need to learn, to make it in the industry ... as a career; I often feel like I'm talking to a rock. I speak of a valuable solid career, and their mind is on techniques to 'close' customers & how much money they can earn - driving me nuts!

On a much more pleasant note my 12 year old grand-son is having a football game tomorrow @ 11AM and the 13 year old grand-daughter's game is after. I missed his last week-end, but not tomorrow. He tells me he's a line-backer! KEWL.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Newsletter GAFF

Yesterday we distributed our free monthly newsletter, which contained a small news piece about the launching of this BLOG ... the link we put in the newsletter was wrong! CHOKE

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Because of the kind of work I have done literally all my adult life, I am very anal about statistics. I have spreedsheet charts and graphs comparing everything that relates to our website stats, and now this little blog as well is in the mix. In the 24 day this Blog has been alive on the internet, we've received 419 visitors. What I find interesting is that none of them came here (referred) from our main website or from our discussion board either! After I think on this for a while, that will become clearer and somehow make sense to me.

Our Halloween CD Lessons SALE started yesterday and will run for 2 weeks - check out the first of three pages HERE
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