Subprime History

A 25 year friend of mine, writes a column for the National Mortgage News people, it's called What We're Hearing - and is one of their principal Editors as well. Paul wrote a Best Seller about the S&L crisis of the mid '80's and is just now doing his research to do one on the history of the Subprime lending industry (something BTW I have had many people tell me over the years I should author, since I have lived it first hand - except I'm clueless on how to do that).

Anyhow, it's been fun going down memory lane for Paul, recalling when Countrywide was brokering subprime seconds to my own wholesale company back in '85 (if I remember the date correctly), when a major subprime consumer finance organization (The Mother Company) bought a German Bank ('76 as I recall) who later entered the subprme market in the US as a warehouse lender (mid '90's) to Danny Phillips and the boys at FirstPlus in Texas, along with when that same finance organization purchased the largest thrift in Dallas (First Texas Savings - who I did a great deal of business wth then) - later a part of the notorous 'Southwest Plan' (Ron Perlman of Revlon) courtesy of M. Danny Wall and the Government's RTC kids.

I also explained to him the core belief that 'subprimers' were credit lenders and that the conventional residential real estate mortgage lenders are more property/collateral lenders. A distinction I told him probably only a handful of old dudes like me could articulate that distinctively. By illustration I told him, hand a loan file to me and the first document I would look at is the credit report, hand that same file to an "A" lender, he'll turn to the appraisal first - every single time!

I asked Paul for a signed copy of his book, and also if I'll get a footnote!

The Mortgageland Journal

Our newsletter, The Mortgageland Journal's December issue is complete, finally. As I mentioned earlier, it's going to go out on the 4th this time, instead of the 1st - going to see IF Tuesday is really a better day (more readership) to send out newsletters as I have seen others comment.

I'm about to undertake a major challenge in that, I 'm going to re-write/update/expand each of our CD mortgage lessons for 2008. I doubt much has changed from what I had initially authored (but the times have changed), however I think this exercise will be appreciated by our students ... besides rewriting several of the pages on our main website.

On the website issues, I'm going to try and go with my brother's advise, which is "people don't read - you've got too many words on your pages, they'll read the headline and casually scan the text." My thoughts have been the exact opposite from that; I have assumed potential students want to know as much as they can before they commit. Still, expanding and updating the individual lessons and shortening up the webpages will be a big job.

A witty new friend/relative?

About a month ago, I signed up for the beta version of Google Alerts. I plugged in my unusual last name, and receive Google e-mails from time to time, showing me various internet pages that contain my last name. Todate, I have seen many pages on things I've authored, some stuff my brother's done (mostly about his recent teenaged daughter's double lung-transplant fundraisers) and some things from a gal who's first name is 'Katie.' Katie, as it turns out, is an 8th grade (English?) teacher in Hawaii, and her blog postings turn up inside my Google alerts. So this afternoon I read her blog over the last several weeks - I don' think she's a relative, but is definately witty and an interesting young (apparently) gal. I enjoyed it while listening to MOB HITS (CD) by Dean Martin, and I polished off yet another turkey sandwich!

My brother's daughters is having her ups and down, but generally is doing better, Thank you. Been working on the final version of our next newsletter. I 'm going to have it sent out on the 4th instead of the 1st this next month - I read somewhere Tuesday is best for newsletters, so we'll see ...

Happy Thanksgiving

Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007 - PART DUEX

As I continue to read and speak with other industry advocates, the consensus is that something does indeed need to be done, but that most think this House BILL won't get past the Senate, and therefore not become Law anytime soon.

Due to the many positive benefits this potential law would bring to our industry, IF I had the final tie-breaking vote, I would vote for it with no reservation - even though that position goes against what most originators, loan brokers and loan officers (our clients) seem to feel ... from all I read, they don't seem to notice this BILL as written, brings a lot of other people into line (parity) with them, in many areas.

Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007

Today I took the time to read the text to this Bill as Passed, it hurt my brain. Ya know, it's amazing how lawyers - who speak the same language I do - can write things which I will have to try and translate into English for my brain, after I read and re-read them 3 or 4 times! Thankfully it won't become effective for six (6) months - that should give everybody enough time to understand it!

This is how it made me feel ...

This industry correction's getting really UGLY

I was sad last month when my 42 year long friend Paul and his MLSG Home Loans (Reno) wholesale company went under; last week my 20+ year long buddy Jim, got canned by Thomson Media (his New York employer of 25 years), and just yesterday my buddy Bart tells me he thinks his 35+ year old mortgage training school (Orange County) may yet become a statistic also! I'm sure most of you have had experiences like these lately with many people you know in the industry as well, but these particular 3 guys I know pretty well and they're not amateurs, nor are they poor businessmen either - the collateral damage is getting seriously ugly out there. Having been an eye witness to the last four industry corrections, I initially predicted this one was gonna be real bad, but not as bad as the one in 1988 - when most of the investor/buyers of residential mortgage loans ALL went under, as did most of the pmi companies - but I feel I was likely incorrect in my original assesment of the ugly degree this 'correction' will reach ... looks like you can't even gird your own loins and make it through!


I do have some happy news; my brother's daughter Acacia is recovering nicely from her double lung transplant last month - yes, of course it's up and down, but looks like she's out of the woods now -- hoooray!

Increasing website traffic! It's GOOD

For the first 7 days of the month, we have had a 16+% increase in traffic to our main website as compared to the first seven days of October - I translate that to be a GOOD thing!

As I have previously reported, the increase in referrals (via organic searches on AOL, YAHOO, LIVE, GOOGLE, etc.) to our learning center give me a good feeling: 1). that our SEO activities are effective, and 2). that industry people are 'out there' looking to improve their career skills. My next assumption is that once they stop being scared about their own survival during this serious industry wide correction/crisis, more of them will pull the trigger on more of our materials, services, and products.


Last night was the Big Event for Acacia medical 'fund raiser' for my brother's daughter at Smooth's in downtown Long Beach, CA. It was very well attended. I was the door-man/ticket seller at the door, so I got to speak with each person as they got their tickets. The tone & warmth of the crowd was very encouraging and loving toward my brother and his little girl - there were a lot of tears. Thank you for your help and support.

Soliciting for more Mentors!

This morning we sent out a mass e-mail to all the members of our industry discussion board; since some of them maybe didn't yet read our November newsletter from last Thursday, where I asked for new potential Mentors to check in with us to see if they may qualify to be added to our faculty. Today's e-mail blast got us a few more inquiries - in addition to those we received last week - so I guess it was a good idea.

I know I keep beating this drum, but there's just no other place I can find on Google, that's worth a damn, for industry people to go for indepth Mentoring type help with their careers. And, I want Secret! University to be THE place to go!

We added our second new Mentor in as many weeks to our faculty this afternoon - meet Charlie Fitzgerald!

Thanksgiving 'Specials' Revealed

Our November 1st newsletter issue revealed we're offering several nice 'specials' that are available all month long for our students. In the newsletter, we reported we have a new Mentor/Teacher (Andy) and have launched the Secret! Society on-campus fraternity!

Yesterday and today we received several inquiries my potential new Mentors to add to our faculty; I am hopefull they will all make the grade and come aboard, so far it looks like they will.

Students sign-ups have been very slow lately with the industry in the midst of this 'crisis/correction' - still plenty of inquiries though, in fact October was the busiest single month on our website since we remodeled it February '06 ... seems like people are just afraid to pull the trigger.