Princeton Mortgage is working with Finicity to automate borrower asset verification for lenders. The aim is to provide Princeton Mortgage loan officers and borrowers with a faster, simpler loan origination experience that reduces both paper and  number of days required to close loans.

Princeton Mortgage’s digital mortgage platform, SnapApp, will leverage Finicity’s verification of assets solution to give lenders access to the data insights they need to streamline the loan application process, reduce mortgage fraud, free up resources and shorten time to close.

Automation can cut the verification process from days to minutes as borrowers no longer need to search for bank statements, and lenders have more time to focus on high-value activities, such as approving more loans.

“We’re thrilled to work with Princeton Mortgage and to provide its customers with an innovative, paper-free and hassle-free experience,” said Steve Smith, CEO at Finicity. “We are always looking for partners who share our goal of transforming outdated loan origination processes into seamless digital experiences.” Finicity delivers real-time financial data aggregation and insights to lenders.

Princeton Mortgage created The Effortless Mortgage to perfect the user experience in loan origination. The solution includes platforms for integrating, managing and securing data to reduce stress and complications in the process for both brokers and borrowers. The Princeton Mortgage SnapApp is a key component to this process as it allows customers to get pre-approved in minutes from their phone, tablet or desktop.

“Borrowers want an effortless mortgage experience, and with our new SnapApp they get just that. Through SnapApp’s automated digital mortgage process, borrowers can apply, verify their income and assets, pull their credit, run an automated approval and even receive a pre-approval letter in the middle of the night, at their convenience,” said Nicole Gordon, sales enablement manager for Princeton Mortgage.

The housing market showed signs of cooling in many of the nation's largest metros this month with inventory increases outpacing the rest of the country, listing prices slowing and price cuts increasing. In contrast, smaller, more affordable markets continued to see price gains, according to the November housing report from Realtor.com.

During the month of November, housing inventory rose 4 percent. However, in the nation's largest and most expensive metros, inventory increased at a more rapid 9 percent. Seven of the 10 markets posting the largest year-over-year inventory increases are located on the West Coast, five of which are in California.

"The housing market is a tale of two cities as the divergence widens between high-cost, large urban areas, and smaller, more affordable markets," said Danielle Hale, chief economist for realtor.com. "Buyers in larger metros are seeing more homes on the market and listing prices decline, while those in smaller markets continued to see price increases."

Nationally, the percentage of listings that saw price reductions increased to 22 percent in November, up from 19 percent a year ago. The increase is being driven by the nation's largest markets. In fact, 40 of the 45 top markets saw an increase in price reductions. San Jose, Calif., topped the list with the share of price reductions growing by 16 percent, from 17 percent last year to 33 percent in November. It was followed by Indianapolis (+15 percent), Seattle (+12 percent), San Francisco (+9 percent) and San Diego (+9 percent).

Small Markets Increase 9 Percent

The median listing price grew 9 percent year-over-year to $293,000 in November, down slightly from October, which is in line with the usual seasonal pattern, but higher than last year's increase of 8 percent.

Of the 45 metros, 35 still saw year over year gains in their median listing price, however only 8 markets outpaced the national growth rate of 9 percent. This indicates that although prices are still increasing nationally, the gains are predominantly from smaller markets. Chattanooga, Tenn. (+17%), Spokane, Wash. (+15%), and Greensboro-High Point, N.C. (+14%) are some of the markets that posted the highest year-over-year median list price growth.

The steepest declines were felt in San Jose, Calif. and Austin, Texas, which were down 4 percent, or $41,000 and $15,000, respectively. Jacksonville, Fla., Nashville, Tenn., Houston, Tampa, Fla., Dallas, and San Francisco also saw declines.

Homes continued to sell at a relatively rapid pace of 71 days on average in November, five days faster than last year.

The National Association of Realtors supports the FHFA’s decision to increase the loan limit on conforming loans to $484,350 in 2019, from $453,100. In addition, the high-cost limit will rise to $726,525, from $679,650. As a result, loan limits will be higher in all but 47 counties or county equivalents across the country beginning on January 1.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's limits define the maximum one-unit single-family mortgage amounts that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may finance and are also used to define the loan limits for the Federal Housing Administration's program. Each year, the FHFA updates the national and high-cost limits based on its national price index.

These limits are important for funding home sales in high-cost coastal markets in California, Virginia, and Maryland. They are gaining importance in other markets, including Nashville, Denver, Utah and Wyoming.

The decision reflects rising or near record high home prices in many markets: If the loan limits didn’t keep up with home price growth, borrowers across the country risk being pushed out of the market altogether as mortgage rates and rising home prices continue to hold back potential homebuyers," said John Smaby, president of NAR, and a second-generation agent and broker at Edina Realty.

The market for private financing has improved but remains hobbled since the Great Recession, requiring more onerous standards of would-be homebuyers who do not possess pristine credit, or they face higher rates than those charged by the enterprises.

By Brian Sacks

While we all strive to be number one in everything we do, I think it’s important that we take a step back and actually look at that number in a different way. Use it to identify vulnerabilities in the way we do business—and address them. Now is a time for planning, for identifying sources of income and to diversify.

If you are an originator hoping to grow your production you need to pay careful attention to the number one. Let’s dive in and take a closer look at this numbers impact.

One Way to Identify New Business
Having one way to generate new business, regardless of whether it works or not, is very dangerous. Let’s think back a while and remember the blast faxes, then robo calls, then blast e-mails.

They are all now 100% ineffective and some are actually outlawed. You may also have had a website that ranked high on Google and then got “slapped” when they changed their guidelines.

If you used any of these methods than you probably already know the effects of being shut down and having your source of business come to a screeching halt.
To be effective, you should have at least three or four ways of consistently generating new leads and clients.

One Source of Business

Did you know that the statistically the in-house originator in a real-estate office only does 27% percent of the business in that office. But imagine what happens when the in-house originator has a deal that goes south. Every agent in that office becomes aware of the problem and hesitant about using that originator.
I see many originators going after the top producer with the hope that just one or two top producing agents will set them up for a great year.
While that may or may not be true, it is very dangerous. Losing one of those agents means your production and income would decrease by 50%.  Stop and let that sink in for a minute.

If you truly want to grow your production you must have a large and diverse group of referral partners so that if one or two or even three stop using you your business still keeps moving on.

Look at your current referral base and analyze it. If you have less than 20 active referral sources than you should immediately get started on building up your base. Just to be clear, an active referral source is one that you can count on to provide you with three-to four deals or more each year.

One Staff Person or Assistant
This one is particularly sensitive to me. Let me share a quick story with you. During the last major refi boom I had one processor working with me. She was not what I would call a great processor, but she was adequate.
As business began to explode, she became less dependable and more hostile. One day I had enough, and I told her that if she didn’t start performing, I was going to fire her.

Her response was uncontrollable laughter.

I was floored by this but then she clarified it for me. Since we were so busy and she was the only processor I had, she felt there was no way in the world I could even consider firing her.

Well, I did fire her that day, and I also learned a valuable lesson.
The number 1 is truly the most dangerous number in the mortgage business. Now go back and think about your own production.

Make sure you have a diverse referral base, lead generation plan and have more than a single employee.

About the Author

Brian Sacks is a well-known mortgage originator with Homebridge Financial Services Inc. of Owings Mills, Maryland. Watch his free four-part video series on How To Close More Loans Make More Money and Still Enjoy Life at http://TopOriginatorMastermind.com/ml .