Communicate And Close On Time - It's What We Do

It is a very rare occasion that I use this format to promote what we do here at Cornerstone. I heard something last week that just made me laugh. A buddy of mine, who works for a competing mortgage company here in town (a large bank), told me that in his regional meeting this past week, their regional manager was commending them on increasing their “closing date met efficiency” to 56% in the month of May. In other words, he was pleased that they met the expected closing date a little over half the time. Are you kidding me???

When we opened our Cornerstone office 3.5 years ago, I spent a lot of time interviewing referral partners and potential referral partners asking them what were the most important things for them when working with a mortgage professional. I made a list from a variety of answers such as good rates, great programs, experience, ingenuity, friendliness, availability, etc...  But the two items that were on everyone’s list were Effective Communication and Close on Time. So that has been our focus here. I believe that we offer all the other items on the list as well, but our only real focus is closing on time and communicating well along the way.

We have created a process that is super efficient. Other than a handful of situations outside of our lending process, we haven’t missed a purchase closing date in 3 years. We also communicate in an incredibly effective manner. We have at least 10 touch points with each customer and another five with our clients’ Realtor throughout our process. Over the past 18 months, we have delivered our purchase closing packages to the attorney 48 hours or more in advance of the closing 86% of the time. For us, it is a complete failure if the HUD is not prepared and ready for review 24+ hours in advance of the closing.

If a customer wants nothing but the best rate, s/he should go to the internet to get their loan. I’m certain they can find an interest rate that can beat local lenders. But if they want to close on time and have an efficient process built on effective communication, while still getting a good rate and product, we are tough to beat.

If you are ever interested in reading prior weekly emails, please visit my Facebook page. Mike Smalling Mortgage Advisor

The Week Ahead
This week, the JOLTS report, which measures job openings and labor turnover rates, will come out on Tuesday. The FOMC Minutes from the June 18 Fed meeting will be released on Wednesday. These detailed Minutes provide additional insight into the debate between Fed officials. In addition, there will be Treasury auctions on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

The Week That Was
The big story last week was that job gains in June were significantly higher than expected. Since faster economic growth adds to future inflationary pressures, though, this was negative for mortgage rates, which ended the week higher.

Against a consensus forecast of 210K, the economy added 288K jobs in June, and the figures for April and May were revised higher as well. This was the fifth straight month of job gains above 200K which has not occurred since the late 1990s. The Unemployment Rate declined from 6.3% to 6.1%, the lowest level since September 2008. Average Hourly Earnings, a proxy for wage growth, were 2.0% higher than one year ago. This was a solid report nearly across the board.

Given the surprising strength of recent job gains, the increase in mortgage rates could have been larger. One significant factor in the jobs data has remained favorable for mortgage rates, however. The 2.0% annual rate of wage gains is relatively low by historical standards and creates little concern for future inflation. Fed Chair Yellen has described wage inflation as one of the important indicators of when the Fed needs to raise the fed funds rate. If the pace of wage gains were to increase, then Fed officials would face more pressure to tighten monetary policy.