MPA caught up with industry pros at AIME Fuse to hear about their approach
After inching back above 7% in the spring, mortgage rates have been on a sustained downward trend in recent months – helping boost overall market activity in a welcome development for mortgage professionals.
The week ending September 13 saw applications spike by 14.2%, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said, as the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to a two-year low.
That spells good news for brokers and loan officers who’ve been holding out hope for an uptick on both the purchase and refinance side before the end of the year.
Still, even amidst a sluggish market throughout much of the year to date, many of those originators have been eking out business at a steady pace.
At the recent Fuse conference hosted by the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) in New Orleans, Mortgage Professional America caught up with a few industry figures to hear how they’ve been navigating this year’s market.
For Darshit Chokshi (pictured, top left), president and senior loan officer at Aequitas Mortgage, doubling down on education and training has been a key focus in 2024. “What we’ve done as a company is, while the rates were high and the markets were slow, we kept ourselves busy with training ourselves, learning income calculation, relearning self-employed income,” he told Mortgage Professional America, “because those are some of the areas where loans fail.
“We as a company have spent one to two trainings a month for income, pre-underwriting, closing, learning and relearning our technology.”
Anticipating rate drops at some point in the year, Chokshi said the company also ramped up its hiring – meaning it’s ready for the more active market in store. “Now the rates are coming down, we feel like this is a great opportunity,” he said.
“The market’s definitely getting better. Homebuyers who are on the sidelines are now showing interest. So we’re ready with the busier season that’s going to come on.”
AIME hosted its seventh annual Fuse National Conference in New Orleans, drawing more than a thousand of mortgage professionals from across the US for two days of learning, networking, and celebration.
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) September 19, 2024
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Consumers increasingly aware of mortgage broker value
Amorette Hernandez (pictured, top middle), a mortgage loan advisor with CMS Mortgage Solutions, said mining databases and revisiting past clients had been among her key recommendations for loan officers in a quieter overall market.
While the company’s work is centered around purchases, Hernandez said her team also kept a close eye on refi opportunities to supplement that business. “I think the biggest thing that we’re really empowering our loan officers with is just the ability to get in touch with their database, previous customers, being able to provide opportunities to new referral partners,” she told MPA.
“We’re very purchase-driven, so having the opportunity to have a refi boom naturally and organically is really the extra slice of cake that everybody loves.”
Hernandez noted an encouraging trend at play in the Arizona market for brokers and loan officers: namely, a shift in consumer preferences toward using a broker, one she said has been increasingly evident in local media and social media community pages. “A lot of that is attributed to the work that the mortgage brokers have been doing and the fact that the mortgage broker share has been increasing year over year,” she said.
“So it’s really impressive to see how that consumer education portion of opportunity is really increasing because there are consumers that are driving the request to work with mortgage brokers. It’s really great for us in Arizona.”
Balanced approach between purchase and refinance essential
Ashley Bedford (pictured, top right), a loan originator with appli, also underlined the importance of staying directly in contact with clients and realtors, as well as maintaining a strong emphasis on education.
That also involves a frank discussion with clients hoping to refinance in order to determine whether now is really the right moment for them to do so. “It’s taking that time to go over everything with clients to make sure that they understand where they’re at, where they need to be, and if it’s time [to refinance],” she said. “[Deciding whether] we need to wait a little bit, and not just going after that shiny penny moment is a big thing.”
Only concentrating on refi business while neglecting the purchase side, even in a down market, is the wrong approach, according to Bedford. “I think a lot of people fell out because they really focused on that refi [surge],” she said. “And when you focus on that refi boom, you lose your purchase business and then you have no licensing because you have no business.”
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