Secrets from Secret! University

If you might be interested in learning more about our new wholesale lender, you should provide your contact info - so you won’t miss anything - please use the Contact link in tihe right side-bar. —> 

In a nutshell they’ll be looking for career-minded ethical licensed Mortgage Brokers who have at least 2 years experience in the industry. You should have a clean criminal background, be financially sound, and have a personal satisfactory credit history (exceptions are approved with a suitable explanation); you cannot operate out of your home, so you’ll need commercial office space with appropriate signage, landlord, long-term lease, etc.

And just so you’ll know, I’m told by the mortgage broker approval supervisor, they will not simply accept transactions from just anybody, they plan on limiting who they’ll do business with - so get your beginning info in right way!
 
 

In this weeks Friday evening article ‘WHAT WE’RE HEARING’ by Paul Muolo Editor National Mortgage News http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/cgi-bin/hearing/list_old_columns.pl?id=768 - I saw this:

‘Former Beneficial Finance official Peter Cugno thinks the time is ripe to start a wholesale subprime lending company. A mortgage trainer the past few years, Mr. Cugno put out a press release saying he is in the process of raising capital and obtaining the proper licensing. He plans to run the company under the subprime model of yesteryear: when funders closely underwrote loans with a microscope and required refi applicants to have real equity…’

THANKS PAUL!!

I just saw a nice article about our new venture in the paper; looks like Brad Finkelstein’s by line.

THANKS BRAD :-}

So … there I am talking with a potential start-up investor over the week-end, and they ask me for our all new Underwriting Guidelines (which by the way are @ 56 pages and about 20 more man hours of work, away from being completed), so I explain that putting down on paper a proper ‘business plan’ for something I have already done 4 different times, takes up a great deal of front end typing (since the experience, mis-steps, and knowledge are already there). I’ve often thought a biz-plan was, in great measure, a ‘tell’ to see if it’s author has a clue, so I explain ‘please wait and it will be all nicely put in place.’

That’s the latest on our creation of a new non-conforming wholesale lender.

After a several year focus on industry training and education, Company Chairman & CEO Peter Samuel Cugno is excited to announce the Company and his return to operations in what will become the all new non-prime industry standard of operating. "The historical timing of returning to the wholesale non-prime lending world, couldn’t be better," Peter said this morning. "Raising the necessary Capital, going through the needed paperwork for proper Nationwide licensing and all the rest that’s essential to beginning a new venture like this should take less than four months before the Grand Opening. 

 "Those of you in the business who remember what subprime was like before the Russian Rebel financial crisis and it’s cause of a major mortgage industry correct during the Fall of 1998 - you have an excellent vantage point and watched how reckless non-conforming became in the following decade; a foolish approach we will not engage in". Mr. Cugno continued, "we’ve got several all new twists and turns the third party originators will just love".

Well, I’ve almost got myself talked into one last splash! Our industry needs somebody to step up and develop an old-fashioned/ new model for a non-prime wholesale lenders, that ‘proper’ model is already inside my own head, so there’s won’t be any trial & error like there would be with the next guy who’s going to do it too.

Preparing a white-paper, an excel spread sheet - the size of your desk - with it’s details, a several dozen page long business plan, etc. I’m gonna start to author this week-end. Why am I telling YOU this? Because these are some of the initial tools you’ll need to supply the investor I would like you to find for me

I’ve hit this topic a couple of times and from different directions lately, yesterday it was driven home to me by a long time mortgage broker I know fairly well, from up in Oregon. He’s taken one hit after another like most mortgage brokers have, except yesterday he told me after more than 2  decades in the biz, he’s hanging up his spirs for good.

The latest ‘mortgage reform’ legislation working it’s way to Law - from committee, through the House and now up to the Senate; on the heels of the nationwide changes in appraisals (HVCC) had dealt a blow to many - today  (from all I read) they’re running for the hills en-mass - when I know a better way.

I remember back when my own company was a small sized mom & pop shop … we had no warehouse line of credit (back then they were very hard to get with only a small handful of players nationally), the traditional secondary market collapsed as did the mortgage insurance industry … mortgage brokers were dropping like flys all around me, I was terrified. Considering unlike these days, mortgage brokers back then, had their life savings, their credit, most pledged their home’s equity to keep them going, every dime invested in their company’s furniture, fixtures, equipmemt, large commercial space lease, salaried payroll personnel (no commissions), employee benefits, equipment leases on copiers, faxes, computers, telephone systems, etc. Finding qualifiable customers was challenging, real hard work - had to spend quite a lot of money to get the phone to ring with a potential borrower inquiry.

I knew to survive, I had to "bob & weave" and REAL FAST too! As all of these issues came together, I knew I needed to become LUCKY (LUCK = that point in time when determination and hard work converge). I did not have the luxary of running for the hills, I was trapped and HAD to find my way out - I did.

Saturday June 20th right here in Southern California, if you want to hear how I did it and therefore draw the easy bridge to your situation today so you can too, sign up for our Secondary Market class and I’ll show you how to become a mortgage banker/servicer, find all new previously unknown investor/buyers and replace the puny MI companes you use with solid and more sizable organizations. Learning the most important sesson (you’ve missed so far in your career) once and forall - when your borrowers punch your investor/buyers in the nose YOU BLEED!

I’ve been thinking for some time that the new HVCC rules might be just the thing to motivate residential mortgage brokers into moving into the mortgage banking sector of our industry, that and all the stuff I read about ‘broker’s being dust’ and having no future, being said by quite a broad section of industry observers, insiders, etc.

Although I completely disagree with the thought that the future of being a Mortgage Broker is doomed, it does look increasingly more and more difficult — a lot of issues seem to have conspired to drive them either OUT of Business or into being a more responsible corporate citizen by investing $$$$ in their own future, and becoming a mortgage banker definately would do that!

By and large, I’ve decided to provide more time to anyone that selectes our Mentor program and who picks me from among our faculty, to help them evolve into a mortgage banker organization. That advancement of their firms would surely be better for both them and our industry - which would please me to no end.

If you’ve studied the extent of our residential real estate mortgage training & educational offerings at Secret! University, then you’ve probably seen our E-mail Answers Program (EMA).

In the lead article of The MortgageLand Journal’s April 1st edition I talked about the mortgage broker/banker requirement of having a written company policy to comply with both The GLB Act and also the all new FACT Act. It struck me this morning at Breakfast that students utilizing our EMA program, could easily spend/invest a whopping $14.95, send the one’s they’ve authored in to us, and ask if they are in compliance!

If you think this might be a good idea, visit our EMA page, prepay the small fee then send us yours!

Many of you are aware "… the House Financial Service Committee has approved an amendment to a mortgage reform and anti-predatory lending bill that would give federal regulators the discretion to make exceptions to a 5% credit risk retention requirement. The bill requires lenders to retain 5% of the credit risk on non-prime mortgages that are sold or securitized. The amendment would allow  …."  We all know Committee chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., and his love for our industry; this quote is from a news story today about securitizing subprime in the newly regulated secondary … do ya see the NON-PRIME reference there? You know why that’s there? Because Barney and the dudes in his committee know (like me),  it’s just a matter of time - right around the corner is how that translates - says ME.
 

PS: IF your read about anybody else telling you brokers are toast, and/or that subprime is dead - I want you to Laugh Out Loud at  them - ’cause you’re paying attention!