Blogs

Fight against Fraud with Direct Data Sources

By Keith Kemph posted 2 days ago
Listen while you work as Keith Kemph at BlackFin welcomes John Hardesty, General Manager of Mortgage for Argyle, into the shark cage to talk about the key to reducing fraud risk is by using direct data sources as not only a faster, cheaper, better way to verify employment and income but to mitigate loan risks better. Jump into the shark cage now and listen in by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl0NMRAnqbA

Your New Mortgage Strategy Starts with Better Forecasting

By Bernard Nossuli posted 3 days ago
By Bernard Nossuli, COO, iEmergent Can you identify the exact neighborhoods that will drive mortgage growth for your credit union over the next year? What about the next three years? Five? With forecasting, marketing intelligence, and advisory services from ACUMA affiliate member iEmergent , you can do just that. iEmergent leverages all kinds of information—including demographic, economic, housing, and competitor data—to help credit unions locate and engage home-ready, underserved markets. While our analysis certainly takes into account historic and current trends, what sets iEmergent apart is our ability to provide uniquely accurate forecasts ...

Marry The House, Date The Rate

By Keith Kemph posted 9 days ago
April 1, 2024 By Julie Piepho, Principal, BlackFin Group This Is an old phrase, but one I believe is worth repeating, especially considering March’s FOMC announcement. I don’t know who to give credit to for this, but I’m going to repeat it here: “In 1971, the interest rate for a mortgage was 7.33%. If you waited for interest rates to go down, you wouldn’t have purchased a home until 1993. You would have rented for 22 years waiting for rates to go down, meanwhile the value of real estate quadrupled. Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait. Marry the house, date the rate.” Unknown It’s time to do ...

Is TikTok Evolving the Landscape of Employee Development?

By Keith Kemph posted 16 days ago
April 2, 2024 By Michael Simon, Principal, BlackFin Group For those unfamiliar with the social media giant that launched in 2016, TikTok allows users to create videos often set to music/sound clips and allows a number of baked in content enhancements. Learning experts will recognize this as being adjacent to the strategies used for L&D content development. In other words, adult learning very much spills outside of corporate training environments and moves across even social media platforms. It's more than coincidence that since the explosion of social media since the mid 2000's, the corporate learning landscape has seen a seismic ...

Technology Investment & AI with Cloudvirga

By Keith Kemph posted 22 days ago
Keith welcomes Jessica Evett from Cloudvirga into the Shark Cage for a discussion on why lenders should be investing now and how AI is poised to enhance the mortgage process. Some key insights you won't want to miss as a credit union. It won't be long and these concepts will be sneaking into the different vendors you are looking to work with. Time to get to know a little more about Cloudvirga. Technology Investment & AI with Cloudvirga

The New Table Stakes for Buying an LOS

By Keith Kemph posted 30 days ago
The New Table Stakes for Buying an LOS Jump into the BlackFin Shark Cage and learn about the new 'table stakes' for buying a new loan origination system. Listen to Keith Kemph interview Dan Smith, VP of Sales and Strategy at LendingPad. It's time to move to the modern, easy to use LOS. Some critically important insights that your team must consider when thinking about investing in a new LOS technology. With so many options in lending technology, as the experts. Let us know how we can help with the BlackFin Tech Stack Navigator Service Our Tech Stack Navigator Service was designed specifically with Credit Unions in mind.

GSE Guidance: Helping Drive Loan Production

By Keith Kemph posted 03-13-2024
February 24, 2024 By Luana Slettedahl, Principal, BlackFin Group The third article in our GSE series addresses the benefits of when your team moves to a GSE loan model. Let’s paint a scenario. Your firm is not approved to do business with either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and has not explored the benefits of being aligned with the GSE’s, everything seems to be running fine. So, why change? If you’re working with Correspondent Aggregators, this moves your firm to being 100% dependent on the pricing, underwriting philosophy, credit overlays, quality control, repurchase process and loan servicing operation. ...

MCT Industry Webinar – Moving to Mandatory Loan Sales

By Danielle Dvorchak posted 03-11-2024
Industry Webinar – Moving to Mandatory Loan Sales Complete the form to register for this webinar on April 4th at 11 AM PT. When mortgage bankers sell their loans on the secondary market, most begin using the best efforts loan sale delivery method. As volume begins to pick up, mandatory loan sale delivery becomes attractive for the increased profits… but how do you manage the risk? In this webinar, MCT's Scott Holtz, VP, South Regional Sales, will discuss how lenders are leveraging mandatory loan sale delivery to improve profitability and manage risk with pipeline hedging. MCT will also review operational changes needed ...

The Rise of Microlearning: How Bite-Sized Training is Transforming Employee Development

By Keith Kemph posted 03-06-2024
March 1, 2024 By Michael Simon, Principal, BlackFin Group In today's fast paced world, traditional methods of employee training are being challenged by the continuous demand for more flexible, efficient, and engaging learning solutions. At BlackFin, we feel the approach that's gaining the most traction is microlearning. For those who don't already know, microlearning is an innovative method which breaks down complex topics into bite-sized, easily digestible chunks of information, and is well begun transforming the landscape of employee development. Microlearning may already be available at your firm in small increments or even at scale. ...

Connexions' Vendor Directory: Transforming Appraisal Management

By Wilmary Britto posted 03-05-2024
Elevate your vendor management processes with more comprehensive business tools. Connexions is thrilled to unveil a significant advancement in appraisal management. Peek Into Our Vendor Directory Solutions: Revolutionized Vendor Search : Quickly find appraisers by County, State, or City with our enhanced Vendor Directory. User-Friendly Interface : Easily navigate to 'Invite New Appraisers' through a simple, clear pathway in our system settings. Automated Onboarding : Streamlined onboarding with automated importation of default appraiser configurations upon acceptance. Learn more about our Vendor Directory

Are Credit Report Fees Crushing Your Bottom Line?

By Keith Kemph posted 02-28-2024
February 2, 2024 By Julie Piepho, Principal, BlackFin Group Gone are the days when credit report fees were cheap, and they were ordered by the dozens for whatever customers the loan officers wanted. The past two years have shown a dramatic increase in fees due to FICO increasing their fee to the bureaus which is then passed onto the customer. The practice of 99% of mortgage companies of not charging the customer the credit reports up front may be changing due to the rapidly increasing cost. As lenders look at their credit report costs the main focus needs to be on the “stranded cost” – credit reports that never turn into a closed loan and ...

GSE Guidance, The Glass House

By Keith Kemph posted 02-21-2024
February 1, 2024 By Luana Slettedahl, Principal at BlackFin Group Welcome to the second in a series of articles designed to help home lending CEO’s work more effectively with the GSE’s (Government Sponsored Enterprises) – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Today’s article provides key insights to preparing your firm for applying to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac for Seller/Servicer Approval. As I prepared this article, I quickly recalled early in my career when the CEO of my firm purchased every employee a simple plexiglass house with the words on it “Glass House.” This occurred while the mortgage company was under tremendous pressure ...

Are Credit Report Fees Crushing Your Bottom Line?

By Keith Kemph posted 02-14-2024
February 2, 2024 By Julie Piepho, Principal, BlackFin Group Are Credit Report Fees Crushing Your Bottom Line? Gone are the days when credit report fees were cheap, and they were ordered by the dozens for whatever customers the loan officers wanted. The past two years have shown a dramatic increase in fees due to FICO increasing their fee to the bureaus which is then passed onto the customer. The practice of 99% of mortgage companies of not charging the customer the credit reports up front may be changing due to the rapidly increasing cost. As lenders look at their credit report costs the main focus needs to be on the “stranded ...

BlackFin Group: Mortgage Outlook 2024.

By Keith Kemph posted 02-08-2024
BlackFin Group: Mortgage Outlook 2024. Listen to our industry experts who step into the shark cage and provide key insights and recommendations for 2024 while planning for 2025. Some key insights you won't want to miss as your planning for 2024... Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHR1XYhwheE&t=16s

The Secret Ingredient for Effective Technology Implementation

By Keith Kemph posted 01-31-2024
Over the past few years, credit unions have seen many new technologies come to market, some more effective than others. Many have made investments and then been disappointed when implementation problems prevent them from realizing the true benefits. To talk about the secret ingredient to effective implementations, we have Keith Kemph, CEO of BlackFin Group Watch here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgHPJ6e-bro

GSE Guidance: Successfully Working with the GSE’s

By Keith Kemph posted 01-24-2024
GSE Guidance: Successfully Working with the GSE’s, through the CEO Lens January 22, 2024 By Luana Slettedahl, Principal at BlackFin Group Welcome to part one of my newest series, GSE Guidance. A series of articles designed to help home lending CEO’s work more effectively with the GSE’s (Government Sponsored Enterprises) – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These key insights will help expand the CEO’s horizon for building up their firm’s foundational understanding to working with these GSE’s and ensuring your team is meeting the expected standards. This insider knowledge and guidance will not only strengthen your relationship with the GSE’s ...

Top Mortgage Ops Trends Going Into 2024

By Keith Kemph posted 01-17-2024
January 2, 2024 By Keith Kemph, BlackFin Group, President & CEO When winding down the year 2023, our team received a steady stream of inquiries from lending executives nationwide asking our opinion on what’s ahead in 2024. Logical inquiries provided our wide range of mortgage industry consulting advisory and services. Now, while our 2024 crystal ball may like other ‘optimistic’ industry prognosticators, what we found more valuable to share with our lender executives are the top mortgage operation trends that we are seeing today. The trends that are making our phone ring, today. A legitimate barometer as lenders have settled into 2024 budgets. ...

Shark Cage Podcast: Separating Hype from Fantasy in AI

By Keith Kemph posted 01-10-2024
Enter the BlackFin SharkCage podcast to hear PrudentAI, our Preferred Partner, is helping separate fact from fiction about AI for mortgage lenders. Oh and you also might want to check out what they are doing to help make reading and calculating bank statements is fast and easy...Enjoy. Shark Cage Podcast: Separating Hype from Fantasy in AI

2024 Housing Market Predictions, Forecast, & Future Analysis

By Danielle Dvorchak posted 01-05-2024
2024 Housing Market Predictions Will interest rates go down? Are home prices going to drop? Will inflation go down? Read on for our analysis and predictions on how 2024 may unfold in the housing market. Key highlights from this post: Our analysis of the current mortgage rate trend and what we think will happen next. Deep dive into inflation and the topic of recession. If home prices are really expected to drop and if so, when housing is to fully recover. Our prediction for the 2025 housing market. Read the full blog post to learn more about current housing market ...

MCT's Update for the Current MSR Market - Jan 2023

By Danielle Dvorchak posted 01-05-2024
Update for the Current MSR Market MSR Update for January 2024 Mortgage rates and rate indices continued their sharp decline during the last three weeks of December, closing the year with the lowest levels the market has seen since March, 2023. Mortgage rates managed to end the month lower than 11/30/2023 levels by about 66 basis points, while float income rates managed to drop about 40-50 basis points below 11/30/2023 levels. Combined mortgage rates decrease during the months of November and December exceeded 100 bps, and float income rate decline exceeded 75 bps during the same period. Such ...