AMY COILE AND MEGAN DEREPENTIGNY join the SOUTHEAST MORTGAGE Team

AMY COILE AND MEGAN DEREPENTIGNY join the SOUTHEAST MORTGAGE Team

Amy Coile and Megan DeRepentigny joins Southeast Mortgage to Support Continued Growth In Athens and Hartwell Area.  

ATLANTA, June 18, 2012 – Southeast Mortgage, a full service Georgia Mortgage Lender and the largest non-bank lender in Georgia, has named Amy Coile as its new Senior Mortgage Loan Originator in the Athens – Hartwell market area.  Also joining Southeast is Megan DeRepentigny who will be assisting Amy Coile in the Athens-Hartwell market.  

Amy Anthony-Coile takes pride in putting people in homes. She consistently brings the best the mortgage business has to offer and combined with the Guaranteed Close –  This is bound to be HUGE.

Amy has over 16 years experience in the mortgage business, having owned her own company for over half.  She is experienced in all loan types and her customer service is like no other. 

Megan joined Amy forming “The Classic City Team” and has taken mortgage lending to the next level in the industry.  They are very excited to align themselves with Southeast Mortgage, where they can offer the elite  lending experience of the American Dream.

"We are proud to have Amy and Megan join our team.  Their passion for great service will fit well at Southeast Mortgage." - Cal Haupt, Chief Executive Officer

TBWS's Brian Stevens & Frank Garay's impression of Southeast Mortgage

www.southeastmortgage.com
clientservices@southeastmortgage.com
770-279-0222

Internet Responsibility: Protect our few remaining freedoms

The internet and the various media options within the channel are a fantastic method of promoting your products, staying in touch with family, and educating yourself on unlimited topics.

Do you remember the days when you could see your family or friends board their plane at the airport gate?  It only took one incident undertaken by people without any respect for people’s rights or freedom to create the intrusive airport security we experience today.  We all pay for the few that make bad choices.  The internet is an open forum that requires users to conform to basic acceptable traits as a member of our human society.  If we work as a society to stop the poor choices of the few, we can protect the open internet we enjoy today. 

As a member of society and to protect our freedom as a US Citizen, we should all stand up to people who use our few remaining open resources for unsavory purposes.  Let’s not take the internet for granted and protect the benefits it provides our businesses and society. 

Instead of looking at a car wreck and slowing traffic, continue with your daily commute as usual and respect those in hardship and those that need to get home or to work.  The same goes for those that use the internet for revenge or to make untrue statements with the purpose to create hardship.  As a society, we should call them out and not give them the attention they desire.

The internet should remain a pure source for good and those that use it for personal agendas and one sided attempts to harm should see solidarity in our society that the behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

We need more Knights in shining armor and more Joan of Arcs.

Mortgage Lending A Great Career Opportunity - JD Crowe

Mortgage Lending A Great Career Opportunity

Posted on June 11, 2012 by admin

With the unemployment rate in Georgia at 8.9% and nationally at 8.1% there are a lot of people looking for jobs. And there are an additional 1,781,000 students who recently graduated from college who have also entered the job market.

But very few of these young people are considering a career in mortgage lending. And there has also been a decrease of people entering the field from other industries. As we’ve mentioned in a previous column, at the height of our industry, there were more than 3500 mortgage brokers and lenders in Georgia. Now there are less than 750.

The positive side of the huge decrease in the number of mortgage brokers and lenders is that anyone you deal with for a mortgage has a lot of experience. But the time is fast approaching when there won’t be enough mortgage lenders to handle the increasing volume of applications over the next five years, as the housing market starts to recover.

Rob Chrisman, of Daily Mortgage News and Commentary wrote, “In traveling around the country meeting with regional groups, and attending conferences, there definitely seems to be a lack of young people entering the business. Looking around the room or across the lobby of any conference, it is not hard to see the lack of anyone under age 35. How young people enter the mortgage and real estate business is a concern of many.”
The lack of young people entering the industry may also partly be due to the bad reputation mortgage lending has gotten from the media. We have often been portrayed as the bad guys whose lending practices led to our current economic condition. Just as in any industry, there are less-than-trustworthy people in it. But that just means there’s more room for the honest, competent people to become successful.
Few companies are willing to invest the time and money into training and there are even fewer people equipped to train.

Tim Galligan, a mortgage lender and director of sales at 1^st Advantage Mortgage in Lombard Illinois, said in an interview, “It is especially hard for people trying to enter the field since experience is so critical, but don’t be discouraged: many mortgage lenders are finding ways to train inexperienced people. There have not been many young people getting into this field in the last few years, but we are going to need young people in 10 or 15 years when everyone retires. We’ve started hiring junior mortgage lenders who work under a more experienced person, and they can learn about the business before starting on their own.”

At Southeast Mortgage we are following a similar path. We have had several recent hires new to the industry. We are actively training them based on opportunity we see in the coming years. I always like hiring talented people who can learn quickly even if they have no experience in the industry. Our biggest challenge is that there won’t be enough originators to handle the volume as the housing market recovers.

If you are intelligent, have good communication skills, a good work ethic and have a basic knowledge of finance, the field of mortgage lending is wide open. If I were a young person just starting out in my career, I would look at this as a great opportunity.

— J.D. Crowe is Senior Vice President of Southeast Mortgage
www.southeastmortgage.com
clientservices@southeastmortgage.com

Synonym for SEM = TEAM

TEAM

Shares a common belief with a mutual commitment to be more than one could be alone. 

A single stick can break.
A bundle of sticks is STRONG! 

Serving our Client's Trust with the service they deserve!

www.southeastmortgage.com

770-279-0222

clientservices@southeastmortgage.com

Basel III will change the Mortgage Landscape once again…….

Basel III will change the Mortgage Landscape once again…….

The mortgage industry has undergone many significant changes as a result of the financial crisis. 

One of the less known pending changes we have been monitoring for some time is about to take its final form.  Basel III in its current draft will increase consumer cost and reduce consumer’s choice of mortgage provider.  Banks, Large and Small, will have to make fundamental changes to maintain acceptable Tier 1 capital.  Capital available will potentially limit mortgage production and future growth of the product line.

For the past year we have been monitoring the evolution of Basel III and the U.S. Central Bank’s interpretation.  Basel III forces Banks to rely more on equity than debt to support their operations.  U.S. Banks have pushed the Central Bank to allow them to more heavily count mortgage servicing rights and the unrealized gains and losses of certain securities toward their capital requirements than allowed by Basel III international rule, but the U.S. Central Bank's drafted rule closely follows the international rule. 

The drafted proposal will impact large Banks and small community banks changing the Georgia Mortgage Provider landscape once again.  In the beginning, large banks were the main focus and were better positioned to raise capital; however, small community Banks are included in the current draft.  Increased capital requirements related to mortgage production could change many community Bank’s mortgage strategies including the size of the operation in relation to the Bank’s balance sheet and opportunity cost assessments.  While banks have enjoyed the benefits of their current exemption from State licensing requirements, Basel III will have a considerable impact on Bank’s overall mortgage product strategies going forward.

BASEL III is a global regulatory standard on bank capital adequacy, stress testing and market liquidity risk agreed upon by the members of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2010-11.  Basel III will require banks to hold 4.5% of common equity (up from 2% in Basel II) and 6% of Tier I capital (up from 4% in Basel II) of risk-weighted assets (RWA). Basel III also introduces additional capital buffers, (i) a mandatory capital conservation buffer of 2.5% and (ii) a discretionary countercyclical buffer, which allows national regulators to require up to another 2.5% of capital during periods of high credit growth. In addition, Basel III introduces a minimum 3% leverage ratio and two required liquidity ratios. The Liquidity Coverage Ratio requires a bank to hold sufficient high-quality liquid assets to cover its total net cash outflows over 30 days; the Net Stable Funding Ratio requires the available amount of stable funding to exceed the required amount of stable funding over a one-year period of extended stress.  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III

-        Cal Haupt, Chief Executive Officer, Southeast Mortgage of Georgia, Inc.

Rob Chrisman recently wrote a good article on the topic.

Unfortunately for borrowers, and rate sheet pricing, the Fed voted "full speed ahead" for Basel III. "Mortgage servicing rights (MSR), for instance, are used far more by U.S. lenders than by their international competitors. Banks get paid fees for servicing a home loan, which means collecting payments and managing foreclosures, and because they can be sold in markets, their value has been allowed to count toward capital requirements. The Basel agreement limited to 10 percent how much MSR's could count toward the common equity component and the Fed decided to strictly follow that standard. In anticipation of the new rules, some banks have been selling off mortgage servicing rights, like earlier this week when BofA agreed to sell $10.4 billion in mortgage servicing rights to a unit of Nationstar Mortgage." 
In December 2010, the proposed Basel III Accord was finalized which, if adopted by U.S. banking regulators, will result in a new regulatory capital regime for MSR (mortgage servicing rights) assets. Under the Basel III Accord, the amount of MSRs that can be counted as Tier 1 capital is capped at 10%, effective January 1, 2013, with a phased implementation through 2018.  In addition, a bank must deduct the amount by which the aggregate of the following three items exceeds 15% of Tier 1 capital: (i) significant investments in unconsolidated financial institutions; (ii) MSRs; and (iii) deferred tax assets arising from temporary differences. The exclusions from the 10% and 15% thresholds will be phased in from 2013 to 2018.

What does this mean? Basel III as currently proposed (and fully phased in) will increase required capital for most entities but will significantly increase the effective capital requirements for entities with large MSR positions relative to their Tier 1 capital. This includes a few score of banks, including Wells Fargo. Under Basel III, for those institutions at or above the 10% of Tier 1 capital level, the marginal capital requirement is effectively 100%.  The net effect of Basel III is potentially a significant increase in capital requirements for the industry as a whole. Some of the largest originators, who are market leaders in setting mortgage rates, will need to either raise mortgage rates while reducing servicing released premiums paid in order to compensate for any incremental capital required, or accept lower returns. And you can bet that if Wells or Citi or Chase lowers their SRP's, the market will follow - and the borrower will bear the brunt of it.
But there are, alternatively, other solutions to manage the 10% capital limitation, including acquisition/merger, selling the MSR, and structuring and/or holding more loans on balance sheet (eliminating the recognition of a separate servicing asset). So it is no surprise to see the news yesterday that non-depository Nationstar Mortgage has signed a definitive agreement to acquire approximately $10.4 billion in residential mortgage servicing rights, as measured by unpaid principal balance, from Bank of America. The acquired servicing portfolio consists entirely of loans in government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) pools - expect the loans to transfer from Bank of America in July. Nationstar currently services more than 635,000 residential mortgages totaling nearly $103 billion in unpaid principal balance.

Source: Rob Chrisman, Mortgage News Daily – June 8, 2012

JD Crowe - Installed as Secretary / Treasurer - MBAG 2012 / 2013

John David "JD" Crowe, Senior Vice President, Southeast Mortgage

Installed as 2012/2013 Secretary/Treasurer - Mortgage Bankers Association of Georgia in Destin, Florida. JD is also a Member of the Executive Committee for MBAG. His responsibilities will be the budget of the association and for the minutes of the board meetings.

Congratulations JD.