🔥 Mortgage X IPO! - The Letter X
Sep 26, 2020 9:14 pm
THE LETTER X
ISSUE #23
It just seems like the right thing to do! I think I am valued at a couple hundred (dollars) at least!
This week we saw UWM head into IPO territory, however going the SPAC route, but we will cover that a little later.
I am writing this edition of TLX from Motor City as I attend the AIME Fuse virtual event. It was awesome getting to speak at the event and getting to hang with some of my favorite people in the Mortgage industry.
There is nothing like spending time with these passionate and driven mortgage pros who have not only formed an amazing community but also have become an extended family. I am excited to see all of them continue to grow and look forward to the amazing business that they will build.
They, along with all of you, will be the future of this industry, so find your tribe, build your community, and go all in on creating the success you want. All the tools, all the opportunities are there, so don’t miss out! And with that, enjoy this edition of TLX!
Say Yes Every Day
Laura Brandao - President of AFR Wholesale
This week say yes to GREATNESS! Each and every one of us were born to be and have greatness, we just need to lean into our gifts so it will shine upon the world. Don’t hide from your super power, shine bright because the world needs your greatness.
Sharing is Caring! Remember to share your personal referral link (bottom of email) for a chance to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!
MBS X
The Media Has it Wrong
The media is trying to strike fear (shocker) with claims of a housing bubble on the horizon. We’ve said for a long time and continue to say that there is no housing bubble coming our way. Right now, we have chronically low inventory; only a three month supply. Existing Home Sales is at its best level since 2006, and 2006 was a totally different environment as there was double the amount of inventory as there is now along with no one new buyers coming into the market to purchase all the homes that were available. The economy is recovering and the housing market is on fire. So much so, that builders are hurt because they haven’t put more homes up to meet up to the demand we currently have.
Winning the Bidding War
The market is so hot that you’re not just buying a home, you have to win that home! As we’ve previously spoken about, many of your buyers may be hesitant to come in above asking price to win the bidding war. To get around this, we must show our customers the true appreciation they should expect to see in their home to anticipate when they will recover their bid over asking price. In many cases, they’ll get it back and then some within the first year of being in that home! An easy way to show this is to use the AVM Report or Bid Over Asking Price calculator on MBS Highway.
Advisor or Salesperson?
It's crucial to be an Advisor to your customers rather than a mortgage salesperson, and that’s why we’ve created Certified Mortgage Advisor (CMA). CMA will teach you everything Barry Habib has learned in the last 30 years. If you want to sound like Barry when you speak to your customers and truly advise them on the right financial decisions, you must understand the way the Mortgage Market works, the relationship between Stocks and Bonds, the difference between the Fed Funds Rate and Mortgage Rates, Technical Analysis, Debt Consolidation, how APR is prone to manipulation, and SO much more. CMA will truly change the way you think and operate.
Check out more on CMA at www.becomecma.com.
Promo Code: CMANL500 ($500 Discount)
The News X Recap!
All about the IPO! UWM is merging with a special-purpose acquisition company in a deal that will take the lender public at a valuation north of $16 billion, the record for a type of deal that has become all the rage on Wall Street.
I got to spend a little time this week with Mat and the UWM team and they are all very excited with what the future holds.
Florida is till a migration paradise with as surge in home sales. However, many of these newcomers may not know what they’re getting into. They’ve calculated the cost of their house, their mortgage, their car payments, their property taxes, and their home insurance. What they almost certainly haven’t taken into account is the reinsurance market (Rate Hikes).
Speaking of a housing surge, new home sales topped the one million mark, seasonally adjusted, in August for the first time since 2006, HUD and the Census Bureau reported yesterday. The report said sales of new single-family houses in August rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.011 million, 4.8 percent above the revised July rate of 965,000 and 43.2 percent higher than a year ago (706,000).
But with the surge comes a significant inventory shortages. In the roughly six months between the start of the pandemic in March and mid-September, 2.91 million homes have been put on the market, roughly 390,000 fewer than the same time in 2019.
Are consumers ready for Rachel? My man Shashank Shekhar, CEO of Arcus Lending, a San Jose, CA headquartered mortgage company, Announced that in partnership with Uneeq, they have launched Rachel, the mortgage industry's first digital human. As long as she doesn't go SkyNet on us, I am looking forward to how this goes for Arcus.
How about some tips for landords who are going without rental income due to C19.
We talked about CMA which is all about being an Advisor. Speaking to that, Mortgage debt in the US has reached 15-trillion according to the Federal Reserve, so it is important to make sure your consumers do not become house poor. The advantage for you is if you are working in a high growth area you can market to "bang for buck" to increase conversations and hopefully conversions.
Bowtie Economist Quick Hits
August new home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 1,011,000, and July’s sales were revised up from 901,000 to 965,000. New home sales are up a whopping 43.2% Y-o-Y and 14.9% YTD! As for August existing sales, they came in at a SAAR of 6 million, the best level since 12/06, are up 10.5% Y-o-Y, and down just 3.2% YTD despite dismal spring sales! Spectacular!
Economists believe in free markets and the prices and outcomes they produce because they are generally much more efficient than the alternatives. Some, however, argue that government should have a larger role and point, for example, to the very high prices for PPP early in the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic. These market critics are putting distribution/allocation of resources ahead of the efficiency of production. While a high bar, it is occasionally surmountable.
Good things come to those who Mastermind! Have you joined the Mortgage X Mastermind yet? I would like to invite you to join our community that is 100% focused on helping MODERN industry professionals crush it.
The Vieaux
Brian Vieaux - President of FinLocker
This week’s message is a short one as I want to share some stats on forecasted household formation over the next decade or so. From the Joint Housing Studies @ Harvard University for the 20-year period beginning in 2015 and spanning through 2035 it is projected that 91% of the future households formed will be by minorities. With the projections for 25 million households to be formed over this time and assuming a homeownership rate around 60%, over 10 million first time home buyers will be minorities and the underserved. Have you built your business and aligned with partners that will help you serve this important and growing part of the market?
2020 Vision
Christine Beckwith – 2020 Vision For Success Coaching
Easy Steps to Raise Your Bottom Line Through Execution and Leadership
The Definition of Rhetoric is: All Talk. No Action. The opposite of that is a quote I love from Will Rogers “Even if you are on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there”.
REINVENT A SUCCESSFUL WORK ETHIC IN YOUR COMPANY
It took me many years to realize that people, by and large, are not doers. People disappoint when you are a teacher as anyone who coaches, teaches, and trains will agree. There are clichés like, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink”, that demonstrate my point, phrases that continue to exist because they are excuses repeated often by failing managers. I have spent my entire life applying tricks and traits to get the horses to the water, and make them drink; this despite the depressing fact that the statistical learning rate of the average person is 40%!
The greatest trait I would credit to my own teaching success is that I am a doer. I apply the same process to my trainings as I do to everything else I do. When my class has ended, my work has not. I review my speech and reflect on the message just delivered. My own training happens after class as I check in periodically and consistently to Inspect what I Expect!
This is the number one tip I can offer to any leader: Inspect what you expect. Sounds stupidly simple. It is by far the lesson most often forgotten by managers and leaders alike. It is also never missed by seriously successful leaders.
Do not make the mistake of poo-pooing this idea by confusing it with micromanagement. I am not a proponent of adult leadership turned into babysitting. People who are treated as adults and offered a process to follow that provides measurable growth and positive results do respond appropriately to embrace new challenges and concepts.
Mamapreneur: Real Talk with a Side of Mom Jeans
Jess Vogelpohl Southwest Coaching
Da CIA method:
đź’š How do you react when unexpected problems arise in your business? đź’š
Follow the CIA method.
What can I control?
What can I influence?
What do I have to accept?
Then take action on your controllables.
Podcasts of the Week!
Mortgage X Podcast
Marketing Trench Podcast
Podcasts of the REAL Disrupt Network
Virtual Coffee with Estie Briggs
Mortgage Interrupt
Mortgage Industry Professional of the Week
Mike Cox – The Mortgage Nerds
The Edumarketer
How to Make Your Facebook Live Streams More Interactive! Part One
Last week, I shared how to promote your Facebook live event and grow your audience. Facebook live is an easy way to educate your real estate agents and borrowers. This week I'm going to share tips to make your Facebook live stream more interesting and interactive and promote your event long after the event is done.
Streaming live for the first time can seem nerve-wracking! But with the proper preparation and my tricks up your sleeve, you’ll have a fun time. Plus, practice makes perfect. I wasn’t as confident on camera at first as I am now, so the most important step is to stop second guessing yourself and just have fun with it. I always tell my clients, “when the message is more important than your ego, you’ll get out of the way and start sharing the message.”
Before you go live, test your video and microphone by using the “Only Me” option on Facebook, and make adjustments as needed. Turn off all outside notifications, and eliminate environmental distractions such as music or noise.
Once it’s go time, keep these tips in mind:
Introduce Yourself Multiple Times
It may not seem natural to introduce yourself and the topic several times, but your audience isn’t logging in all at once. Some viewers may hop in five seconds after you go live, and others will join five minutes into the stream. Think about when you tune into a radio station or a tv show, they recap what is happening every few minutes so that new viewers aren’t lost. If you don’t do this, you are going to lose those new viewers because they are going to be confused and feel left out of the party!
A few minutes into your livestream, introduce yourself again and give a quick update of what’s happened so far in the stream. Do this a few times throughout the first 10 minutes of your live stream if you notice your viewer count steadily rising. After that, 5 to 10 minutes, you’ll get a rhythm for it eventually.
Always Interact with Viewers
No one likes talking to a wall. If you don’t interact with your viewers, that’s exactly what the Facebook Live streaming experience will feel like.
Instead, scroll through the comments and shout out viewers by name, answer their questions, or elaborate on their comments. This makes the experience fun for both the viewers and yourself.
You can also enhance the livestream experience for everyone by assigning a friend or colleague to moderate the comments and interact with viewers throughout the stream—at Edumarketing, our producers help moderate the comments for you so you’re not trying to multitask too much. For instance, as you’re talking about a particular topic, your moderator is scrolling through comments and responding to viewers or queuing up questions for you to answer.
Stay tuned for Part Two next week!
LinkedIn Stories

LinkedIn updated its app this week giving launching LinkedIn stories for most users. The new app is 100% better than their old instance and I enjoyed using stories this week at AIME Fuse. Make sure to connect with me on LinkedIn!
Remember to share your personal referral link below for a chance to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card! I hope you enjoyed TLX #23! Have a great weekend.
