Thank you for joining us for Take 10, Lisa Wiles with the LTW group at Fairway.
And Corey Frills with the same welcome.
So far.
We're so glad you're here.
Yes, we are.
Like our usual selves, let's dig into the market because it's been a roller coaster.
It has.
Yeah.
So, Friday of last week was a very, very bad day for the market.
So had a hot jobs report come out much higher than expected, push rates an eighth higher
in a day.
That was fun.
So if you're at 7, it goes to 7.125.
If you're at 7.25, go 7.25.
Spent a couple days in misery, weeping and gnashing of teeth, sadness all around.
Sadness.
And then Wednesday, we get an inflation report, a consumer level inflation CPI came out better
than expected.
Although the economists were saying that it was not going to, why did it not come in
at expectation?
Yeah.
So the headline actually came in at expectations are a little hotter than expected.
But the core rate, which is what the Fed looks like, that's what they look at.
That takes out food and energy costs because super volatile and the Fed can't control
it.
They can send rates to a thousand and if oil is what it is, you got OPEC control and oil
and then food is what it is.
You could have a swine flu and you got pork problems, right?
There's nothing interest rates can do about it.
So the core rate actually came in a little cooler than expected, which bond traders liked.
I think it was an outsize reaction both ways.
I think they're jumpy.
I think they got too excited on Friday and sent yield soaring.
And then they just need a little good news to bring yields back into orbit on Wednesday.
Because they realized they overreacted.
That's right.
So bond traders are jumpy.
Our thoughts are out there with the bond traders.
Yes.
It's hard out there trading bonds.
It's hard.
And which they set mortgage rates ultimately.
So we expect some volatility in rates.
And this is really difficult in practice for us because if you guys are shopping on a weekend,
Saturday, Sunday, you call us and ask us for a payment.
We're going to give it to you based on what we had Friday.
But Monday, we get...
It's a whole different world.
Yeah, right.
And then so it's a challenge too.
You'll have people that, you know, they'll be introduced to us and they want to shop
us on a Saturday or Sunday.
And it's like, we're not really shopping anything because...
We don't even know what the rates are going to be Monday.
We'll get new rates on Monday.
Can't do anything about it.
All that's safe.
Things are very volatile.
In my opinion, and people have been asking, clients have been asking me, what would you
do?
Would you lock?
I think there's a lot more of the ability for the rates to get worse than to get better.
So knowing that, I don't think the rates are in any position to wow you into like...
But if we get news of any great data coming across, we're going to let you know because
we want you to get the better rate.
But until then, I would lock it up.
We typically say we need a compelling reason to float.
We need a compelling reason not to lock in a rate when we get a contract.
Just too much can go wrong and it always hurts more when it goes up than it feels good when
it comes down.
Like even when you make the right call and it gets better, you know, that's great, but
it really hurts when you make the wrong call and it goes up.
Yeah.
So that's the market for you.
On that note though, into February.
So when we get January's inflation data.
Right now, that's kind of the next time that I see an opportunity for rates to actually
get better materially.
Into February, keep an eye on that.
And that'll be CPI in February for the month of January.
And I think we're going to maybe even have a market report at that time.
So we'll keep you up to date on that.
We'll keep you up to date.
Yeah.
Something that I dug in on, thank you for the market data.
Something I dug in on this week was getting more information about medical bills and how
it affects your credit score.
Because I have a client that they were surprised at what their credit score pulled.
And the only thing on there was a medical bill.
And I thought that that didn't matter anymore.
Yep.
Nope.
It does matter, but not for long.
Okay.
Thank God.
Yep.
So, and I've seen the same thing, like clients with impeccable credit and then one of your,
you know, you'll have like 770, 765, and then they'll throw up a 680 on the third bureau.
And you go look at it as a medical collection.
They had no idea it was even a thing.
Right.
You get so much mail and you don't know what to pay and whatever.
Well, and sometimes they just hand that bill over to collections and you thought your insurance
paid it.
That's right.
It's just a mistake on their books, but it could really damage your credit.
And so that is no longer going to be a thing.
It finally passed, I think, in the last.
The CFPB released a bulletin on the 7th of January.
Yep.
And it takes effect 60 days after it gets into the final register.
Yep.
What is the final register?
You ask?
We don't know.
But that's where it's getting released.
That's what it's going to be.
And we will find it.
We will find out what that actually means, but that is a weird.
Proactively, something that we've decided to do as a team is we're going back through
all of our borrowers that had credit scores below qualifying credit score where they
should be to qualify.
And we're going to go through those reports.
And if there's medical bills on there, we're going to reach out and see if we can bring
some of your buyers back.
Again, this whole take 10 is one more deal.
We're just going to try to get you one more deal.
That's right.
So it's good to know.
I've seen, I mean, there's some big ones, especially like I saw a lifestyle collection
one time for six figures.
And a hundred thousand dollars.
You think that hurts your credit?
Yeah.
I mean, you never mind a house with that.
So it's going to make a big impact for a lot of people.
Super excited.
It's the right thing to do.
Circling back around and look, having the lender look at the credit again, re-qualifying
those borrowers that had issues with medical collections.
That's a huge opportunity.
Because those people are buyers.
So also just to say on credit, any credit issues that come up, we would love to, we
can do a soft credit pull, you guys.
It doesn't hurt your customer for them to allow us to review the credit.
Make sure they're in a good space to make those offers and give us also the opportunity
to correct it.
Because we do have the rapid re-score that we can utilize if it's appropriate and if
needed.
We have software where when we pull a soft credit report, again, no impact to credit.
Super important.
There's no reason a borrower should not reach out to us.
Correct.
Soft credit pull doesn't impact their credit.
We can actually look at that credit report, throw it into an algorithm and say, if you
do X, Y, and Z, we can get you here.
And I would say, I mean, it is a regular occurrence.
Perhaps weekly, you pull credit on somebody and you can increase it 40, 50 points by paying
down a credit card.
And not even like a big credit card.
The big thing is like store cards with a $1,000 limit.
Somebody will have 600 bucks on a $1,000 card and it'll push their credit down 30 points.
Just pay it off.
Easy fix.
It's an easy fix.
But don't be doing it on your own.
Because if you do it on your own, you may do it wrong and actually hurt your credit.
That's right.
Let us look at it and we'll tell you what to do.
Let us help you.
What about condos?
Are they fun?
You having a good time with condos right now?
No.
I'm not having fun with condos.
I am the freaking condo queen.
That is my thing.
And they are the redheaded stepchild right now.
They are not fun.
So here's what I ask to all you amazing realtors out there.
When you're listing a condo, get with the HOA and start understanding maybe a basic
questionnaire.
We are happy to provide a basic HOA condo document questionnaire just to understand
what the pitfalls are and what you're going to be running into.
And then because right now we're working on trying to have legal documents match the HOA
shares and it's just a big jumbled mess.
Does the master insurance not cover the right things?
So we're correcting all this stuff.
It takes time.
And so let's think about this stuff up front.
Are they approved for FHA financing?
Are they only approved for conventional?
Are they approved for neither?
And there are links and we'll provide those links in the notes on how to see if the condos
approved for HUD financing and FHA and USDA and all of those government loans.
So we can dig more into condos later, but we're coming up on our time and we have some
really funny comments.
We do.
We have to.
So we've had a fun week with social.
You guys missed us for a couple weeks.
We've been having people sick and vacations.
So there's one, if you don't follow us, it's LTW group is our Instagram handle, LTW group.
It's so funny.
And we're also on TikTok of which I do not have a TikTok, but that's about to go underground.
You're gonna have to like black market that was very popular on TikTok this week.
There was a real posted of me in like two years of video outtakes, like just me like
pausing before a video millennial pause rubbing my face in anguish.
It was hysterical.
So funny.
I was not aware of its production, but I'm so happy that it came out there.
One of the comments on TikTok was he's obviously beekeeping age.
And the Gen Z on our office says as a compliment based off of video, then I'm going to take
that in stride.
I do have friends that do sourdough chickens and bees.
So it's not.
I had to ask.
I was like, what's beekeeping age?
Is that actually me?
Someone else said the only advice I like to hear and I don't say anything in the video.
I don't say a word.
That's the only advice that she likes to hear.
So with all that, you guys get onto our social.
It's funny.
I'm signing off today as Karen.
I'll let you find that one.
You got to watch Lisa's video.
I freaking, there's like, there's 2,500 views in 2000 or me.
It is so funny.
Well, we appreciate you guys.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for letting us be a part of it.
We work weekends after hours at theltwgroup.com.
Thank you.
Talk to you next week.
Bye.