heard on the street
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all mortgage brokers prior to approval and will follow by building its Professional Branch System, which is dedicated to supporting only the very best retail mortgage professionals in their respective markets. Currently able to do business in 26 states and operating 18 professional retail branches, NetMore’s production volume surpassed the $1 billion milestone for its fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2009, a 300 percent increase compared to the same period in 2008. For fiscal year 2010, the company is projecting production volume to increase to the $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion range. For more information, visit www.netmoreamerica.com.
Cole Taylor Bank establishes residential unit
Cole Taylor Bank, a subsidiary of Taylor Capital Group Inc., has announced that
it has established a new residential mortgage origination line of business. The new business will be headed up by Willie Newman, former executive vice president of ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, and a recognized industry expert with more than 24 years of mortgage banking experience. Newman will report to Randy Conte, Taylor Capital’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, who was chief operating officer of ABN AMRO Mortgage for several years. The unit will have offices in several states, with production to come from established relationships with mortgage brokers, remote retail origination sites and production from Cole Taylor’s retail banking locations. The loans will not be held in the bank’s portfolio but rather sold after origination. “We expect that the addition of this new line of business will be an important new source of fee income for our organization and will provide additional earnings diversification,” said Bruce W. Taylor,
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5. Consensus: People proof, people power. Announce every success. Attend every closing and survey the borrower, listing agent and selling agent. Share every positive borrower survey with both agents. Don’t forget the listing agents, as they will likely be the selling agent on their next deal and you want to wow them and woo them to earn that referral. Share every positive listing and selling agent positive survey with their respective sales managers and broker/owners. This strategy alone gained me “in house” lender status at four real estate companies. After years of sending those positive surveys out, they reached out to me and offered the opportunity. I’ve covered a lot here, so please consider giving this another read and making a list of those ideas that you like and
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will consider implementing. Failing to plan is planning to fail. There’s no substitute for good, old fashioned, belly-tobelly selling. People have been looking for shortcuts for years. Some work for a time and then the cheese gets moved and it’s back to basics. Greg Frost is president of Frost Mortgage Lending Group, a PRMI Company. Greg has a proven track record as the first billion dollar producer. Greg’s Albuquerque team regularly originates more than 800 loans each year. Last year, his team originated financing for 5.5 percent of all resales as reported through the Albuquerque Board of Realtors, which translates to one out of 19 homebuyers in Albuquerque, N.M. alone. He may be reached by e-mail at info@gregfrost.com.
Don’t Miss Out on What This Conference Has to Offer “If you can only attend one national meeting this year, make it the NAMB 2010 Legislative & Regulatory Conference. It is a great opportunity to meet with fellow NAMB members and work together to formulate NAMB’s policy agenda.” —Don Fader, CRMS
Be prepared to go to the Hill! Includes Advocacy 101 training: General synopsis and "Question & Answer" on the best ways to communicate NAMB's talking points with your congressmen in an effective manner.
It’s all happening now! Visit www.NAMB.org/legconference for details!
chairman of Taylor Capital. “We believe that this is a significant opportunity for us, and we are fortunate to be able to attract an industry leader like Willie Newman for this new line of business.” Randy Conte said, “I’m delighted to welcome Willie and his team to our organization. His leadership and industry contacts should enable us to grow this business—which we understand very well—into a strong source of fee income for the bank. We expect to begin originating high-quality, first mortgage loans in the first quarter of 2010.” For more information, visit www.coletatylor.com.
ISGN acquires Loan Fulfillment Services from Fiserv ISGN Solutions Inc. has announced that it has completed its acquisition of the Loan Fulfillment Services (LFS) business from Fiserv Inc. This acquisition will add broker price opinions, closing and settlement services, valuation services, flood and title certification, home retention and loan modification solutions, and vendor management solutions to ISGN’s portfolio of products and services for residential mortgage lenders. “This is great news for our customers,” said Niraj Patel, group president of ISGN. “With the combined strength of the two entities and a comprehensive suite of end-to-end products and services, customers can now focus on loan profitability and creating business impact, while working with a trusted partner.” ISGN has grown rapidly, emerging as one of the industry’s most diverse providers of integrated mortgage services and technology solutions. Four years ago, the company laid out a vision of becoming a global solutions provider for the mortgage industry, applying its unique technology, process expertise and global workforce to be a transformational partner for lenders. The new combined entity will operate under the ISGN name and employ more than 1,700 associates across 15 domestic locations and three international facilities. ISGN, which had more than 600 clients including large global banks, regional lenders, community banks and credit unions, has added more than 400 Fiserv lender and broker customers as its own. Most of the management team members from the Fiserv business will be joining ISGN. Lee Howlett, who was the president of the fulfillment services business, will head the servicing practice. “We are excited about the opportunity to be a part of a reputed industry leader,” said Howlett. “Our services complement each other and our customers will benefit from this amalgamation of products and services.” “The key challenge our customers face today is enhancing loan profitability,” said Patel. “Vendors tend to be fragmented and don’t provide efficiencies, economies of scale or depth in the mortgage domain. ISGN has created a one-stop partner for all loan life cycle requirements.”
For more information, visit www.ISGN.com or www.fiserv.com.
HUD taps Marshall & Swift for REO costing data
Marshall & Swift, a provider of building cost data and estimating technology and a MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) company, announced that the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Single Family Asset Management (SFAM) will use Marshall & Swift’s cost estimator data and solutions to provide repair, replacement, maintenance or improvement costs on Federal Housing Administration (FHA) housing units, as a pilot initiative. Marshall & Swift’s cost estimator responds to the industry need to estimate repairs on the growing number of residential properties now in or entering the real estate foreclosure market. The subscription services establishes repair costs to increase the time for understanding repair needs in the overall real estate transaction. HUD’s decision to use Marshall & Swift’s data will help it simplify and ultimately eliminate the manual cost allowable updates routinely performed to develop and confirm costs for the industry across the United States and its territories on a consistent and totally verifiable basis. “Marshall & Swift is proud to continue to provide support to the FHA and HUD’s Office of Single Family Asset Management,” said Salil Donde, chief executive officer of Marshall & Swift. “The selection of Marshall & Swift’s industry leading total component database, offers defendable repair cost estimations in the fifty states and territories, and will streamline validating costs for residential property repair and preservation. Marshall & Swift’s objective thirdparty information will provide a conduit for the agency and industry to work more closely with each other and reduce unneeded time, costs and expenses associated with the protection and preservation of assets.” For more information, visit www.marshallswift.com or www.hud.gov.
NexBank to expands its mortgage operations NexBank, a North Texasbased banking and financial services company, has unveiled its plans to expand its retail and wholesale mortgage divisions to further enhance its developing service operation among a growing network of homeowners, real estate agents and mortgage professionals. With double-digit expansion of both mortgage divisions during 2009, NexBank plans to add 30-plus mortgage production professionals between the two mortgage divisions in 2010. continued on page 41