Coffee for Closers | Leads360 Sales & Marketing Blog 

Hello all. I’d like to piggyback on what Matt is saying by throwing a Wall Street spin on things. As mortgage professionals it is not only important for mortgage lenders to know who to contact and when regarding a mortgage, but once you have the ear of a potential loan client it is important to keep their interest, capture their trust and most importantly you want to be the one to close their loan instead of the other guy. By keeping abreast of market activity, economic data, and following the Ups and the Downs of our economy, you can be the expert instead of an order taker just throwing out rates.

Wholesalers will start rolling out conforming products with a much higher loan amount than the $417,000 loan amount our industry has worked over the past 2 years. This comes as part of the stimulus program recently passed by Congress and it will only apply to specific markets where jumbo loans have reigned supreme in years past. A key factor is this loan amount increase expires December 2008, so it is for a limited time only. In addition to the conforming loan increase due to the stimulus package, be aware that the Big 3 of the stock market, the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and NASDAQ indices has hovered in the same range since the first of the year. Fortunately they have not spiraled out of control nor have they gained any ground. This is due the balancing act of rising inflation, poor economic results, and poor earnings being coupled with efforts from the Federal Reserve and Capital Hill to keep our country out of recession by creating action plans, auctioning off money, working with foreclosure relief, and reducing the cost of money by cutting the federal funds rate.Realize that around the time each meeting involving a decision on the Federal Funds rate, historical data shows us that often times treasury bonds with improve which in turn will cause lower long term rates. So in a sense when the Feds do their magic the mortgage market sees a benefit. Just yesterday Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve mentioned that our economy will be sluggish in 2008 not picking up until the end of the year. He and the rest of the Federal Reserve board are prepared to cut the Federal Funds rate further. With that said be on the look out for the Feds next action. As the time comes closer use the historical data to help fuel your email campaigns. When things happen like you mention in your emails, customers will be ready to listen when you begin to advise them on the right moves to make for their mortgage.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend!

Q: What’s a New Year’s  Resolution?

A: A promise to yourself that you won’t keep.

At this time of year many people are already struggling to stick with their New Year’s Resolutions. Just because the calendar flips over to January does not spark a flood of will power to course through one’s bones, or at least that extra self-control won’t last the whole year. I like making small changes, which are easy to execute on, but still very satisfying. I like resolutions that can be quickly executed, so I just made up a word: Resocutions! Resocutions are Resolutions with instant gratification, which is always nice.

Here are some of my resocutions for 2008:

Resocution #1: Trim RSS subscriptions and ditch old bookmarks.

Over the course of 2007, my RSS reader started looking longer than a Kevin Costner movie, which totally defeats the purpose. If you don’t use a RSS reader, you should. RSS brings you the latest content that you are looking for, in almost real time. As soon as your favorite journalist or blogger writes a new piece it’s there, when there is news about your business or industry it’s there. RSS is like bookmarks on steroids, sites without well-functioning, full-text RSS feeds may as well dig their own e-graves.

Whenever I come across a new site that I might want to read in the future, I’ll pop it into my RSS reader. If it turns out to be a useful site, great. If it turns out to be a dud, it will sit in the bottom of my reader, untouched for months. As a resocution for this year I am in process of pairing down my RSS subscriptions to those which I read regularly or those which I need to monitor for one reason or another. I encourage you to do the same and make your RSS experience all that it can be.

Resocution #2: Sell or give away stuff that is just taking up space.

We all have lots of stuff that we bought but never used, replaced with something better, broke but were too lazy to fix. Anything you can stomach getting rid of — just do it. Anything you can’t bear not to sell or use, give yourself a strict one year deadline to get it out of your hair.  Otherwise help your junk find it’s way to the trash can, donation box, or recycling bin.

Resocution #3: Plan your next vacation.

Coming back to work from the holiday season can put people into a funk. So much to do, so little time, such bad weather, and no vacations in sight! You can change that by planning your next vacation, even if it won’t come around for another 11 months. If you have a destination in mind you can start checking for cheap travel deals, planning your itinerary, keep your eye out for any useful articles or information, and give yourself a nice carrot to chase!

Do you have any New Years Resocutions?

Tune in next time for some resocutions for your business going into 2008.