THIS MORNINGS QUICK LOOK

1.  TOUR DE MTG FINANCE – Retail Sales Report
2.  PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT – New Lock Updates
3.  MARKETING – Who Designs Your Customer Experience?

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RETAIL SALES REPORT

One of the best things that have come out of COVID and all of the mortgage rate turmoil is mortgage industry knowledge of the markets.

If you told me 10 years ago that the first thing I would be mentoring my kids in this business on is the secondary market and how money works and the proper indexes to watch I would have thought you lost your mind.

But, we are all better from it. We have a better understanding of why and how things work and what impacts the money supply in this country and the world.

This morning the Retail Sales Report comes out which measures consumer expenditures and is a pretty big deal to know what we are spending money on, how much and where we are slowing down spending on.

This information gives good insight to the FED and the markets of where our money is going and how we should be investing it and adjusting for it. Very similar to refinance and purchase application numbers that are put out each week. With this information we can properly staff and have expectations of volume.

The Retail Sales Report gives the amount of money consumers spend on retail food, vehicles purchases as wells as parts, gas station expenses, furniture and home furnishing stores, home and garden stores, building material stores, electronics and appliance stores, grocery and liquor stores, pharmacy and drug stores, clothing, sporting goods, hobby, music and book stores, costco and Sams, super centers like Wal-Mart and misc other stores.

Each one is broken down to see where we are spending the money. It is quite enlightening and interesting to read. It is put out by the census bureau. Here is an example of what came out in April for March results.

RETAIL SALES REPORT

Product & Guideline Highlight Knowledge That Gives You An Edge Over Your Competition

NEW LOCK UPDATES

Effective Friday May 20^th we will be putting in new lock extension costs. The reason is due to increased market costs to extend loans on our side with the cost of the monthly rollover increasing depending on mortgage coupon we are in. In addition, the cost of funds that we pay with higher interest rates is costing us a lot more to hold and fund loans.

In light of this here are the following changes:

1^st 3 days of first extension are free. After 3^rd extension you go to worse case pricing.

I have been told this is for locks moving forward effective May 20th.

Marketing Ideas And Opportunites Little Things That Can Make A Big Impact

WHO DESIGNS YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE?

Myself and every other marketer or sales person in the world has preached the importance of the two things required by every single person that is buying a product or service.

Speed and Customer Experience.

Here is the question though? Who is designing yours?

Here at Flagstar we have a huge IT team with a huge IT budget that works on and improves our systems and processes that you experience everyday. 

For a while in the past we had a team of individuals that know the mortgage market and know our system designing the verbiage, the location, the process flow of our system to make it the best for you.

The problem was that nobody in that group was in sales or marketing or originated loans or underwrote loans or even priced out loans. Yet, they were designing our system. 

This was many years ago fyi. Now, we have broker and correspondent round tables with our clients, we have AE teams that are on every IT development team that provide input and feedback to the changes, we vote on product development and IT changes to say this is the most important to do now. 

Most changes that happen at Flagstar have the IT folks, sales, clients, management, compliance etc to make sure what we are putting out is what is actually needed. 

So, I ask you the question. Who is in charge of designing the speed and efficiency and the customer experience for your company?

Is it a data management vendor? A loan origination system? A 3rd party marketing company that does not specialize in mortgages? Your mom or dad or who?

Make sure you have the right people in the right place that know what is needed to maximize speed and customer experience to help those that know how to do it make it happen.

Turn Times As Of This Morning Lookin Good!