FHA Mortgage, Interest Rates and Marketing

Get in on the ground floor with a full service mortgage lender.

Are you tired of working for a broker or net branch that has no control over the mortgage process?
There is a better way to do business.

R P Funding is a new, locally owned, FHA Direct Endorsement Lender. Get in on the ground floor with a Direct Lender. All loans are underwritten and closed in house (get to know the underwriters and closers). Loans are underwritten in 24 hours and closing time is 24 hours.

Our Head FHA Direct Endorsement Underwriter is top notch, and understands customer service. The entire staff has a “can do” attitude and is all about closing loans. The president started in the industry 10 years ago as a Loan Officer/Branch manager - this company was built to be what he always wished he could have found back then.

What we do:
We process loans efficiently and keep our sales staff informed
We underwrite most loans in 24 hours (even faster if you need to impress a new client)
Our closing department gets docs out in 24 hours and has great customer service
Programs include FHA, VA, FNMA, and FHLMC
We are a small company, no corporate politics.
There are only around 370 companies in Florida that can underwrite and close FHA Loans (we are one of them).

What we don’t do:
We don’t pay 100% commission
We don’t hire “just anyone”
We don’t do net branches

We are looking for two types of sales people:

1)Phone sales to work leads from marketing, direct mail, Internet and telemarketing

2) Outside Loan Officers who have relationships with Real Estate Agents, CPAs, Financial Planners, Builders (generate their own business)

Phone Sales:
Mortgage Originators EXPERIENCED with working inbound and outbound leads. Direct Mail, Internet, Telemarketed. You must be used to working with borrowers who are NOT referrals, be able to quickly build rapport on the phone and help people see through the “Bait and Switch” offers from the competition. If you have done this kind of work you know what I am talking about. We have a great CRM system and know how to get the phone to ring. Our commission splits for this type of work are very competitive and for the right person/experience/attitude we WILL PAY A DRAW/SALARY. We are also open to new ideas, if you have a lead generation technique you like that we are not currently using we would be happy to give it a try.

Outside Originators:
Mortgage Originators who have an established referral source and track record of closing loans through referrals. Your referral sources will love how fast we underwrite and close loans. FHA experience is preferred, but if you have the right following we are willing to teach you everything there is to know about FHA (our President has personally originated over 1,000 FHA loans and our head DE underwriter has approved around 5,000 - we know FHA!).

What to do next…
If you are interested, and think we would be interested in you, drop us an email or a call. You can send over a resume, but a brief description of what you have done, are doing, and what you would like to do… would be more helpful.

email: jobs519@rpfundingcorp.com
phone: 904-270-2812

Mortgage bonds are sitting up slightly and trying to get some momentum to help get rates back down, but have been stalling out.  If bonds can find the momentum to push mortgage rates back down before the close of the market today, we may be able to maintain the low level rates we have enjoyed lately. Otherwise we can expect a jump in mortgage interest rates.  We’ll keep watching through the day (May 14th) and see what happens with mortgage interest rates.

On May 13th mortgage bonds worsened considerably, causing interest rates to rise around .125%.  Talk of inflation had a negative impact on the market as multiple Federal Reserve members made comments about inflation becoming a bigger problem.

 Mortgage Rates have been on a roller coaster lately making it very difficult for consumers to determine when the right time to lock in their mortgage rate is.  We’ll ve watching mortgage bonds closely on May 14th, to see if there will be a reversal or if this is a new trend.   If rates worsen further on May 14th it would continue our journey to higher rates, hopefully we will see a reversal so we can see keep rates at low levels this week.

 As it stands right now mortgage interest rates are averaging the following (May 14th, 2008):

Conventional 30 Year Fixed Interest Rate: 5.875%

FHA 30 Year Fixed Interest Rate: 5.875%

VA 30 Year Fixed Interest Rate: 5.875%

There is a lot of pressure on the FHA right now to do more to help homeowners in trouble.  We are closely watching this legislation as it will make low fixed interest rates available to even more people - which is good. 

The retail sales index came in better than expected today (when removing new car sales).  This shows that consumers are still spending money which is bad for mortgage interest rates.   The fed made some comments that they are prepared to more action if needed which would mean cutting short term rates more - which would REALLY HURT MORTGAGE RATES. 

I think its very important for everyone to realize - WHEN THE FED CUTS SHORT TERM RATES, MORTGAGE RATES GET WORSE.  Rate are still near historic lowes and are not going to get any lower.  If you are hanging on out there for a lower rate, I urge you to consider locking in.  Rates will not be this good forever.

One of the many great features of an FHA Mortgage Loan is what it can do for borrowers in bankruptcy.  While conventional loan programs turn their back on borrowers with bankruptcies, FHA will allow a borrower who has been in Chapter 13 bankruptcy for only 12 months for refinance their home and buyout the bankruptcy if they have enough equity.   I will be going in depth into the benefits and process for a borrower to take advantage of this program over the coming week, stay tuned!

Direct Mail is an important part of our marketing as a company.  It took me years of research and trial and error to figure out a system that worked.  When we first started using direct mail, we wasted tens of thousands of dollars on things that didn’t work.  Direct mail is not a magic bullet, its simply a delivery system.  This is the most important piece that you have to understand.  Direct Mail is not a type of marketing it is one way of delivering your mortgage marketing.

Read the rest of this entry »

FHA has the best home equity program available.  It allows you to borrower up to 95% of your homes value, turning equity into cash, and only has .5% mortgage insurance. For more information on FHA Home Equity Loans check out Home-Equity-Loan-Tips.com.

A home equity loan can be a great way to save interest by paying off credit cards, save taxes by converting more of your monthly interest into a tax deduction and increase your credit score (paying off revolving debt increases your credit score).   You can even pay off cars and other debt making that interest tax deductible.  To maximize your financial situation its best to have as much of your debt as possible tied to your house.

Marketing FHA Loans is a hot topic right now.  Everyone knows FHA is “where its at” but most people are not sure how to market FHA Loans.  I have been marketing FHA Loans for the past 10 years and let me tell you, business has never been better.  The techniques I have been using for years are suddenly getting 5 to 10 times the response.  People need what we offer now more than ever and it is showing.  My branches and loan officers are busier than we have ever been and this is supposed to be a down market.   It just shows that its all about FHA Mortgage Marketing.  Getting the word out there about the great things we can do for people.  If you are in the mortgage business and don’t know how to market or have never had to do any marketing before - those days are over.

We are looking at expanding into more states and more areas.  Our FHA Mortgage Marketing system and the way we help homeowners and home-buyers with FHA loans works anywhere in the country.  I just have to find the right people to manage my branches and carry out our vision in the new markets we are exploring.  I have never been more excited about growth!  Its nice to know I didn’t waste the last 10 years perfecting my FHA Mortgage Marketing, but if sub-prime hadn’t crashed it would have never been this successful.

We had two chances to drive interest rates back down and neither seemed to have the effect we wanted.

First was the FOMC Meeting where the fed cut .25%.  This resulted in some very very temporary gain in the mortgage bond market but were quickly erased and fell back flat at the higher rates we settled into last week.

Second was the jobless claims report which came in better than expected and sent rates shooting upward, but has now calmed down and sunk back into the levels we were at before.

 To me this signals that we are settling into this new higher band of mortgage rates for the time being.  I don’t expect to see rates drop much below 5.875% in the coming weeks.  If things change as always I will update, but after these two missed opportunities at getting back to lower rates I think we are stuck here.

April was a crazy month for mortgage rates.   Rates were pretty volatile this month ranging from 5.5% at one time for a low, all the way up to 6.25% on the high side.  A .75% swing in a month is no small change.  The interesting part is with all that movement during the month the end result is rates being .125% higher than they were on April 1st.  After 30 days of wild swings we sit today .125% higher than we were on April 1st. This is the important trend to watch is that rates are moving upward.  From day to day rates are swinging wildly but now we can see a pattern that month to month rates are increasing.  We started the month at 5.75% dipped to 5.5% shot up to 6.25% and now sit at 5.875%: roller-coaster.

 There are still a lot of people holding out for “lower rates” and we may get there.  The problem now is that rates have to “drop” just to get back to where they were 2 months ago, and then would have to “drop” again to get lower?

There is only one way to get the lowest rate and its pure luck.  You have to just happen upon the day that rates are at there lowest, there is no way to time it or predict it.  If there was I would be a bond trader and not a mortgage lender.

We have some strong economic data coming our this week we need to keep our eye on.  If rates do not come down this week, I think we will have reset into this new rate range until something even more terrible happens in the economy. 

I think its crazy how long some companies are taking right now to underwrite loans.  Hire more people! Do they not realize how many loans they are losing by advertising 30 day underwriting times?  I don’t know how anyone convinces a borrower to hang around for 30 days while a file sits in line for an underwriter.  Also how do you lock these loans?  Are loan officers locking loans for 45 days just to try and get through underwriting?

At my company we always underwrite a file in 48 hours or less.  Most of the time files are underwritten the same day.  That’s the benefit of being a small privately owned direct endorsement lender.  Having extra underwriters to maintain speed and customer service is worth it in the long run.

If you work in Florida and are fed up with long underwriting turn times and want a better opportunity give us a call.  We are looking to hire experienced loan officers who understand FHA Loans in Florida and who understand the benefits of great service.  Our corporate office can be reached at 904-270-2812.