House prices rose 1.3 percent in the third quarter of 2018, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index.  House prices rose 6.3 percent from the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2017.  FHFA's seasonally adjusted monthly index for September was up 0.2 percent from August.

The HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Among the most significant findings are the following:

• Home prices rose in 50 states and the District of Columbia between the third quarter of 2017 and the third quarter of 2018.  The top five areas in annual appreciation were:  1) Idaho 15.1 percent; 2) Nev. 15.0 percent; 3) Wash. 10.6 percent; 4) Utah 10.0 percent; and 5) Colo. 9.2 percent.  The areas showing the smallest annual appreciation were:  1) Alaska, 0.2 percent; 2) N.D. 1.0 percent; 3) La: 1.5 percent; 4) D.C.: 1.6 percent; and 5) Conn: 2.2 percent.
• Home prices rose in 99 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. over the last four quarters.  Annual price increases were greatest in Boise City, Idaho, where prices increased by 20.1 percent.  Prices were weakest in Honolulu where they fell be 5.2 percent.
• Of the nine census divisions, the Mountain division experienced the strongest four-quarter appreciation, posting an 8.9 percent gain between the third quarters of 2017 and 2018 and a 1.5 percent increase in the third quarter of 2018. Annual house appreciation was similarly weak in the New England, Middle Atlantic, and West South Central divisions, where prices rose less than 5.0 percent between the third quarters of 2018 and 2017.

By Brian Sacks

While we all strive to be number one in everything we do, I think it’s important that we take a step back and actually look at that number in a different way. Use it to identify vulnerabilities in the way we do business—and address them. Now is a time for planning, for identifying sources of income and to diversify.

If you are an originator hoping to grow your production you need to pay careful attention to the number one. Let’s dive in and take a closer look at this numbers impact.

One Way to Identify New Business
Having one way to generate new business, regardless of whether it works or not, is very dangerous. Let’s think back a while and remember the blast faxes, then robo calls, then blast e-mails.

They are all now 100% ineffective and some are actually outlawed. You may also have had a website that ranked high on Google and then got “slapped” when they changed their guidelines.

If you used any of these methods than you probably already know the effects of being shut down and having your source of business come to a screeching halt.
To be effective, you should have at least three or four ways of consistently generating new leads and clients.

One Source of Business

Did you know that the statistically the in-house originator in a real-estate office only does 27% percent of the business in that office. But imagine what happens when the in-house originator has a deal that goes south. Every agent in that office becomes aware of the problem and hesitant about using that originator.
I see many originators going after the top producer with the hope that just one or two top producing agents will set them up for a great year.
While that may or may not be true, it is very dangerous. Losing one of those agents means your production and income would decrease by 50%.  Stop and let that sink in for a minute.

If you truly want to grow your production you must have a large and diverse group of referral partners so that if one or two or even three stop using you your business still keeps moving on.

Look at your current referral base and analyze it. If you have less than 20 active referral sources than you should immediately get started on building up your base. Just to be clear, an active referral source is one that you can count on to provide you with three-to four deals or more each year.

One Staff Person or Assistant
This one is particularly sensitive to me. Let me share a quick story with you. During the last major refi boom I had one processor working with me. She was not what I would call a great processor, but she was adequate.
As business began to explode, she became less dependable and more hostile. One day I had enough, and I told her that if she didn’t start performing, I was going to fire her.

Her response was uncontrollable laughter.

I was floored by this but then she clarified it for me. Since we were so busy and she was the only processor I had, she felt there was no way in the world I could even consider firing her.

Well, I did fire her that day, and I also learned a valuable lesson.
The number 1 is truly the most dangerous number in the mortgage business. Now go back and think about your own production.

Make sure you have a diverse referral base, lead generation plan and have more than a single employee.

About the Author

Brian Sacks is a well-known mortgage originator with Homebridge Financial Services Inc. of Owings Mills, Maryland. Watch his free four-part video series on How To Close More Loans Make More Money and Still Enjoy Life at http://TopOriginatorMastermind.com/ml .

Ellie Mae Inc. has decided to move its infrastructure to Amazon Web Services—with the intention of rebuilding its core applications, creating new digital products that support lenders needs for efficiency. Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms.

Ellie Mae will use AWS services, including computing, storage, database, and more to develop new ways of delivering the true-digital mortgage and simplifying the loan process for its customers and partners. Ellie Mae built a company-wide data lake on AWS using Amazon Simple Storage Service to better understand, personalize, and further automate digital lending.

The aim is for Ellie Mae will become a more agile organization, reducing operating costs, and accelerating its pace of innovation so that it can better serve customers including banks, credit unions, and mortgage lending institutions of all sizes. The migration to AWS is designed to make it easier for Ellie Mae to innovate on the fly and accelerate its time to market for new loan management features.

“We process more than a third of mortgage applications in the United States, and use AWS to help us deliver on our mission of the true digital mortgage, so lenders can achieve compliance, quality, and efficiency,” said Satheesh Ravala, SVP for cloud engineering and operations at Ellie Mae. “We are confident that their services will continue to give us what we need to be nimble, innovate, achieve results, and cut costs while we grow and expand our business well into the future.”

Driving the move to AWS are capabilities that Amazon contends will generate efficiency and increase automation across the origination process, “so that lenders can process applications, deliver decisions, and provide funding to borrowers quickly,” said Mike Clayville, vice president for worldwide commercial sales at AWS.