MORTGAGE RATES REPORT

Seven Things You Didn't Know About Me

1- I was an oarsman in high school.  I rowed for the St. Joseph's Prep crew team on the Schuykill River.  While the "sweepers" received a lot of attention, I was a sculler for the late, great crew coach Gus "The Hammer" Ignas.  The Hammer was a giant of a man.  He cursed like a sailor but loved all of us like his own sons.  I wept when he died.  Here's Chris O' Brien, recalling The Hammer:

After three hours in the broiling summer sun and 18 miles in an underpowered, overweight boat, he allowed us to go in to the dock but told us to stay in the boat once we pulled up alongside the slip. At this point, Gus hops out of his launch and starts in with, "Now, men, I am very proud of the way you handled this practice. It was tough and you gutted it out. Before you get out, there is one more lesson that I need to pass along to you today. When you are sitting at the dock like this, never lift your oars up off the dock like this." With that, he demonstrated just how high an oar had to go before the old Pocock quad would tip and then laughed hysterically at us as the boat rolled over and dumped us into the muck of the Schuylkill. There were all kinds of people up on the balcony who were absolutely roaring at us as we righted the boat and climbed on to the dock. Then, to top it all off, Gus says, "now get your boat out and put it away" as he turned to go home.

To this day, I still am unsure how we managed to get the boat out of the water without doing permanent damage either to it or ourselves, but we did manage to get it out and put away by ourselves. I wasn't really sure what the lesson in all of this was at the time as I wondered what the hidden message was, but in retrospect, I think that Gus actually wanted us to see that you could tip a boat on the dock and could think of no better way than to demonstrate it to us after an 18 mile row.

He was one of the great characters on Boathouse Row and I have related this story to countless people who knew the man very well who just laughed and said, "that's Gus" with no other explanations offered. For some reason, I just couldn't keep my promise to never get back in a boat again either- once you have felt the bottom of the Schuylkill swallow your legs to mid-thigh, there is no where to go in rowing but up.

2- I lived in Phoenix for twelve years.  I moved there when I was 26 and fell in love with what was then, a sleepy desert town. Alas, I missed the ocean and moved to San Diego in 2003.

3- My first teenage job was in Sales at a company called "Associated BankCard Holders".  I sold a service akin to Pre-Paid Legal to people over the telephone.  That experience was invaluable.  At 16, I learned the important salesmanship skills so many in my industry lack.

4- I've been an "information marketer" since I was eleven years old.  My neighbor and I created a "tip sheet" to sell, outside of the Garden State Race Track, with our suggestions for the winning picks.  Vendors at New Jersey race tracks are generally sanctioned by certain families and we were not granted that sanction.  That business lasted about two days.

5- I learned how to surf at the Jersey Shore when I was 14 years old.  Waves in the Atlantic are far inferior to the ones in the Pacific Ocean.  When I tried to transfer that learned skill to my new home, I failed miserably.  Today, I bodyboard:  monthly in the off season and thrice weekly during the summer.

6- I coached Little League in Litchfield Park, AZ, about ten years ago.

7- I"ve been on a "teenage dance show" at the Jersey Shore.  It was broadcast on Sundays from the Music Pier in Ocean City.  Dozens of people watched that show on Channel 46.

Brian Brady and Warren Buffett ?

Superstar Surfin' Realtor, Rory Siems in Laguna Niguel, wrote a funny post about being five degrees away from Warren Buffett.  Rory, as an agent for PruCal, is a sort of employee (he's an independent contractor in a legally supervised environment) of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

I thought about how I was linked to The Oracle of Omaha:

1- I have worn Tony Lama boots and Fruit of the Loom undergarments
2- I have financed a Clayton home for clients.
3- One of my college buddies learned to fly at Flight Safety.
4- I eat at DQ...burgers, fries, and ice cream....See's Candies, too.
5-  Yup...I even wore Garanimals as a kid.

As you can see, I have no direct link to Warren other than as a consumer.  But...WAIT!

Lauren Vo Zelakawiewicz thinks that Warren Buffett and I think alike.  Thanks Ms. Z!

Well, we differ on our opinion of beachfront real estate in California but I'll take what I can get.

It's About How Hard You Get Hit And Keep Moving Forward

I'm going to give you a glimpse at greatness.  Amazing advice.  Tony Robbins couldn't give it to you this straight.  Zig Ziglar couldn't.  Only Rocky Balboa, the mythical but realistic character, created by Sylvester Stallone, could impart this wisdom.

From the sixth and final offering in the Rocky series:

I'll admit that I'm biased.  I grew up in Philly.  I was 10 years old when Rocky hit the theaters.  I ran up the Philadelphia Art Museum steps in high school at least 1000 times.  I identify with the Rocky character on so many levels.

I ordered Rocky Balboa, the final movie in the series tonight, and cried when I heard this.  Rocky is talking to his son who is a young man now.  His son is upset by his decision to fight, once again.

Here's the important line:

It ain't about how hard you you hit.  It's about hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.   How much you can take and keep moving forward.  That's how winning is done !   

Now if you know what your worth, now go on and get what your worth !   But you got to be willing to take the hits.  And, not pointing fingers and saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him or her or anybody.

Cowards do that and that ain't you!  You're better than that !

We're all better than that.  Thanks, Rocco.

Brian Brady to Speak at Inman Conference

This came in from Inman News.  I accepted:

Brad Inman, Publisher of Inman News and Jessica Swesey & Joel Burslem, our Editor and Manager of Social Media and would like to invite you to be a speaker at Bloggers Connect on August 1, 2007 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.  

Bloggers Connect (click to see the entire program) is an exciting new conference running in conjunction with our SF Connect event.  The event is being created by bloggers for bloggers and will have a dynamic program addressing all the issues that bloggers want answers to now. 

 

SF Connect is now in its 12^th year and is the premier executive gathering for everything related to real estate, the Internet, technology, and new digital media. Bloggers Connect is the latest program to be introduced as part of a “must attend” event.

 

Our Steering Committee, which is made up of many leading industry bloggers, has identified you as someone that our audience would love to hear from.  We look for high-level insights from innovators and industry leaders.  The Committee has identified the following panel that we would love to have you participate in:

 

Session Name:  Show Me the Leads

Session Day/Date:  Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Session Time: 11:00am – 11:45am 

 

Previous speakers at Connect have included Barry Diller; Marc Andreesen, Co-founder, Netscape; Larry Page, Co-founder, Google and Rick Braddock, Chairman, Priceline.com.  Our sponsors and affiliates include Zillow, Google, Microsoft, Trulia, Mapquest, Yahoo! and numerous other technology leaders. 

 

The Wall Street Journal, New York Times , USA Today, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Barron’s and the Financial Times of London routinely attend the event.  We typically draw over 50 key press at each event

A Reformed Control Freak

The holiday week been a time of reflection for me.  The $1 trillion in ARM resets, the thinning out of the herd in my industry, and the trend of the consumer’s thirst for transparency in its service providers certainly present some amazing opportunities for the professional mortgage originator in 2007.  Now, more than ever, it makes sense to have a well-thought out but flexible business plan.  I say flexible because a few things happened to me this year that I couldn't have predicted in December, 2006:

1- I practiced extremely old-school marketing in January of 2006.  I sent postcards,  letters, cold-called just listed homeowners, sponsored open houses for Realtors, and reverted to the disastrous method of donut buying for real estate offices.

2- I was damn near broke in March, 2006.  Well, I wasn’t really broke but I was seriously rethinking my ability as a loan originator as my pipeline was absolutely dry on March 1, 2006.  This was the first time in 13 years that ever happened.

3- I discovered an e-mail marketing system called Constant Contact to produce professional e-newsletters to keep in contact with my past clients and referral sources.  Warily approaching this system (remember, I was broke?) I learned that I could do it all for about forty bucks a month which is less than the cost of 100 postcards.  I also learned that I could stratify my data into different groups to target a specific message.  And it worked!  March was HELOC month for me as I pulled myself up by my bootstraps..  Suddenly, an old-school loan marketer found the power of the internet as a marketing tool.

4- I delved into MySpace.  I found a tremendous amount of inexperienced loan originators on MySpace who just didn’t know how to originate loans.  MySpace also led me to Gateway Bank, our strategic partner that allows us to lend in all 50 states.  Mortgage Leaders was born ( my origination team)

5- The summer of 2006 had come along and I was solvent.  Adam Dalton, referred me to the Active Rain Real Estate Network and I discovered the power of the online written word in what is commonly referred to as a weblog (or blog).  I helped grow the Active Rain Real Estate Network through consistent writing and invitations to others in my industry. October marked the complete reversal of course as I closed two loans from online blogging. 

6- I expanded my online presence by writing on NELA Live at the gracious invitation of Cheryl Johnson, a real estate broker in Northeast Los Angeles.  I am grateful to this anonymous (inasmuch as we’ve never met) but prolific influence for providing a platform for my opinions in California’s largest city.  It’s no secret that I am a Dodger-hater so her courage is astounding.  My success on NELA Live caused me to start America's Most Opininated Mortgage Broker.

7- I solicited Greg Swann’s help to be a contributor on the highly-viewed BloodHound Blog this December.  BloodHound Blog is hosted in Phoenix, AZ, my old hometown, and is well-known throughout the industry for cutting edge ideas about the real estate industry

Why am I revealing this whole year to you?    I’m frustrated because I usually have a business plan written, reviewed, and published by this time every year.  When I sat down this morning to review the past year, I recognized that external events, new technologies, and a tremendous shift in how the consumer gathers information rendered my business plan 2006 completely useless.  As such, I don’t feel so bad about not having the 2007 business plan in place before the Tostito dropped into the Salsa Jar.

Happy New Year from a more humble but nonetheless Opinionated Mortgage broker.

Five More Things You Might Not Know About Me

6- I tried to become a boxing promoter in Phoenix in 1995.  I'm a fan of the fight game and saw a tremendous void in live boxng in Phoenix.  I thought that being from the phabulous phight town of Philadelphia made me an expert.  Try getting an affordable liability policy for a boxing event.  Stick with mortgage lending.

7- I tried to become an expansion baseball team owner in 1996.  I had a business plan drafted for the Prescott Frontiersmen, complete with logo and membership in the California League (A ball).  I had conversations with Buzzy Bavasi and Jerry Colangelo (they were quite nice and encouraging).  Noone wanted to invest in the scheme.  Stick with mortgage lending.

8-  I have a great friend who created a company Hospitality, Entertainment and Restaurant Employees' Bulletin Board (HERBB) in 1992.  He was trying to get this concept of relocating employees, looking for jobs in those industries, to subscribe to a service on their computers.  He hoped that I and a few friends to help him raise money for this hare-brained scheme. Naturally, we told him he was insane. (Can you say monster.com?).  Stick with mortgage lending...this www thing will never catch on.

9-  I caught a baseball at a Diamondbacks game in 2003 and it was replayed on the evening news for 2-3 nights thereafter.  I made a Willlie Mays basket catch and damn near broke my finger.  Needless to say...while I have grandiose fantasies about playing catcher for the Phillies, I stuck to mortgage lending.

10- I was approached by an internet service provider in 1996 to help him buy up little service providers throughout the Southwest.   His business plan was to consolidate a bunch of smaller ISPs and sell the asset to a bigger player 2-3 years down the road.  He wanted to pay me a small salary and a huge performance bonus in stock otions.  After careful analysis, I determined that ISPs were akin to utility companies, and that there was little room for the small player.  He never realized his 2-3 year plan because Qwest bought him out for 2.5 times the stock price 13 months later. I stuck to mortgage lending.

Five Things You Might Not Know About Me

The blogosphere has been engaging in a little fun activity called "meme-ing".  Succinctly put, you post 5 things that most people wouldn't know about you, then "tag" three other bloggers out there.

Five Things You Might Not Know About Me:

1- I was an oarsman in high school.  I rowed for the largest high school crew team in the country, Saint Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia.  I rowed in an eight and then switched to sculling.  I rowed in a quad with NFL great, Rich Gannon in the stroke seat, and I sat in the bow seat.  I was pursued by Villanova Crew my freshman year but they wouldn't change the 5AM practice time to accomodate my social life.

2- I rode a real live bull, not the mechanical kind, shortly after my 30th birthday.  I rode at Mr. Lucky's, a now closed country bar in West Phoenix.  "Stormy" did not live up to his name and dispensed of me in three seconds.  The best thing about that experience was that I earned a free beer and the respect of (and for) real bullriders.

3- I used to volunteer at the Phoenix Memorial Hospital "Dream Game" which was an "old-timer" fundraising baseball game to benefit the hospital.  I was a hospitality captain which required me to ferry around the ballplayers in my van and run the hospitality suite.  The "Dream Game" has been extinct for ten years but I have Sparky Lyle, Jim Essian, Dick Allen, and Johnny Podres on my Christmas Card list.  Other baseball greats I've shared an adult beverage or dinner with include:  Lou Brock, Lew Burdette, Randy Jones, Dave Stewart, Vida Blue, and George Foster.  I mistakenly left Hall of Famer, Bob Feller, behind at a baseball card show and caught holy hell from him for doing that.

4- I have ridden a horse in the largest horse-drawn parade in the world; The Scottsdale Jayceees Parada del Sol.  I rode four years in a row.

5-  I sang onstage with Nat King Cole's brother, the late Ike Cole.  I was on a date and coerced Nat to let me belt one out with him at J.Chew in Scottsdale, AZ .  I guess my rendition of Summer Wind was acceptable; Ike had me stay onstage for the rest of the set (another 10-12 songs) and we had a blast figuring out what I could sing and he could play.  I must admit that my volume and  brazen courage far exceeds my ability.