Good Morning: We are at the half-way point of the last month of the FHA mortgage business as I’ve known it for over 24 years. FNMA and FHLMC introduced their automated underwriting engines in the mid ‘90s. Some 6 or so years ago FHA followed with their “scorecard” to run with DU and LP and now we are at a point in history where the traditional manual underwritten loan has almost been eliminated.

With automated underwriting comes a more consistent product and a higher “quality” of loan. Those that know me well know that I firmly believe that by setting higher standards we will raise the outcome. Yet, I’m struggling with denying an entire class of people with the ability to purchase a home and in essence, that is what is happening. I also dislike being at such the forefront of this change. It is also interesting to note that the 540-580 credit score loan is performing today the same as it did 10 years ago. While we have been attempting to change our business model for a few months, this is much more drastic than any of us would like. Though, it is making us change and I wonder about the timing of it all! And that is another reflection for later.

It’s appropriate that the subject of our Leadership class the past week has been about Intuition. John Maxwell teaches….”Some people are born with great leadership intuition. Others have to work hard to develop and hone it. But either way it evolves, the result is a combination of natural ability and learned skills.” I have to point out the “work hard to develop and hone it” part because this is an area I believe critical to successfully leading well. I also point it out because it is an area I personally have had to develop and struggle with way too much.

Maxwell lays out 3 lists of 5 “things” in each list in which you can develop and learn better Intuition:

Reading; Situations, Trends, Resources, People, and Oneself
Providing What Others Can’t: They See Differently–They Provide Correction, They See Globally-They Provide Direction, They See Clearly-They Provide Structure, They See Relationally-They Provide Support, and They See Expectantly-They Provide Confidence
Competing With the Best: Become a Man/Woman of Prayer, Communicating Personally with People at all Levels of the Org Chart, Laying out the Vision, Selecting and Training Leaders, and Releasing Leaders to Lead

If you’d like to participate in a discussion on the subject of Intuition, join us in the conference room at 11:45 today.


My focus today is on

1) where we are at with our pipeline and supporting systems to close it out this month and

2) AUS and its supporting systems. The supporting systems for AUS includes;

DU, DO, LP
IDs and Passwords
Uploads, downloads
Who runs AUS?
How is AUS run?
How the loan gets to us
Validations
ProLender
Pull-Throughs
What do we Sell?
????

What are you focusing on today?


Danny