Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Mortgages, Football & Vegas

Happy new year!

...and yes those three title items are loosely connected.

I don't know about you, but I had quite the year in 2007...I moved, changed jobs, dated, saw my favorite sports team win their division only to get swept in the first round, watched some of the craziest, most entertaining college football in recent memory, made my first trip to Vegas, threw parties, crashed parties, became a guitar hero, bought an XBOX 360, saw my brother graduate high school, almost went to Jamaica, finished my 4th punch card @ Prost!, saw a good friend get married and then move to Germany 7 months later, had another good friend get engaged & get asked to be in the wedding, and found out some other friends are expecting twins!

So for me, 2007 was a pretty good year and yet I have this feeling that 2008 is going to be even better....so long as I get to keep my job. Unfortunately the market has more of an impact on that than any job I've ever had before.

I work as an assistant for two loan consultants with WaMu. As most have seen & heard, the last two quarters of 2007 were like nothing the industry had ever seen before. Fortunately for me, I get to keep my job (at least today, and probably tomorrow), but for how long is still uncertain. All I know is that people still need loans, still want to buy homes, and can still benefit from equity lines of credit. The problem is that, until recently, the media has put so much fear into current and potential home owners, that the deals have been scarce. The other issue is the mass effect the suprime market collapse had on the rest of the mortgage industry. As a result, so long as the companies didn't go out of business (yay WaMu is still here!), they had to tighten up their underwriting guidelines and program offerings to the point that there was more we couldn't do than could do.

Now I really do understand that certain measures has to be put into action in order to limit losses, and protect our current portfolio...but the only way to rebound is to keep bringing in quality loans...which they've effectively eliminated by clamping down too hard!!

And as we speak...yet another reason why deals aren't closing on time, or at all. I WORK WITH THE WORST PROCESSOR OF ALL TIME. She's supposed to be a "Sr. Loan Coordinator" but can't do anything without asking her boss, or taking the file back to underwriting for approval. I've had undwerwriters call up and be like...."why did she bring this to me? she can do this herself." Yea. So I'm going to try and stop the bleeding before she kills the loan all together. Huzzah!!!

Stay tuned for more on the mortgage industry, my adventures in downtown (and another trip to Vegas!) and whatever other various types of trouble I can get myself into.

Prost! (German for cheers, and also a great little pub on Phinney Ridge in Seattle)


-Mo

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