On our second week of Meet Mortech with our Customer Success team we want you to meet another one of our amazing Customer Success Managers, Cassandra Sitzman! Her role on the team is to help build and maintain a trusting partnership with Mortech’s clients by providing efficient and reliable support.

Favorite part of the job: I really enjoy connecting with other departments and learning processes on a macrolevel, in addition, being part of a team that wants to provide industry leading customer service. Zillow Group really values their employees also by providing great benefits and work-life balance.

Favorite things to do on her days off: I enjoy traveling with my family, visiting my folks, or even having a productive day at my house.

Favorite place to travel: My husband and I lived in Colorado for over a year, so we love to take our son back there once a year to go hiking, fishing and sightseeing.  

This week we want you to meet one of our Customer Success Managers, Samantha Hermann! Samantha's main area of focus on the team is to equip our clients with the tools they need to grow their business. 

Favorite part of the job: Being able to work with so many different people and learning something new daily in this ever-changing industry. 

Favorite things to do on her days off: On my days off I enjoy spending time with my family, going to sporting events and running!

Favorite place to travel: This is a tie between California and Oregon! California always has beautiful weather and a ton of things to do, but it's hard to beat the beauty of Oregon.

Have you thought about what were to happen if LIBOR went away? While the benchmark for short-term interest rates isn’t set to go away through 2021, it’s not too early to ask yourself what would happen if LIBOR stopped tomorrow. The Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) has tapped the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) as the LIBOR replacement. There are a whole host of differences between the two, but before you can start diving into SOFR, you should know what you need to be doing about LIBOR right now.

With the refinance market continuing to dry up, finding ways to retain customers at risk of falling out of your mortgage portfolio is crucial to finishing 2018 strong. We’ve talked at length about Mortech’s customer retention tool that can help you do that; Mortech Protection, which uses Zillow web and mobile data to identify houses in your portfolio that are likely to go on the market soon. But there’s a big reason to start using Mortech Protection that we haven’t yet focused on: the amount of money you’re spending.

The refinance market has been closely monitored throughout the year by many in the industry, and the resulting sentiments have all been pretty similar: there are considerably less refi opportunities than there were a year ago. This has been a trend that we’ve seen since the Fed announced rate changes last January:

Refis are becoming less of an option 

If you needed anymore confirmation beyond what most in the industry have been saying for the six months, Marksman internal data also shows that the number of refis are shrinking. While the percentage of purchase loans decreased from July to December at the end of 2017, that was to be expected, what with the looming anticipation of rate changes by the Federal Reserve (Fed). However, after refis made up 63% of loans at the end of December, that number has decreased to as low as 38%, and clocked in at 40% at the end of July. With rates still on the rise, trusting refis to make a comeback doesn’t seem to be an option for the rest of the year.

If you’re thinking about getting into online quoting, the numbers say that now is the best time to do it. Since the start of the year, online rate marketplace volume has risen nearly 150%, hitting its highest point, so far, in July.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders have brought suit against the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) claiming the agreement made in 2012 to bail out the agencies is rendering their shares valueless. The suit also claims the structure of the FHFA is unconstitutional because of the single Director removable only for cause by the President.

Fannie Mae is piloting a new type of mortgage insurance, however response to the new program hasn’t been entirely optimistic.

The mortgage insurance option is called Enterprise-Paid Mortgage Insurance (EPMI) and allows a lender to deliver an over 80% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage to Fannie Mae without acquiring mortgage insurance prior to loan delivery. Instead Fannie Mae charges an additional loan-level price adjustment. Then, they secure coverage under a forward insurance arrangement from a Fannie Mae approved qualified insurer, or an approved traditional mortgage insurer.

You’ve probably heard of Mortech Protection by now; our latest product offering that flags your current customers who are likely to need new mortgage financing by identifying homes within your current customer database that are currently listed for sale, or likely to list in the next 90 days. What you probably don’t know, is how we find potential listings with the accuracy we do.

Finding new opportunities to boost your mortgage purchase business as the mortgage industry ebbs and flows can be a hassle. Why come up with a number of different outbound marketing options that force you to cast a wide net – and typically spend the most money. Instead, you should be using targeted data that identifies current customers who are ready for a mortgage. Not having that reduces your efforts to throwing various methods at a wall and seeing what sticks. You end up spending so much time and effort into reaching out to customers who may have no need for a mortgage, and by the time you reach those who do, you’re no earlier than your competition.