IndyMac: No Layoffs
IndyMac Bancorp Inc. said it will not include layoffs in its plan to outsource 13.5% of its work force by yearend and improve its operating performance.Last week the $27 billion-asset thrift company said 9% of its work force was outsourced in 2006 and another
Michael DiVirgilio, a spokesman for the Pasadena, Calif., company, said Monday that it has since determined that the outsourcing will be a "natural employee attrition" throughout the year.
Lead Re-Animator
Many lenders consider sales leads that did not result in closed loans after contact by a loan officer to be dead.But Gene Devine, a senior vice president at Intellidyn Corp., says the shelf life on high-quality leads is actually much longer, because consumers who are not prepared to take out a loan during their initial contact with a loan officer may be ready to do so weeks or months later.
"A significant amount of marketing dollars are just left on the floor because you can't use traditional sales methods to incubate sales prospects," Mr. Devine said.
In October his Deerfield Beach, Fla., direct marketing company came out with a service that captures contact information from leads that did not initially result in closed loans but could down the road.
Intellidyn has already signed up half a dozen lenders, including GMAC Mortgage Corp. of Horsham, Pa., and Aegis Lending Corp. of Houston, for the service, which channels these leftover leads into an e-mail database.
Giving such leads another chance makes sense for lenders in today's tough environment, Mr. Devine said.
"In a contracting market you have to optimize your ability to add more loans … and you can't add more cost to it," he said. Good leads can run $75 to $100 a pop depending on the location, the type of loan the prospect is seeking, and
Intellidyn customers can "incubate" their prospects from three months to a year by sending automatically generated emails specific to the type and timing of the loan they want to close. The service can also track delivered emails to see if recipients have opened messages or used an embedded mortgage calculator -- a sign to loan officers that the recipients are considering a loan and should be contacted.
Prospects can be e-mailed two or three times a month; any more than that, and the e-mails could be mistaken for spam, Mr. Devine said. The service costs about $20,000 to set up and there's a nominal mass-e-mailing fee.
Taking Manhattan
Refinance.com said Wednesday that it was opening an office in downtown Manhattan and expects to hire 100 employees there.The Syosset, N.Y., company, which changed its name from Homebridge Mortgage Bankers last year, said it also plans to open branches in Deerfield, Fla., and Carlsbad, Calif., two of the country's busiest mortgage markets.
Refinance.com recorded $1 billion of volume last year through a business that Nicholas A. Bratsafolis, its chief executive and president, , said is tailored to refis guaranteed by the Federal Housing Authority.
From 2003 to 2005 about 2% of Homebridge's business came from FHA-backed loans. That
EMC's New CEO
EMC Mortgage Corp., a servicer owned by Bear Stearns, said that John Vella would succeed Ralene Ruyle as chairman and chief executive.Mr. Vella became EMC's president and chief operating officer last March and held the same positions at Aames Investment Corp., where he started the summer before. He has also worked at H&R Block Inc.'s Option One Mortgage Corp. and GMAC-RFC.
Ms. Ruyle, who announced her retirement in December, is making a transition out of her executive role and is expected to leave EMC at the end of May.
James E. Cayne, the chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns, said in a press release issued Tuesday that Ms. Ruyle's retirement made it "the right time to ask John to take on the mandate of chief executive."
Separately, Fidelity National Information Services Inc. said it had signed a multiyear agreement to manage property taxes for EMC. Bill Glasgow Jr., EMC's executive vice president of loan administration, said in a press release that his company "can be confident that its tax processing will be completed in an accurate and timely manner."
Payment Honeymoon
Another service that lets borrowers postpone payments for a while has been introduced.Katz Mortgage Team, a division of Atlanta's Amtrust Mortgage Corp., says Buyers Bonus allows homebuyers to put off payments for up to six months so they can deal with other moving costs.
The program can be combined with 100%-financing loans, Katz Mortgage said Wednesday. The deferred payments are pooled into the overall cost of the loan.
Stephen Katz, a senior loan officer at Katz Mortgage, said in a press release that there are no hidden fees or unexpected rate increases (though Katz Mortgage said the service can be used with adjustable-rate as well as fixed-rate mortgages).
Mortgage Payment Deferral Inc. of Roseville, Calif., has a similar service that lets borrowers
