In a first for this podcast series, I have included a press call on a new product release.  While I participate in media calls fairly regularly for my Matrix blog, I have never recorded one.

I spoke with Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Move, Inc., a publicly traded company, that counts Realtor.com and Move.com as two of their assets, on the launch of MortgageMatch.com today.  It’s a new web site designed to help home buyers and those looking to refinance, find and prequalify for a mortgage in as little as 10 minutes.  Sue Stewart, SVP who is overseeing MortgageMatch.com, provided the details of the services the site provides.

I’ve often said that the terms of the transaction (including financing) are as critical as pricing in today’s tight credit environment.  They say they are focused on improving transparency in the real estate transaction and are also helping consumers and realtors to be more efficient by better defining expectations.

Press Release [pdf]

I’ve known Jeff Appel for many years as one of the leading mortgage consultants and experts in the New York City metro area.  Jeff is a Vice President at Bank of America Home Loans and co-host along with Cathy Hobbs of Metro Residential that airs 11am Sundays on WPIX Channel 11 in the NYC metro area.

Last week Jeff invited me to speak on a panel he was moderating and I thought he provided some invaluable insights on the state of the mortgage environment for residential housing so I asked him to join me on The Housing Helix.

I really enjoyed speaking with Orest Tomaselli, CEO, National Condo Advisors, LLC about project approvals, reserve funds, Fannie Mae, FHA and shadow inventory.  National Condo Advisors, LLC, is comprised of real estate finance and legal professionals and provides expert consultation to builders, developers, homeowners’ associations, institutional investors, lenders, and real estate firms.

His other firm National Condo Inspections, LLC provides services such as reserve studies, phase I environmental site assessments, noise studies, and flood zone solutions.

He’s going to be busy for a number of years.

Today I speak with Chris Williams, President and Chief Technology Officer of AIMSdashboard,

“Williams is a 15-year veteran of the IT industry, having served stints with Cisco Systems and PolyServe, a software startup acquired by HP. At one time he was co-owner of Carolina Appraisers, a real estate appraisal firm based in Raleigh.”

AIMS stands for “appraisal independence management system,” and “dashboard” is a software term meaning a control panel housing two or more applications.

His venture was enabled by introduction of the May 1, 2009 agreement between Fannie Mae and NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo known as the Home Valuation Code of Conduct.

AIMSdashboard is intended to help financial institutions take back control of the mortgage process through a software solution. Chris was very quick to point out that his company is a software company, NOT an appraisal management company.

Think lender pressure on appraisers is a distant memory?  Think again.  Here is some commentary on a new report that indicates appraisal fraud is up 50% over the past year.  It is laid out in Kenneth Harney’s excellent column in the Washington Post.

“Despite 2009 restrictions, mortgage and appraisal fraud spiked”

I also provide commentary on a recent episode with a bank client we now refuse to work with who pressured our firm to raise the appraised value of a property or they would not pay us for services already rendered.

In fact, they didn’t really understand what they were saying.

I had a “fantastic” conversation with Dr. Bill Rayburn who is the co-founder, Chairman & CEO of FNC, Inc. Their value proposition has been on collateral side of mortgage origination. He’s a fascinating industry leader who pulls no punches.

I speak with my friend and colleague Michael McPartland of the Citi Private Bank. He’s the managing director of residential real estate at their Citi Global Wealth Management group.

The discussion focuses on “lending” versus “originating.”

I had a good conversation with my friend and colleague Dan Green, a loan officer with Waterstone Mortgage in Cincinnati who provides a very lucid font line depiction of the state of mortgage financing, despite his characterization of me as being Bobby Flay-like.  

He runs a very well-written blog called The Mortgage Reports and a service called Bring the Blog. I have always found him to be in front of the technology curve.  

Back in early 2008, Dan created one of the best videos on how the tightening of underwriting guidelines left many people stranded.  I think it is required viewing.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Holden Lewis, a long-time reporter for Bankrate.com.  He’s a prolific blogger of all things mortgage related at Mortgage Matters. You can follow him on Twitter.

I’ve been following Holden’s work for years. He’s also interviewed me in the past so it’s nice to switch things around a bit.

I spoke with Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel of the Center for Responsible Lending about the initial testimony being made in Congress on the formation of a Consumer Protection Agency for financial products.  Ellen is my first repeat guest, a wealth of information and she has a great way of explaining what is going on.  She has offered to check in periodically as consumer policy develops in Washington. Here is some of her previous congressional testimony.

Here’s a recent piece she wrote in the Washington Post blog “The Hearing” called The Case for a Consumer Protection Agency.

I made another attempt to Skype since Ellen is in North Carolina and I’m in NYC – this time there wasn’t the crazy lag when capturing the audio.  Progress in technology is measured in baby steps, my friends.

This week I was lucky to interview Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel, the Center for Responsible Lending. She has testified in front of Congress on more than one occasion regarding lending and consumer issues.

I’m a novice at using Skype in a podcast so the quality was a little dicey at times with delays – like we were speaking via satellite – but it seemed to improve throughout the interview (after all, the Internet is a series of tubes).

Ellen and I have spoken at length on prior occasions about US lending practices. I find her to be someone who can listen to my experiences – the insanity that appraisers are faced with – and understand the ramifications (plus not get frazzled by my incessant interruptions).  She provides a great perspective from the consumer side and is passionate and knowledgeable about the subject matter.

Here’s a transcript of her recent appearance on NewsHour with Jim Lehr.

The crisis started, actually, with these very tricky mortgages that had confusing terms and some of their costs were obscured. And as those mortgages started to fail, we saw foreclosures rise.