Ok so this Irish-Mexican just got back from the MBA conference in Boston. WOW.

This was my first time visiting
Boston and I wanted to get the most out of it.

My comrade in arms and I took the Sunday night redeye out of LAX and landed early Monday morning in Boston. Our goal was to meet & greet and ID what the 2007 MBA offered.

I knew that Bono and Branson were keynote speakers and wondered what ideas a rock star or daredevil would offer the mortgage industry. It seems I have forgotten the last four years of mortgage lending were dominated by rock star LO’s and daredevil lenders offering programs never heard of, how apropos, heheheh.

This was my first MBA visit so I was unsure of what to expect. While my options were open to attending the sessions and keynote speeches I found the good stuff was in the exhibits. Several attendees mentioned this was the lowest level of attendance since MBA Canada after 9/11. Too bad, many great companies focused on nurturing the client cycle and keeping us in business.

One session I attended was “Second General Session: Mortgage Industry Executives Outlook.” This session was comprised of four major lenders offering their insight and outlook on things to come. Get further information from MBA on the speakers. VP’s of origination from Chase, JP, Freddie, and Fannie told us that things are not good. For the most part all agreed that until Q4 of 2009 or beyond the devaluation of the housing market and liquidity sensitivity will continue to reign in any possible positive outlook for the mortgage space. Nothing new there, huh?

Notable vendors included pricing engines, LOS alternatives, third party marketing specialists, and language specialists. I spent time visiting the booths sponsored by competitors of Calyx or Ecompass. Their sales pitch stated the prior focused on 5-10 man shops while they worked with 200+ man shops. The idea behind these newer players was the focus on complete service. Optimal Blue touted lead management, vendor management, and pricing engines in a single application. Could they be competitors to Lead Management Software companies? LLE provides communications solutions in any language. This can be ideal for small to medium shop that wants a foreign language division but cannot dedicate resources for it – think Spanish speaking lending in the Southwest. What about reverse mortgages? If you Google reverse mortgage leads, you end up with NR Leads out of
San Diego. Not necessarily someone I recommend you buy leads from – Try Lender Lead Solutions out of
Melville NY. They combine a media driven lead with correspondent lending.

Well that is all for now.

Same time, same channel next week. Guru out!