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[ad_1] She said that she has complete faith in the justice system and it would not be only for her family she is fighting the battle, it would benefit all the women across the country. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Qualia CEO Nate Baker In the next five-to-10 years, Doma CEO Max Simkoff wants to make it possible for a homebuyer to sign a contract on their new home on a Friday evening and move in on a Monday morning. “That is the end goal and what prevents that today is so much of the process being analog and manual,” Simkoff said. So far his venture-backed title company has launched platforms that have sped up title clearance and title insurance acquisition, and they have their sights on expanding into the lending and appraisal space. But in order to overcome this challenge they, and other title companies with similar end goals, need the software to power this vision. Pat Stone, a veteran of the industry and the founder of WFG National Title Insurance, does not think this will happen any time soon – and certainly not in the time frame Simkoff has targeted. “As title insurers our business practices and our regulatory oversight are different in every single state,” Stone said. “So because of that you’re not going to have a uniform process for a long time. There are too many underlying regulatory issues and underlying databases and business practices that evolve differently.” While Stone does not believe these hurdles will be cleared anywhere anytime soon, he too believes that software and technology are key to making a seamless homebuying transaction possible. Nate Baker, CEO of closing software company Qualia, believes that his company and platform have what it takes to make this a reality. “Buying a home is an incredibly chaotic, terrible process,” Baker said. “A lot of companies have tried to improve the real estate agent or lender experience, but what we realized is that basically no one had tried to fix the core problem of real estate, which we saw as the actual transaction infrastructure and we saw an opportunity to build a Stripe-like or Amazon checkout-like experience, and we felt that the title company was this forgotten central piece of the real estate transaction.” One of the biggest challenges to creating a seamless checkout experience in homebuying, according to Baker, is that every party involved in the transaction has their own system, many of which do not communicate with other parties’ systems. “If you’re a customer, what ends up happening is that your lender asks you for your name and social, and then the real estate asks you for it and then the title company does it and this keeps going, and it drives people crazy,” Baker explained. “So the core problem we are trying to solve is the coordination and communication among all the parties.” Baker and his team at Qualia realized that, while real estate agents are shut out in for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) transactions and lenders get nothing out of cash deals, title insurers see every single transaction. “If you start by being the core system for the title company, then you can really begin to solve this communication and coordination problem that exists between different constituents,” he said. Qualia currently offers a wide array of different software and platform options, but central to all of them is the ability to share and send the necessary documents in a secure fashion. With wire fraud being a major concern in online transactions, Qualia has included two factor authentication in all of its software. By focusing solely on software, Qualia looks to circumnavigate the regulatory issues Stone cited as one of the biggest obstacles for a $20 billion-a-year industry. “The primary business of a title insurance company is title insurance, not software, so the software they are building out is kind of an afterthought,” Baker said. “At the end of the day, real estate is incredibly local and you have to be able to build tools that are able to handle that. We’re position well to do that because building that software is our primary business.” In an industry that has been oft-maligned as antiquated, Baker believes that software designed to tackle industry specific problems, is the key to improving the title industry’s reputation. “I think it used to be an industry that was behind in terms of investment in software,” Baker said. “But if you reinvent the title agent’s workflow, you can expand to the players around them, the lender, the real estate agents and the buyers and sellers, and you can actually transform their relationship with the title company. If you can do that, it’s actually a huge opportunity.” One of the biggest changes in the closing process this past year has been the widespread adoption of remote online notarization. “It is kind of the culmination of having the perfect streamlined customer checkout experience,” Baker said. “It is hard to say, ‘You filled out all this paperwork digitally, but by the way you need to come into the office and sign these additional documents.’ That isn’t what Amazon does when you buy something. Just a couple of years ago this fully in-app checkout flow seemed like an impossible goal, but now it is starting to happen.” The post In the race to modernize title, firms double down on software appeared first on HousingWire. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Looking for cheap stocking stuffers this year? This is the ultimate list of stocking stuffers for him, her, teens, & kids — all under $10!! (And don’t miss this list of Dollar Tree Stocking Stuffers, if you’re in need of more frugal ideas!) Stockings can be one of the most exciting parts of Christmas gift exchanges, if you get creative with it! It’s so fun to fill up a stocking with special and unique gifts specifically picked out for someone. But if you’re not careful, the cost can really start to add up. If you love giving stockings but you’re trying to stay on a budget, hopefully this list of cheap stocking stuffers will help you keep the cost down this year! Ultimate List of Cheap Stocking Stuffers Under $10 All of these items cost less than $10, and many of them cost less than $5! We divided these up into categories to help you shop for specific people and age groups, but keep in mind that many of these are probably interchangeable across categories! And remember — if you’re filling stockings for many people, you can buy something in bulk and split it between stockings to save on the cost. Stocking Stuffers for Her You might also find some other unique stocking stuffers for women in this Beauty Gift Guide, Expecting Mothers Gift Guide, or Eco-Friendly Gift Guide! Face Masks Bar Soaps Bath Teas Bath Bombs Nail Clippers Teas Mini Candles Mini Lotions Lip Balm Keychain Holder Books Lip Balm Mini Notebooks Fun Pens Essential Oils More Ideas Under $10 Here Stocking Stuffers for Him You might also want to check out this list of 50 Best Stocking Stuffers for Men! And this Outdoor Gift Guide has some great ideas, too! Hot Hands Socks Dad Jokes Book Coffees Cord Organizers Hand Sanitizer Beard Kits DVDs Blue Light Glasses Gift Cards Chapstick Candy/Gum Beef Jerky Hot Sauces More Ideas Under $10 Here Stocking Stuffers for Teens You might also find this Tweens Gift Guide helpful in choosing items for your tweens/teens! Nail Polish EOS Lip Balm Fun Stationery or Notebooks Card Games Gift Cards (especially iTunes, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Target, & Amazon) Fuzzy Socks Stickers Farkle Dice Game Brain Teasers/Puzzles Books Scrunchies Pop Sockets Earbuds Sunglasses More Ideas Under $10 Here Stocking Stuffers for Kids You might also find some great ideas on this Little Boys Gift Guide, LEGO Gift Guide, or Board Games Gift Guide! Mad Libs and Joke Books Baseball Cards Glow in the Dark Stars LEGO Mini Figs or LEGO Magazine Subscription Classic Games: Boggle, Pick Up Sticks, Marbles, Dominoes, TiddlyWinks, Jacks Slime, Play Foam, or Sticky Hands Bubbles Whoopee Cushion Chicken Rubber Flings Water Wow Pads Books Rubik’s Cube Toy Cars Markers/Crafts More Ideas Under $10 Here Other Stocking Stuffer & Gift Ideas: Dollar Tree Stocking Stuffers (23 Unique Ideas!) Best Stocking Stuffers for Men (50 Ideas!) 10 Unique Baby Gift Ideas 20 Gifts for Tweens Under $30 20 Gifts for Board Game Lovers Under $30 15+ Beauty Gifts for Her Under $30 20+ Unique LEGO Gifts for LEGO Lovers Under $30 20+ Outdoor Gifts for Adventurers Under $30 15+ Gluten-Free Gifts Under $30 20 Gifts for Boys Under $30 15+ Christmas Gifts for Expecting Mothers Do you have any other Cheap Stocking Stuffer Ideas you would add to this list? Let us know!! [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] 2 Trucking Stocks to Avoid in December [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] ‘The most prominent impact of pandemic on our day-to-day lives is that most people now spend more time at home than they did earlier.’ [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] When Gogo Bethke began her career in real estate back in 2011, the Romanian immigrant felt like social media was her only option to generate leads and close deals. “I am not from here, so I had to figure out how to convince strangers to buy or sell a house through me,” Bethke explained. “A lot of people suggested cold calling, but I was not going to do that. First of all, my name is Gogo, second of all I have an accent and third of all I’m not begging anyone for their business.”  The next option was to form an area, which involves picking a neighborhood and sending postcards, flyers and door knocking. “I’m a petite blonde, I’m not knocking on doors. And I was broke so I [didn’t have] the resources needed to form an area,” Bethke said. “Then the last option was buying leads from Zillow and spending thousands of dollars, which again, I didn’t have the money for.” Instead, the Michigan-based eXp agent created her Facebook business page shortly after passing her licensing exam in 2011 and named it “Gogo’s Real Estate.” “I think it was even before Facebook business pages even existed,” she said with a laugh. “I just started with the good, bad and ugly and I just owned it. I told everyone ‘Hey, I’m a brand new agent and I’m learning this as I go and I’m going to take you guys on the ride to see what it takes to be a Realtor.’ I became pretty good at social media out of necessity because I had no other option.” A growing number of agents like Bethke have turned to social media to generate leads because they did not love the idea of cold calling or door knocking and they felt it was the most effective way to reach a large audience. “When I started, my number one goal was to build a brand and Instagram was honestly the number one choice for me,” Vancouver, Canada-based Oakwyn Realty agent Kim Lee said. “I started three years ago when I started in real estate and my goal was to build a brand to help connect with new clients and to make sure past clients remember me. I was hoping people would remember me and keep me top of mind for the future.” A personality for every platform There is no shortage of social media options and many agents, like Lee, have turned to Instagram. Others are finding that they can make the most out of their presence on any platform by utilizing them for different aspects of their business. Over half of Realtors said that social media was their top lead-generating technology tool, according to an October survey report from the National Association of Realtors. The most popular social media app among the random sample of Realtors surveyed was Facebook, with 90% of respondents reporting they used the app, followed by Instagram at 52% and LinkedIn at 48%. Boston-based Coldwell Banker agent Ricardo Rodriguez’s social media platforms of choice are Instagram and LinkedIn, although he originally started on Facebook. “Instagram and LinkedIn have become paramount to our lead generation,” Rodriguez said. “They have been really effective in the luxury market and new construction segments.” Using LinkedIn has been a great way to connect with builders and developers, while Instagram caters itself well to sharing glossy photos of luxury listings, Rodriguez said. Despite these differences, Rodriguez and his team share most of their content across both platforms. Bethke also shares similar content across all of her social media platforms, but she tailors the posts and content to suit the different followings she has on each platform. Her Facebook is mostly made up of local Michigan homebuyers and sellers, while her LinkedIn has a lot of other agents and real estate professionals and her Instagram is a mix of both. “You have to be professional with LinkedIn,” Bethke said. “You aren’t going to see photos of me having a party with our real estate team on there, that goes on Instagram, and Facebook is somewhere in between.” Zachary Scher, an agent with Signature Premium Properties with over 86,000 Instagram followers, has a similar gradation in the professionalism of his content with Facebook being the most formal and TikTok being the most informal. “It is more silly stuff,” Scher said. “You can have more fun with it. It is definitely where I can bring more of my personality out. You can just be a little less professional and it is more acceptable than what people expect on a Facebook business page.” While using social media might seem like a simple marketing strategy, there is, in fact, a lot for agents to consider. One of the biggest challenges many agents face is finding the right balance between personal and professional content. Becca Summers, a Provo, Utah-based Keller Williams agent, whose Facebook page has over 21,000 likes, said that she tries to keep an 80/20 ratio of business to personal content. “I work with my husband, so my personal and my business are fairly intertwined, but we try not to post that much about our kids on the business page,” Summers said. “But I think social media in general is more about the person and not necessarily the business because that is what people really want to connect with.” However, agents like Topeka, Kansas-based Kylie Edington, see things a little differently. “You can’t really separate the business and the personal in real estate,” Edington said. “I want my clients to see me as a real person. If you share things about your kids or your dogs, that makes you more relatable.” Century 21 agent Devan Weisser has seen an interesting trend develop on her social media pages. “My personal posts perform way better than my business ones,” Weisser said. “If I just post a photo of a house or some beautiful décor, it doesn’t get much and those are the post I really have to promote because they are the hardest to increase reach on.”

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[ad_1] Evergrande moves toward restructuring; state swoops in to contain risk [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Despite the global lockdown due to COVID-19, while HAL ranked 42nd, BEL is at 66th position which has gone up and the erstwhile OFB stands at 60th position as its sales increased in 2020 marginally by around 0.2 percent. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Stakeholders are divided over whether, in light of proposed changes to its capital rule, the Federal Housing Finance Agency should retool its agreement with the U.S. Treasury and remove policies some say never belonged there in the first place. Even if the mortgage industry were in agreement, there is little they could do about it. Whether to open up that document — the Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement — is at the sole discretion of the two parties that negotiate it, the FHFA and the Treasury. There are no restrictions on what the document can contain. It is not governed by the Administrative Procedure Act, as are the rules and regulations of federal agencies. Mortgage lobbyists who have sought insight into the negotiations between Treasury and FHFA say they have hit a brick wall. In January, for the first time since the Treasury committed its financial support to the government-sponsored enterprises, the PSPA was amended to include policy changes which mandated changes in the government sponsored enterprise loan purchases. The changes placed caps on loans secured by investor homes, loans deemed risky and the use of the cash window. The changes caused an uproar in the housing finance industry, and led to full-throated calls for their removal. FHFA suspended many of the most problematic elements, from the mortgage standpoint, in September. Yet a remaining provision, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, could hamper any future changes to the FHFA’s capital rule. Specifically, those the FHFA proposed in September. Those proposed changes would make three specific amendments to the December 2020 capital rule. Two of them directly relate to credit risk transfers. The amendments would replace the fixed prescribed leverage buffer amount — currently 1.5% of an enterprise’s adjusted total assets — with a dynamic buffer equal to 50% of its stability capital buffer. Instead of a prudential floor of 10% on the risk weight assigned to any retained CRT exposure, the prudential floor would be 5%. The requirement that an enterprise must apply an overall effectiveness adjustment to its retained CRT exposures would be removed. In its recent comment letter to the FHFA on proposed changes to the capital rule, the MBA criticized a provision in the January PSPA. According to the PSPA, it required the GSEs to comply with the regulatory capital framework finalized in December 2020, “disregarding any subsequent amendment or other modifications to that rule.” Any further changes to this arrangement, the agreement reads, “Will require agreement between the Treasury and FHFA…” The MBA wrote that the provision was “directed at binding the hands of future FHFA leadership rather than promoting the sound operations of the Enterprises.” The trade association, which represents a wide swath of the mortgage industry, was the only commenter that brought up the potential conflict. “The concept of an agency tying its own hands and negating future changes to its own rule is bizarre,” said Dan Fichtler, associate vice president of housing finance policy at the MBA. ​​That’s a problem now, Fichtler argued, because it could impact the outcome of the FHFA’s newest proposed changes to the capital rule. Those changes would make credit risk transfers more economical for the GSEs. Fannie Mae put the brakes on CRT deals in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and only recently restarted them. According to one analyst, some investors were earning returns on equity leveraged against CRT assets in the high teens. By contrast, a May 2021 report on CRTs found that the GSEs lose money on the transactions. “While smaller retained portfolios and increased CRT volumes activities meet conservatorship objectives for the Enterprises, they also reduce revenue,” the FHFA noted in an accountability report last month. Other observers, including former FHFA and Treasury officials, shrug their shoulders at the language in the PSPA. The Treasury holds warrants to purchase 79.9% of the GSEs’ common stock, said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, so it’s not unreasonable that the agreement reflects the Treasury’s position as a more-than-equal partner. One compelling reason the agreement is governed by the Treasury and the FHFA, and not the APA, is to allow the two entities to quickly respond to the market and make business decisions. He said it’s also very unlikely that there would be disagreement between FHFA Director Sandra Thompson and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Yet because the document can be amended at any time, and the negotiations are not subject to public scrutiny, it is vulnerable to shifts in the political climate. “It’s certainly subject to political changes,” said Dworkin. The Housing Policy Council, which represents large mortgage lenders and servicers, and whose president, Ed DeMarco, was once head of the FHFA, disagrees with the MBA, and is not pushing for changes to the PSPA. Reopening the agreement introduces uncertainty in the market. The trade association also believes that the MBA’s fears are unfounded, and the PSPA cannot undercut the ability of the entity to update its own regulations. Other stakeholders were also supportive of the FHFA’s proposed changes to the capital framework, while they had some suggestions for further improvements. The Community Home Lenders Association said reducing the leverage buffer is “a welcome change, but leaving in place overly stringent requirements that, as noted, will force the Enterprises to raise prices and shrink their credit boxes to comply.” Freddie Mac is similarly supportive of the proposed changes to the capital rule, but proposed that FHFA “go a step further and allow greater capital relief” for credit risk transfers, by using a sliding 0% to 5% credit risk transfer floor. “The economics of CRT depend on multiple factors beyond the regulatory capital framework and take into consideration other variables such as market conditions and credit characteristics of guaranteed collateral,” Freddie Mac wrote. “All else being equal, the proposed amendments to the CRT securitization framework combined with Freddie Mac’s proposed adjustments significantly improve the economics of these transactions and create an incentive for the Enterprises to execute CRT transactions.” The post Who’s afraid of