Despite two full days of rain, returning attendees have said that this year’s MCT Exchange was still the best one yet! Rain or shine (but mostly shine), the MCT Exchange is hosted every year in San Diego, inviting MCT clients, vendor partners, and staff to share in the highly anticipated secondary market community event.

MCT Exchange: Sharing Information, Best Practices, and New Ideas

The MCT Exchange annual conference is a secondary market conference hosted by MCT with the intention of sharing our educational and human resources with our vendor partners and clients to help them be successful all year round. In this recap, we will give a brief summary of the 2018 conference events along with the feedback survey, video summary, and photo gallery. We hope you enjoyed attending the conference as much as we enjoyed hosting it!

MCT Exchange Dec. 2018 Recap Video

Watch as MCT staff, clients, and vendors explain their experiences at the December 2018 Exchange.

Thursday Night Welcome Reception at the Horton Grand

The conference began with a fun surprise as the traditionally “perfect” San Diego gave way to a rare thunderstorm shortly before the welcome reception started on Thursday evening. The heavy rain made for an exciting transition as attendees who would normally walk from the Omni to the Horton grabbed a complimentary umbrella from the Omni or were ushered into the many cabs and Ubers provided by MCT. It was an iconic MCT moment as Chris Anderson did a heroic takeover of the valet driveway of the Omni, hailing every cab driver in sight to ensure that the guests would enjoy a dry ride to the event five blocks away.

With some last minute changes to the interior of the Horton Grand, attendees enjoyed signature cocktails and networking at Salt and Whiskey with extraordinary live entertainment from the lovely chanteuse, Barbara Tobler. Chat and dinner gave way to dancing as the night got underway, with new friends and old commenting on the beautiful venue, lovely music, and good company.

Friday General Sessions: Returning to the Omni San Diego Hotel

MCT’s major thanks goes to Chris George, CEO of CMG Securities for delivering our keynote address. Despite lack of slides, not a single head turned away for the full hour while George delivered arguably the best keynote speech yet, titled “Keys to Success & Survival in Mortgage Banking.” He discussed current events in Washington D.C. and the industry and concluded the talk with inspiring ideas for managing and growing a mortgage bank, as he has successfully done for the past three decades.

Next, we had Ari Karen of Offit Kurman, delivering a presentation titled “Pay Less, Make More – Loan Officer Compensation Rules & Strategies,” which explored the ways regulations about loan officer (LO) compensation can be creatively navigated. He detailed how LO compensation can be managed and possibly decreased while delivering the same or superior results in terms of origination.

MCT’s own Phil Rasori followed shortly after delivering an overview of the latest six innovations that have come to MCTlive! and BAM in the past few months and what to expect in the new year. He promised that what awaits in 2019 include new ways to interact with whole loan trading counter-parties, broker-dealers, agencies, and many other parties seated in the room. Clearly, efficiencies and pickup can be gained by leveraging new technologies and API integrations!

The conference’s general sessions finished with Late Lunch with Rob Chrisman in which three owners of mortgage banks discussed challenges they faced in 2018, the strategies they are using to find success, and their outlook for the new year. Phil Rasori provided market trends data and context from the perspective of secondary markets manager. Learn about the challenges they faced, including margin compression, and how they plan to take them on in 2019 by viewing the live stream recording.

Friday Afternoon – Breakout Session Workshops

The afternoon that followed was full of a wide spread of 11 different topics for workshops presented by an array of MCT staff and third-party experts.

These few presentations are only a small sampling of the many educational topics discussed during the conference. 

• Advanced Hedging Tactics & Techniques – Bill Berliner, MCT – Learn different ways to use options as part of a hedging program; How to measure and hedge the interest-rate risk of ARMs.
• CEO/CFO Super Session: Measuring & Managing to Success – Mark Wilson, CWDL CPA – Learn from industry veterans about topics such as break even, business intelligence KPIs, strategies for profitability, servicing topics, M&A and more.
• Selling to GSE’s & New Released Executions – Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Q&A, Jennifer Whip, Cambridge One, LLC – Learn from expert GSE sellers about building successful relationships with GSEs, including using the servicing marketplace options.
• Expand Volume with Non-Agency Executions & Tools – Eloise Schmitz, LoanNEX – LoanNEX presentation will cover market trends and best practices for growing your expanded credit and non-QM pipeline.
• MSRs: Valuations, Tax, & Financing – Phil Laren, MCT and Steve Curley, Western Alliance – Improve your retained/ released decisioning process with cutting-edge valuation tools with customized variables reflecting subservicer costs, taxes and financing opportunities.
• Pipeline Management with MCT Reports – Jonathan Miller, MCT – Learn Effective Pipeline Management with MCT Reports.
• Navigating Volatile Markets: Scenario Forecasting with MSRlive! – Phil Laren, MCT – Discover how a sample MSR portfolio would be affected by current and forecasted market scenarios.
• Driving Profitability Through Business Intelligence Panel – Chris Anderson, MCT  – Learn how business intelligence tools can drive profitability for your business.
• Outsourcing Operations Panel – Sam Mehta, Verity Global Solutions – Learn how outsourcing operations may impact your business in the current market climate.
• LOS Integration & Workflow – Jonathan Yosha, matchbox LLC – Learn how to streamline your LOS integration and workflow.
• Counterparty & Data Risk Management – Regina Lowrie, RML Advisors – Discover how to streamline processes related to compliance and vendor governance.

Friday Night Reception and Saturday Activities

Friday evening’s dinner and cocktail reception found a new venue this year at the Hard Rock Hotel’s Bar 204 which turned out to be a lovely venue to share conversation and experiences over the last two days. The conference finished off on Saturday with a choice of social activities including poolside rehab and bunch, sailing on the Yacht America where beautiful teamwork from MCT peers was caught on camera, and finally our annual golf tournament at Maderas Golf Club.

To learn more about the exchange, please view the presentations, video summary, and photo gallery below.

With the right tools and services you can thrive rather than just survive!

When we connect MCT staff, clients, and vendor partners, we know that we will grow in our confidence, knowledge, and shared success within the industry. We look forward to growing our network with future Exchanges as these connections help our clients leverage new technologies, increase profitability, and find operational efficiencies. Everyone comes to the Exchange to receive input from trusted information resources. But, what they learn is just how supportive the environment is for mutual success in the industry.

See you at the next MCT Exchange! Please speak with your MCT representative to learn more.

Read What’s New at MCT on our Blog

• Industry Trends 2018: What Caused Lender Profit Margin Compression?
• MSRlive! Webinar Recap: MSR Valuations in Today’s Market
• New Bid Tape AOT Executions Explained (Webinar Recap)
• Loan Officer Commissions: Margins & Management (Webinar Recap)
• Whitepaper: How to Manage Long-Term Interest Rate Locks

View the Gallery