The Federal Reserve Bank of New York notes the implications of the refi wave have just now begun to be realized. “In the end, 14 million mortgages were refinanced during the COVID refinance boom, and these refinances will have effects on the mortgage market for years to come,” researchers wrote. “The end of the most recent exceptionally low interest rate period leaves homeowners somewhat disincentivized to sell or change properties: Owners now looking to move will face increased borrowing costs and higher prices, with current home prices being more than 36% higher than they had been pre-pandemic.”
Loan originators are having a tough time now post-refi given a housing market that has since turned sluggish. Others had trouble making a pivot to the purchase market. “Some of them are still struggling,” Puckett said.
For her, it’s been a positive development: “I started focusing on building those relationships and actually focusing on myself and my strengths,” she said. “When I first got in the business, one of the things that I had struggled was the way we approached our clients in a salesman-type way. While it’s worked really well for my male counterparts, it felt, for me, unnatural. But it was what I was taught to do – shake hands, kiss babies, go to luncheons, all those things that you do. I did it, but it didn’t seem to flow for me very well.”
And then it hit her with the force of epiphany: “I did it for a long time, and then a few years ago, something switched, and I thought this is not working for me. I decided two things: Give myself permission to say that I was really good at what I do and then secondly, I decided to be myself.”
She may have missed out on the refi wave. But in the end, one might say she found herself.
Source: mpamag.com