January 2024
The Sente Special: Quarterly Newsletter
FEATURE
Sente’s Annual Awards Week is happening Monday, February 5 through Friday, February 9! Watch for details and and official invites, but we’ll have an exciting schedule of videos dropping at 3 p.m. every day of the week to announce award winners in categories including Top Producers, Operations, Core Values, and the Kenton K. Brown Award.
FEATURE
Introducing Sente’s New Branch in Charleston, South Carolina!
We are thrilled that Sweetgrass Capital Group has joined the Sente Mortgage family.
Pictured above, left to right:
- Chris Odiorne, Mortgage Banker
- Sloan Jordan, Production Partner
- Mick Jewell, Mortgage Banker
- Taylor Francis, Mortgage Banker
- Yulia Krumova, Production Assistant
- Jarrett Hodson, Branch Manager/Mortgage Banker
- Natalie Moon, Loan Processor
- Jenna Baskin, Loan Processor
- Eric Housley, BK Department Manager
- Sara Baggott, Production Assistant
- Marty Hobgood, Mortgage Banker
- Travis Howard, Branch Operations Manager
- Cole Hall, Mortgage Banker
- Austin Wright, Mortgage Banker
- Corey Deitsch, Mortgage Banker
- Megan Deitsch, Mortgage Banker
- Jason Rosenthal, Mortgage Banker
- (Not pictured: James Sineath, Mortgage Banker)
Branch Manager Jarrett Hodson began his career in residential finance in 2005. He quickly became one of South Carolina’s top producers and was promoted to management of his first office in 2010. The branch grew to the company’s largest with annual volume exceeding $100 million. As a producing branch manager Jarrett looks forward to helping the branch and his clients achieve their most ambitious goals!
Welcome Sweetgrass Capital Group!
DEPARTMENT UPDATES
Accounting
Happy 2024! New Year, New Reminders From Accounting
Hello, Sente team members! A few reminders as we roll over from 2023 to 2024:
- IRS Form 1098s for borrowers’ interest and points over $600 paid to Sente in 2023 will be forwarded to borrowers by January 31, 2024.
- IRS Form 1099s for vendors for amounts paid by Sente over $600 will also be forwarded to vendors by January 31, 2024.
- Don’t forget to pull the most recent version of the expense report template when you submit expense reports in the new year. You can find the latest templates on Ask Sente under Employee Resources. Allowed mileage rates often change in the new year and the expense reports online will have the most up-to-date information.
As always, the Accounting Department is here to support you. Please reach out to us any time and we are happy to help!
Closing
Improving Operational Efficiencies
As we head into 2024, we will be continuing to streamline our processes and work on efficiencies for the CD process as well as closing/funding.
Recently we launched a new and improved CD-Ready Worksheet (see screenshot below) for Loan Processors and Production Partners. The automation added to the form will save time spent on each file.
Here is a list of fields that now populate automatically:
- Lock expiration
- Disbursement date (so the LP can determine if the lock is good through funding)
- Insurance fields (the provider information flows over as well as the annual amount)
- Seller contributions
- Earnest money
- Buyer/seller commission
- Title file number
- Wire account number
- ABA routing number
In addition, radio buttons were added to the right side of the screen listing all the documents that are required for the file to be CD-Ready. Loan Processors must mark the document once uploaded to ensure a document isn’t missed.
We look forward to finding added operational efficiencies as we prepare for a high-volume season!
Compliance
HMDA Reporting
The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) requires many financial institutions to maintain, report, and publicly disclose loan-level information about mortgages. This data helps show whether lenders are serving the housing needs of their communities. HMDA data is the most comprehensive source of publicly available information on the U.S. mortgage market. The Compliance team will be working on all closed files in 2023 to make sure our HMDA information is correct and submitting it to the CFPB before the due date of March 1, 2024.
Concierge
2023 Recap – Tickets, Key Programs, and Enhancements
The Concierge Team had a robust year of tickets totaling 9,937 tickets resolved within two touches 87.7% of the time. The Concierge Team focuses on providing a 5-star experience and resolution quickly to allow you to continue to get things done.
We have Lisa Curry who celebrated 16 years and is our Encompass Guru; Dustin Lovings celebrating 4 years and joined us from the Underwriting Team; Laura Comstock celebrating 11 years with background in multiple areas.
You will note that most tickets are for Encompass Support, Appraisal Support, Compliance and Underwriting. Your feedback ensures that we are providing the best-in-class service and knowledge-based content—we always encourage your comments.
In addition to managing the tickets, we also launched several key programs/enhancements:
- TaxStatus—the new online portal to order Tax Transcripts.
- Xactus360—vendor for all credit, supplements, rescores, and much more with enhanced end user experience.
- Appraisal Desk Management.
- nCino Upgrades—dashboard enhancements and one-off eSign documents synced with Encompass.
- Inactive Loan Deactivation in nCino minimizing document uploads to the wrong file.
- All Department reviews and updates to Ask Sente Knowledge Base.
- Refinement of business rules to streamline fee input on the Itemization.
- Created step-by-step videos for Encompass specific workflow and processes.
- Revamped Dynamic Needs List for the online application.
We are looking forward to a productive and successful 2024!
Human Resources
Getting Back to Best Practices
Hello and Happy New Year!
With the new year, let’s get back to best practices. One best practice at Sente is contacting internal team members using our office phone numbers and extensions through Intermedia, instead of using cell phones. We moved away from this best practice during COVID; getting back to this practice helps make certain that issues and concerns are addressed quickly when team members are out of the office or on PTO and that employees get the down time they deserve while they are out. Here are three quick steps to take before you plan to be out:
- Set your status in Intermedia: options are “Do not disturb,” “On vacation,” “Out sick,” or “Off work” (this is not a feature available when using your cell phone).
- Set your “Out of office” message in Outlook with instructions on who to contact for assistance.
- Change your voicemail greeting.
By taking these steps, it informs everyone that you are unavailable and who they should contact while you are out. We understand that many team members prefer to use our cell phones due to accessories and features available (wireless earbuds, remote access, etc.). You can take advantage of those features by forwarding your calls to your cell phone or adding the Intermedia app to your cell phone. Doing this will give you the convenience of your cell phone and the features of Intermedia.
If a co-worker calls you on your personal cell phone number, we ask you to remind them to use your number in Intermedia and request that they call you back on your office number instead.
Another best practice from a security and compliance standpoint, is to avoid downloading any documents to your cell phone. We have a great app through nCino (formerly SimpleNexus) called “My Mortgage.” Customers can directly message Mortgage Bankers and their team through the My Mortgage app. Documents can be uploaded securely versus having them text you with data. Also, customers tend to leave apps installed on their phones—think of it as a “digital business card”—which allows you to create custom push notifications to your customers.
We appreciate your help in returning to our best practices of using the assigned work phone numbers when reaching out to your co-workers going forward and using the My Mortgage app for documents from borrowers.
IT Department
Data Housekeeping
Do you cringe every time you open your garage or a closet at home, seeing piles of boxes and other clutter? Do you become overwhelmed, wondering how you can tackle such a big project?
Data folders are no different. You save more and more files until you reach the point where you are in over your head. The following tips will assist you with data management:
- Ask yourself: “Do I really need to save this file?” If the file is redundant or easily accessible in another location, there may not be a need to save it.
- Start with a clean computer desktop. Move all data to your personal network drive (H:) or a department or team folder. Data on the network is backed up nightly, while desktop data does not get backed up.
- Store files by project. Create a project folder name and move all pertinent files to the folder.
- Delete old data on a regular basis. If you have not touched it in a year or two, it is probably obsolete. This action also frees up network resources. Set a calendar reminder to make this a recurring task.
- Steps 3 and 4 can also apply to your email.
Keeping your data clean and organized can help increase efficiency by making it easier to find the files you need and may even help speed up your system.
Marketing
Three EASY Ways to Get More From Usherpa
By now you know how to deploy content, you know how to create groups, you know how to manage your database, you understand contact types, and you understand how auto-marketing works.
It’s time to elevate your utilization! Here are three recommendations that can be effortlessly integrated into your CRM toolbox:
- Use notes and tasks in your contact’s profile. By leveraging CRM notes, you can keep track of client history. This helps you give them personalized and effective service throughout their time as a customer. Jennifer Rodriguez, Mortgage Banker in New Braunfels, TX, does a fantastic job of keeping notes and setting up tasks each time she reaches out to a contact. This gives her a track record of who, what, and when for every touchpoint. Here are a couple examples of helpful notes and tasks:
Click here for an Ask Sente article on creating custom notes.
2. Launch your own custom content. Did you know you can create and launch your own custom content? Maybe you want to blast out an email about your online reputation to your prospects. Maybe you want to ask your closed customers if they know of anything thinking of buying, and ask for the referral. Maybe you want to send out an event invitation. Or maybe, like Eric Zanotelli, Mortgage Banker in Stillwater, OK, you want to send out a custom newsletter for real estate agents:
Click here for an Ask Sente article on creating custom email campaigns.
3. Read the content you are sending out to your Business Partners! Usherpa provides some great tips and tools for real estate agents, and often the principles can apply to Mortgage Bankers as well. For example, check out this great article: “Four Ways to Refresh Your Social Media Feed”.
Don’t forget there is a library of Usherpa articles on Ask Sente that you can access at any time. Stay tuned for more insights on maximizing the potential of your Usherpa CRM system!
Underwriting
Ask Sente Underwriting Stats
In 2023, Sente Underwriting resolved 890 scenario tickets. Underwriting is proud to provide this support to our teams to help build and capture business. We are researching enhancements and platforms which can streamline income calculations. Stay tuned as Sente strives to Improve and Innovate.
WELCOME TO NEW HIRES
Shelly Powell, Mortgage Banker
Travis Howard, Branch Operations Manager
Cole Hall, Mortgage Banker
Sara Baggott, Production Assistant
Sloan Jordan, Production Partner
Jenna Baskin, Loan Processor
Corey Deitsch, Mortgage Banker
Megan Deitsch, Mortgage Banker
Taylor Francis, Mortgage Banker
Marty Hobgood, Mortgage Banker
Jarrett Hodson, Branch Manager/Mortgage Banker
Eric Housley, BK Department Manager
Mick Jewell, Mortgage Banker
Yulia Krumova, Production Assistant
Natalie Moon, Loan Processor
Chris Odiorne, Mortgage Banker
Jason Rosenthal, Mortgage Banker
Austin Wright, Mortgage Banker
FIRST QUARTER EMPLOYEE ANNIVERSARIES
Tom Rhodes, James Racanelli, Lisa Curry, Chris Holland,
Sandy De La Fuente, Kristin Carroll
Liz Saenz, Karen Elliott
Laura Comstock
Jeff Wang, Stephanie Young
Candice Young
Kylie Oaks, Eric Zanotelli, Brian Zanotelli, Joseph Prater
Samantha Brown