Housing News Podcast: Kind Lending’s Glenn Stearns on how the mortgage industry can navigate these uncharted waters

The Housing News Podcast is a weekly wrap of the top news stories by HousingWire CEO Clayton Collins.

Each week, HousingWire interviews financial services experts who can help make sense of the latest headlines sponsored by our partners at Arch MI and Quicken Loans Mortgage Services.

This week, Glenn Stearns, who has undoubtedly been one of the biggest names in mortgage lending over the last 30 years, joins the Housing News Podcast for its fourth episode of season three.

Stearns, who founded Stearns Lending in 1989, joins the Housing News Podcast to discuss his new company, Kind Lending, which touts itself as a “fresh and edgy approach to mortgage banking.”

Additionally, the trailblazer discusses current market conditions, which have been changing each day as coronavirus continues to take its toll on the mortgage industry and the country as a whole.

According to Stearns, whose previous company survived the housing crisis of the 2000s, if mortgage companies want to pull through this period of uncertainty, they will need to invest in technology and learn how to better communicate.

Here’s more detail on the topics of discussion this week:

Glenn Stearns founded the mortgage company that carries his name, Stearns Lending, in 1989. And in the convening years, Stearns helped build the company into one of the biggest mortgage companies in the nation. But Stearns has laid somewhat low in the last year or so, but he is being quiet no more. Stearns is launching a new mortgage company, Kind Lending.

Quicken Loans recently joined the thousands of companies that are encouraging (if not requiring) their employees to work from home to combat the spread of COVID-19. But the nation’s largest mortgage lender is hardly the only company that is moving to a remote work policy as the concern over the virus worsens. The Federal Finance Agency, Guaranteed Rate, Caliber Home Loans, and United Wholesale Mortgage are just a few names reassessing their workplace procedures.

The White House and the Federal Housing Finance Agency are calling for up to 12 months of mortgage forbearance for Americans who can’t pay their bills because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The amount of people needing that help is so big, it might require the Federal Reserve to flex its muscles, according to a report from Cowen Washington Research Group. Specifically, the Fed might have to use Sec. 13 of the Federal Reserve Act that covers emergency lending, it said.

And here are links to the topics discussed:

1) Glenn Stearns is back, launches Kind Lending
https://develop.housingwire.com/articles/glenn-stearns-is-back-launches-kind-lending/

2) Here’s how the mortgage industry is reacting to the coronavirus https://develop.housingwire.com/articles/heres-how-the-mortgage-industry-is-reacting-to-the-coronavirus/

3) Can the Fed help Americans get mortgage forbearance?
https://develop.housingwire.com/articles/can-the-fed-help-americans-get-mortgage-forbearance/