The interesting thing about "mortgage banking" is that it is not a discipline taught in school to youth. It is not like chemistry or psychology, or animal science, etc., that one can major in. It includes aspects of many different things, like finance, sales, marketing, psychology, accounting, and so forth. The skills and knowledge of a good processor aren't necessarily those of a good CFO of a mortgage company, and an underwriter's skills don't match those of a top loan agent - although both are in the same business. The MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) has classes in various areas, and many MI companies and investors sometimes offer very specific classes - but it helps to learn a little something about other sides of the biz.

Doctors can be so frustrating. You wait a month and a half for an appointment, and then the doc says, "I wish you had come to me sooner." Hopefully someone waiting to lock in an interest rate on a mortgage isn't hearing that from their lock desk. As one trader said yesterday, "Mortgages continue to implode this morning after getting walloped last night. Buyers are few and far between as banks and money managers join servicers and originators in a sell-a-thon." Another trader from BofA said that "mortgages went out like the garbage". The trader is talking about mortgage rates/prices compared to Treasury rates/prices, but you can catch the gist of the mood yesterday. Over $5 billion in mortgages were sold, mostly 4.25-4.625% 30-yr mortgages, and mortgage prices ended the day worse by .250.