We’ve gotten a lot of great news here at LodeStar recently. Some of it we’ll share soon. But for starters, we’ve just learned that, for the second straight year, we’re a member of the Philadelphia100®. You may recall that this list is comprised of the 100 fastest growing, privately held businesses in the greater Philadelphia region.

We recently had a return visit with the dynamic Josh Pitts, CEO or S.H.R.E.D. (Show up. Hustle. Repeat. Every Day!) The next 30 minutes were, as always, a great combination of high energy and compelling conversation—as is always the case when it comes to Josh!

Many users of LodeStar’s closing cost calculator use it in most or all of the states they do business. However, it’s telling to note that, of all of our single-state users—title companies that prefer to do their LEs and closing cost estimates by hand—the vast majority use it for the state of New York.

When it comes to preparing a TRID Loan Estimate (LE) there might not be a trickier state for your transaction than Maryland, with its myriad of wrinkles and various, differing taxes and requirements.

By now, you probably know that LodeStar has launched our new website and, with it, rounded out our mission statement. That’s built upon what we call “The Three C’s:” Clarity, Connectivity and Community.

We recently visited with Dan Smith, VP of Sales for one of LodeStar’s partners, Lending Pad. Like many, Dan joined the mortgage industry almost by accident. However, he has thrived—especially in mortgage technology, in the 20+ years since.

This week, we’re going to deviate from our typical conversation and offer up our own version of a mortgage trends report! However, it’s a topic that could become increasingly important, even though few are discussing it—yet.

We recently had a fascinating conversation with George Baker, the founder and CEO of Talkuments. Talkuments is the producer of a multi-lingual, digital home loan guide for mortgage lenders to provide to borrowers—especially multi-lingual or non-English speaking borrowers.

We’re going to hit “pause” on our usual content stream for a moment. So we won’t be talking much about closing cost calculators, TRID guidelines or mortgage compliance this week. This is actually much more important (not that those other things aren’t important…).