Velocity Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VEL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Delaney: I guess just to start, I’d like to applaud your FVO decision. I think probably a lot of the people on this call know that both Redwood Trust and MSA use the fair value method on their securitized portfolio and I really do think it will help you get across your — make your book value and your economic value definitely more transparent. So congratulations. I think that’s good progress, and will be well received. Well, back to the current quarter, 4Q. So got a little fuzzy. Understood. Okay, core was only down $0.02 and understand the resolution. So that was $0.10. We’ve got fuzzy in my old brain was, what was the key factor that — or factors that were offsetting the lower resolution income of the net-net, you picked up $0.08 somewhere, and I know you’ve got some higher coupons, but could you — Mark, could you kind of comment on that and help connect the dots for me?

Mark Szczepaniak: Sure, Steve. I think one of the things you are seeing that kind of helps offset the lower resolutions and the earnings per share, and just total dollars — pretax dollars is again the FVO election for Q4, right? So on the fair value election, as we said, instead of bringing in that embedded value of our loan portfolio slowly over time to margin, you are bringing that value in on day one when you are funding the loans. So we probably brought in somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe $5 million to say $6 million on a pretax basis in the quarter based on the say $270 million worth of UPB that we funded and applied FVO to in Q4.

Steve Delaney: Got it. Okay. Yes, just kind of blanked on that. Despite my compliment on the FVO option, I didn’t apply it to 4Q. So the market today — we have got your WACs and everything and the fourth quarter originations. Chris, could you just comment on like your loan products today? Well, one, I think I know what you are focused on. What products are you specifically focusing on? And what kind of coupon and fees are you able to achieve in today’s market on the loan side?

Chris Farrar: Sure. Yes. So I would say throughout the year, it was definitely an adjustment, borrowers had to react to ever increasing rates. So there is kind of a give and take there, back and forth. People — we’d see borrowers walk away and then call us back 60 days later and say, oh my god, it’s 100 basis points higher, okay I’ll take it. So there is definitely some adjustment period going on there. But we are still focused in the core areas of where we have always been. We see good demand in the investor one to four. We see good demand in short-term loans, where we do like some fix and flip, in the bridge lending and fix and flip. So it’s strong there. We have been very, very tough on office space. We are not bullish on office space at all. So we are very tough there. But other than that change, I would say, we are seeing good demand on all those types of products, and we are anywhere from the low side kind of 10% to 11.5% depending on the property type.

Steve Delaney: And that’s on the coupon, right?

Chris Farrar: Yes, that’s the coupon.

Steve Delaney: So fees are plus, right, on that?

Chris Farrar: That’s right. Fees are plus.

Steve Delaney: Okay. Well, thank you for the color. I would say this though on office because Stephen Laws and anybody else on the call, that’s all we live with today talking to people about bad office loans. But I just want to make the point. I think dental offices and medical offices are really still good. So you are good

Chris Farrar: Yes.

Steve Delaney: if you want to make a dental office.