LAS VEGAS — Credit unions need to focus on some of their housingfinance particulars as part of thinking strategically about theirhousing finance business, according to a leading mortgageconsultant.

SteveWilliams, principal at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Cornerstone Advisors, a bank and credit union consultancy, toldexecutives Tuesday at this year's American Credit Union MortgageAssociation annual conference that their institutions need to bothfocus on the details of their housing finance program at the sametime they focus on positioning themselves in a changing mortgagemarket – a market which is moving from a heavy refinance volume toa much smaller purchase loan volume.

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“Congratulations to all of you on the fourth floor.” Williamstold the executives. “Thanks to you, as margins on otherproducts and services were sliding into the pit, you helped keepthe lights on and us in money enough to do some really cool stuff,but you have also been telling folks that rainy days might becoming and guess what, they're here.”

Williams described this reality as part of the “ouch” moment inmortgage lending and he said he would not want to downplay that,but he urged executives not to focus on the negatives.

Instead focus on “what kind of optics am I giving my people? HowI am getting them charged up,” he asked.

Williams recounted the factors which he said were highlightingthe improving housing finance opportunity, including the increasingnumber of affordable homes available, the pent-up demand for homes,the fact that many Americans have far better debt ratios than theydid five years ago and the notion that sometime on the medium termhorizon members of Generation Y will start to want to move out oftheir parents' basements and find their own homes.

Williams called this opportunity the “sweet spot;” the spacebetween the old mortgage brokers who have largely been shut down bycompliance requirements and the big banks. “You can be the local,progressive, not sleepy, creative and energetic mortgage lenders inyour communities,” he told the executives gathered at his sessionat the ACUMA conference in the Cosmopolitan Hotel.