Real estate valuation technology company Clear Capital has conducted a new round of layoffs as part of a company restructuring plan. The firm announced on Wednesday that it was eliminating about 24% of its workforce, or over 250 jobs, as it restructures departments and consolidates teams amid a tough housing market.  

Per the firm, this round of layoffs will include cuts to some leadership and managerial roles.

“We are consolidating different teams, so there’ll be some leadership roles eliminated because of redundancy,” Clear Capital CEO Duane Andrews said in an interview with HousingWire. “Folding up departments makes sense when volumes are so low that you can’t sustain as many managerial positions at that point. So, we did that in a way that really makes sense for our business.”

Employees were notified on Wednesday morning about the workforce reductions. Those who were affected by the layoffs will receive severance packages and outplacement services to help with the transition, Clear Capital said.

This is the second round of layoffs conducted by Clear Capital in recent months. The firm reduced its workforce by about 27%, or about 350 positions, in October following a slowdown in the housing market. 

According to Andrews, the goal of restructuring is to help the company weather the current industry headwinds and prepare for where the market will be over the longer term. 

“This reduction in force is really a restructuring of our company as opposed to a right-sizing of the company — a fundamental restructuring of our company to meet the market where it is today, and to be where it’s going to be in the future,” Andrews said.

Following this round of workforce reductions, Clear Capital’s total employee headcount will be about 800, according to the firm. The firm had about 1,400 employees at the end of 2021.

“We looked at this as not just an adjustment to the current market climate, but also looking at the current shift that’s happening in the valuation industry. We’ve been a company that’s been investing very heavily in bringing data analytics and technology into the valuation space. We’ve been very involved in appraisal modernization [and] investment over the past five years,” Kenon Chen, EVP of corporate strategy at Clear Capital, said. 

“We’re using this as an opportunity to restructure our company in a way that we think will allow these programs to be adopted and be successful moving forward.”

Chen said that the company took a holistic approach to the restructuring, and that in addition to the layoffs, the executive team will take a 10% pay cut at minimum.

“We don’t take for granted the impact that this has on people, the impact to their families and to their careers. We don’t take any of those things lightly,” Chen said. “This decision is being made with that in mind, but knowing that, it’s the right thing to do — not only for the health of the company moving forward, but also for the sake of our customers and those that we want to continue to serve, [to] continue to help move forward in the industry.”

The firm said the goal is to navigate the layoffs with “continued empathy.”

“We think this will put us in a very comfortable position to continue to reinvest in our technology and solutions for the foreseeable future. Of course, we’ll always have to continue to navigate market changes as it happens, but we feel confident that this structure is going to give us the operating approach we need to be very resilient, even if the market declines further,” Chen said.

The firm, one of the largest appraisal management companies in America, cited similar reasons for the layoffs that occurred late last year. At the time, Andrews said the company was restructuring all divisions to reduce expenses and support the future strategy — which would allow the company to refocus the business on key areas and ensure they were on track for sustainable growth.

In July 2022, Clear Capital rolled out two application programming interfaces (APIs) — a property valuation API and risk assessment API — to make adopting and deploying modern valuation solutions easier, leading to faster loan closings. The desktop appraisal solutions were developed to meet new desktop appraisal guidelines introduced in April 2022. 

In January 2022, the firm launched ClearPhoto, a photo review system that automates collateral underwriting in compliance with government-sponsored enterprise guidelines and internal credit policies. The tool utilizes computer vision technology to highlight the correct files automatically — which allows underwriters to make more efficient and informed decisions, the company said.

The Reno, Nevada-headquartered company was established in 2001 and claims that with its desktop appraisal solutions, desktop appraisals can be completed as much as 50% faster compared to traditional appraisals.

Source link

Market speculation that Wells Fargo is contemplating a huge bulk sale of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) may well be a case of a rumor that is all hat and no cattle. Or it could signal a future MSR-market stampede.

To date, no Wells Fargo bulk MSR public offering has surfaced, market observers say. That doesn’t rule out that the banking behemoth might still have a such a deal in the works, however.

Wells Fargo officials have not commented on the rumors, so speculation is likely to persist over whether the lending giant is about to launch a potentially market-disrupting MSR offering.

One market source, asking not to be named, said that the package could potentially be up to $250 billion in all-agency MSRs across two mega offerings — as much as $150 billion in one Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MSR asset deal, followed by a $100 billion Ginnie Mae MSR offering. Absent hard proof, that potential move by the lender is still in the arena of rumor at this point, but perceptions do affect buyer and seller choices in the market. 

Fueling the rumor in this case is Wells Fargo’s recently announced plans to reduce its MSR portfolio, valued on its books at $9.3 billion as of the end of 2022, U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show. 

When something like this comes up [rumors of a big market transaction], that immediately makes its way to two or three people, and mortgage traders tend to have loose lips, so secrets don’t last very long.

Ben Hunsaker, a portfolio manager at Beach Point Capital Management

“The fact that we’ll be originating a lot less [mortgages] will certainly mean that over time, the MSR and the overall servicing book will come down very naturally based upon that, over a fairly long period of time,” said Wells Fargo’s CEO, Charles Scharf, in a recent earnings call with analysts. “But we’ll also look for intelligent and economic ways to reduce the complexity and the size of our servicing book between now and then. And if those present themselves, we’ll certainly be interested in doing that.”

If Scharf is to be believed, and Wells Fargo intends to “reduce” the size of its vast MSR portfolio, the options are limited. As of the start of this year, Wells Fargo’s all-agency MSR portfolio included some $608 billion in loans serviced based the unpaid principal balance, or 7.3% of the entire $8.4 trillion all-agency MSR market, according to mortgage-data analytics firm Recursion. So, one of the few options available to Wells Fargo for scaling down that portfolio, a mega MSR bulk sale, isn’t likely off the table yet.

“When something like this comes up [rumors of a big market transaction], that immediately makes its way to two or three people, and mortgage traders tend to have loose lips, so secrets don’t last very long,” said Ben Hunsaker, a portfolio manager focused on securitized credit for California-based Beach Point Capital Management. “Sometimes they [the rumors] are right. But sometimes they’re just rumors.”

Such a bulk sale, market experts say, if it were to take place, could be handled through a public MSR auction or via private direct transaction. In addition, the MSR offerings could be packaged in various ways, including as several mega MSR transactions appealing to a few huge buyers, or through a series of much smaller offerings appealing to a broader based of smaller buyers — and likely spread out over the course of months or even years. 

Wells Fargo also could simply allow the MSRs to run off its books as the loans being serviced expire. That process, however, would take years. 

Wells Fargo & market dynamics

Well Fargo’s all-agency MSR portfolio decreased from $648.4 billion as of end of 2021 to $608.2B as of first week of January 2023, Recursion’s data shows. A large part of that reduction in MSR assets was due to mortgage prepayments (usually the result of refinancing). 

Those prepayments registered at $294.3 billion in 2020 but declined to $67.8 billion in 2022 — which was marked by major run-up in interest rates. Wells did not engage in any significant MSR sales/transfers over the past three years, Recursion’s data shows.

The main dynamic is the companies that sat out the second half of 2022 because they already reached their capital [limits] dedicated to purchasing MSRs … they are coming back, so you’re seeing more buyers now.

Azad Rafat, senior director of MSR services at Mortgage Capital Trading

If prepayments continue at the lower volume seen in 2022 — and Wells Fargo has a huge legacy MSR portfolio, including a high volume of lower-rate loans — then it could take several years or more to wind down its all-agency portfolio in any significant way via attrition, assuming interest rates don’t retreat dramatically and fuel a refinancing boom and wave of loan prepayments.

Simply scaling back future MSR servicing and allowing existing MSRs to run off the balance sheet, then, seems a highly risky strategy for the bank. Several market advisors and traders said pricing in the MSR market is currently healthy, though well off its peak last June — and potentially under downward pressure moving forward. MSR values are highly sensitive to interest rates — with MSR pricing tending to decrease as rates decline.

“In an interest-rate environment where we’ve had elevated rates, and [loan]prepayments have slowed, it makes servicing more attractive,” explained Roelof Slump, managing director of structured-finance operational risk at Fitch Ratings. “I think, just in general, it’s perceived that now’s a good time to market servicing and, although rates are off their high, and there’s been a lot of focus around where prepayments are going to be headed, the valuation of that servicing strip still seems pretty attractive.”

MSR values also are impacted by inflation, as that increases the labor and administrative costs related to servicing portfolios. As a result, Wells Fargo could be leaving money on the table if it relies solely on a run-off strategy and fails to capitalize on the current relatively strong MSR market-pricing conditions.

“Pricing-wise [with MSRs] we really don’t know for sure where it’s going to head, but so far prices have been holding up and, if the market becomes active, with more buyers bidding, we probably will see some appreciation in value,” said Azad Rafat, senior director of MSR services at California-based Mortgage Capital Trading(MCT). “But again, that depends on whether there is a recession that everybody talks about and inflation. 

“The main dynamic is the companies that sat out the second half of 2022 because they already reached their capital [limits] dedicated to purchasing MSRs … they are coming back, so you’re seeing more buyers now. We are anticipating a high-volume market, especially in Q1 and Q2 [of 2023].”

Rafat added that the bulk MSR sale prices used to come in at up to a 5.5 multiple during the peak of the market last year “and currently they are in the 4 to 4.5 range, or about 1 multiple lower than the peak.” A multiple is a measure of the price of an MSR loan pool.

Bearing in mind that what goes up must come down on the interest rate front, Beach Point is treating MSR values as “potentially vulnerable to 15% to 20% downside risk longer term,” Hunsaker said.

“You have to be wary from here, if you think [there will be] very high interest rates forever, and a very low [loan] prepayment propensity for perpetuity,” he added. “…We know that some … hedge funds have been out there for the last three or four months trying to raise discreet capital vehicles to capitalize on what they expect to be MSR dislocations.”

Given existing and projected MSR pricing dynamics and other factors, Hunsaker said it makes some sense for Wells Fargo, and possibly other banks, to at least explore bulk MSR asset sales because the money raised from such transactions can be invested elsewhere for a “much better ROE [return on equity] for that gross asset utilization.” 

“It’s an easy way for them to make tactical asset allocations to better risk-weighted assets and grow the balance sheet in ways that they couldn’t otherwise,” Hunsaker added.

In the case of Wells Fargo, there also are some regulatory challenges the bank is now facing with respect to its MSR portfolio, according to Hunsaker. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Wells Fargo $250 million in the fall of 2021 for failing to timely and adequately upgrade its compliance risk-management systems. The regulator also limited the bank’s ability to acquire future MSRs from other companies, along with imposing other restrictions, “until existing problems in mortgage servicing are adequately addressed.”

“If you’re Wells … this [a large bulk MSR sale or series of them] could be an easy way for them to make tactical asset allocations to [invest in] better risk-weighted assets and grow the balance sheet in ways that they couldn’t otherwise,” Hunsaker said. “… The big U.S. banks [in this high-inflation/high-rate economy] really have to think about [strengthening] their Tier 1 capital [ratios].

“… I also think they [Wells Fargo] probably has a pretty high political impetus [because of regulatory pressures] to shrink their asset base in the first place and, secondarily, shrink their asset base in areas that might get them in trouble, with their servicing book being first and forefront among that.”

Capital commitment

A recent report by investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) focused on the potential for Wells Fargo to pursue a huge bulk sale of MSR assets involving up to $150 billion in Fannie and Freddie MSRs and some $100 billion in Ginnie MSRs. The report states that it would require a buyer, such as a publicly traded nonbank or real estate investment trust (REIT), to have an estimated “$3 billion (or so) of capital.”

“In terms of available liquidity, PFSI (Pennymac) has $2.8 billion, COOP (Mr. Cooper) has $2.3 billion, RITM (Rithm Capital/New Residential) has $1.8 billion, and NLY (REIT Annaly Capital Management) has $4.3 billion of cash and unencumbered agency MBS,” the KBW report states. “With that being said, we do not think any company would be comfortable parting with [an estimated] $1 billion (or more) of capital, given the macroeconomic uncertainty. 

“We think the size of [such a potential] offerings could potentially bring new capital to the [MSR] space,” the KBW report adds. “We think this could come in the form of secondary offerings, private funds, or potentially IPOs but that is less likely given the somewhat limited size.”

If Wells Fargo shakes up this [MSR] market… it could be really problematic for the smaller regional conforming-mortgage originators that just barely survived 2022 and are now coming into what would otherwise be a decent gain-on-sale [MSR] market, so they might get squeezed again.

Ben Hunsaker, portfolio manager at Beach Point Capital Management

If Wells Fargo did bring to market such a huge package of MSR offerings, Rafat said other MSR deals “below $10 billion will not materially get impacted.” 

“The $20 billion to $30 billion [MSR bulk-portfolio] deals, if there is such a transaction, may get impacted,” he said, “but the typical buyer of such a large transaction is not going to be the common buyers that we currently see in the market.”

The KBW report also notes that it’s possible Wells Fargo would break up the MSR packages into “smaller ones, which may make participation from public companies more likely.”

Hunsaker added, “If Wells Fargo shakes up this [MSR] market” in that way, “it could be really problematic for the smaller regional conforming-mortgage originators that just barely survived 2022 and are now coming into what would otherwise be a decent gain-on-sale [MSR] market, so they might get squeezed again.”

With respect to any mega Ginnie Mae MSR bulk sale, KBW said the universe of potential buyers is smaller than for conventional MSRs because the number of active Ginnie MSR servicers is much smaller. Ginnie Mae backs securities issued against government-insured loans originate through programs such as the Federal Housing Administration. Such mortgages tend to have higher delinquency rates, resulting in higher servicing costs and more administrative hurdles.

“We think that a sale of this size [a potential $100 billion Ginnie MSR bulk sale] could warrant scrutiny from regulators,” the KBW report states. “… From the perspective of the regulators, there would likely be a lot of emphasis on the buyer’s operations, capital levels and track record.

“… Worth noting, excluding [Pennymac] — who doesn’t usually buy in the bulk market — none of our coverage universe [of public companies] is very active in Ginnie Mae servicing,” the KBW report adds. “Other than [Pennymac], the two largest Ginnie Mae servicers are private companies, Lakeview/Bayview Loan Servicing and Freedom Mortgage.”

The KBW report also notes that there have been mega MSR bulk sales by banks in the past, specifically in the wake of the global financial crisis, when many lenders were struggling to shed “toxic” assets. For example, in 2013, Nationstar Mortgage (since rebranded Mr. Cooper) acquired $215 billion MSR assets from Bank of America. 

Rafat’s firm, MCT, is telling clients that over the next six months, if they have a sense of urgency about pulling the trigger on a bulk MSR offering because of their capital position, then going to market sooner is better than later — given the anticipated direction of future MSR pricing and the speculation surrounding a potential market-disrupting MSR offering from lending giant Wells Fargo.

“We have to base our results on actual facts,” Rafat stressed, “so, until a deal materializes, we really cannot take it into consideration. 

“However, clients do ask those questions,” he added. “And what we tell them is, you know, ‘These are the potential risks, but there could be advantages as well,’ [depending on the client and the contemplated MSR offering involved].

“But without seeing the [Wells Fargo MSR] deal go through and having something in hand, we really cannot make any assumptions related to the valuation.”

It’s also possible that news of any potential mega Wells Fargo MSR transaction would remain under wraps until the lender files a notice of the transaction with the SEC well after the deal has closed — if it is carried out as a private direct transaction.

“There is always a transaction going on somewhere — banks, nonbanks, investment companies,” Rafat said. “You do not hear about those transactions, and there’s a lot of investment firms that constantly buy and trade under the radar.

“And obviously, with the higher interest rates we’re experiencing right now, banks would always look for higher yields. The yield on the current MSR asset is around 10% to 11%. They could probably generate more by freeing up this capital, [depending on] the bank’s circumstance.”

Source link

Source link

An industry downturn is when leaders find out the real capabilities of the companies they have built. It’s easy to show a profit when sales are high, but when the tide rolls out the dangerous rocks appear. 

In the title industry, like the rest of the home finance industry, the real dangers are high operating costs that come from inefficiency.

As the market contracts, experienced title agency executives can feel the shift and know exactly what it means. They’ve seen this before and know what it will take to succeed as the business changes around them. 

In most cases, they will seek to automate more so they can accomplish more with fewer FTEs. But unlike downcycles of the past, there are new opportunities for streamlining operations and cutting costs through technology that didn’t exist before.

New opportunities for the title industry

Title company automation is a mature technology offering and it has been in existence for at least the last two industry downturns. What’s different is the new tools that are providing incremental automation within the title company’s existing systems.

These new tools and techniques are allowing title company executives to deal with lower volumes and maintain profitability. Efficiency is a step function and each step along the path to a more efficient process brings with it advantages, some that are unexpected.

For years now, executives seeking efficiency were steered to new automation. Companies invested millions in big platforms that promised to take the manual labor out of the process. No platform was completely successful in achieving this goal.

The industry is at the point now where title company work is managed through the use of one of a number of large platforms that together handle the bulk of all transactions in the industry. Despite this, the mortgage and title industries employ thousands of individuals who simply review, process and approve complex packages, which can consist of 500 or more pages of documents. 

As a result, when volumes rise, title companies deal with capacity issues by hiring more people. When loan volumes fall, they reduce capacity by laying off staff. This has resulted in a workforce that never fully commits to the company because they know when the cycle turns, they’ll be gone.

Getting employees to work at a higher level is an ardent desire of most of the companies we have interacted with in this space. But as long as people are hired to fill automation gaps when volumes rise, they will surely be let go when volumes fall.

Title company executives need a better solution that will give them the efficiency lift they expect from automation by filling in the gaps left by their core transaction management platforms, but in a way that is easy and affordable to implement.

This is an even bigger ask for smaller companies who actually need this solution even more than their larger competitors. While larger firms have the time and resources to implement solutions and wait for the return on investment. 

For smaller firms with fewer resources, end-of-month processing is a recurring crush that keeps them focused on the present and makes it more difficult to plan for future needs. They are rooted, by the ongoing needs of their companies, in the past.

Larger firms tend to be more comfortable with the longer time frames required to implement new technologies. They also have the internal IT resources to make sure those implementations go as smoothly as possible. Even so, executives running these businesses have no interest in long, expensive, difficult integrations.

And so we see title companies continuing to struggle with inefficient workflows that put too many people on the line, take too long to complete and cost the company too much money.

Avoiding software problems before investing

But we are not suggesting that title companies just throw off their legacy software investments and rush to market to buy something new. That can be a big mistake.

Even when the title executive finds a solution they like, they must steer clear of three critical errors that will quickly pull all of the benefits out of the new implementation, while it leaves in the costs. 

These are the deal killers that should prevent a title company from moving forward.

Deal Killer 1: Rip and replace

When a major technology platform isn’t living up to the promises made during the implementation process, it can be tempting to throw it over in favor of a newer platform that makes better promises. While there are certainly times when a company must consider ripping out and replacing mission-critical software, the beginning of a downturn is not the best time. 

Deal Killer 2: Difficult to configure

Working in a mature industry, we expect to see software that is mature and has been dialed in to provide maximum efficacy for users. Much of the software we see made available to title companies fits this description. Unfortunately, the needs of small- to medium-sized agencies are different. If the software requires the developer to configure it for use it opens the door to problems, including cost-overruns and long implementation times.

Deal Killer 3: No AI built in

Any product that doesn’t make the best use of the newest technologies should not be considered a solution for today’s challenges, to say nothing of the future hurdles title companies will be called upon to overcome. Artificial Intelligence is now reliable and customizable and should be part of every agency’s next technology investment.

Title companies cannot count on their primary technology vendors to provide a solution that will help them become more efficient during a downturn. What the industry needs is a collection of tools that can fill the gaps in the title company’s larger platforms that can be implemented quickly without months of analysis.

Fortunately, these tools are available today. Successful title companies will seek them out and implement them to gain the efficiencies they will need to survive in 2023.

Argun Kilic is CEO and co-founder of AREAL.ai, a no-code automation platform for the title and mortgage ecosystem. He can be reached at argun@areal.ai.

Source link

As the 118^th Congress begins, we return to a divided government in Washington. The American public will be looking to Washington for bi-partisan initiatives and real accomplishments. One of the prime areas of opportunity is affordable manufactured housing homeownership.

Last year was challenging for housing and mortgage markets. For the first time in many years, we experienced falling home prices, in part due to skyrocketing mortgage rates which almost doubled from around 3.5% a year ago to nearly 7% today.

Federal policymakers should take note of the fact that manufactured housing is the most affordable homeownership option available for low and moderate-income families in America. The average income of a manufactured housing homebuyer is around $50,000, while the average income of a buyer of a site-built home is over $100,000. Manufactured homes are often less expensive to own than rent.  

There are actions federal agencies can take to help. Last May, the Department of Energy (DOE) released manufactured home energy standards that would add thousands of dollars to the average price of each new home, when they are scheduled to take effect this May. These standards were not developed with any real input from HUD, which has exclusive statutory authority for manufactured home construction and safety standards nationwide, through the HUD Code.  

The annual homeownership costs of the new DOE requirements far exceed annual energy savings, and the HUD Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee found that portions of the standards are unworkable. DOE should delay its effective date, while it works with HUD to develop more balanced standards.

FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can help. Personal property loans, which make up most of the manufactured home loans, are loans for manufactured homes sited in manufactured home communities, on other leased land, or on owned land not pledged on the loan. But while FHA, Fannie and Freddie combined are responsible for over two-thirds of all new home loans nationwide, they financed only three (FHA) personal property manufactured homes last year.  

These three mortgage programs can also take steps to improve appraisal accuracy for so-called CrossMod homes, which offer more amenities at more affordable prices.

Congress can help. Manufactured home communities  — also known as land-lease communities — are a critical model for the delivery of affordable manufactured homes, with half of the new manufactured homes currently being placed in such communities.   

UMH Properties, a nationwide owner of 134 manufactured home communities in 10 states with approximately 25,600 developed homesites, has a front-row seat to the efforts nationwide to preserve communities in which affordable manufactured homes are sited.

A key component of our national affordable homeownership strategy must be to preserve aging manufactured communities. Many are in need of significant repairs but are owned by mom-and-pop operators without the capital necessary to carry out critically needed renovations.  

Our national strategy to promote homeownership affordability should encourage qualified manufactured community owners with the capital resources to buy aging communities, carry out deferred maintenance and infrastructure, and preserve the communities for the low and moderate homeowners living there.

A prototype of this is a community UMH Properties purchased in 2013 called Holiday Village, in Tennessee, which serves a mix of 300 manufactured homeowners and renters. At the time of our purchase, many homes were abandoned, streets were in deplorable conditions, sewer lines were collapsed, water lines were corroded and crumbling, and the playground was abandoned and dangerous.

UMH made the significant capital investments needed to correct these problems and maintain the community. Rents increased only nominally over the following nine years, commensurate with the cost of the work to renovate the community – and still very affordable. UMH invests over $70 million a year in new rental homes and capital improvements to improve manufactured home communities like this and restore them as desirable places to live.  

Recently, we have had success in raising funds for these critical investments through the use of Opportunity Zones, a 2017 program that creates investment tax incentives for areas local officials designated as economically depressed.

Opportunity Zone tax incentives offer investors tax deferral and relief from recognizing capital gains that are reinvested within 180 days in these economically depressed Opportunity Zones.  This program has been successful.

Building on that track record, its bi-partisan sponsors, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) filed legislation last Congress — S. 4065, “The Opportunity Zones Transparency, Extension, and Improvement Act” — to extend the program and make modest changes that reflect lessons learned from the program to date. Congress should make the adoption of such legislation a priority this year.

This legislative package should also be augmented to include a targeted tweak to encourage investments in manufactured home communities, by allowing the 10-year step-up basis authorized in the Opportunity Zone statute — but without the requirement that invested funds be a reinvestment of a capital gain in the prior 180 days. This would open up a significant new source of capital for building and maintaining affordable manufactured homeownership.

With this change, UMH and other owners/operators of affordable manufactured home communities could do so much more to build new communities and renovate and preserve aging communities. The affordable homeownership opportunities created by this change would augment the primary goal of Opportunity Zones — economic development  — with affordable workforce housing for new employees hired for jobs created by Opportunity Zones.

That is an objective that both Republicans and Democrats alike should be able to agree on.

Sam Landy is the President and CEO of UMH Properties, which owns and operates 134 manufactured home communities nationwide.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Housingwire’s editorial department and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Sam Landry at slandy@umh.com 

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Sarah Wheeler at sarah@hwmedia.com

Source link