Want better affordability? Lower house prices certainly helps, and this article states that more than half of homes in the United States have fallen in price in the last year. Forget interest rates: Certainly, there are fewer willing buyers when they know ahead of time that they may face increasing insurance, tax, or condo fees. (Lenders are doing what they can to control costs, and a recent STRATMOR piece is titled, “Rates Drop, Pipelines Pop: Don’t Let Fulfillment Flop.”) The strain is being seen and felt. CNBC reports that foreclosures rose in October signaling some type of distress. (Or delinquency and foreclosure numbers were really low to begin with, right?) As broker veteran Brian B. writes from Florida, “This is one reason for the popularity of DSCRs. Companies looking to buy real estate can buy the DSCR mortgages, and then the foreclosures are quicker because they are non-owner properties.” The foreclosure moratorium coming off is a likely source. Foreclosure activity is returning to normal ranges after years of artificially low volumes (Covid-era forbearance programs, etc.), according to ICE’s First Look report. However, FHA-backed loans are driving roughly half of foreclosure starts. FHA loans saw a 44-bps rise in non-current rates, while other loan types improved. Foreclosure starts hit 103,000 in Q3, up 23 percent over the same period YoY. FHA loans now account for 38 percent of all active foreclosures nationwide. Overall foreclosure volume remains historically low, with Q3 foreclosure sales at ~half of 2019 levels. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s are sponsored by The Big Point of Sale, which delivers a fast, flexible, and low-cost mortgage POS that gets lenders up and running in hours (not months) while empowering loan officers and consumers to collaborate seamlessly from any device. Hear an interview with The Big Point of Sale’s Matthew VanFossen on the evolution of technology in the mortgage industry and how all parties privy to a mortgage transaction can be included on the same workflows.)
Services, Products, Software, and Tools for Lenders and Brokers
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Newfi Wholesale is excited to announce the launch of Income IQ, the latest enhancement to its BLU Broker Portal! Income IQ is a first-of-its-kind bank statement analysis tool designed to reinvent the way brokers and loan officers review self-employed borrower income. Integrated directly within the Newfi Wholesale BLU Broker Portal, Income IQ automates the bank statement calculation process, delivering a faster, more secure detailed income analysis in no time. Income IQ is a full self-serve platform, developed to provide reliable income analysis, borrower data protection, and above all, faster bank statement analysis. You can learn more about this revolutionary new way to calculate bank statements here. Not signed up with Newfi Wholesale yet? Click here to sign up today!
Spring EQ Presents: Giving TWO-SDAY! This year, Spring EQ is celebrating the spirit of Giving Tuesday in a new way with Giving TWO-SDAY, a two-day initiative taking place December 2 and 3. During these two days, Spring EQ CEO Joe Steffa will personally donate $10 for every Consumer Direct submission, every Wholesale registration, and every Correspondent loan that is locked. All funds raised will be evenly split between two incredible charities: Hire Heroes USA, which supports veterans and spouses as they build meaningful careers, and The Valerie Fund, which provides care and support for children battling cancer and blood disorders. Giving TWO-SDAY is our way of turning everyday business activity into something bigger. Let’s make these two days count. Log in to EMMA to price, process, and manage your loans. Not a partner yet? Join us today!
The Chrisman Marketplace is a centralized hub for vendors and service providers across the mortgage industry to be viewed by lenders in a very cost-effective manner. We’re adding new providers daily, so check back often to see what’s new. To reserve your place or learn more, contact us at info@chrismancommentary.com.
Credit Costs Matter
If an independent mortgage bank (IMB) pays a point on a $500,000 loan in compensation, that’s $5,000. We just learned from the MBA’s survey that total loan production expenses (commissions, compensation, occupancy, equipment, and other production expenses and corporate allocations) increased to 326 basis points in the third quarter of 2025 and per-loan costs increased to $11,109 per loan in the third quarter. The best way to lower costs is increase your pullthrough, of course, but expenses matter.
MBA's President and CEO Bob Broeksmit, CMB, released the following statement on the recently announced price increases for credit reporting products:
“Once again, the national credit bureaus are abusing their government-granted oligopoly by gouging consumers, a predictable outcome in a flawed, outdated, and anticompetitive system where lenders are required to buy specific, increasingly expensive credit reporting data from each of the three credit bureaus. MBA has long led the call to fix this broken model and shined a light on the role that regulations and the government play in these steep, unjustified price hikes that ultimately hurt housing affordability.
“We are continuing to push for more transparency and fairness in this process. Today’s news only strengthens our call to move away from the tri-merge credit report structure. Single-file reports are used safely in nearly every other consumer finance market and extending them into the mortgage market would provide price relief for American homebuyers by injecting real competition, lowering closing costs, and streamlining the mortgage process, all without compromising sound risk management.
“MBA once again urges lawmakers and federal housing regulators, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission, to end the government’s involvement in driving up these consumer credit transaction costs.”
Median Age of Homebuyers, Now 40 Years Old
Recently I received a note “LO VieauxPoint” from Ethan Vieaux, addressing how the age of first-time home buyers is roughly 40, and what the age spike means for buyers and lenders. “According to NAR’s 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, the median age of first-time buyers is now 40 and their share has fallen to 21 percent, a record low. That is a historic shift, and it changes how we coach renters and near-ready clients. For decades, the median first-time buyer hovered around 30 to 32. Even in 2020 it was 33. In only a few years it jumped to 38 and now 40.
“We are being asked, ‘Why does this matter?’ Waiting has a real cost. Using national medians as simple illustrations, we can see it. If a buyer bought in 2015 versus buying in 2025, the median price was about $229k then versus $415k today. That is roughly $186k in price gains on the median home, before any principal paydown. Even buying in 2020 versus buying in 2025 makes a difference: about $296.5k then versus $415k today which is roughly $118k in gains, plus five years of principal reduction for those who bought. Local results will vary, but the direction is clear. The age curve moved up while prices kept rising, widening the gap between early owners and late entrants.
“What can mortgage professionals do now? Tell clients to start preparing earlier: Treat an 18-to-24-month prep timeline as normal. Show them the path in dollars. Use local medians to illustrate appreciation plus amortization. Coach to total monthly cost, including taxes, insurance, and maintenance. Coordinate with real estate agents. Align on a simple prep plan so buyers do not stall after pre-approval.” (Here’s a personal shout-out to Craig Johnson from KeySteps, who shows up to our weekly FinLocker office hours and helped frame this as a practical “cost of waiting” story. Read the full article here.) Thank you, Ethan.
Capital Markets
As year-end approaches, traders are pulling back risk, a pattern that typically leads to choppier markets with lighter volume and more doubt about the staying power of price moves. Although some have questioned whether the Fed should postpone its December meeting due to missing data, such a delay is viewed as very unlikely, particularly since the committee has acted during blackout periods before. With arguments building both for another cut and for a pause, the December 10 decision remains up in the air. In the meantime, Treasury trading is being driven more by equity market stability than by incoming data. The 10-year continues to face major resistance near 4.00 percent and has support around 3.99 percent and 3.93 percent, levels that are unlikely to break without a weaker stock market or a shift in expectations for 2026 policy. Overall, markets are positioning less for current conditions and more for what lies ahead.
FHFA Director Bill Pulte is now reportedly under federal grand jury scrutiny as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac advance rule changes that would force independent mortgage banks to hold more capital by disallowing parent-company debt offsets and excluding institutional excess-servicing-strip investments from net-worth calculations. Many argue that these moves lack financial justification, would raise costs for key nonbank lenders, and many are saying that this reveals how disconnected GSE risk teams are from the modern mortgage-banking market, which has developed more stable and diversified funding over the past decade. These policies, issued in Pulte’s name, would ultimately increase mortgage costs despite his public focus on consumer-friendly initiatives, raising doubts about whether he or the Trump administration fully grasps their impact.
Today’s economic calendar is packed, and includes previously delayed retail sales (+.2 percent month-over-month, ex-auto +.3 percent) and producer prices for September (+.3 percent, ex-food & energy +.2 percent; year-over-year +2.7 percent), and August business inventories. Also on the docket to be released today are Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing for November, Redbook same store sales, September house prices from FHFA and Case-Shiller, business inventories, November consumer confidence, October pending home sales, Richmond Fed manufacturing, Dallas Fed Texas services for November, and Treasury activity that will be headlined by auctions of $28 billion reopened 2-year FRNs, $70 billion 5-year notes, and a buyback for liquidity purposes in 1- to 10-year TIPS for up to $750 million. After the salvo of news, Agency MBS prices are better by about .125 than Monday’s close, the 2-year is yielding 3.47, and the 10-year is yielding 4.00 after closing Monday at 4.04 percent.
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