Tue, Jan 15 2019, 8:55 AM
Are rates too high given where the U.S. economy is? Traders, investors, and the Fed think they’re where they need to be, given the information we have...
Mon, Jan 14 2019, 9:55 AM
My cat Myrtle has never flown coach. She doesn’t have the same complaint I have of airline workers who don’t seem to realize that “full” means full. F...
Thu, Jan 10 2019, 9:27 AM
Let’s see… How much does it cost you to produce a residential loan? Pizza for the shippers, underwriter bonuses, copy paper, HP-12C batteries – it all...
Wed, Jan 9 2019, 9:28 AM
The co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, died last week. I mention this because I read his obituary and the article noted h...
Tue, Jan 8 2019, 9:13 AM
In HELOC news, “traditional” lenders know that online lender Prosper plans to offer home equity lines of credit this year. The threats to real estate ...
Mon, Jan 7 2019, 10:00 AM
Let’s start the first 5-day workweek of 2019 off with something entirely non-mortgage related, although “unintended consequences from revenue-based de...
Fri, Jan 4 2019, 9:19 AM
Some view the end of one year and the beginning of another as an artificial construct, created by human intervention. Others take careful note of what...
Thu, Jan 3 2019, 9:31 AM
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR, not the NRA), Americans 36 and younger represented the largest share of home buyers (34%) in 2...
Wed, Jan 2 2019, 8:49 AM
Last week I noted a STRATMOR study that shows, pretty much year in and year out, that traditionally, 82% of residential production comes from 40% of t...
Mon, Dec 31 2018, 8:54 AM
How important is it for lock desk personnel to charge the correct fees for rate lock extensions? Very. Lock mistakes were included in Wells Fargo’s la...
Fri, Dec 28 2018, 9:31 AM
“Rob, should we be staffing up for another refi boom?” It seems like most lenders are pausing during the holidays to take stock of current staffing le...
Thu, Dec 27 2018, 8:54 AM
The US taxpayer has been bearing the credit risk of 90% of all new origination over the past 10 years. What about property/collateral risk? Yesterday ...
Wed, Dec 26 2018, 8:54 AM
This government shutdown is over 215 miles of fencing along a 2,000-mile border. Rate-wise, there is growing thought that the Fed has overshot rate ch...
Mon, Dec 24 2018, 9:03 AM
I’ve been in capital markets since the mid-1980s. No presidential administration has eliminated business cycles. Although stocks have given up their g...
Fri, Dec 21 2018, 9:06 AM
Welcome to the Winter Solstice with more daylight in the Northern Hemisphere every day for the next six months. Today is definitely greeted by residen...
Thu, Dec 20 2018, 9:06 AM
All kinds of things are being found. A woman in Missouri’s tiny house ” was found after being stolen. Then New York Times found more money to pay its ...
Wed, Dec 19 2018, 9:23 AM
There are lots of interesting questions out there. “Why didn’t Tarzan have a beard?” for example. Another is, “Do borrowers know about low down paymen...
Tue, Dec 18 2018, 9:10 AM
“Rob, I’m no stranger to bribes.” (I am not going to say which mortgage banking production manager jokingly made that tongue-in-cheek statement.) We t...
Fri, Dec 14 2018, 9:02 AM
Lots of folks in the mortgage biz like statistics and odds. They may not remember them, but they like them. (As Marcus L. writes, “People still play t...
Thu, Dec 13 2018, 9:23 AM
“Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?” It turns out that, in terms of grabbing ...
Wed, Dec 12 2018, 9:09 AM
Who among us has pushed for abolishing the mortgage-interest deduction, supported getting rid of government subsidies for the 30-year fixed-rate mortg...
Tue, Dec 11 2018, 9:25 AM
I’m a capital markets guy. “Bespoke luxury” isn’t in my vocabulary. First-time home buyer prices and floorplans aren’t in the cards at the new Aston M...
Mon, Dec 10 2018, 9:08 AM
The focus is on the holidays but there is plenty of 2019 wedding planning occurring. Despite that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, adults are inc...
Fri, Dec 7 2018, 9:17 AM
The year has sped along, and here we are at Pearl Harbor Day already. Although mortgage rates have lagged, what has pushed Treasury rates down? Releas...
Thu, Dec 6 2018, 8:58 AM
I still receive questions about HMDA. It’s good to know about the 2018 edition of A Guide to HMDA Reporting: Getting it Right! (the Guide). Developed ...
Tue, Dec 4 2018, 9:07 AM
Thinking about locking a loan tomorrow during the National Day of Mourning for George Bush? With the bond markets closed, plenty of mandatory executio...
Mon, Dec 3 2018, 8:49 AM
I admit that I’ve become jaded over the years. Another potential government shutdown comes and goes. As always, our industry, and more importantly tho...
Fri, Nov 30 2018, 8:58 AM
As one Native American said, “Only a white man would cut two inches from the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and think he has now has a longer...
Thu, Nov 29 2018, 10:45 AM
Yes, MLO commissions are dropping. But the traditional 6% real estate agent commission continues to be under attack as well, the latest salvo fired fr...
Wed, Nov 28 2018, 8:52 AM
Sorry for the length of the commentary today, but there’s a lot going on. In most of the U.S., the 2019 maximum conforming loan limit for one-unit pro...
Tue, Nov 27 2018, 9:02 AM
Will today or tomorrow bring the 2019 Freddie and Fannie loan limit change announcement? Stay tuned, as it usually released soon after Thanksgiving. I...
Mon, Nov 26 2018, 9:01 AM
I want a free vacation! I want a free fancy car in the garage in my newly-built McMansion! Apparently, due to sagging sales, with some builders I can ...
Fri, Nov 23 2018, 8:53 AM
"Why is it that when the CDC warns us to not eat romaine lettuce, we take it as gospel. But when the CDC tells us that vaccines save lives, we think t...
Wed, Nov 21 2018, 8:56 AM
Do you think non-QM is going to “save your bacon?” After a non-exhaustive survey, it appears that non-QM, aka non-Agency, aka expanded credit, is runn...
Tue, Nov 20 2018, 9:04 AM
Here are some tech developments as we seem to be moving closer to machines running our lives, or a loan being approved instantly by reading a fingerpr...
Mon, Nov 19 2018, 9:18 AM
Thanksgiving means many things to many people: family time, a half day of work Wednesday, or a four-day weekend. To the staff and students of Johns Ho...
Fri, Nov 16 2018, 8:59 AM
Why is the housing market sluggish despite a solid U.S. economy, solid demographics, and pent-up demand? Those don’t matter if prices are out of reach...
Thu, Nov 15 2018, 9:01 AM
With only week until Thanksgiving there’s a lot going on – every one of these stats impacts lenders. CoreLogic tells us that there are 48,390 homes at...
Tue, Nov 13 2018, 9:46 AM
People vote with their feet. Some population movements are dramatic and garner headlines around the world, others not so much. “About 130,000 more res...
Fri, Nov 9 2018, 8:58 AM
Whether bond loans (we all know how management loves those), non-QM, reverse mortgages, or high loan to values, originators everywhere are working har...
Thu, Nov 8 2018, 9:07 AM
“Rob, we just went through our third staff reduction. Have you heard of any vendors that work on forecasting or doing ‘what if’ scenarios for lenders ...
Wed, Nov 7 2018, 9:03 AM
Lenders outside of Ohio were mildly interested in the Ohio Governor’s race where Ex-CFPB chief Richard Cordray lost. As forecast Democrats won the Hou...
Tue, Nov 6 2018, 9:02 AM
“I can’t believe my grandpa is voting Democrat this year…he would have never done that when he was alive.” (Or Republican – your choice.) Things aren’...
Mon, Nov 5 2018, 9:11 AM
Remember the delinquency and foreclosure issues we had several years ago? It is still part of the biz. Hubzu, an online marketing platform, released d...
Fri, Nov 2 2018, 9:15 AM
Many states “gain an hour” Sunday morning by setting clocks back. Robots don’t care what time it is - will they build your next house? Companies like ...
Thu, Nov 1 2018, 9:02 AM
For me October included time in Washington (State and DC), California, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nevada. Lenders are talking about technology, th...
Wed, Oct 31 2018, 9:00 AM
“The best part about Halloween is that the cobwebs in my house look like decorations.” For perhaps a morning, the focus for lenders has shifted away f...
Tue, Oct 30 2018, 9:07 AM
Plenty of vendors and lenders are focused on raising capital, merging, selling, or closing. It doesn’t take a brilliant detective to see the liquidity...
Mon, Oct 29 2018, 8:59 AM
We have a whole generation of home buyers who have never seen a 5% mortgage rate, and interesting thought. We’re not in the “An ARM is better” territo...
Fri, Oct 26 2018, 10:29 AM
Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see. What if you want to put down roots there? The town, 3 and a half ho...
