http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/topic/rob-chrisman Pipeline Press - Rob Chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-10092026 Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:50:26 GMT 6ac8d5f7851d2c556ae808e9 Rob Chrisman As Robbie and I prepare to head to Chicago this weekend for the “MBA National,” yesterday I was speaking with someone at the bar at Legs Inn in Northern Michigan. (Yeah, it’s somethin’.) We shouldn’t be afraid to talk about the economy, or politics, and I told her that I’ve been in capital markets for over 40 years and there are plenty of clever sayings about economics. One of them is, “The stock market is not the economy.” How good is the U.S. economy? You wouldn’t know it by stocks. Elliot F. Eisenberg, Ph.D. writes, “U.S. equity market performance is increasingly being led by the Magnificent Seven including the ‘hyperscalers’ (Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft) plus Apple, Nvidia, and Tesla. They have a combined market cap of almost $25 trillion, 77 percent of U.S. GDP. Moreover, Y-o-Y 26Q3 tech EPS growth is expected to be 65 percent, double the overall S&P 500. The market may be a one-trick pony, but it’s staggeringly large and profitable.” (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development. Today’s has an interview with Floify’s Maggie Swanson on creating fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM, and more, without custom development.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-10082026 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 15:42:07 GMT 6ac7887df7366272ec51ff39 Rob Chrisman “My friend is an EMT, and she's amazing on trivia night. She's usually the first responder.” The United States is full of trivia. Did you know that part of Florida is in the Central Time Zone? (Fourteen states are in more than one time zone!) Do you know what Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kenau Reeves, and Michelle Pfeiffer have in common? They all can qualify for a HECM (aka, reverse mortgage)! Last time I checked, about 10k people a day turn 62; if you don’t have a HECM division, or a HECM product, your company should consider one. What isn’t so trivial are volumes in our biz, both in dollars and in units. KBW’s Bose George expects mortgage origination volume in 3Q to be down around 10 percent Q/Q. (Currently, the MBA is forecasting 3Q down 8 percent, Fannie Mae is forecasting -7 percent, and agency securitization volume was down 9.3 percent.) “We expect gain-on-sale margins to be flat to down modestly. However, sharp increases in rates can make pipeline hedging more challenging as fallout can come in lower than expected. We are reducing our estimates for the mortgage originators to incorporate these trends, and our forward estimates are also declining to reflect industry volume estimates for 2027.” Buckle up! (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development. Today’s has an interview with Gather Markets’ Wayne Brown on recurring challenges for banks and originators in finding, matching, and efficiently processing CRA-eligible loans, leading to Gather’s focus on using data, technology, and compliance infrastructure to connect the right loans with the right bank buyers.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-10072026 Wed, 07 Oct 2026 15:51:06 GMT 6ac638e3be2f51143deeee10 Rob Chrisman Lender and Broker Products, Services, and Software “Chicagoans have one unbreakable rule: no ketchup on a hot dog. Mortgage lenders should have one too: no questions that don't belong on the application. Floify brings that same discipline to MBA Annual in Chicago, October 11–14 at the Hyatt Regency, where the industry celebrates homeownership and 250 years of the American Dream. With Dynamic Apps, lenders configure a tailored application for every loan purpose (HELOC, construction, ag, non-QM and more) so borrowers see only what applies. Then Dynamic AI fills in the rest. Borrowers upload a paystub or W-2 once, and embedded AI extracts and prepopulates verified data, so applications arrive cleaner and pre-approvals move faster. Your team decides what to ask; Dynamic AI helps answer it. The result? An 84 percent efficiency increase and loans reaching clear-to-close 7.5 days faster. Just the works… hold the ketchup. Schedule time with us at MBA Annual.” Lender Price has launched its next evolution of POD (AI Pricing Optimization Dashboard) a purpose-built AI capability designed to further automate the operational work behind pricing updates while preserving expert review and governance. When investors publish changes, POD AI agents handle routine rate sheet, LLPA, and pricing special updates behind the scenes within defined guardrails, routing exceptions to Lender Price's pricing experts. Initial targets include up to 90 percent fewer manual touchpoints, up to 75 percent faster prep and validation of routine updates, and at least 99.9 percent change traceability, a game-changing shift for lenders. Fewer pricing discrepancies, faster updates, and more confidence in every price, because in mortgage pricing, accuracy isn't a feature… It's the foundation. Visit lenderprice.com to learn more. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-10062026 Tue, 06 Oct 2026 15:24:27 GMT 6ac4eb423b2a687b61eeaef0 Rob Chrisman I like to say that I am one good Lottery Scratcher away from ditching this daily Commentary gig and starting something new. All kidding aside, where should we start today? With the rumored FICO layoffs yesterday afternoon? Iowa, Michigan, and the Carolinas all having conferences now? Pennymac is now live with VantageScore 4.0 across all three production channels. If you want to learn about appraisal news, there’s a 7AM PT (you’re your read that right) Fannie webinar tomorrow morning: Fannie Mae's UAD 3.6 Policy Exception: What You Need to Know! Two Harbors and UWM are firing shots at each other. In terms of interest rates, oil price inflation from the war, the U.S. budget deficit, competition for investor money from AI companies issuing debt, and tariff price inflation aren’t going away any time soon, so there is little reason for rates to drop. Lenders and vendors are wondering if they want to go through another business cycle, and on today’s Advisory Angle at 11AM PT, STRATMOR’s Amanda Gibson and Garth Graham discuss what mortgage lending leaders should be thinking about now, before a leadership transition becomes urgent. Tech of varying shapes and sizes is the focus of Mortgage Matters tomorrow at 11AM PT (presented by Lenders One and featuring Blue Sages’s Ash Omar) and The AI Show at noon PT (presented by JazzX AI and featuring JazzX AI’s Kunal Patel). (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development. Today’s has an interview with Polly’s Adam Carmel on where capital markets tech is heading: AI-native foundation, unified operating system, and the first firm built to run on it. Introducing PollyOS/Hedge.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-10052026 Mon, 05 Oct 2026 15:25:38 GMT 6ac398b66209cf134eb62295 Rob Chrisman Today brings us the MBA of the Carolinas conference, where demographics, technology, and “building a team” are on the agenda. Here at the Michigan Mortgage Lender’s Association conference in Ypsilanti, tech is certainly “on the serving platter” in the sessions, but so is how originators should best use what they have to their advantage, which includes knowledge. For example, here’s something simultaneously sobering and hopeful for lenders. Per the Census Bureau, in 2024, 58 percent of men and 56 percent of women ages 18 to 34 lived with their parents. About 2.6 million U.S. parents provided $26.6 billion in financial support to 3.7 million children. (So you don’t have to break out the calculator, that’s about $7,200 per kid.) Think of all those potential home buyers! (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development. Today’s has an interview Mortgage Education Institute's Andrew Conner on helping loan officers and small-to-midsize mortgage companies turn required continuing education and compliance from a burdensome, reactive “check-the-box” exercise into engaging, practical training and proactive support.) Lender and Brokers Products, Services, and Software Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-10022026 Fri, 02 Oct 2026 15:29:47 GMT 6abfa5b71112efc9a9312d03 Rob Chrisman “A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.” How’s your memory of rates, and what you did when they moved higher? 30-year mortgage rates were about at this level, briefly, exactly three years ago, but before that we weren’t here since the late 1990’s when they were at these levels for a long time. How many of your sales staff were in the biz then? As the United States’ deficit continues to increase, 5-year Treasury securities, issued at 1 percent, are paying off and the U.S. Government is now having to pay 5 percent on new 5-year T-notes. At the Virginia Mortgage Bankers Association’s Conference, which wraps up today, the talk on the stage and in the hallways revolved around this relatively high rate environment, AI, credit changes, LOs being relevant, and how lenders should pay attention to demographics. Along those lines, the VantageScore news this week will certainly be a topic on Last Word today at 10AM PT when Brian Vieaux, Tracey King, Kevin Peranio, and Christy Soukhamneut discuss changes in credit, AI governance, the UAD 3.6 shift, and industry storylines. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. Today’s has an interview with Eris Future’s Geoffrey Sharp on how futures contracts replicate the cash flows and functionality of over-the-counter interest rate swaps, and are suitable for short-term trading or long-term hedging.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-10012026 Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:18:28 GMT 6abe54369a3932da059be185 Rob Chrisman Welcome to the 4th quarter. Remember when, in 2024, the informal slogan for many in our biz was, “Stay alive ‘til ’25!”? (’27 isn’t expected to be heaven.) This is the month of Halloween. Suddenly residential lending is filled with tricks or treats, along with conferences of varying value. People are on the move: the jobs section of this Commentary has been filled with transitions and promotions. On a larger scale, the pace of company changes is picking up. Just when people are wondering if the shift into non-Agency products is becoming “long in the tooth,” New York Life Investment Management is taking majority control of Invictus Capital Partners, the company behind Verus. The asset manager has $838 billion under management, and Verus is already having its biggest securitization year yet with about $8.9 billion across 14 deals in 2026. Meanwhile, in Agency news, keeping track of 38-year-old FHFA Director Bill Pulte’s tweets, impacting thousands of lenders and millions of borrowers, has become a full-time job. “Fannie and Freddie are hereby moving to one pricing grid with VantageScore joining the existing FICO Classic pricing grid.” But wait! The FHFA and Fannie and Freddie announced (here and here) that approved lenders may apply for a temporary exception to the November 2nd, Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) 3.6 appraisal delivery deadline, “a move that follows concerns MBA and its members raised with the GSEs about readiness across the broader appraisal ecosystem.” (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. Today’s has an interview with Gateless’ Mike Brown on how AI is overcoming legacy technology and operational friction to improve risk management, accelerate time-to-close, demonstrate ROI, and ultimately enable a scalable “no-touch” underwriting experience.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-09302026 Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:53:31 GMT 6abd02d88e5d522b79b9a31d Rob Chrisman Time flies. The last day of the third quarter. We just wrapped up Fat Bear Week 2026 in Alaska. (Congrats to Backpack.) Ringo Starr is 86 years old, and doing well: clean living, being active, and a sense of humor. I mention this because when he was born, a letter was 3 cents to mail. Do companies still have mailrooms and mail bags? Let’s dip into my “electronic mail bag” and see what some readers are thinking about. “Rob, the Administration has a choice in housing: keep prices high and protect existing owners, or let prices fall and restore affordability for the next generation. You can’t do both.” I agree. “Rob, regarding the new credit models… It seems like the one direct thing nobody wants to ask out loud is, ‘If you pull a set of FICO scores, and decide they are too low you pull a set of VantageScores and they barely qualify, so you go with that. Is that fraud? How is that different than seeing child support on a pay stub, so the LO just obtains a VOE and hope they don't write it?” Good question. “Rob, the Trump Administration is accusing other countries of ‘stealing our AI.’ Can’t we ask our own AI how to make itself immune to that and stop it?” Good question… I don’t know. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. Today’s has an interview with Fairway Independent Mortgage’s Steve Jacobsen on the evolving nature of mortgage lending, product expansion, leadership and more.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-09292026 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 15:13:37 GMT 6abbaf364d25434e4f002007 Rob Chrisman Lender and Brokers Products, Services, and Software Regulatory oversight for automated valuation models (AVMs) has shifted in recent years, placing greater emphasis on rigorous testing and validation. Lenders who aren’t keeping pace with evolving compliance requirements can be exposed to greater risk. ICE’s AVM Model Monitor provides on-demand detailed reporting helping lenders support compliance, strengthen internal risk policies and build more efficient property valuation workflows. Built on more than 10 years of historical information and powered by ICE's national property and valuations data, AVM Model Monitor delivers daily forward-blind testing, independent model validation and automated monthly reporting, all through an intuitive self-service dashboard. Learn how ICE is helping lenders strengthen their AVM testing and validation workflows. Borrower experience has become the new battleground for lender growth and portfolio performance. On October 1, join experts from STRATMOR Group, Nations Lending, and LoanCare for “Customer Experience, Transparency, and the Tech Gap: What Lenders Can’t Ignore,” a candid discussion on what new research reveals about how top lenders are using new technology and advanced analytics to improve cash flow, boost retention, and build customer relationships that last. Learn how AI is moving beyond hype to deliver measurable value and discover practical strategies for creating better borrower experiences. This webinar will provide practical insights into how to win the battle over your customers. Register now. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-09282026 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:23:03 GMT 6aba46e65c6f88df9bc686e7 Rob Chrisman We’re waist deep in conferences (click here to view or add events), and every week I receive a half a dozen invitations to mortgage golf events centered around a conference. How about coming up with something where you can see and talk to more than three other people for 3-4 hours? Group hikes? Make-a-bear? Mini-golf? Bowling? Croquet? Pretzel making? Axe throwing? Perhaps we’ll see companies and state organizations shift their fund raising away from golf outings toward pickleball and bocce ball. Are President’s Award trips on their way out? There is no doubt that we should all celebrate successes. But does anyone ask the top (fill in the blank) what they would like? There seems to be a growing opinion that, “Maybe our top crew doesn’t want to go on vacation with co-workers, so let’s give them some extra vacation so they can spend it with their families.” In the past, some companies (Wells Fargo correspondent jumps to mind) would have awards trips for their ops staff. That is a fine idea. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Gateless, intelligent Automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. Today’s has an interview with Falcon Capital Partners’ Sam Valverde on the general importance of the bond market, an analysis of recent rate hikes, future fixed-income projections, and the potential downstream risks to the housing market.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/chrisman