Wed, Feb 23 2022, 9:47 AM
Lending is full of statistics. And originators follow many of them, looking for an edge in finding clients. Last year 27.1 million Americans moved, 80...
Tue, Feb 22 2022, 9:59 AM
While the bond market is watching the world define a Ukrainian “invasion,” do you know why you should respect people who wear glasses? They paid good ...
Mon, Feb 21 2022, 7:42 AM
The mortgage talk here in Cleveland is how, “Tough times never last but tough people do.” Many estimates have residential production hitting $4.8 tril...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 11:18 AM
Greetings from wintry Chicago where mortgage rates, as they are across the nation, are back to May 2019 levels. Did you know that the name "Chicago" c...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 12:19 PM
I received this from a loan officer in Michigan. “Forget the Serenity Prayer! Grant me coffee to change the things I can, and wine to accept those tha...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 8:48 AM
Things change and time passes. A little more than three months ago we “fell back” and now we have less than a month until most states in the U.S. chan...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 9:26 AM
Sure, Fannie had $5.2 billion of net income in the fourth quarter of 2021, but money can’t buy you love. Love is more of a chemical reaction than a st...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 12:14 PM
Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life outta nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops. (Where di...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 11:00 AM
If you see someone buying candy, popcorn, and soda at the movies, they must be a drug dealer... There's no other explanation for that type of income! ...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 12:07 PM
Everyone has a story about something they said or asked that they shouldn’t have. “When are you due?” is a good one, as is asking, “When did you turn ...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 9:27 AM
Today is “National Pizza Day,” a made-up day that wasn’t around when Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president 45 years ago. Back then the yield on the r...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 8:47 AM
America's national debt topped $30 trillion for the first time, according to figures from the Treasury Department on Tuesday. Why might it matter for ...
Mon, Feb 7 2022, 11:18 AM
While brokers have taken note of UWM suing America’s MoneyLine for sending loans to Rocket and Fairway (remember UWM’s policy plainly stated last Marc...
Fri, Feb 4 2022, 1:46 PM
Goals are good. Anyone whose goals included bringing back serving alcohol on Southwest flights is happy. It is fine for the Biden Administration to hi...
Thu, Feb 3 2022, 11:31 AM
Andy Rooney died over ten years ago. Many will say that Bill Mahr has taken his place, albeit with saltier language and a political bent. In this piec...
Wed, Feb 2 2022, 9:30 AM
Here we are at Groundhog Day. A rodent predicting the weather has little tie-in with the 1993 movie of repeating the same day over and over again. Loc...
Tue, Feb 1 2022, 11:43 AM
Hundreds of billions of servicing are being bought & sold out there. With Freddie & Fannie servicing trading at 5:1 (mid 3’s for Ginnie servicing), gi...
Mon, Jan 31 2022, 11:32 AM
While the Northern East Coast digs out from snow, and Southern East Coast is on the lookout for falling iguanas in Florida, how’s this for a clever “o...
Fri, Jan 28 2022, 10:53 AM
Think you won’t be impacted by anti-U.S. sentiment in Russia? Think again. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued two aler...
Thu, Jan 27 2022, 11:14 AM
Overheard in the hallway: “My email got hacked again. That’s now the third time I’ve had to rename the cat.” But there’s a lot of other conversation a...
Wed, Jan 26 2022, 10:00 AM
One conversation topic not in the hallways here at the MBA’s Independent Mortgage Banker Conference in Tennessee is the death of the original voice of...
Tue, Jan 25 2022, 11:31 AM
Numbers are interesting things. “1” is the number of dogs, that I know of, rescued by a drone dragging a sausage and leading the dog to safety out of ...
Mon, Jan 24 2022, 11:42 AM
Anyone who’s seen 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” remembers the talking computer HAL (whose name was cleverly derived from subtracting one letter from ...
Fri, Jan 21 2022, 10:57 AM
As I head to Northern California, and mourning the loss of Meatloaf, I’m thinking, “Dang. I guess that I shouldn’t have put my entire 401(k) into Pelo...
Thu, Jan 20 2022, 11:01 AM
While there’s plenty of chatter out there about the return of Better.com’s CEO to its helm, and its interesting business model how LOs are supposedly ...
Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:02 AM
As I head to Orlando this morning for business meetings, much of the concern is about Treasury yields, with mortgage rates tagging along, climbing to ...
Tue, Jan 18 2022, 9:43 AM
While rates continue higher, from South Carolina comes, “I just got 30 minutes of cardio trying to pick up an ice cube off the kitchen floor.” Plenty ...
Fri, Jan 14 2022, 11:15 AM
It’s Friday, things have slowed down a little bit, and I appreciate you taking a break from Wordle to check out today’s Commentary. Here’s a riddle: W...
Thu, Jan 13 2022, 11:20 AM
2022 is already off to an “interesting” start. Going directly to the borrower , normally the role of brokers, lenders, MI companies, and other mortga...
Wed, Jan 12 2022, 12:08 PM
Most people are paid wages… will raises keep up with an annualized inflation rate of 7 percent? Others may receive a large payout from the sale of the...
Tue, Jan 11 2022, 11:05 AM
As freezing temperatures continue on in the Midwest and Northeast, keeping people inside, I doubt if there is a single person in the United States who...
Mon, Jan 10 2022, 2:43 PM
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sponsored enterprises (GSE’s) that guarantee most US mortgages, announced substantial increases in the fees...
Mon, Jan 10 2022, 11:53 AM
While Omicron continues to grab headlines, and economists, investors, and Congress grow increasingly wary of the immense U.S. fiscal expansion as evid...
Fri, Jan 7 2022, 10:52 AM
Anyone born around this time is a Capricorn, and if you believe in horoscopes, they are the most patient and careful, and they are down-to-earth for e...
Thu, Jan 6 2022, 11:26 AM
Today is about the day when you have to think twice about wishing anyone, “Happy New Year.” Okay, maybe tomorrow. There’s a lot of news out there to s...
Wed, Jan 5 2022, 10:33 AM
U.S. travelers to Hong Kong have had better days, with Hong Kong banning travel from the U.S. Chicago schools (with over 300,000 students) have had be...
Tue, Jan 4 2022, 10:41 AM
Years on a trading desk and hedging locked pipelines teaches one that different things move bonds at different times. Right now, rates are still being...
Mon, Jan 3 2022, 10:59 AM
Tabrasa’s Patrick H. wishes everyone a Merry New Year! Yes, 2022 is here, with its thousands of cancelled flights due to weather and omicron. Older lo...
Fri, Dec 31 2021, 11:26 AM
A “handsel” is a gift given to wish good luck for the year ahead. The word dates back to the 1300s, and derives from “hand” and “selen,” an Old Englis...
Thu, Dec 30 2021, 11:12 AM
Do we have an 8-year memory in an industry with 10-year business cycles? Bridging the gap between affordability, qualifying with a low income, and ris...
Wed, Dec 29 2021, 11:25 AM
Would you tie up your money for five years and earn 1.26 percent the whole time? That’s pretty much where the $57 billion 5-year Treasury note auction...
Tue, Dec 28 2021, 11:11 AM
Whether or not you think that climate change is real, you can’t deny that there is a climate, and that climate-related disasters occur… to the tune of...
Mon, Dec 27 2021, 11:07 AM
I hope that you’re not reading this while stuck due to the thousands of cancelled flights or road closures in Northern California! Kudos to Carol K. w...
Thu, Dec 23 2021, 11:33 AM
When I was a kid, we’d trade baseball cards between each other… at least the ones that weren’t in the spokes of our bikes. The creativity, technique, ...
Wed, Dec 22 2021, 11:23 AM
Yes, you should know that today is a date palindrome. Of course people in Ohio, and Florida, know that Key West is farther west than Cleveland . Utah ...
Tue, Dec 21 2021, 11:13 AM
If you are a VA lender, or service servicemembers’ loans, you don’t want to be singled out by the Department of Justice or the CFPB. And the two of th...
Mon, Dec 20 2021, 10:52 AM
W.C. Fields said, “Money will not buy happiness, but it will let you be unhappy in nice places.” Unfortunately, many people have much less of it, and ...
Fri, Dec 17 2021, 10:38 AM
Are you afraid of the day that the Federal Reserve stops buying mortgage-backed securities? “Afraid” is too strong a word. (For many, this activity wo...
Thu, Dec 16 2021, 10:55 AM
I work hard to live a very glamorous life. I mention this because yesterday, when I sent the Commentary out from the road at a glamorous McDonalds in ...
Wed, Dec 15 2021, 10:42 AM
California has reinstituted its mask mandate. No one is interested in living in isolation again. Remember, “Your quarantine alcoholic name is your fir...
