Tue, Oct 27 2020, 10:55 AM
Etch A Sketch is buying Rubik's Cube? Who can keep up? What does a lender do when they’ve hit operational capacity, and don’t want to disappoint LOs w...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 10:57 AM
The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present. Vendor M&A is rampant (the latest being First American acquiring Ser...
Fri, Oct 23 2020, 9:49 AM
Let me state for the record that I am not a robot, although I often seem to be asked to check a box on certain websites by… robots. This article , how...
Wed, Oct 21 2020, 9:13 AM
Want some guidance? “If you get a loan at a bank, you’ll be paying it back for 30 years. If you rob a bank, you’ll be out in 10 years. Follow me for m...
Mon, Oct 19 2020, 8:45 AM
Fifteen days until the election! How many days would it take you, or the company that employs you, to save up $11 million? In my discussions with CEOs...
Fri, Oct 16 2020, 9:06 AM
What’s more important, spending money on the latest iPhone, or taking care of your body? Every Thursday we receive Initial Jobless Claims statistics, ...
Thu, Oct 15 2020, 12:04 PM
When I grow up, I want to live in… Estonia? If you need a break, and are thinking about leaving the U.S., take a gander at some highly-ranked work fro...
Wed, Oct 14 2020, 9:39 AM
I really wanted to mix things up today so decided to send this commentary out from the other side of the dining room table this morning. Yippee! Speak...
Tue, Oct 13 2020, 9:04 AM
If I were going to open up a store for eyeglasses, I’d make the sign in front of the building blurry. Lenders now don’t have to be so clever, as we’re...
Fri, Oct 9 2020, 8:51 AM
Eddie Van Halen advised, “You only have twelve notes. Do what you want with them.” Twelve is probably the number of undecided voters in the U.S. at th...
Thu, Oct 8 2020, 9:01 AM
Illinois, Alaska, and California. This morning’s drama revolves around the next presidential debate (virtual or not) but folklore tells us that it was...
Wed, Oct 7 2020, 9:32 AM
You have a couple workdays under your belt this week, so let’s take a one paragraph break from mortgage stuff. Pumpkin patches are here, and every par...
Tue, Oct 6 2020, 10:13 AM
Yes, here we are at the 10th month of the year. You know, “Dec” ember. Oh, this is “Oct” ober. There’s a reason. The numerical names of months date ba...
Mon, Oct 5 2020, 9:07 AM
Are you sure that the underwriter or processor working from home isn’t working simultaneously, on a different laptop, for another company besides your...
Fri, Oct 2 2020, 8:57 AM
We’re finally in October, which means one thing is certain: that all the cobwebs and dust in my house just became Halloween decorations. Markets don’t...
Thu, Oct 1 2020, 10:58 AM
Fourth quarter already!? Was the third quarter of 2020 the best quarter ever to be in residential lending? Will the fourth quarter beat it? While much...
Wed, Sep 30 2020, 9:58 AM
Welcome to the start of Fat Bear Week in Alaska. (There’s even a Park Service bracket with the favorites... expect upsets!) It’s probably easier to fo...
Tue, Sep 29 2020, 8:56 AM
Here's a brief video refresher of our tax code if anyone needs it. If eight months ago someone had told you to pick a country where there is a mudslin...
Mon, Sep 28 2020, 8:54 AM
Thank you to those who wrote commenting about the Yelp study showing that 164,000 businesses across our nation have closed since March . “Bouncing bac...
Fri, Sep 25 2020, 9:13 AM
TGIF! Do Fridays mean as much as they did up until mid-March? Yes! Well, maybe. How about some non-mortgage stuff? There is, after all, life outside o...
Thu, Sep 24 2020, 8:59 AM
I need to make a dart board for the wall behind me for Zoom calls that has “rates up” and “rates down” and “rates the same” on it. Until we see actual...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 8:54 AM
I know that plenty of folks at United Wholesale read this commentary, and the company is in the news about a merger that will take UWM public valuing ...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 9:11 AM
Today (Tuesday), while Washington DC “sucks the air out of the room,” welcome to the Autumn Solstice (Equinox) in the U.S., the day when the Sun appea...
Mon, Sep 21 2020, 10:24 AM
If you watch the news long enough, you see all kinds of interesting things. Cracker Barrel is adding alcohol to its menu? Yup! And you must watch this...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 9:15 AM
Before the pandemic I used to spin that toilet paper roll like I was on Wheel of Fortune. In March and April I turned it like I was cracking a safe. N...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 9:00 AM
Why is it that every time I call some place, I hear the recording, “Wait times to speak to a representative are longer than normal.”? Why can’t I ever...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 10:15 AM
The Fed Funds futures market sees the Fed holding pat on rates well into 2022. What could cause rates to go up? A vaccine. Until definitive news like ...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 9:27 AM
People can accomplish a lot in a day. And lenders are continuing to hire like mad dogs (if mad dogs had HR departments), especially non-bank lenders. ...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 9:08 AM
Plenty of people tell me that I should “head down to Clown Town.” I never know quite how to take that. But now we have Zoom Towns ,” and thank you to ...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 9:14 AM
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line my dog learned the noise the cheese grater makes when I pull it out of the drawer....
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 11:39 AM
Tom Petty sang, “There's somethin' good comin,' just over the hill, somethin' good comin', I know it will. And I'm in for the long run, wherever it go...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 8:53 AM
On one hand we have the old adage, “No tree grows to the moon.” On the other hand, MLOs and real estate agents are licking their chops given that 52 p...
Fri, Sep 4 2020, 10:39 AM
As we head toward the Autumnal Equinox on 9/22, places like Seattle and Minneapolis are losing four minutes of sunlight a day. Something else that is ...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 10:54 AM
“It was the third of September, that day I’ll always remember , yes I will… Wherever he laid his hat was his home… And when he died, all he left us wa...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 10:21 AM
I don’t know whether my Nolan Ryan rookie card, fortuitously spared from my bike spokes decades ago, is worth $500 or the 10 cents I spent for the pac...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 11:05 AM
There’s a fine joke about bowling balls and tennis balls and golf balls which I won’t repeat here, but let’s go down the scale of “numerical magnitude...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 10:10 AM
No one owns a crystal ball. It seems that the best LOs and CEOs keep up on the news and trends but focus on helping borrowers one at a time, regardles...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 10:37 AM
I remember when I would travel to exotic places like London, England, Lima, Peru, or Biloxi, Mississippi. From Southern California, thank you to Carey...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 10:34 AM
While Louisiana is focused on Hurricane Laura, 2,200 miles away California is focused on its wildfires… and regulations. Remember that about 25 percen...
Tue, Aug 25 2020, 9:17 AM
2019: Stay away from negative people. 2020: Stay away from positive people. Like it or not, depending on how “old school” you are, companies in recent...
Mon, Aug 24 2020, 9:21 AM
Winter is coming. I don’t need a new coat to walk from my bedroom through the kitchen and into the dining room to work on this commentary. Who is buyi...
Fri, Aug 21 2020, 10:13 AM
RCIII writes, “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some precedented times.” But Tom Petty wrote, “Well, the good old days, may not return… And t...
Thu, Aug 20 2020, 9:06 AM
In these times that lenders describe as busy, profitable, and overheated, capital markets personnel are focused on margin & capacity management, staff...
Wed, Aug 19 2020, 9:21 AM
Three weeks ago the Commentary included a webcam shot of Warrior Canine Connection’s Puppy Cam . (They’ve grown. Rated PG, depending on what they’re u...
Tue, Aug 18 2020, 10:20 AM
“Last night I was a hero! I rescued some beer that was trapped in a bottle.” All of our lives are changing, and thank you to Lydia O. for sending alon...
Mon, Aug 17 2020, 10:13 AM
Out in California and parts of the West it’s “hotter than Satan’s house cat.” California is once again having rolling power outages, and an opinion pi...
Fri, Aug 14 2020, 10:11 AM
Hundreds of thousands of people in the lending industry, their borrowers, and vendors are grappling with the refi price hit announced Wednesday evenin...
Thu, Aug 13 2020, 10:39 AM
Follow the money! The “talking heads” are analyzing the fact that President Donald Trump donated $6,000 to Kamala Harris' 2014 campaign for reelection...
Wed, Aug 12 2020, 9:05 AM
Dating in college is a matter of many things. I mention this because I wondered what colleges were recommending about COVID, and the University of Geo...
Tue, Aug 11 2020, 9:40 AM
Me: “I want to travel.” Bank account: “Where? To work?” Think of people in their 20s and 30s. They’ve grown up with 9/11, the Financial Crisis, and no...
