Chairman Powell and the Fed, tame inflation! But can you? Since the pandemic began, grocery prices have gone up about 30 percent. You can blame a slew of factors, including supply chain disruptions and tariffs. Egg prices spiked last year due to bird flu but fortunately have come down. 90 percent of U.S. bananas come from out of the country, and prices are up 7 percent over the last year due to tariffs. Coffee prices are up nearly 20 percent due to droughts in Brazil and V

Can’t you feel the anticipation building? March 5 th … Trigger leads… Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten all about it. When a borrower applies for a mortgage and their credit is pulled, that data has historically been sold as a “trigger lead” and dozens of calls are received. Starting March 5, according to the law, credit bureaus can no longer sell trigger leads, the borrower’s lender can still contact them, and the current servicer may also reach out. Originators are remind

Let’s check the ol’ mailbag. “Rob, I know that the May MBA’s National Secondary is in Manhattan, as it has been for years. Have you heard that it is moving for 2027?” It is best to ask the MBA, but I believe that this could be the last year of the contract with the Marriott for that site, and it wouldn’t surprise anyone if 2027’s was in a major city, in the Central Time Zone, with a couple baseball teams. “Rob, have you heard that during Trump II, we’ll see less regulation an

“A regulator, a lender, and an AI assistant walk into a bar…” “Rob, have you heard anything about a state regulator going after a lender on AI doing licensed LO activities?” No, I haven’t, but the industry is waiting. It is no secret that Congress and regulators have trouble keeping up with technology. But is an AI “conversation” with a borrower any different than a questionnaire given to that same borrower? Will the line be drawn at RESPA items? Can regulators audit transcri

Today happens to be rocker George Thorogood’s 76 th birthday, and mortgage bankers know that he re-did Amos Milburn’s 1953 classic tale of  rent collection, land ladies, and payment avoidance . Not having your rent money and having too much debt is not a recipe for success, but loan officers deal with that all the time while trying to help their clients. At the Optimal Blue Summit going on now, sessions range from AI to loan officer tools to market strategy, product unveilin

Anyone out there who believes that storms aren’t becoming more severe is in the minority. The latest examples are the blizzard that hit the mountains in the West and the one that is currently hitting the Northeast. (Those heading to the Hurt No Mor Ski Trip next week in Park City, Utah, are pleased with the snow dump.) The current storm, and news of Homeland Security suspending TSA PreCheck and Global Entry security programs, and then apparently not suspending the programs,

“I hate it when people subtly brag about where they went to college. I have this friend who went to Harvard, and he just won’t shut the hell up about it. He’s always been like this, even when we were in college together.” Nature abhors a vacuum, and if students don’t want to go to college in their own countries, where are they going to go? The environment for people around the world coming to the U.S. has changed, whether for college or to live, impacting to some degree the d

“I asked my pen why it never moves. It wrote, ‘Sorry, I'm stationary.’" (It’s cutting-edge humor like that which keeps readers coming back!) Pens? Mail-related check fraud never seems to go away, and the FBI reminds us that blue gel pens certainly help in reducing check fraud. “Rob, are you hearing that the increase in the popularity of artificial intelligence has led to an increase in mortgage fraud?” Yes, I have. It can be insidious… it may not show up until months or yea

Here in New Orleans, the other night on the street, or was it on a capital markets conference call yesterday, I heard someone singing, “There's a party goin' on right here, a celebration to last throughout the years…” by Kool & the Gang. The years sail by, and it’s hard to believe that the COVID pandemic was six years ago with its increase in deaths . For our biz, we switched to “work from home,” among other changes. Along those lines, I received this note: “Rob, are you hea

Here in New Orleans, the average rainfall is about 5 feet a year, much of it in the summer. Out west, most snow and rain occur in the winter. I mention this because, although being hit by a storm now including a deadly avalanche, until recently the Western U.S. was in a dire snow drought. What comes next is even scarier. Does the climate, and its impact on weather, impact lenders and servicers? Of course it does. But then again, in my 40+ years in capital markets, I’ve seen

Here in New Orleans, there’s a lot going on that is not mortgage related, namely parades and celebrating Carnival ahead of Lent. But we shouldn’t let appearances deceive us. John Kruk famously said, “I’m not an athlete. I’m a professional baseball player .” The average elevation of New Orleans is 1-2 feet below sea level, with some areas 8 feet below. Do you think mortgage servicers are concerned about doing business here? On Mortgage Law Today at noon PT Brian Levy, Lorett

Did someone say it’s Valentine’s Day ? Indeed. I don’t know the statistics, but my guess is that a sizeable chunk of couples met each other at work or at school. Hopefully they’re paying their tuition, but… New data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicated that about one million borrowers defaulted on their federal student loans last year , with 9.6 percent of balances at least 90 days past due. As of September 2025, 3.3 million borrowers were between 31 and 270 d

Here at San Diego’s MCT Exchange 2026, one topic is, as it is at every mortgage conference, is AI. More specifically, using artificial intelligence to leverage the strengths of existing employees but certainly setting up “guard rails” in rolling it out, and in finite chunks rather than company-wide all at once. Another topic is the ramp up of non-QM in the primary and secondary markets. The book of business is performing well, although is definitely not “cookie cutter”: many

Here at San Diego’s MCT Exchange 2026, the hallway chatter is varied. These are capital markets personnel, so things are pragmatic. One topic is Freddie Mac’s earnings : $2.8 billion in income for the fourth quarter of 2025 and $10.7 billion for 2025. Another is large companies becoming larger, exemplified by Tradeweb making an investment in MAXEX and by yesterday’s news of Pennymac entering into an agreement to acquire subservicer Cenlar (sponsor of this week’s podcasts wit

Anyone flying in or near El Paso, Texas, good luck: the FAA has shut down its airspace for 10 days! The government closing down travel… Conspiracy students, take note! Something else to take note of is… If you had something that earned you $3.5 billion in the last three months, would you get rid of it? Me neither. That’s what Fannie Mae earned in the fourth quarter of 2022. In 2025 Fannie earned over $14 billion. Remind me again… is the “system” so broken that the government

“You are allowed to send e-mails to people in prison, as long as you don't attach a file.” I receive my share of emails every day… Let’s open up the mailbox and see what’s going on. “Rob, thank you for publishing Mike Simmons’ primer on UAD 3.6 . Right now, credit is a hot topic, but I am sure appraisals will ‘have their day in the sun’.” You’re welcome, and in fact tomorrow’s L1 show at 11AM PT features Caleb Stuemky with Connexions, a valuation platform designed for AMCs a

Late last week my daughter Marie, her two children, and I toured the Ballerina Farms dairy near Park City in Utah. My tech takeaway, as it relates to lenders: there are 150 cows, and two $250,000 robots do the milking machine duties of guiding Bessie, cleaning the udder, using lasers to attach the cups to the teats, pump the milk, weigh it, monitor the butterfat and protein, and bring up the next cow, day after day. That’s automation! Lenders are always analyzing automation f

“If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.” Lenders can’t. They work with many loans that “try” but don’t work, and have historically unenviable position of passing along costs of loans that don’t fund onto those loans that do. The surest way to lower costs is to increase pull through, and increase fundings to spread out fixed costs. Efficiency! By informal chatter, 2026 is off to a decent start. Sure enough, according to  Curinos’  new proprietary a

“Going to bed early, not leaving my house, not going to a party… my childhood punishments have become my adult goals!” Is one of your goals to live to be 100 years old? Alan Greenspan, the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve (1987 to 2006), turns 100 in a month. As we know, the Federal Reserve currently finds itself, and its independence from politics, in the crosshairs of legal and political maneuvering. The Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fire F

“I was wondering where the dish soap was. And then it Dawned on me.” Here in Utah, where the median age is 31 (versus Maine’s 45) with lots of younger families, Bed Bath & Beyond outlets were a big deal. But the chain declared bankruptcy three years ago, dissolved its physical presence, and now the name has come roaring back and is entering the mortgage biz. Yup, another competitor for lenders come July: Bed Bath & Beyond is acquiring Tokens.com “to develop a blockchain-base